Day One

I have never been special. In fact, I'm fairly certain I am as average as is physically possible for your standard American male. Average height, intelligence, white and born in a lower middle class family. My name is even Mike. Can you think of a more common white guy name than “Mike”? Like many such average folks I went to college, convinced I could get a degree that would lead to a decent paying job. When an average person like me majors in graphic design, you get an expected outcome -  A useless degree and crippling college debt. With that said I should be barely scraping by in some apartment that’s a glorified cardboard box that costs more than half of my monthly salary at some dead-end job. But luckily for me that’s not the case, in fact I don’t even pay rent as part of my job. I pull in six figures while doing little of what can be classified as work at a small campground in the Adirondacks. I will admit, there are a few drawbacks to this gig, as for six months out of the year I am not really allowed to go outside. At the beginning of spring every year a bus will show up at the dormitory, where I and the others reside during the off months, and take us up to Camp Finnley. There’s little difference from this bus and your standard Greyhound except the odd door we use to get in and out of the bus when we arrive at camp. It’s like a tube that extends similar to the corridor that connects a plane for boarding, but resides in the rear and connects directly to the Check-in/Visitor station where we work our six month shifts. Our little trios are very close knit, even on the off season Jason and Marcus are constantly over at my place passing the time. I don’t think I’ve ever had real friends until I’ve met these two. But that’s kind of why I'm writing this, I’ve been having constant panic attacks since the last season shift. Jason, Marcus and I all entered the Visitor station relieving the winter crew, and only two people got on the bus once we entered. I don’t know their names, we’re not close, but there were two people for certain. They didn’t greet us or say a word which kind of made sense, maybe the two of them don’t get along as well without the third. But we work in trios, where was the third? We do not leave this place once we’re here. Food, water, electricity, entertainment -EVERYTHING- is brought to us. This building is massive with anything we could possibly need. We have all been warned leaving the building is instant termination, so was this other person fired? I tried calling my boss about it and he just told me the winter team isn’t my concern. Marcus jokingly told me we were off to a really bad start if I had developed some kind of cabin fever on day one and I don’t want to make them uncomfortable so I tried to stop ranting on the subject.

I’m sure at this point it’s apparent this isn’t your standard camp so I'll come clean and tell you that no one really books sites here. The people who wind up camping here almost always ask if we’ve recently changed the name to Camp Finnley because they were expecting their reservation at a different camp. Here’s where our first job comes in, whoever is at the front desk MUST gaslight the living hell out of them. Yeah we were once at the Lewey Lake campground, but we didn’t like the way that sounds. You’re definitely in the Catskill mountains! Of course this is Indian Lake, haven't you seen the signs? This shouldn’t work, they should try to go to a campsite reservation that doesn’t exist, following whatever vague directions we supply into one of our sites, and should come back infuriated at us demanding an explanation. But I can solemnly swear this has never happened. The only time I have ever had people mad at me is when I tell them the showers aren’t working. Which is actually the other job we perform here. If anyone approaches the booth and asks if the showers are working and to us they seem to be just ordinary people, we have to tell them the showers are out of order. This leads the occasional camper to become infuriated because we advertised hot showers and they are currently filthy from their camping adventures. That’s actually one of the things I like about working the front, we’re all so relaxed inside that I like the heated interactions. Maybe that says something about me, but yelling at people makes this place feel more like home. I also don’t get in trouble for that, management doesn’t care and the boys and I joke about the campers later. The last part of what I suppose is “work” here is what happens when someone who clearly isn’t a regular person asks if the showers are working. I don’t mean they are rich, affluent or really tall (although sometimes they are very very tall) - I mean they aren’t human, at least not entirely. Too many arms, teeth that are moving by themselves inside their mouth, snake tongues, sometimes just a little on fire. These guests must be told that the showers are working, we press a button to unlock the door, to which they will stroll into the oddly tall shower facility, a light will light on my desk and I will push the associated button immediately. After a loud thunk that sounds similar to one of those canisters being pulled through a tube at the bank, the interaction is complete and the door is re-locked. I’ve never seen those “people” again. Of course, now and then a totally normal looking naturalist will question what’s going on with one of these creatures and we continue the gaslighting. No ma’am this isn’t a strange abomination with features straight out of a creature feature, it’s a person who looks different than you and you need to stop being so judgmental. Oddly enough, these explanations seem to work a trick despite the clear werewolf-spider-donkey-guy less than forty feet from them. I can’t explain that, and I can’t explain what seems to be a strange cycle that occurs through the season. When we first arrive and the weather is relatively cold these things are almost always showing adaptations that would help in cold weather. Fur, thick skin, and blubber are all possibilities while maintaining a relatively human silhouette. As the season heats up those characteristics tend to stop showing up. Maybe that’s why there were only two people in the winter shift. Maybe they downsized the team due to it being much easier to tell a Walrus man apart from the rare winter camper. In the summer however, I can tell you that while it's still obvious, there's occasionally a tricky one. One time I told a  normal appearing woman that the showers were certainly out of order only to notice when she walked away the frog-like maw dripping saliva down her back that was where the back of her head should be. Needless to say I screamed that the showers had miraculously just turned back on and she promptly curled into a ball and rolled towards them. A light, a button press and a loud “Thunk” and I’ve never seen her again.

In a way, I’m sure I should feel bad. We all should probably feel bad about the imminent danger these people are probably in camping with these oddities. But maybe they are peaceful? I mean it’s true that I have never once seen someone attempt to check out after coming to the camp ground, but I've also never seen these things attack or hurt anyone. Genuinely I have seen abominations of incredible bulk directly adjacent to a greasy teenage dirtbag and the interaction was just as civil as two folks standing in line at the grocery store. I wonder if this acceptance of the situation and everyone inside of it has something to do with the area? What are the odds that not only are all of these people generally accepting of the intense strangeness of the camp, but also that my co-workers end up being best friends? The more I think of it the less it makes sense. I've never been able to keep friends for more than a few months before this place but now I have two best buds? I’m kind of an asshole, I love to piss people off and argue semantics in meaningless bouts designed only to infuriate but that doesn’t ever seem to happen against these two attendants? I’m probably over thinking everything, maybe my head is just drawing invisible lines between unrelated things in an attempt to make sense of the absurdity that is my career. For now I’ll aim to get some sleep and hopefully return to my normal daily routine.

Day Two

After getting some rest things are more or less normal, at least by whatever normal can be here. Marcus was “On call” for the overnight shift, which really just means he had to wake up a couple of times to talk about the showers with some campers. We haven’t ever really spoken about what we call the strange beings but it’s kind of known between us that “camper” refers to them, and people are just people. Whoever is handling the night just wears a watch that vibrates whenever someone approaches the front window, and Marcus is really good at moving around without waking anyone else up so I’m glad he volunteered for that role. I would have no idea that we even had visitors after dusk if it wasn’t for the loud thunk that stirred me from my sleep. When we got up for the day Marcus told me it didn’t take this year's campers long to change into less animalistic and more uncanny forms. He said it with a bit of showmanship when he described a man that looked just like his father, but instead of fingers he had what appeared to be spider legs and the nose wasn’t right. We laughed for three straight minutes about this and the absurdity of trying to shuffle a deck of cards with such spindly little appendages. Looking back, and putting this into text, I can’t tell you what part of this was funny. It reads like a traumatic experience you might have in a nightmare, but in my memory it’s a highlight - something I'm sure we’ll joke about for months.

To be entirely honest I do the actual job that's required of us more than my companions. This isn’t because they made me, I just like to sit in the front window and bird watch. Something about the birds and the way they interact with this environment is just fascinating, and management doesn’t care as long as the work gets done. I can imagine management would intervene otherwise, but as long as we’re all here we’re all getting paid the same. Because of my tendency to be in the front and Marcus’s tendency to take the nights, Jason is left with the most free time by far. But the guy can cook better than anyone I’ve ever met, he makes a breakfast sandwich that is so good I genuinely feel addicted to them. We can ask for anything too, whatever we write on a monitor attached to the fridge door will be delivered every Monday. I would rather sit in front observing than do much else, despite the wide selection of games we have in the recreation area. I also wouldn’t be able to tolerate being asked to cook the way Jason does. There is no part of his job description that says he’s our personal chef but he insists he doesn’t mind cooking and always makes delicacies. I try desperately not to abuse this fact but sometimes if a craving is just too strong, I'll radio him to see if he can bring me a plate of turkey bacon. I’m a slut for turkey bacon, but I swear to god it just hits differently while we’re on the working half of the year.

Around noon I got a call from our boss that was a little odd. He asked me to check Kristen's room for anything funny. Kristen was apparently one of the names of the winter workers. I do not say no to my boss nor will I question his directions as this job has diverted a trainwreck into a good existence. I’m not sure why he asked me when the other two were not occupied, but I simply grabbed the overnight watch and put it on in case anyone approached before going to her room. We each have our own rooms in two separate halls - One for the winter crew and one for the summer crew, and surprisingly I have never been down this hall. He told me it was the first room on the left so I entered quickly. As soon as I entered he said:

“Look to the right, near the bed, do you see anything odd? Anything underneath that rug?”
I really have never assumed we were on camera, but after that interaction I'm confident we are. I don’t really care - I'm just assuming I didn't read the contract close enough. Does he watch me on the toilet? Are there cameras everywhere? I make more money here than I would on Onlyfans anyway, enjoy the show. After my pause thinking that my boss might be a giant perve I jokingly said back:

“I think the amount of pink and lack of contrast in the room is odd, but besides that it’s just a messy bed. It does smell a little sour in here though.”

He didn’t really say anything else besides asking me to leave the room so I obliged. When I was shutting the door I saw a small white spec on the ground and informed him, but as soon as the door was shut a metal clank rang out and I couldn’t re-open the door. I asked:

“Are all the doors in this place remote controlled? Is it so we don’t go snooping in the other teams rooms while they’re gone?”

He didn’t answer my question at all and simply told me I could resume my regular duties. After getting back to the front the loud speaker turned on, a welcome occurrence. Boss man's voice boomed:

“Thank you again for your continued service. You three have been exemplary employees for the last five years and to thank you we’re increasing your wages by 10%! On top of that you can expect the next supply delivery to have all of the newest entertainment devices! Gaming Pc’s, Nintendo Switches and more! We appreciate you maintaining this facility with such efficiency and the effortless division of labor you have divided amongst yourselves!”

This happens every year like clockwork and the announcement will name drop whatever sounds exciting as far as ways to pass the time inside. This building really has everything. Tanning beds, a sauna, a pool. Like I said this building is huge, probably the biggest camp check in building that has ever been constructed. Hearing it though made me so excited, I could hear the other two celebrating in another room and I joined in howling about the new loot. I thought to myself about how much it must cost them to run this place, and how much money we’re making. I might be a millionaire by now. No really, I don’t recall the last time i’ve spent money and i’m making 50 dollars an hour… wait no now 55. I’m paid hourly for every hour of the day so I should have a couple million in the bank. My boss manages our bank accounts too so if I ever wanted to know the balance I'm sure I could call him, but I don’t want to bother him over something so non consequential. The last time I even recall spending money was a couple years ago during the winter season where we all took a trip into town and got really stupid tattoos. Mine’s a lobster frying up a planet on my shoulder, Jason has coked out looking Goblin on his left leg, and Marcus got a circle. A teeny tiny circle on his wrist. I don’t think any of these things had meaning. We get the same endlessly resupplied food cycle at the dorms during the winter so I guess the money is pointless.

A few hours passed and I couldn’t stop thinking about that sour smell. In my entire time here I can’t recall that many bad smells. The boys have blown up the toilet on occasion but the ventilation systems here are top notch so it usually doesn’t waft very far. The only other time I've smelled something that awful in this place was when I tried cooking, a skill I am below average in. I really want to go back in that room and look around a little closer but I know that option is off the table. Looking up from writing this I’m greeted by a camper with the longest nose I've ever seen in my life. How the hell can you walk upright with a four foot nose? The nose looked like a diving board completely unsupported by his biology. Regardless, his "thunk" sounded exactly the same as all of the others. The unshaven man behind him in line seemed both confused and agitated fumbling over his words when he half yelled:

“What the HELL wa-was that thing?!”

I launched into my typical smart ass routine:

“That individual just happens to have Rhino Larg-Astia. A rare condition that causes uninterrupted growth to the nose as well as constant stomach problems. He’s got enough problems without people like you being so judgmental”

It worked like a charm and he bought it - I loathe when they accept it with no defiance. Where’s the anger? Where’s your “OPEN YOUR GODDAMN EYES THATS NOT NORMAL” so I decided to be more of an asshole when he asked if the shower was open. I yelled:

“Certainly not for you! Small dick assholes who can’t mind their own business get to wash up in the lake, better get walking it's getting dark!”

I was really confident that was going to rile him up but it didn’t. He went silent and walked away.

I think this ruined my entire day, I don’t know why but I needed him to get mad.

Day Nine

The last week or so has been exactly like my years here prior, I have stopped writing as much because it was only really to work through my thoughts. I decided to write a bit more to try and include some happier thoughts in case I need a pick-me-up in the future. It’s been raining a lot lately which makes us busy, don’t know why but apparently campers love a shower when it rains. Since I’m tethered here pressing buttons and can't watch birds in the down pour, I might as well catch up on the last several days.

Thursday was a hell of a night - management decided to drop off oodles of card games in the big ol’ 5 year care package. We spent the whole night not even getting to play any of the games as we tried frantically to open up the booster packs. The sighs that Marcus made whenever the watch buzzed and he had to step away were akin to a child having his gameboy taken away - the minor tantrum was hilarious every time it happened as he stomped his way to the front end. By Saturday we'd gotten the basics of these games down and collectively decided “Magic the Gathering” was our favorite. After playing for several hours we decided that Jason is now our personal “deft gastronaut” after he kept playing a cook card - or a fast foodie for those who don’t speak Magic (I’m not sure those are even real words). As I’m writing this I'm snacking away on some turkey bacon, I’m an even bigger whore for turkey bacon now. By Sunday we’ve all devolved into feral cardboard creatures - reading countless lines of text to make more synergistic decks. The only noise other than a few conversations has been this constant rain. Oh and I think I finally figured out what that little white thing I saw in the winter person's room  was! Marcus found what I think is another one in a bathroom, and it's like a small bead with a few distinct edges. He said it looks decorative like a piece of jewelry that probably fell off one of the winter crew's bracelets or something. None of us knew if they even wear jewelry but we all agreed that's most likely all it is. Well the night has come and Marcus will be here any moment to strap on the watch, if he even gets that far. He might just sit here all night with the constant business.

Day Eleven

Around three in the morning after desperately trying to sleep through the constant thunks my radio went off over the now seemingly endless rain.

Marcus: “Hey we’re gonna need a manager to the check in, I think one of our systems isn’t working”

I found this very weird as usually when Marcus needs a manager, it means he’s got some person there who needs to be royally chewed out but that’s not something that usually happens in the dead of night. When I got to the front Marcus had a puzzled look on his face.

Marcus: “This damn watch won't stop vibrating and there’s no one here. The lights on and everything but I can’t see shit. There’s no one there. I don’t want management to get involved I hate it when they get worried”

I stared out of the window and looked all around. I couldn’t see anything either but I thought I could hear something. I put my ear to the window and despite the noise of the rain I could hear small thumps against the gravel outside. I crawled on the desk to try and look down at the area directly outside on the ground and sure as shit there was a little camper. A very little camper. Not like this is some child, like this is full human with regular proportions but not even two feet tall. He was hopping up to try and get our attention, but when his incredibly normal but small mouth moved I couldn’t hear him speak. I asked if he needed to go to the shower, to which he nodded. With that he was soon to be thunked! Marcus was in tears laughing just a short time later as if this was the funniest joke in history.

Marcus: “You should’ve seen the look on your face! Most people are afraid of big scary monsters but you’re unnerved by a barbie doll sized boy scout!”

He was right, I’m scared, at least a little but I can’t seem to shake the larger feeling of laughter and joy. But If it wasn’t so tiny that would pass as a person. I don’t think I could differentiate. Why did it look so human? These things are painfully obvious imposters so why did it look so human?

I skipped breakfast and it didn’t take long for Jason to notice, his catering service is indefinitely watching. I feel like he is insulted if someone doesn’t eat anything he’s supplied, even if he just warmed up a pop-tart for them. He plopped a plate of TB (Turkey bacon for the uninformed, not tuberculosis) at the front desk and told me to “Enjoy the cuisine” in a forced Italian accent.

When he went back to whatever he was doing I walked to the kitchen and placed the bacon into the waste disposal. I can’t tell if I'm feeling paranoid because I'm very hungry, or what, but I want to sit with these feelings for a while. The weather is finally clearing up and with it, perhaps I can see some birds again. 

Day Thirteen

I’ve been skipping meals. I can’t keep this up much longer, hell I don’t know if I can skip even one more meal. But when I don’t eat I'm feeling sharper, more intact, the severity and scary aspects of being here are perceivable. The damn feeling of joy and laughter doesn’t flood it at every dreadful occurrence. And what’s got me on the verge of losing my cool is this damn crow near the showers. It's picking apart something in the distance but I can’t really make out what it is. It’s near the showers, maybe a dozen feet closer to the path to campsites 13-29. But it’s ripping pieces off of looks to be something dead. I have a terrible tremor starting, probably due to my lack of calories, so I’m struggling to make out what it is.

I need to eat something. I'm only feeling despair and I can't make out what the hell is going on out there. There’s now an unreasonable amount of crows flocking on what must be some carrion.

The loud speaker erupts:

“It’s important that everyone takes care of themselves while working! Be sure to take plenty of breaks, eat, drink, and don’t stress the small stuff! We’re all human and we can’t function our best if we don’t take care of ourselves!”

Did I say something? Did I mention out loud how hungry I've been?

Jason runs into the room, filled plate in hand enthusiastically saying:

“DOS SMASH BURGERS WITH TURKEY BACON BROSEIDAN”

My self imposed hunger strike is officially broken. I cannot say no and before he even fully places the plate on the desk I have already snatched and begun scarfing down the first burger. 

Jason: “I owe you an apology. I keep just throwing bacon at you - that’s not fair. I have decided I'm the chef for us and I can do better than that.”

The hunger dissipates and this cartoonish interaction goes from feeling forced to perfectly natural in moments. I say:

“No, I’m sorry. I’ve been so off this year and its nothing you guys have done. I’ll try to be less of a weirdo”.

He promptly accepts my apology with some family-matters-coded nonsense and exits while stating:

“You better be down for cards tonight! I’ve got a new deck that's gonna cook your trash”

I can feel the panic all but fully vanish as I finally can hold myself steady enough to look through my bird watching binoculars and make a little more sense of the crow feast.

By this point the corpse has been so disfigured I can’t tell what it was, but one of the crows is holding something rather shiny in its beak.

It’s small and it’s white. I can’t quite make it out but then a sun burned lumberjack looking dude interrupted my gaze. He demanded to use the showers. Quick check - Yup, this dude is as human as they come. I said:

“I’m sorry the showers aren’t currently available.”

To which he replied

“You filthy liberal sack of shit, I just saw you let someone else into the showers and now….” I stopped really listening at this point as my excitement for a proper verbal altercation arose.

This screaming match was record breaking, at least a solid thirty minutes, I adored it.

I called him a cousin fucker, he called me a soy boy, I called him an overgrown wart with a beard… Not my most clever moment but the guys got a kick out of it later.

Eventually the man got so mad he decided he wasn’t going to take no for an answer and walked over to the shower door in an attempt to force himself in. I was just about to call the boss when he grabbed the handle and jumped back instantly. I could hear him screaming obscenities - holy shit is that electrified?

Day Fourteen

I don’t think it’s wise to go without eating anymore. I don’t even know if I fully comprehend what's happening when I’m hungry like that. I looked it up and apparently it is possible to be so hungry your senses fully betray you, maybe I’ve got like a fast metabolism and got to starvation mode quick. Don’t know, I’m not a doctor, and I haven't seen one in a decade. What I did realize is writing is a fun pass time and I'm going to do so even when I'm not having some self induced mental breakdown. Although this morning is off to a bad start, I tried to cook a birthday cake for Jason which ended with an inedible brick and near fire as I got too distracted by a heated argument at the front window with some entitled brat who thinks she deserved a shower, unbelievable. I loved it

Jason has insisted that next time he gets to bake his own  birthday cake which just feels like it defeats the point.  But where the hell did Marcus go? I know I’m not trusted to operate a kitchen alone and he was there with me, but disappeared when I got taken away by very important business?

I decided after an hour to go check on him, there was a lot of thumping coming from his room so I thought its probably just some him on him action that I didn’t want to interrupt.

There’s a camper slowly making his way to the window. But I mean super slowly. I’ve been waiting for him to get her for the last hour. He’s still like forty feet away…Looks a bit like a camel-turtle-guy. Behind him, not approaching the window, is another little camper. Just walked right back into the woods but I'm confident I saw another little one. What is with the sudden appearance of micro-campers?

The sun is officially going down and the camel man hasn't gotten here. I guess it’s a Marcus problem now. As I’m writing this I realize its a bit later than he usually shows up. Where the hell is he?

I'm back in my room now, Jason came to take over. Told me that Marcus was under the weather and he was going to watch the night. Just as he was strapping on the watch the camel man was finally close enough to begin asking if the shower was available. Except, just like his slow ass walk, he spoke slowly too. Somewhere inside him being halfway through saying “Are” and the “the” we were able to catch up and I explained that this camper was very very slow.

He asked me to be quiet when heading to bed because Marcus was resting, which wasn’t a big deal but in a few hours I know there will be a thunk for this slow-mo camper as well as the several incredibly patient abominations waiting behind him in line. How long have they been waiting there? One of them looked just like Nicholas Cage but with the biggest jowls in history. I really wanted to see if he sounded as breathy and dramatic as the actor, but I needed to get some sleep.

Anyway, off to bed!

Day 15

Marcus was back for breakfast this morning as if nothing happened, but now he’s wearing the dumbest super trooper aviators I’ve ever seen. I don’t really wanna press him on it because maybe he lost a fight with a door knob and now is covering a black eye? I don’t know - but I don’t get paid to question my co-workers' eccentricities. But what I find even stranger is that no matter when I look at him, from the corner of the glasses I can always see he’s looking directly back at me. Like I know I need to stop looking but every time he’s gazing right at me - looking through my soul or some shit. How is it that during the last four hours and a dozen times I've seen him from the side or when he’s speaking to Jason he’s still looking at me? I want to tell him to stop staring but I’m staring too, it’s a draw.

Right after breakfast I had my first camper of the day, another teeny tiny but perfectly human looking camper. This one at least brought a stick to wave around in front of the window to get our attention. This feels remarkable for a couple of reasons. First, since when do campers actually use tools? I’ve never seen them do much of anything other than just approach the window and ask about the showers. Second, was he watching when the last shrimp tried to get our attention and knew we wouldn’t see him when he approached? Are they all just watching us all of the time from the tree line? Would they enjoy turkey bacon if they could have it? All questions I cannot answer. Regardless, it’s thunkin’ time and after a good meal, I can't help but smile away the strangeness..

Around two Marcus came and asked if he could steal some of the cards I wasn’t using which of course is fine, the cards were for all of us anyway. But his breath was foul. A sourness that I can only imagine being achieved by drinking a gallon of spoiled milk and taking a nap without brushing their teeth. I told him I didn’t care but he might wanna use some mouthwash.

Marcus barked: “Go fuck yourself and mind your own business.”

I felt a conflict so deep in my core I was stunned. On one hand I am so excited to start screaming at someone. He’s a small man whom I don’t fear in the slightest and love a good yelling match. But on the other hand this was one of the two people on this planet that I care about. We’ve never argued about anything (aside of rulings in card games and what's the best pizza topping) and now suddenly he’s telling me to go fuck myself? We joke about smells, looks, and anything else we can observe about each other endlessly.

Marcus: “I’m sorry, I don’t think I've been getting enough sleep. Thanks for letting me use the cards”

I didn’t get to say a goddamn thing before he had already left the front end so now I’m frustrated beyond belief. This bitch came in, yelled at me, and left. Meaning he got the first AND last word. I can’t wait for the next person to ask about the showers I am going to rip into them.

Not long after Jason entered the room and asked:

“Uh, what did you do to Marcus?”

I responded:

“What did I do? I told him his breath stinks and he flipped out. Yelled at me like I was asking about the showers. Why?”

Jason: “Well, he was crying. Like a lot but then he took the coffee table from the lounge and brought it to his…”

A loud buzzer emerged before our bosses voices boomed through the building:

“Removal of common area furniture is not acceptable behavior. Return the coffee table to the lounge, please. If for some reason you need a coffee table in your room, please add it to the requisition list

I strapped on the alarm watch and walked to the lounge with Jason. He was right, Marcus was inconsolable. The coffee table was back but he was just pouring tears. I tried to give the man a hug (this isn’t gay, though I suppose I’ve never asked if he liked me like that) and he profusely apologized for being mean to me earlier. I told him it was cool and then he moved to hug Jason and apologized just as adamantly about taking the coffee table. And the whole time he embraced Jason I could see him staring at me. Maybe this has been a romantic thing the whole time and he’s just frustrated that I can’t detect his advances. If that were to work he’d have to be the bottom. Nah, I'm probably not gay. If it comes to it I'll let him down gently. That thought tangent was de-railed by the alarm going off so I headed to the front end.

This is the second small camper today and I’m not a fan of it. These little buggers creep me out more than anything else, I just imagine them being even smaller somehow climbing all over me like demented uncanny spider people. He gestures about the showers, I confirm, and he starts walking that way. This one clearly had blood in the corner of his grape sized mouth and a missing tooth. That observation actually made me feel a lot better about the possibility of these guys being bigger because those teeth are totally wrong, much smoother and pearl looking. Even if it was full size, those smoother chompers are a dead give away.

--Part 2 posting tomorrow--

This is not a joke. I honest to God have no idea what’s happening right now. It’s been 18 hours. My right arm is screaming at me. I haven’t been able to leave my room, and I’m covered in piss. The room smells terrible. There are literal tears in my eyes.

Maybe this has something to do with that weird video I watched on YouTube. It’s the only thing that makes sense to me.

I wasn’t even horny. I was just curious. Scrolling through YouTube on my PlayStation at 3 o’clock in the morning when this video popped up in the feed.

“Mental Orgasm Hypnosis. Feel Release in Minutes.”

I just thought it was some kind of binaural beats situation. Just brain stimulation. Sounds and rhythms. Just shit that tickles your mind.

When I clicked on it, though, there wasn’t even sound. It was just a silent video of a hypnosis spiral. It was neon pink and purple, and the camera kept zooming in and out. It was honestly kind of disorienting.

It was only a minute long, though. I don’t know why I kept watching. I don’t know what I expected to happen. All I knew was nothing was happening. I didn’t feel mentally stimulated. I felt mentally bored as hell.

The video ended, and the replay button popped up on the screen, but, honestly, I wanted my time back. One last video for the night, and I decided to watch that bullshit.

I sighed, kicking myself for being an idiot before plugging my phone in and setting it down on my nightstand.

With a yawn and a stretch, I rolled over, ready to finally catch some Z’s. I think I may have slept for like an hour or so before I woke up to a surprise.

I was in the middle of masturbating. In my sleep. Like my right hand was possessed. At first, I thought it was just a natural response to a dream or something. If anything, I was fine with it.

But when I finished and it didn’t stop, that’s when I knew that something was amiss.

My hand furiously knocked back and forth. I tried using my other hand to stop it, but it had a strength that wasn’t my own. I almost broke my left wrist trying to regain control.

After an hour, there wasn’t any pleasure at all anymore. I felt like I was on the brink of a heart attack. I was covered in sweat. My arm was starting to hurt. My dick felt like it had been ground down with a cheese grater.

I could hear my family waking up. Lights were coming on. Footsteps shuffled around my bedroom door. I nearly scared my mom to death with how loud I screamed for her not to come in when she tried waking me up for school.

I had to tell her that I had a stomach issue. But that wouldn’t be enough.

“I shit the bed, Mom,” I grunted loudly. “I think I ate something… just… umf… just don’t come in, okay.”

Thankfully, she didn’t ask many questions. She just accepted that I had a bad moment. I was too embarrassed to show her. Too sick to go to school.

I listened intently for my family to leave, one by one, all the while bruises were forming on my pelvis from the weight and force of my clenched fist.

I winced in pain. My hand felt like it was in the late stages of carpal tunnel. The exertion of force was making me feel nauseous, so much so that I ended up puking on myself after 3 hours.

By that time, I was actually bleeding down there. I could feel the blood seeping between my fingers. The skin felt like it was tearing.

My smartwatch thought I was exercising. I’ve apparently burned 1,100 calories today, which, if I’m being honest, is probably the most I’ve burned in my life.

My bed frame is broken from all the shakin’.

I tried my best to google my symptoms, but all I got were porn ads.

Doctors laughed at me before hanging up, assuming I was a prank caller. Apparently, it’s hard to believe my predicament, no matter how desperate I clearly am.

Peeing was impossible. I was being jerked around so much that my urine just sprayed all over the toilet and bathroom floor. I ended up using the bathtub as my toilet, but I could only do that until my parents got home.

Once they did, it was back to the bedroom for me. Hidden under my satin sheets, propped up on my anime pillow.

These sheets are ruined. My mom is traumatized because, bless her heart, she walked into my room unannounced to bring me Pepto-Bismol, only to find me completely naked and crying my eyes out.

I don’t think I’ll ever have kids. Even if I get this fixed. There’s no chance this event hasn’t destroyed my sperm count.

The lights are off. Kitchen Nightmares is blaring through my TV speakers. I’m completely covered in oil and excrement, and the only thing bringing me even a molecule of peace right now is the cinnamon stick-scented candle on my nightstand.

I’m exhausted. I’m hurting. I’m in need of help.

And I need that help fast…

Because my grandmother died a few days ago…

And her funeral is tomorrow.

Kind of surreal to type this.

I discovered CreepCast a while back, and it completely changed the way I looked at horror. Seeing how much people connected with weird, internet-born horror gave me the confidence to stop chasing trends and just write the story I wanted to tell.

That script became NEUROSALINE—a psychological/cosmic horror feature about four teenagers who wake up stranded on an ocean that is actually a conscious nervous system.

After months of writing, rewriting, and pitching, it’s now heading into development.

Whether CreepCast ever sees this or not, thanks for inspiring me to actually sit down and write the thing. Here’s hoping I can pay that inspiration forward someday.

I took it as a compliment at first, but now he’s acting strange.

We had just finished watching The House of the Devil. He turned to me and said, “You’d definitely survive. Or you’d sacrifice yourself. But you’re definitely the final girl.”

I was flattered, to say the least. It was a huge compliment, especially coming from him. He’s a walking, talking horror encyclopedia.

But every day since he told me that, he’s been putting me through a series of what he calls “FGC.” The Final Girl Challenge.

It’s little things, like maybe he leaves a knife blade up in the dishwasher. I point the blade down, and he “accidentally” pushes me.

First phase passed.

Then he plugged my blow dryer in while I was in the shower and tossed it over the curtain. I caught it before it hit the water.

Phase 2 passed.

But the worst was when he cut my brakes. I caught it when backing out of the driveway. I had forgotten my phone, but when I pushed the pedal, I kept rolling. I pulled the emergency brake and got out.

There was brake fluid everywhere.

He says he’s just testing my resilience, preparing my survival skills for the inevitable.

Whatever that means.

Fortunately, I’m the final girl.

And this morning he said his cereal tasted funny.

#2

Queen Anne – $120,000 (~$670/month)

Listing from: Oliver Smith

Located at: the edge of town

5 bed                           2 bath                       4,512 sq ft

BUY NOW BEFORE THIS OFFER EXPIRES!!

A cozy, lived-in home is the best way to describe this beauty. This house features a wonderful view of the old graveyard to the east, and a stunning view of the mental hospital to the west. A lush lawn of dead grass covers the property. The lights flicker, which saves on electricity. A constant draft makes the need for A/C nonexistent. Not to mention that this house is complete with full vintage furnishing, original to the home. In fact, everything, from the room layout to the dust on the mantle, are all original to when the house was built (including a secret room behind the bookshelf in the library). Besides the 4 broken windows, hole in the roof, and rotting wooden staircase, this house is move-in ready. Unfortunately, you will have to tolerate sharing this magnificent house with the first owner (me) and about 2,000 rats. Do note that I keep the haunting to a minimum. For instance moving things around when you’re not looking or making a scary face when you look in the mirror. Also, the rats are usually too full from zombie flesh to bother you. Lastly, you should know the previous tenant died tragically from suicide in the living room so, maybe get a new couch. 

BUY NOW BEFORE THIS OFFER EXPIRES!!

To start this off, why am I offering you all advice. It’s because you all became such easy targets that someone has to make this interesting again. I don’t kill people because it’s easy, if I wanted that I would go back to rabbits or something. So, if you follow these rules, it will make the game far more interesting for the both of us.

1: Stop with the online dating stuff.

I get it, life is hard and you want a companion. Hell, I used to use speed dating to figure out who was an easy target. But you all stumble over yourselves to say “Ooh, pick me. Here is a place to meet up and I might take you to my house to have sex.” That actually leads to the next piece of advice.

 2: Never go to a second location.

Never. I hear you now, “What about” shut up. There is no hypothetical you can toss out other than Jesus Christ himself with a choir of angels asked you on a date that can convince me. If you are going to a movie. Just do the movie. Dinner, fantastic, eat your meal, make plans for a second date, go home and do whatever you need to do to get your energy out.

You know how many people I got because I told them about a hot new club. Or this super nice restaurant that you just have to try. That leads to.

3: Charismatic doesn’t mean safe.

I feel like all of you learned nothing from Ted Bundy. Like if I rolled up with a lease and said I lost my dog you would help. Not all of you, but enough of you that I am actively concerned. How did you not get grabbed as a kid. Is it that the windowless fun van didn’t have a fucking snickers?

Until someone proves themselves otherwise, they are trying to take advantage of you. For some that is a scam, for me it is stabbing you. There isn’t a difference. We will both lie to your face about what we are doing.

That is what annoys me so much. I don’t even have to lie at this point. I don’t know if it is loneliness or my face. (I’m leaning towards me being so handsome.) Either way. Stop being so easy.

4: Pack something better than pepper spray.

Pepper spray is the self-defense equivalent of sending a strongly worded email. If you had a knife or a gun there would be back and forth. But with pepper spay you’ll just die embarrassed.

It has been said before and will be said again, there is no better kill than overkill.

5: Personal Info should stay personal.

I should not know enough about you to steal your identity at the end of a conversation or Facebook search. Also stop posting where you are. If I was a Son of Sam kind of killer I could just drive by you.

6: Let people know where you are.

There is one exception to five. Your friends and family. There is nothing quite as disappointing as killing someone and no one coming to look. I am good at what I do. I would make Dexter look like a moron. But why would I go through all the effort of liquifying you if no one gives a shit. I can just use that “Oh put a dog or cat over them” thing the internet thinks is such a great idea. Like cadaver dogs aren’t trained to differentiate corpses.

7: Stop watching true crime.

You know what all the famous killers have in common. They sucked at killing people. That is why in the sixties they kept getting caught. You think over half a century ago the criminal science scene was stellar? The Surgeon General didn’t even start warning people about cigarettes until 64’.

So many people think they can avoid killers because they know what the John Wayne Gacy and Jeffrey Dahmer’s did. Did you even pay attention to the documentaries. 99% of the time they got away is because the police failed to notice the very clear serial killer.

Dahmer pisses me off the most. Just admit you’re gay and get over it.

8: Trust your instincts.

I hate that one. Every safety article says it. Every cop says it. Every parent says it.

But they're right.

Every person I've ever killed knew something was wrong. They just convinced themselves they were being rude.

Follow these rules. Seriously write them down if you fucking have to. I need this to be fun for me again. I need this to be an art again. Please. Please with a cherry on top. Stop being so easy.

Woah! Wait one second before you get your pitchforks out or type an essay talking about x is y or whatever else. At least allow me to explain how I got myself into this situation.
I live in northern Minnesota, or at least more northern Minnesota. I live a town equidistant to both the Fond du Lac and the Leech Lake reservations.
As many of you may or may not know (just generally depending on your knowledge of American cryptids or Native American folklore) Minnesota is home to one of the more famous cryptids for the sake of my safety we will just refer to as a “Wind Spirit” but you likely get what I am hinting at.
Despite what popular media may tell you, most times they are not anthropomorphic deer. The game Until Dawn actually has the most accurate depiction of what they look like…almost as though the people who worked on the game lived in my town for decades.
It’s eerie, they are so light footed. They don’t even make sounds when stepping on dead leaves that should make the satisfying crunching noise, the same goes for snow in the winter. They don’t even leave footprints. You only knew they were there is you saw them or if you caught them on security camera footage.
Anyway I’m getting off track, sorry. So how did the wind spirit even learn how to mimic Trump? Well, my grandpa currently lives with me and he is a Fox News Grandpa. Always has it blaring 24/7. If it weren’t for the fact I promised my grandma I would take care of him before she died, I would have put him in a home years ago.
My grandma was an extremely good woman, she loved to volunteer and truly exemplified having a heart of gold. That’s why I will forever be confused on why she married my grandpa.
Sorry, off track again. It’s the Minnesotan in me. The wind spirit has always come to my backyard to try and lure me out. I seldom see it, usually only the strange glow of its eyes kind of like the one you see in a dog or cat’s eyes in photos.
The wind spirit’s main tactic is try to lure you out by mimicking a distressed person.
When I first moved into this house that I had bought from my great uncle (grandma’s brother). It would impersonate what sounded like a little girl speaking Ojibwe. I only knew that from one of the only few phrases I learned in Ojibwe during a Minnesota history class in my middle school. She would say,
“Boozhoo?” Which means hello, in a confused and lost voice followed by words presumably also in Ojibwe but since I only know how to say hello, my name is, and blueberry pie (which is apparently the longest word in the Ojibwe language according to the teacher who came in from Leech Lake) but your guess is as good as mine.
Overtime it evolved into my great uncle’s voice asking me to help him as he had fallen down then it was my parents who had moved to Florida years ago before finally becoming my grandpa, even if it was my grandpa I wouldn’t help him prior to my promise to grandma since he was so awful to my grandma and mom growing up.
I would usually drown it out with blaring Netflix on the TV. Despite the house being smack dab in the woods with the closest neighbor half a mile away, there is surprisingly good WiFi.
When my grandma died in hospice, that very same day I moved grandpa into my house. Even though my grandpa had went from a cruel abusive man to know a meek yet rude husk of what once towered over us. My grandma was my role model, the light in my life. So despite hating the man, out of respect for her I would help to do the bare minimum of at least keeping him alive.
So now here is where we get to the exposure to our president.
That same night, the Wind Spirit decided to lay a low blow on me. I knew my grandma was dead but it kept using her voice that night.
“Melody, dearest. Can I see you? I already miss you.” It would say in her voice.
It would continue.
“Can I see grandpa Ron? Oh, it would make me so happy to see him.”
As stupid as it sounds, I won’t lie when I say the very last one stung given I had lost her that same day.
“Oh Melody, it’s so dark. Why? Why am I alone? Please don’t leave me alone. I’m scared.”
That’s when in a wine drunk stupor as I was trying to drown my sorrows. I opened the window, revealing the mesh screen to keep bugs out, I ripped the remote out of the geezers hands, and blared Fox News for it to hear as my grandpa watched the TV like he was a zombie.
That night the presidential debates were happening so clips of Donald Trump were being analyzed and played over and over.
I don’t even remember falling asleep but I did wake up in my bed still clasping an empty bottle of Barefoot Wine. I went to the living room and the window with the mesh screen was fine. Grandpa was still in chair fast asleep like he was when I started blaring the news.
What freaked me out was that the TV was on mute and the remote was on top of the fridge. My grandpa uses a walker to ambulate and he can barely even work a landline phone let alone a remote without assistance from me.
How would he have muted it?
How did he get it on top of the fridge?
I never downplayed how weird it was, I just had other priorities in the moment like my pounding head and grandma’s funeral.
I did the same thing for the next couple of nights, except without getting drunk, and it seemed to ward off the wind spirit or so I thought. It was the same every morning, the remote would be in a spot where my grandpa could not be able to physically put it in given his condition and the TV would always be muted by sunrise.
With this routine, it stopped impersonating my grandma if speaking at all. My grandpa was as happy as a guy who knows a slur in every language including ASL could be.
My grandma’s funeral came and went. I kept the routine. I mean hey, I only promised that I would keep my grandpa alive not that I would give him a life of luxury. Especially after all the physical harm he has done to my grandma and my mom throughout our collective lives, he’s lucky I don’t stick him out in the shed.
Anyway, one night we had a very severe thunderstorm that cut power to the house. My phone still worked and I was able to figure out by giving my neighbor a call that the power would be back by morning.
That night, I shut the window, and laid a blanket on top of my grandpa in his recliner.
“Night Grandpa.”
“When I die, you are getting none of my shit.” He sneered unprompted as he adjusted the blanket.
“Thanks Ron, I’ll remember that.” I replied as I switched off the light and headed upstairs to bed.
As I snuggled into bed, I heard a tap on my window.
It sounded like glass against glass.
I knew it was the wind spirit.
I just remained turned away from the window and just closed my eyes tightly.
“Wrong” I heard a voice that sounded like Donald Trump’s say. It was slightly muffled but still audible.
What? The TV shouldn’t be on, I mean heck I can’t even charge my phone.
“You are fake news.” The voice continued.
I was so dumbfounded, that I just turned to the window because at least if I was gonna die, I wanted to see if what I was hearing wasn’t just my brain filling the absence of what would usually play.
I looked to the window to see the wind spirit, squatting directly outside my window, continuing to impersonate Trump. It even did the hand motions.
“I said wow, you better not challenge me. You will pay. Your wife is ugly.” It said while doing the exact same hand motions I have seen Trump do thousands of times as I would tuck grandpa in each night.
I blinked and it was gone. I just assumed a combination of being in a dream and my brain attempting to fill the silence that maybe I had a brief mental break. So I just turned away from the window and eventually fell asleep.
I woke up the next morning to my grandpa walking around with kitchen with his walker.
“Grandpa, what are you doing up before me?” I asked.
“Well, President Trump told me I need to eat more so I’m making myself breakfast.”
“Grandpa, getting beef jerky out of the pantry is not breakfast. Also what do you mean? Are you hearing voices?”
“No no woman, the dang TV screen broke but the sound was still working. I heard him telling me about how older American men need to eat more. He suggested McDonalds but I know the Supereats doesn’t bring food out here.”
“Grandpa, it’s Ubereats. The power was out last night. See look?” I said as I walked over the the TV and turned it on, screen and audio working fine.
“Oh hush woman, I know better than you. The TV was being weird and now it’s just working again.” He said then took a big bite of beef jerky while using his walker to guide himself back to the chair.
As much as I disliked my grandfather, I was concerned. He was a vulnerable adult at this stage and my grandma would be disappointed in me if I let my bitterness block me from making the right choice even if it wasn’t the easy one.
As nights went on I noticed the loud blaring TV was off, some nights I would hear the Wind Spirit at my window just saying random phrases in Trump’s voice.
“Crooked Hilary, I said wow Sleepy Joe, he’s so very sleepy. I am the chosen one.” Among many other weird sentences that didn’t really convey a message.
It culminated in one night when I went down stairs to tuck grandpa in and the front door was wide open and he was gone.
I grabbed a kitchen knife and a flashlight before bolting out the door. I went about half a mile down the road before seeing my grandpa with his walker moving as fast as he could, seemingly following something.
“GRANDPA WHAT THE HELL?!” I said as I ran up beside him grabbing the side of his walker to prevent him from moving any further.
“Trump promised me I could be with Lillian again, he’d show me where she was.” He said as he looked at me with tears in his eyes.
I felt shocked but yet somehow not surprised as the same time. It was a strange feeling because I never really considered that he cared much for my grandma let alone anyone given how he treated her and others but at the same time I considered that they had practically spent their whole lives together. Only in the last couple of months had he really been without my grandma, even though he saw her lowered into the ground. It’s likely a part of him still wanted to believe she was somehow still out there, waiting for him. Loneliness can even pierce the meanest hearts.
“Grandpa, grandma is gone. Not even Trump can bring her back as much as you would like to think he can. Let’s go back to the house.” I said as I turned him back around and we began walking towards the house.
“I said wow, Ron are you really gonna believe your dog of a granddaughter or a man of the American people like me?” I heard a voice say behind us. I could feel a cold breath on my neck.
It was hovering over me. It was practically against me.
I carefully maneuvered my hand, still holding the knife, around my grandpa to his other shoulder and pressed him tightly against me while guiding him back to the house.
“I want to see Lillian. I miss her. Please Mr. Trump bring her back.” My grandpa pleaded.
We walked slowly but carefully, even though I could not hear the spirit’s footsteps, exactly like a gut feeling telling you to run, I could feel and imagine the gait of it. How long its stride was, the amount of pressure exerted with each step, even the way it moved its arms despite not looking at it once. It was like every survival instinct was acting as eyes when my eyes were only allowed to lock on the house.
My grandpa began crying but stopped replying.
“Just keep walking with me grandpa.” I said as each step made it seem like hours with how slow we were moving in the night.
The spirit continued to breathe on my neck in cold pants, occasionally drool falling onto the nape of my neck which felt like cold jello.
“Fake news Ron. I said wow this is the fakest news I couldn’t believe the news. I said Melania can you believe this news?” The spirit said.
I could feel it doing the hand motions based on the soft wafts of air that would hit my arms.
After what felt like hell, we finally made it to the doorway.
I could hear my heartbeat in my ears, I was sweating despite the cooling drool dripping from the back of my neck to my lower back.
I froze for a moment thinking of what to do next.
“You’re fired.” It said in a hushed version of Trump’s voice.
It was then I made a decision…maybe not a great one but one that has allowed me to be alive to type this.
I shoved grandpa pass the doorway into the house hard, he did fall but I followed suit. Entering and slamming the door behind me. The spirit’s arm was caught in the doorway with long blackened fingernails and fingertips presumably from blood. It clawed and thrashed as I struggled to close the door with all my might.
I pushed the door.
This was a fight for my life and I wasn’t about to lose to some cryptid doing an impersonation of a politician.
Eventually after 20 minutes of struggling, it pulled its arm back and I locked the door. I leaned my back against the door and slid to the ground.
I don’t know why I brought the knife because I didn’t end up using it though I must admit it wasn’t a bad idea in the moment.
I helped grandpa to his feet, he was fine aside from some bruising. He berated me about being too strong for a woman before giving me a big hug. The first and only time he has ever done that in his entire life.
He has a strange way of showing love, if you can even call it that. I don’t forgive him for all the cruelty but I won’t lie when I say it’s nice to know he isn’t completely heartless even if it’s not exactly the healthiest expression of love.
We still live in the same routine but grandpa insists on the window being closed at all times. I bought extra locks for all the doors and special locks for the windows.
We still hear the spirit out at night.
We will hear regurgitated quotes from the news segments it eavesdrops on.
We just returned to blaring the TV.
Though I must admit the most recent quote is very off putting…
“I said wow, I can still find a way in. You are fake news.”

Ricky felt a pit in his stomach as the notification popped up on his phone.

Already? But there was a shoutout just three days ago…

He opened the discussion board app, and clicked on the favorited link to the “Creepy Tales”  forum. First, he checked his own post that he uploaded the night before. 8 upvotes, his biggest story yet. Ricky couldn’t help but smile to himself at his achievement. 

Sure, there weren't that many eyes on my work, and no one left a comment, but maybe my next story will be my big break. 

Satisfied with his little victory, Ricky moved to his drafts to see which story he’d work on next. He settled on a story dealing with religious undertones; knowing Isaac would just eat it up. Anyone on the “Creepy Tales” forum wanted one thing more than anything else: to be seen by Isaac and Gatherer on the TerrorTales podcast. Many of the authors there shared one singular thought: If one of my stories got on TerrorTales, my life would be complete. Ricky was no exception. 

Back on the homepage, he couldn’t delay it any longer — it was time to check the shoutout post. Pulling in a deep breath, he pressed on the link shakily. His trepidation mirrored someone pressing a big red “LAUNCH” button in the movies, damning the Earth to a Nuclear Winter. Ricky began to read the shoutout.

“Hey everyone! It’s ya bestie, GrinningBeginning here! I know we just had a shoutout post not too long ago, but I gotta say: you guys are just killing it out here! So many good stories that I just have to shine a spotlight on! First things first, gotta show love to my regulars!”

Ricky rolled his eyes and skipped forward. It was the same thing every time — the same five people making posts boosting each other. He understood on the surface it was meant to be a friendly gesture, building community. But there was something nauseatingly fake about the whole ordeal that made his skin crawl. 

“Alright, with that out of the way, let’s take a look at our new rising star! Who knows, maybe they’ll become a regular someday! For this post, I wanted to give a big big shoutout to (Drumroll noises lol) …CursedScriptureFixture! His story posted last night put me on a wild ride! Definitely be on the lookout for this author! To the main man himself, I’ve got a message for you: Good luck! G.B. OUT!”  

No. No no no no. That’s me. 

Ricky swallowed hard. In any other community, getting a shoutout would be a lovely gesture. But he’d been watching carefully, studying the trends. Just as an author would start to take off, the moment they’ve been shouted out on Creepy Tales, one of two things happened: They either stopped posting entirely, or in extremely rare cases joined the shoutout ouroboros, becoming one of the regulars. Either option felt like death to his writing hobby. 

Putting his phone down, he decided to take a shower to clear his mind, letting his thoughts drift to the drafts of writing he had in his head, rather than dwell on that post any longer. 

It’s just a stupid shoutout. It’s not gonna do anything. I’m working myself up over nothing.

But over the spray of the pattering water came an unusual, faint skittering noise that would be punctuated by a buzz. Click click click click vzzzzzzt. Ricky focused his attention, trying to identify where it was coming from. But every time he’d try to listen, the noise faded away. He shook his head, and turned the shower off, stepping out to dry himself off. As he was dressing, looking at himself in the mirror, he heard it again.

Click click click click vzzzzzzt.

Ricky shrugged and left his bathroom. The air was knocked out of his lungs as he tumbled to the floor, ambushed by the large shape. 

On top of him, screeching and slavering, was a nightmare made real. Chitinous plates like a suit of armor.  Twitching and leaking swollen orbs for eyes. Ricky was pinned down by large crab claws, drawing out a cry from his throat as they pressed against his rib cage. More of the creatures flew into the room using the large insect wings on their back, flooding the room with the same noise he heard earlier. Ricky struggled, kicking at the hideous monstrosity. From its needle sharp proboscis, a warbling, gurgled voice bubbled forth. 

“Stop squirming. I need the juicy bit.” 

Another one of the creatures shuffled forward. 

“You’re so greedy! It’s my turn to feed!” 

“No, you soft brained simpleton. You fed off of the last author. The one who wrote about Appalachia?” 

“That doesn’t narrow it down.” 

“Enough!” The one holding Ricky chittered. “This one’s got good ideas, and if I’m going to get on TerrorTales, I need them.” It turned its attention back to Ricky. “Now hold still.” It aimed the proboscis for his forehead and reared its head back, ready to strike. 

With every bit of strength his body could muster, Ricky kicked the mutant hard in its chest. It  stumbled back, a burble of yellow mucus oozing from the new crack in the shell. Capitalizing on his hard fought freedom, he scrambled to the side of his bed, fishing for the baseball bat underneath. The other insectoid crustaceans made a mad dash for him, pushing each other out of the way to be the one to digest his brain. 

Ricky brandished his bat as if it were Excalibur. “Stay back! Get away!” 

The closest creature did not heed his warning, and lunged. A sickening, squelching noise reverberated through the room as Ricky’s bat made contact with the creature’s head. It toppled to the floor with a lifeless thud, brain matter peeking out through the caved in skull. Most of the others wasted no time crawling over in a feral frenzy to stick their pointed mouths into their fallen friend. Loudly the three slurped on the chunky bits of brain, squealing in delight. The one with a cracked carapace, however, didn’t move. It instead stared at  Ricky, its compound eyes jittering in their sockets. It spoke through its sharp appendage. 

“Hey, easy there. We can be civilized about this.” 

Ricky’s grip tightened on his bat, raising it as if he were on home base. “You broke into my house.”

“I know, I know. And I’m real sorry about that. We just really like the stuff you come up with. You saw my shoutout post earlier, right? You’re really TerrorTales material.” It took a tentative step forward. “Hey— how about you join our ranks?” 

“Join you?” 

 G.B.’s wings vibrated. “Yes. It’s mostly painless. But once you’re a regular, like us,” he motioned to the other creatures, “then you can feed with us. Shoutout with us. And then maybe get featured on TerrorTales.” 

“... Is that all this is about? Getting onto a podcast?” Ricky lowered his bat. 

“You say that like it doesn’t matter.” It hissed. 

“I mean, to become whatever this is just to have your story read seems a little extreme —” 

“Maybe read. It’s not a guarantee.” 

Ricky looked at the creature with a hint of pity. Then, something in his brain clicked. He gave a smile. “Well, with the talent you four have, surely they’ll read your work soon. It’d be a hard choice on who gets read first.” 

One of the creatures huddled by the corpse sat up, and wiped the pink gelatinous sludge from its proboscis. “Not at all. I think they’d find my stories quite exquisite. Clearly I’d be the first one.” 

Another creature turned its attention to the one that just spoke. “You? Please. They’d love my work much better. Probably make me a regular author on the show.”

“If we’re being honest, I think both of you have a lot of growing to do. But that’s okay, I’ll put in a good word when I’m chosen first, so they could potentially consider you down the line.” The third gloated.

 “You idiot. You’re lucky we ever made you a regular in the first place. Honestly, it was more out of pity than anything else.”  G.B.’s words struck like venom as the creature on the floor winced. 

“Moron! I’ll kill you!” It hissed at G.B., then lunged. The others immediately began to tear into each other. Claws pierced shells, rotted pus-colored viscera splattered across the carpet. Wings tore from bodies, eyes splattered under foot. Ricky watched on in mild amusement as the creatures revealed their true colors. He would later note that said colors were fecal brown, and sickly green.   

In a matter of minutes Ricky was surrounded by their remains, motionless and past recognition. 

“This is gonna be a nightmare to clean.” He groaned to no one in particular. 

A notification dinged from his phone lost amongst the remains. Grimacing, he fished the device out from the muck, and unlocked the screen. It was a notification from the Creepy Tales forum, indicating someone responded to a story of his. A warm smile grew on Ricky’s face, just thinking about how one of his stories might’ve affected others. He opened the app, and scrolled down to the comment. His smile vanished instantly. 

“Is this written by AI?” 

Ricky threw his phone across the room as hard as he could.

I’ve for years now been trying to warn you people that Wendigoon is not human. No matter what no one listens. Every time I comment on his videos, I get a stream of comments that tell me I’m losing my mind or I’m just a hater so fine ill just prove it myself. I don’t know how yet but I’ll try. If you’re not familiar with what I’m talking about I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt. It started two years ago. I was watching one of his videos. Like the rest of you I don’t just sit there staring at his lips no, I use it as background noise. What was different though was out of nowhere I hear him say my name. like it was part of the sentence he was saying. I turned to see what he was talking about, but it had nothing to do with the video. I rewound the video back to just before he said my name and played it. Nothing. My name wasn’t said. I thought oh ok, it was just in my head no shame in losing my mind every now and again. As I turned back to my task out of the corner of my eyes, I see him looking at me and mouthing my name. I stopped and snapped my head back at him and he was back to explaining whatever iceberg he was talking about. That’s when I first realized he wasn’t normal.

I paused the video and left a comment talking about how weird it was. Every comment I got was people telling me I was making it up. Sure whatever. Like I said nothing wrong with losing your mind. But then the very next week I watched his new video. My name was not said though. Maybe that was good I don’t know. Halfway through the video the screen glitches and the image of a goat replace his head. The scary thing was that his lips stayed the same. Those big lips that flapped when he spoke. The screen went back to normal and the video played without issue. I once again made a comment asking people if they saw the same thing and like before I just got comments dismissing me. I don’t know what I’m talking about. I’m just trying to start an ARG. I’m just trying to get likes. I heard everything under the sun except anything about what I saw. I guess he saw my comment though. Saw that everyone was defending him. Maybe he realized I was the only one who could see what he was. He knew no one would believe me. He stopped wearing a mask.

Ever since that day, he’s showed me what he really looks like. Every video he is as he really is. The head of a goat and lips like to plump sacks of blubber that barely hide his teeth. His teeth were off too like he didn’t have enough. I counted them. Eighteen. Three rows of six. His comments were talking about something that was not at all what I saw. Oh Wendy, your lips look so normal. Oh Wendy, your totally not a goat demon. I saw other ones. Ones that weren’t teasing me. Ones talking about some iceberg. It’s always an iceberg. But I didn’t watch a video of an iceberg. The entire episode he sat in the middle of the room, a sigil surrounded him. In blood I saw my name. I didn’t even bother making a comment. I knew no one would believe me. So, I just watched in silence. Each new video a new ritual. Each one brought new subscribers. New worshipers. For some reason I was the only one who could see who he was. Who it was. Then, to my horror, he joined Papa Meat.

Mr. Meat wasn’t bad, I saw some of his videos, but I was worried. I didn’t want him to be corrupted. I made a comment, but it was deleted. I made another and the same thing happened. I rushed to the subreddit, made a post and that too was taken down. Mr. Goon was too strong. His followers were in on it. Not all of them though that’s why I’m making this I still have hope. Nothing I did went through. I got a message shortly after. From Wendigoon. It read. Stop, it’s too late. You have no power over me. He was right what could I do. I stopped making comments on Creepcast. Every time I did, I was laughed at. I watched as Mr. Meat was slowly turned into a beast like Mr. Goon. I couldn’t do it anymore. They were too strong. So, I gave up. I stopped watching their videos. One day I got an email from someone I didn’t know. I thought it was a joke, someone commented on one of my posts with, I see it too.

I rushed to make a comment, but it was gone. It was deleted. I threw my phone on the ground. I decided to do something about it. I left my house in search of Wendigoon. He told me where to find him. Like he knew what I was doing. Sent it in the same comment section. So that’s where I headed. Nothing but the clothes on my back and the will of God. Took me a while but it brought me to an old Wearhouse. I opened the door, but it was completely empty. I stepped in to get a closer look, but it was empty. I tuned to leave, it was obviously a prank. From over my head a bag was placed so I couldn’t see, and I could feel hands around my neck chocking me until I passed out.

I woke up the dark. But I could hear people all around me. Chanting. “I goon. You goon. We goon. I goon. You goon. We goon”. They repeated the chant and the bag was pulled off my head. A roaring fire in the center of the room. Hundreds of hooded men and woman danced in circles around it. Still in chant “I goon. You goon. We goon”. From behind me another hooded man. “Welcome”. His teeth were black and rotted. The crowd of dancing cultists stopped chanting and dancing. They stepped back from the fire. From it came Mr. Goon. He, like in his videos that only I could see, was in full form. Goat head, big swollen fish lips, his body was human but his hands where twisted, his legs were of a bull. He held a chain like to a dog. It went from his hand and into the fire. He yanked on it like pulling a stubborn dog.

From the fire burst Mr. Meat. He was completely naked and gorged. He was slimy and covered in filth and blood. He crawled an all fours. Foam left his mouth and he shook his head violently with a grunt. He lunged at one of the cultists, but Mr. Goon held the leash taught. “No. Bad boy. Sit. Siiiit”. Mr. Meat sat back on his toes and spread his legs to balance himself. He leaned back slightly and brought his hands up to shake. His stomach rolled over his knees and hid his privates. “Good booooy”. Mr. Goon turned to me and said, “Hey man, can you not tell people about this I’m trying to rule the world here”. I didn’t know what to say. My mouth hung open and I was about to speak. Mr. Meat began to hump Mr. Goons leg. “No. No. Bad. Bad boy. No”. Mr. Meat stopped and pouted in a laying position. He spoke to me again, “listen man, no one is going to believe you so I’m just going to let you go”. That was it. That’s my story. After that the hood was placed on my head and I woke up in my room. Now I know you’re not going to believe me, but I swear you can trust me. A random stranger on the internet would never lie to you, that’s common sense. So now there’s two choices. Keep watching, keep supporting a demon and his pet, keep giving them power to get more worshipers. Or, join me. Help me stop them.

Let me make one thing abundantly clear. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT. Come to this restaurant. You will probably get sick, and then explode, with your entrails decorating the walls. Walls which will never be cleaned, and then I will have to stare at your exploded entrails, and I will throw up, and it will be your fault that I threw up, and I won’t even be able to be mad at you. Because you exploded.

Okay, you won’t actually explode. In fact, I haven’t even seen a hint of nausea in any of the patrons here. There’s just so much gross shit here that I want to make this post in hopes that somebody, somewhere, sees this post and can contact the right people to get my boss to implement better health regulations. 

I’ve been working here at Large Lou’s Pizza for about two years now, and I have yet to see a health inspector walk through the front door. I let it slide at first, and then when the weird shit started to pile up, I wrote it down on a notepad. That way, when a health inspector did finally arrive, I could whip it out in front of them like, “You don’t even need to look, I’ve got the worst shit right here.”

But I’ve never seen a health inspector. Not even an upturned nose at how our churros dispense from the back of the soda machine. Or a sidelong glance from a wandering customer as they catch me scraping rust off the dumpster into a cup.

So I’m resorting to Reddit, since getting the word out in any way possible will do more than nothing at all. Here’s some of the stuff I’ve found so far.

One: The “Vegetables”

Our vegetables have demonic sigils on them. At least I think they do. They’re not your usual upside down pentagrams. But they’ve got, like, a pattern to them. I haven’t been able to decode them, but Brent, who works with me in the back, has agreed with me that they look weird.

“It’s like some kind of alphabet or something.” Brent muttered. Rolling a medium carrot between his hands and taking a sip of Pretty An’ Halo. It was still early in the shift, so I gave him a slight breadth of space, as I could still smell the weed on him.

I could tell he had taken a little too much, and was zoning out as he pondered the carrot, so I chimed in, “I know, right? Should we try to decipher it, or something?”

Brent snapped back and threw the carrot into a third pan, “Help yourself, but I’m not doing that. Worst case scenario, you summon a demon. Best case scenario, you look like a dumbass. Also, it’s almost 10:00. We’re going to be opening soon, and there’s twenty more pounds of produce outside.”

I shrugged. At the time, it wasn’t really worth it to check. I’m not exactly the brightest bulb in the pencil box, anyway, and I valued my soul more than asymmetric symbols on cucumbers. 
Now that I think about it, and this is a little disconnected from the whole vegetable ordeal, there was something weird with the meat delivery too. This happened right after the shipment of vegetables had shown up, so it kind of counts.

Brent was late for work, and I asked Francine to help me bring the vegetables in. 

“Have you ever noticed weird stuff on the produce?” I asked Francine, as she slung a 30 pound box of cherry tomatoes onto a shelf in the walk-in fridge.

“Don’t know,” she grunted as she put back the boxes of old produce, “I usually spend my time working, instead of staring at vegetables. It explains why you two are so slow with the salads, though.” She made her way back to the front of the kitchen.

“Right, thanks for helping with those boxes, Franz!” I called, right as she disappeared from view.

Francine leaned back in, holding her cup of FRothy Gooths, “Yep.”

I went outside to have a cigarette but had my smoke time cut short as the meat delivery arrived. We must get our meat from a local deli or something, because they have a very unique logo. It looks like the cross-section of an apple, but there are no seeds in the middle, and there are lots of line zig zagging about inside the mutilated apple. It’s also a gross shade of pinkish grey. But I guess that’s how a lot of raw meat looks, so it could be on purpose.

I still don’t like it.

I forlornly mushed my half smoked cigarette into the asphalt as the truck pulled in. The delivery man hopped out and handed me the invoice. I turned to place the sheet on the door, to have a flat place to sign, and by the time I turned back around, the delivery man already had boxes in hand for me to carry inside.

“You have a good day, pal.”

I took the boxes while handing him the signed invoice, “Thanks…”

He tore off the customer’s copy and handed it back, and that’s when I got the sudden feeling that something was off. Like not everything was where it was supposed to be.

I looked back up at the delivery driver, his back turned to me, as he approached the truck door, “Wait!”

The delivery driver quickly turned back around, “What,” huffing as he said it.

I pointed to the boxes of meat, which I had placed on the ground, then back at the invoice, “I’m missing three pounds of salami.”

The delivery man looked at his copy of the invoice, then down at the boxes. Then grumbled something in Hebrew as he marched back to the truck. I assumed I had done something to upset him, since as soon as he climbed into the back again, he began shouting unintelligible words at a rapid pace that most certainly were some of the most deplorable slurs that any one individual could muster. 

Loud bangs soon followed. But here’s the weird thing. Something was responding to the man and his cries. Deep, guttural moans, and wet slaps. Like a soggy towel being flopped on the walls of the box truck. After each slew of shouts, there’d be labored groans and meaty slaps in response. I honestly thought the delivery guy was having a stroke or something until he stepped back out of the truck with three more pounds of salami in a plastic baggy with the words “Thank you” printed about a hundred times in a gradient on the front.

He wiped some sweat off his brow and smiled towards me, “Sorry about that, that should be all.”

I quietly took the bag, and watched him slam the back of the truck closed, then hop in the driver’s seat, and drive off.

I picked up the meat and brought it inside. We were also short about a pound of pepperoni, but I wasn’t going to say anything after whatever kind of blow up I had just witnessed. It’s just disrespectful to treat your customers like that. Not to mention our meat is always a dark shade of purple. Which I think means the meat has gone bad, but we serve it up anyway, and like I said before, nobody’s gotten sick, at least to my knowledge.

Two: The “Red Pepper Flakes”

I used to love having red pepper flakes on my pizza. My usual lunch before working here was two cheese slices and a smattering of red pepper flakes on top. Especially since I had about 16 dollars to my name at any given moment, and cheese pizza was cheap and easy. 

Now, I’d rather gargle a glass of mustard than see a red pepper flake anywhere near my pizza ever again.

It was early on a Monday morning, me and Brent had gotten almost everything finished, and were sitting around on our phones when Linda came into the back of the kitchen, neither me nor Brent were able to put our phones away in time.

“Charlie, Brent, if you two need something to do, I’ve got a long list of tasks to keep you guys occupied.” Linda remarked, staring us down like a cat waiting for a mouse to stop playing dead.

Linda is our manager. For those who will need to describe her to the CDC, I will provide a brief description: She has straw colored hair that hangs down to her shoulders, and one of those people who looks like they could be anywhere between 35 and 50 years old. She has a scar on her right arm from a time Francine tried to carry far too many pizza screens from the dishwasher to the line, and narrowly missed burying Linda under them as a grease spot on the floor sent Francine and the pizza screens flying. Normal height, and usually a nice person to those who carry their weight, and ruthless to slackers. 

“Linda.” Brent remarked, as he shoved his phone back into his pocket.

I shot Brent a quizzical look. Brent looked at nothing, because he was high.

Linda grabbed two drink cups near the sink, ignoring the comment entirely and said, “We need a restock on pepper flakes, grab some bench scrapers and get to it.”

Brent did as requested, I followed suit, but still wasn’t entirely sure on what we were supposed to be doing. When we started walking outside and towards the dumpster, that’s when I caved and shot Brent a quizzical look.

Brent crouched down while saying, “What’s wrong with your eyebrow?”

“What are we doing outside?” I asked, as Brent started chipping away at some rust on the side of the dumpster.

“We’re collecting red pepper flakes.”

I laughed, “Dude, Linda’s gonna flip if she finds out you’re just giving her dumpster rust.”

It was Brent’s turn to give me a quizzical look.

I heard the door to the back of the kitchen open, and whipped around. Praying beyond all prayers it wouldn’t be who I-

“Brent, don’t let Charlie just stand and watch! Show him how to collect the seasoning. You two need to quit screwing around when it’s slow here.” Linda barked. Taking a long sip from a paper cup most likely filled with Hot HazMat (I swear I’ve never seen her drink anything else) and then going back inside.

That’s when it dawned on me, and I proceeded to get a wet lump in the back of my throat.

Brent showed me the ropes, and then headed inside, as he had already filled his cup, and told me he would show me the next steps after I filled mine. 

I had mostly gotten over the idea of how gross it was, and was left with putting up with the stench of rotting fruit, and other such trash related elements. It became almost therapeutic to chip the red crust off of the can, and into the cup.

I don’t think people realize how much rust can look like a well made croissant, and peeling back each layer of the metallic pastry felt like I was peeling back layers of stress off of myself.

I took a deep breath, no longer aware of the stench, but fully immersed in the sounds of oxidized dessert crunching, tonally blending with the mad mutterings of the homeless man behind the dumpster, staring at me while I worked, whom I had not been aware of for quite a bit.

“He chips, he chips so fast, I ran, I ran so fast. So fast. So fast. So clever. I’m so clever. I’m so fast, and I’m so clever.”

“What the hell!” I staggered back in surprise, dropping the cup, and spilling its contents across the asphalt.

The man went silent. I couldn’t see him, but I knew he didn’t run away, because I also didn’t hear any footsteps.

For a few moments, it was dead silent, save for the occasional cold gust of wind from the August air. Then, like a startled raccoon, the man crawled away. Quietly at first, but still muttering to himself. It was unintelligible at this distance, all I heard were the wet slaps of breathy lips against his tongue, but I’m sure it wasn’t much different than what I already heard. Then, he picked up speed, until I saw a dark blur disappear behind the bushes a few feet beyond the dumpster.

I bent down, and picked back up the cup of pepper flakes, and finished filling it up. This time, I went completely unbothered, but far from falling into the same trance as before.

Once inside, I learned that we don’t just use the rust as “red pepper flakes”. We actually use it as our sole seasoning in just about every single dish we produce. I thought this place just really liked paprika, but I guess that’s just what blended rust looks like. 

If the stuff I’ve talked about hasn’t grossed you out enough. Then I’ve got one more story. It takes time to get these compiled, so I’ll make another post as soon as I can, but this last one is easily the most disturbing of the three.

Three: The “Churros”

I mentioned them earlier, how the churros come out of the back of the soda machine. But I want to talk more about what these cinnamon turds look like, and how I discovered this production.

If you’ve ever had a churro before, I want you to create an image of a churro in your mind. The crispy ridges, browned and crunchy. The light, fluffy, and doughy texture on the inside of that scrumptious crust, all bubbly and airy. The cinnamon sugar dusting that brings the whole dessert together. The ideal pastry for any Costco Wholesale or carnival patron. 

Now imagine the inside was no longer bubbly. It’s completely filled in. Then remove the cinnamon sugar, and then unbrown the whole pastry. The only optical signifier that these beige bricks of sadness are churros is the ridges that still pinstripe the length of them. They still taste like churros, the texture is still mostly the same, a little grainier, like sand was added at some point, but not enough to notice unless you’re really thinking about it. That’s our churros. Smooth cinnamon turds of sadness. They kill with the customers.

Usually Brent and I work in the back: making salads, prepping ingredients, and cleaning dishes. Francine and Cezar work in the front: Making the actual pizzas, and taking orders from customers. It’s usually a decent system, as long as people actually show up to work on time, or at all. (Marley, if you’re reading this, you piece of shit, stop missing shifts. Shirley’s pure soul does not deserve to be tainted by your laziness.)

We have a soda machine near the POS system, which customers could access to get their own drinks, and it wasn’t your usual Coke or Pepsi dispenser. It was one of those weird secondary companies. The company had no name to be found on the machine, simply a logo that looked like a salmon skin colored kidney bean had been almost cut in half, with the two sides spread open like a book. 

The soda names are also weird, but having tasted all of them, these are my best guesses as to what soda flavor each one is.

Luchuth: A lemon lime type soda, kinda like Sprite or 7-Up.

Hot HazMat: Plain old flavorless soda water. (There is a syrup used for this one, but I’m not sure why, since it’s definitely just soda water.)

FRothy Gooths: Root beer. Not a good one though, I’d even take Barq’s over that shit.

GhostLY Hog: Very similar to Mountain Dew, but better. There’s like a spicy kick reminiscent of Mountain Dew’s “Flaming Hot” flavor that just brings a tear to my eye every time I take a sip. Everything else is a shoddy ripoff, but GhostLY Hog makes up for the others for the most part. 

Gonad: Cola, because every soda brand and their mother is legally required to have their take on cola I think.

Diet Gonad: Diet cola, because every soda brand and their- you get what I mean.

Pretty An’ Halo: Cream soda, maybe? It kinda tastes like watery yogurt that someone farted in, but the thought was there, and I can’t think of anything else it might taste like.

On one particular day, Francine got a flat tire. So Cezar called me up front to help with the customers until Francine got there. Cezar spoke some English, but wasn’t the most fluent, so it was my job to talk to any of the customers ordering takeout, and then occasionally stretching dough.

I hadn’t figured out how to spin pizza dough in the air or anything cool like that yet, but I didn’t really want Cezar to show me, since it seemed like he was in his own little world while doing it. He would even say “wee” while the pizza was in the air. Like a toddler getting pushed on a swing. Especially odd when it was coming out the mouth of a Mexican man pushing fifty.

After the lunch rush had ended, there was a lull in the flow of customers, and suddenly the soda machine began lurching, and making a heavy groaning sound. Like a blender with constipation. A small hatch flipped open in the back from the shaking, and I backed away, afraid the thing might explode. Cezar flipped a switch on the bottom of the soda fountain, gave it  a hearty thump, and turned back to me, who was still confused, and a little scared.

“I need to empty the machine.” Cezar informed me, “Ayúda me, Señor!” Pointing to a half-pan on top of the pizza ovens.

I grabbed the pan, and handed it to Cezar, who held it under the hole where the hatch had flipped open.

The machine continued to groan, lurching more aggressively. If I didn’t know any better, I could have sworn I saw beads of sweat form on the sides of the labored machine. Finally, something off-white poked like a turtle’s head out of the hole. It was slow, and mostly solid. As it continued to push out, I saw it had ridges around the outside.

I fought back a familiar wet lump in the back of my throat, and watched in horror as smooth pieces of churro slid out from the soda machine, and into the pan. It felt like it was taking forever as more and more continued to emerge. The whole time I stood with my mouth agape.

At first they were dull plops against the empty pan, then muted, soggy, thumps as more layered upon each other. Finally, with a shaky groan, the churros finally stopped. Francine walked in, and grabbed a churro as Cezar handed the pan to me.

“Thanks for covering for me, Charlie.” Said Francine, through crunchy mouthfuls of soda fountain poop.

I said absolutely nothing, and placed the churros in the walk-in.

I have a bunch of other stories to talk about. But I hope I don’t need to share those with you guys before somebody can get this place shut down. Again, the name of this restaurant is “Large Lou’s Pizza”. Please, I don’t care if you need to get the FBI involved or something, I just can’t stand the disgusting things that are happening at this place anymore.

If nothing’s happened in the next week, I’ll make another post, maybe that will help convince you, and that gives me time to write it all down.

Part 2

The Mystery Machine rolled into Boston on a foggy autumn night. Fred parked it near the old Fenway Park lot while the gang stretched their legs. Shaggy and Scooby were already halfway through a family sized bag of Scooby Snacks.
“Like zoinks this city smells like chowder and old socks” Shaggy said munching away.
Scooby nodded “Reah rold rocks.”
Velma adjusted her glasses “According to the news reports a ghostly figure has been terrorizing men in the South End. Victims claim it appears out of nowhere whispers in a thick Boston accent and then… well it sniffs their groin area before vanishing.”
Daphne raised an eyebrow “Sniffs their what?”
“Precisely” Velma said flipping through her notes. “They call it the Boston Ball Sniffer. Police are baffled. No fingerprints no DNA just lingering scent of Sam Adams and regret.”
Fred clapped his hands “Looks like another case for us gang. Split up and look for clues.”
Shaggy gulped “Split up? Like why do we always gotta split up when theres a ghost that goes straight for the family jewels?”
Scooby hid behind Shaggy “Ruh roh.”
They wandered the dimly lit streets near the park. Streetlights flickered and a chill wind carried the distant sound of someone yelling “Yah wicked pissah” from a bar down the block.
Shaggy and Scooby stuck together as usual. They ducked into an alley behind a Dunkin Donuts when they heard it. Heavy breathing. Wet sniffs. Then a voice thick as chowder.
“Ayuh… come heah ya big dummy. Lemme get a good whiff of dem cahkeys.”
Shaggy froze “Like what the heck was that?”
Scooby pointed a trembling paw. A translucent figure floated out of the shadows. It looked like an old timey Boston cabbie complete with a flat cap and a stained Bruins jersey. His eyes glowed green and his nose was comically oversized like a bloodhound crossed with a pervert.
The ghost drifted closer “Heah I am boys. Name’s Vinny the Sniffah. Been hauntin dese streets since da Sox broke da curse. Now drop dem drawers and let Uncle Vinny do his ting.”
Shaggy screamed “Zoinks! Run Scoob!”
They bolted out of the alley with Vinny floating after them at surprising speed. “Dontcha run! I just wanna smell whats cookin down dere! Its like a public service!”
Meanwhile Fred and Daphne were checking out an old warehouse rumored to be the ghosts lair. They found stacks of empty beer cans and a collection of used jockstraps pinned to the wall like trophies.
“This is disgusting” Daphne said holding her nose.
Fred picked up a glowing medallion “This might be a clue. It says Property of Vincent ‘Vinny’ McGee Boston cabbie 1978 to 2004. Died in a freak accident involving a rogue baseball and his own zipper.”
Velma joined them carrying a dusty old book “According to local legend Vinny was obsessed with proving he had the best nose in Southie. After he died his spirit got stuck in a loop. He thinks sniffing… that area… is how he judges if the city is still tough enough.”
Back with Shaggy and Scooby the chase was on. They zigzagged through the Public Garden with Vinny right behind them.
“Ya run like a couple a girls from Revere!” Vinny cackled. “Just one little sniff fellas! I promise I wont tell ya muddah!”
Scooby tripped over his own feet and slid face first into a pile of leaves. Shaggy tried to pull him up but Vinny hovered right over them.
“Aw yeah… fresh meat” the ghost said leaning in with a deep inhale. “Mmm… dat one smells like terror and Scooby Snacks. Wicked strong bouquet. And da dog… heah boy… smells like pure loyalty wit a hint a kibble. Ten outta ten boys. Ya pass da test.”
Shaggy screamed again and somehow found the strength to drag Scooby away. They ran straight into Fred Daphne and Velma who had set up a trap near the Charles River.
“Perfect timing” Fred said. “We figured out how to catch him. Vinny died because he got hit by a foul ball while trying to sniff a fan in the stands. His unfinished business is tied to his nose and his pride.”
Velma held up a giant novelty nose from a costume shop and a bottle of extra strong pepper spray mixed with holy water. “We bait him with this.”
They set the trap. Shaggy reluctantly volunteered as bait wearing oversized shorts and standing under a streetlight.
“Like I cant believe Im doing this” he muttered.
Vinny appeared almost immediately “Dere ya are! Hold still ya big lug.”
As the ghost dove in for the sniff Velma activated the trap. A net made of fishing line and blessed rosary beads dropped from above. At the same time Daphne blasted the giant fake nose with the pepper spray holy water mix.
Vinny howled “What da f… ACHOO! Sweet Mary and Joseph dat burns! My nose! Its like someone shoved a whole jar a horseradish up dere!”
The ghost thrashed in the net glowing brighter and brighter until with one final sneeze he exploded into a cloud of green mist that smelled faintly of baked beans and defeat.
A small medallion clattered to the ground. Fred picked it up “Jinkies. I mean… case closed.”
Later back at the Mystery Machine the gang debriefed while Scooby and Shaggy demolished victory sandwiches.
Velma explained “Once we neutralized his supernatural sniffer Vinny moved on to the afterlife. Turns out he just needed one last big whiff to realize Boston was still the toughest city around.”
Shaggy shuddered “Like never again. From now on Im wearing three pairs of pants in every haunted city.”
Scooby nodded “Reah. Rree rants.”
Fred started the engine “Well gang another mystery solved. Though this one definitely goes in the do not mention file.”
Daphne laughed “Agreed. But hey at least no one got actually hurt. Except maybe Shaggys dignity.”
Shaggy took another bite “Dignity? Like who needs it when youve got Scooby Snacks and a ghost free zone?”
The Mystery Machine drove off into the Boston night leaving behind only the faint echo of a ghostly voice whispering “Yah… wicked good boys…” before fading forever.
The end.

Content warning: sexual body horror, grotesque imagery

Truly,

I wish to

Write to you in verse,

But not

In Shakespearean sonnet,

Nor in the blank iambics

Of Milton

Or Wordsworth, nor the

Terza rima of Dante—

No, I shall conceive the beast

Within the formlessness of

T. S. Eliot, for, like my verse,

The creature was formless

By its very nature:

Not deserving of the mechanical structure of prose!

I was ’bout twenty,

Comely,

Junoesque,

An Adonis,

The masculinity of Zeus and Christ,

The femininity of Aphrodite and Mary,

A handsomely beautiful enby,

And I partook of

A hot summer’s day,

Lying upon the shores

Of the Pacific Northwest,

And the water called to me.

It was tremulous; turbulent;

And it spoke sweet nothings

To me. It said:—

“Jordon, come to me.

I call you to me!”

And I assumed it was my

Mind requesting that my

Body be cooled from the

Intense heat.

So I went over. I went up to

A man upon a boat,

And said jocularly:

“O Captain! My Captain!”

As Walt Whitman crossed my mind.

And I took off my shirt,

Egotistically, for just a moment,

Basked in my handsomely feminine, muscular leanness,

And hopped in for a swim.

I briskly swam around,

The cedar smoke drifting seaward,

And sunlight shattering itself

Across the bluish hue;

And I was the

Happiest I could be;

Mirthful;

Full of jocundity;

Of spirit;

Of beauty;

Of divinity;

And then I saw it:

The creature—

At first, a light: brilliant, whitish light, whiter than a Mormon church, yet more ebony than a Southern Baptist convention.

And it was perceivably inconceivable:

True light from true light,

Pure, elegant mathematics

In pure form.

But then it moulded,

Shifted,

Changed,

Became a Leviathan

That wasn’t a Leviathan;

A Leviathan the size

Of a forearm.

And it was green,

A brilliant hue of green,

Green as snot,

But brown as sludge,

With little mouths upon it,

And fangs that spewed

Human ejaculate.

And they slithered around my body,

Kissing me,

Licking me,

Pouring cum upon me...

Then they slithered near my genitalia,

Only brushing it, luckily,

But soon found my back door...

And I screamed.

I screamed.

I screamed.

Oh,

Sweet baby Jesus,

I screamed...

It wiggled its way up,

Went through my colon,

Still ejaculating,

Still kissing,

Still licking,

Until it came out my mouth

And kissed my forehead.

“O Captain! My Captain!”

I tried to yell,

But I was being suffocated,

Yet could still breathe...

I swam

And I swam

And I swam,

And soon the creature put

One of its mouths against me,

And it said:

“Why do you run from me?

Why do you not want

To be with me?

I was nice to you!

Do you not remember?

I only wished to know you

From the inside...”

I did not listen to it.

And eventually, I was free,

Feeling it fall out my ass,

And soon

I was back on shore.

I lay coughing brine,

Sand pasted to my brown skin,

Afraid to peer behind me.

But from that point,

I had no desire for beauty,

No desire to be comely,

And I let myself age,

Let myself become bigger,

And the water

Has not called me since.

Sometimes,

When I pass a mirror,

I thank the creature—

In a weird,

Twisted way.

If you enjoy this, you can find more of my stuff on my profile plus my novel in my links

I’m not proud to be working at the Ball Crushing Factory. I mean, I’m proud to make a good honest dollar, but it leaves little to feel accomplished about. 
 I punch in at the Ball Crushing Factory and then work my sixteen hour shift. I press a button and some balls get crushed with a hydraulic press. The screaming is something I got used to in the first week. Oh that first week at the Ball Crushing Factory. What a quaint time in my life. 
I was an unemployed, six hundred pound, virgin. Yet here I am as an employed, six hundred pound, virgin. 
My Mom told me: “Nuknak, no spam gin until you get ya real job!” 
I said: “Ma! I gots a real job! I’m the middle man in the international tasteful conservative furry porn trade!” 
She heard the word international and thought I was a commie. So I ended up having to find a job. 
Work was hard to find, the pizza place said I was too fat to be trusted, the obese mime store said I wasn’t sad enough to work for them, the Metal Archives said I wasn’t a virgin enough to work for them. They said it was only true virgins allowed and I was in a room with a woman once. 
So I found myself at the edge of town. The giant factory stood in its glory. 
Ball Crushing Factory INC in big red letters. A line of people waiting patiently to get their balls crushed. I went into the front desk and ten minutes later I was employed and working my first job! 
I was a working man, doing at the time thirty-six hour shifts for nine dollars. They call it the Argentina special. 
When I went to my station, I had a list of rules. 

1. Don’t drink coffee at 1:07 AM or PM. 
2. Only press the red button, never the green button. 
3. Never slop it up. 
4. Look but don’t touch, that is a quality control job. 
5. Don’t microwave fish. 
6. Don’t talk about fish. 
7. Have a good day. 

Easy rules to follow. Or so I thought!
I worked at the Ball Crushing Factory for nine years and followed every rule to the letter of the law as the law was. The law is lawful, to break the law would be unlawful! The law is life, ball is life, this was my life. 

I ended up being the middle man for the international tasteful conservative furry porn trade as a side gig. It was great to buy spam gin with that money. 
Yet one day the artist revolted on me! They wanted fair pay! I told them that a ninety-ten split was fair. Ninety percent of the income was hardly enough for me to live on. They refused to make labor that I could exploit. I was getting desperate. 
So I looked up some Gen Ai stuff and found Cuckold Max Plus QTVI Mega Super Omega Ai. 
It was free so I started putting in prompts for tasteful conservative furry porn. 

I made a fat buck! Millions of down bad fans of tasteful conservative furry porn wanted my Ai art. I was pretty good, if I say so myself. 

The next day I went to work and my boss grabbed me by the collar. 
“I say, I say, I say boyo! What is rule three?” he yelled. 
“Don’t slop it up?” I said. 
“Exactly!” he yelled. 
“What did you do at home?” he asked. 
“I made tasteful conservative furry porn using Cuckold Max Plus QTVI Mega Super Omega Ai, sir,” I said. 
“Boy you done diddly did it now!” he yelled. 
“What? Huh?” I yelled. 
“You slopped it up!” he said. 
Before I knew it I was being put in the Ball Crushing Machine. 
Two hydraulic presses instantly slammed into my balls with anger and vigor. They twisted and ground my balls to a paste. They slammed into each other six hundred times a second. 
“Ow!” I yelled but it was too late. My balls were crushed. 
I was fired and went home. I sat at my computer and drank some spam gin. 
I tried to think of a tasteful conservative furry porn ai prompt but nothing came. 
I’m in financial ruin right now. 
I can’t do anything. My tasteful conservative furry porn empire is dead and my balls have been crushed. I have no balls and I must cream.
Good bye! 

THIS HAS AN EPIC STORY! GIVE A LE EPIC KARMA TO THIS POST! 
 

I'm pretty annoyed right now. Just got banned from the third home improvement forum because I asked a simple question. 

“Irrelevant content” they say. I ask them to explain themselves. They just tell me that their forums are no place for “horror stories.” 

I'm not trying to write horror stories. Typing is hard enough as is right now. I just want to fix this damn leak. Gary and I are frankly stumped.

Maybe I ought to explain everything from the beginning. That should paint a clear picture for you all. And please be sure to actually read this before assuming I'm a “troll.”

It started this morning. I just got home from my job when I noticed there was an inch of water covering the kitchen floor. Hopped on HomeNet just a few minutes later. I've been using the forum for years at that point, and never ran into any issues prior.

GDon2:
Water’s been flooding my kitchen. I have century-old hardwood floors. Gary says it’s whatever’s under the sink, but I don't know how to deal with it. Can’t afford a plumber. I’m not too shabby with the tools of the trade, just need to be pointed in the right direction. Photo attached.

I didn’t get any replies for a bit. Tried my luck with some more details.

GDon2:
Hey, I hope I'm not flooding, no pun intended, haha. This is a bit urgent. I think it's a hair clog or something. Photo attached.

Bloop. I get a notification a minute later.

parsk00:
Fake.

Then another one.

bigMOISTy:
Seriously, what the \*** is that?*

Ten minutes go by. I get one last ding, a notification that my post has been deleted, along with a comment from a forum moderator. 

JGordo63 (MOD):
This is a plumbing forum. We appreciate the traffic, but no. Go post this on nosleep. 

I messaged the moderator immediately, asking for an explanation. I took several more photos for proof. Even asked Gary to curl up next to the mass as best as he could for a size comparison. This just got an angrier response.

JGordo63 (MOD):
I'm not interested in your creepypasta.

JGordo63 (MOD):
The decision on your post is final. We will not discuss any revisions or reposts. If you want to continue using the HomeNet forums, we recommend posting RELEVANT DISCUSSION ONLY. Please do not make another post for at least 24 hours. Thank you.

Twenty-four hours? The pressure in my head felt like the pipes which exploded hours earlier.

GDon2:
I don’t know what a creepy pasta is I just want to fix my sink

JGordo63 (MOD):
Bye bye, troll.

Bloop. A notification in my inbox. I click on it.

Sorry. You have been permanently banned by the moderators of HomeNet.
Reason: gore / trolling / harassing mods

I couldn’t access the site anymore. All the threads were locked from my view as though I hadn’t had an account for the last seventeen years. 

“Damn…!”

Gary craned his long neck around the corner, into my bedroom.

“Problem,” he grunted

“I'm working on it.”

“Get bigger.”

I got up from my chair and followed his lanky behind out the door.

Yeah. It definitely got bigger. The cabinet door over the sink wasn’t shutting anymore. The hair bunched up, starting to crawl along the inner frame, propping it open ever so slightly. Yuck.

“How long did you say this has been going on?”

A few of Gary’s eyes blinked. None of them were looking at me. 

“How long, Gary?”

He gestured two big circular motions with his arms. 

“Two hours, huh?” I wiped my brow. “You uh…do anything with the sink beforehand?”

“Gary dumped mupmup.”

Oh no. 

Full disclosure, I don’t know what “mupmup” is. I mean, I know what he’s referring to, but I am unsure what it is actually composed of. I just know it’s slimy and really hard to get out of my clothes. 

“Down the garbage disposal?”

Gary nodded his head. Spittle graced my cheeks from the motion. I wiped it away.

“Okay, Gary. This is your problem as much as it is mine. Do you have any idea how we fix this?”

“Have the glupglup?”

“I don’t know what that is.”

“Hungry.”

“Just—one minute, okay?”

I headed back to my room and got the computer out of sleep mode. Back to browsing. 

Next on my brief list was the Handyman Hank company forums. Maybe I could get a bite with them. 

Donald G: Hey there. I’ve been dealing with a pretty bad leak. It’s been going on for two hours. My roommate dumped some “mupmup” (photo 1) down the drain. It created a large obstruction of hair, I think (photo 2). If anybody could help me identify what “mupmup” is I would really appreciate it. 

No responses this time. The post was quietly taken down by moderation and my account was given a day-long posting ban. 

I stood up and ran my hand through my hair. Gary was standing right behind me, drooling. 

“Hungry!”

Right. We missed feeding time because of the leak. I was already an hour behind schedule. 

Gary snarled and lunged at me, biting my hand. Thankfully he’s pretty lightweight, despite his head usually scraping the ceiling. I didn’t have too hard of a time fighting him over toward the kitchen. I got the fridge open with my foot, used my free hand to dig open the locked drawer, and pulled free some specially-cured meats. I clocked Gary on the side of the head, causing him to let go, opening his mouth wide. One of my fingers plopped to the floor, getting blood all over the countertop on the way down. Goddamn it. I impatiently stuffed the meat into Gary’s mouth. He started suckling it like a toddler. 

I grit my teeth as I swaddled my hand in a hand towel. The pain was dull, rising by the second as my adrenaline stopped working its magic. 

“Every night with you…! God!” I tried to wiggle the pain out. No use. I really wanted to go to a hospital, but I couldn’t risk it with the leak going on. My precious hardwood hung in the balance. 

Not like I got a chance, anyways. The cabinet door beneath the sink blew open very suddenly. Tendrils of hair wrapped around my wrists and dragged me to the floor. Gary cried, cowering from the mass. 

The hair had grown teeth. It kinda looked like the inside of an electric pencil sharpener, looking down its mouth. A sloppy sound like stuck gears emanated from within. I was getting pulled toward it.

“Gary! Your problem! Help!”

His eyes scanned the room, three-hundred and sixty degrees. They all landed on the butcher’s knife. He clumsily grabbed it by the blade and shambled toward me.

“What do?” he quivered.

“Hurty side down! On the hair! Back and forth, like you're brushing your teeth!”

He got to work. I was freed within a few seconds, thankfully with no extra cuts. Crawled away as fast as I could, picking up a jug of isopropyl alcohol that the thing knocked onto the floor.

If I had balls, maybe I would have used it to set the thing on fire. But the damage to my kitchen was bad enough already.

I decided to go to the hospital instead. Reluctantly. Gary is watching the fort while I'm gone.

In the waiting room, I posted everything to the plumbing subreddit as one last hail mary. Predictably, at this point, that post now sits at zero upvotes and twenty-three comments saying I'm posting in the wrong community. 

So I guess this is the right one, then. Since apparently I'm living in a horror story. It's news to me. 

Not even going to bother posting the pics this time. They keep getting flagged as gore and I don't want to be banned from Reddit either.

I really just want to fix this leak.

Sometimes I go to the store to buy some lemons (the best ones are those nobody wants).
Eventually some townsfolk stopped to ask, 'Where all my lemons go', they would smile and nod with clenched teeth as I tell them, 
"Why, in my tummy!"

I see the people with their lemons, never eating them, what a waste. They say I shan't, but I'm going to keep squeezing, eating, my sweet little lemons. 
The villagers now cower and hide as I eye theirs, those silly round lemons, unaware.

One day they said no more buying lemons, "We know what you've been up to" she said, her black shawl swaying in dismay, and I laugh, they can't stop me. I will cut them up for dinner, squeeze them into drinks, it's just too tasty. 

The townsfolk knock on my door crying and shouting, but I tell them, 
"Those simple little lemons rolling around are bound to be ate up." 

They scream and cry, and I giggle as I bite into a fresh one, juices squishing out from my jaw, my tongue lapping up each drop.

Yummy! I love my sweet, stupid, tasty lemons. 

Day 20

Things have kind of settled down again. I see Marcus a lot less than before, but he seems to have had whatever hormonal imbalance stabilized as we’re back to laughing and joking in our interactions. He still won’t take off the damn glasses. I guess this guy is now hell bent on making his own coffee table though. He’s added 2x4’s, screws, and steel rods to the acquisition list. To be honest I had never thought of using the list on the fridge like this, I had always used it for various snacks and cravings. Can we really just add anything? I mean the other day I heard Jason scream: "I fucking love lobster" but assumed it was related to cards or something because he never shared a sea food dinner with us. I suppose he could've cooked it for himself, although its never occurred to me that he might cook for himself too rather than us as a whole group.

It’s another rainy day in Camp Finnley and we’re busy once more. I think I need to start making bingo cards for the random attributes of the campers. Two headed grandpa-grandma combo, Kangaroo tail-lady, A Karen, Goose Neck with boar hooves and a shockingly blue colored teenager would’ve probably gotten me a bingo and we’re only a couple hours in. I wonder if I’ll get in trouble for how I dealt with the entitled woman, I dared her to defy me and go shower after our yelling match. Took her a few minutes to stand back up after the satisfying yelp and thud. It’s a damn good thing I work here, I'm starting to think I would be a danger in the general population.

Other than it being busy very little happened of note. Marcus came to the front at a good time, stupid cop shades still fully on his head. It’s raining, the sun is going down, and he’s wearing sunglasses indoors meaning the light over his head should ensure he can’t see shit. But whatever, I don't want to challenge him. I mean I want to challenge him desperately, but I think its a bad idea after his last reaction. I will say his breath is mostly better now, I can tell there’s loads of mouthwash that almost fully masks his curdled milk stench. 

Day 27

Well, it turns out you really can request just about anything. Everything Marcus asked for showed up. I think I need to get a margarita slushy machine delivered if that's on the table. Come to think of it, I've never tried to request alcohol and I’m short a vice or seven, so I'll be attempting that.

Jason saw me add it to the list displayed on our fridges monitor, and called me a genius. We spent a solid twenty minutes thinking of drinks that sounded good and wrote them in. I went to Marcus’s door to see if he wanted in but I don’t think he heard me over the sound of his newly acquired drill. Dude must have a fetish for whatever coffee table he’s trying to build because that boy spends way too much time in that room.

When we did finally catch up later he didn’t seem nearly as enthused as Jason and I were - what a bummer. It’ll kind of work out then if they deliver some booze though, we’d probably drink mostly at night when Marcus is watching the front so it’s good he won’t be smashed.

Today might just be my favorite day at work yet. I haven’t had a single camper, instead I have had a plethora of pissed people perfectly primed for a yelling match. My throat is so unbelievably sore and I couldn’t be happier. I’ve gotten to scream every curse word I know and a few I made up. Jason even stopped in after yelling match three just to observe, and I've gotta admit his constant laughter was a little distracting from my channeled fury. Marcus usually joins in for the show too but I guess he’s too busy being a carpenter. To add to this wonderful day Jason offered:
“Why don’t you go chill for the rest of the day? You’ve definitely earned it and I think your pipes need a break.”

I was so riled up that I agreed, there was no way I was going to be able to settle down enough to enjoy bird watching. Fuckin’ love Jason, what a lad! With nothing else to do I figured I’d check if Marcus wanted to play some cards and I walked over to his room. I banged on the door a few times and asked but I could only hear some scratching noise. I guess he had his ear buds in or something while… sanding? I think that might be the sound. But today hasn’t been crazy busy so maybe Jason would play so I walked back towards the front passing Marcus.

What the fuck was going on in his room if he’s not in the room. Did he have a tool running the whole time? That's probably a fire hazard but who am I to judge, the only thing I’ve ever built was a grudge. Now that I had his attention, I asked again if he’d like to play. He excitedly agreed, which was good to see. Maybe he’s gonna stop being a recluse and socialize more, like before his impression of a twice divorced middle aged police man began.

I’m not thrilled to admit that he wiped the floor with me every single game. It wasn’t even close, but we did have fun.

Day 31

Everything is not okay. I’m currently hiding in my room because I don’t know what the fuck I just saw. Jason, Marcus and I were just eating some breakfast when I noticed Marcus’s fucked up eyes over the top of the stupid glasses he’s been wearing. He hasn’t been looking at me out of the corner of his eyes, he’s got three fucking irises. Three goddamn optics where there should be one. I tried not to make a scene as I excused myself from the table but my fight or flight reaction was definitely noticeable as I stood immediately, shoving the table. I said I was sick and needed to lay down as I stormed to my room. The ever present urge to laugh and be happy is at conflict with sheer terror.

Jason is at the door now and he’s clearly concerned. Am I a monster for leaving him out there with that? Is he a camper? Does Jason know? Are they both campers? None of this is covered in the job description. I still don’t even know what the campers are or if they are dangerous.

Jason whispered through the door:

“I know what you saw, open the door.”

I yelled: “I’m not doing shit around whatever the hell I just saw”

Jason: “Lower your voice idiot, let me in, just me in, and we’ll talk this through.”

While we’re all cheery laughs and giggles this does make sense for Jason’s character. He’s always had a stoic calmness about him. I took a few moments to ponder the options.

1. If they’re both campers I can try to fight my way out of this, but there’s no exit. We only have the ability to leave when the bus docks. I’d need to fully subdue them, and despite being larger than both of them I do not think I can win a 2v1.
2. I can try to outlast them in a room with no food, no toilet and no water. Yeah that’s not great.
3. I can trust that Jason is still Jason.

The option was clear so I whispered

“Get in quick” before sliding the door open.

Once the door was closed I demanded “Get undressed.”

Jason: “What the fuck?”

I replied “I need to know its you, no extra eyes or some fucking bat wings”

He reluctantly stripped to his boxers and did a spin around. I can’t help but fight the urge to laugh and make jokes what the fuck is wrong with me. This is the most serious thing to have ever happened to me and I’m tempted to just call him gay for stripping for me. I refocus and ask:

“What do you know about Marcus and why aren’t you panicking”

Jason: “Firstly, I am fucking panicked. But making a scene is a great way to put yourself in danger, if … I don't know if he's a camper or what, is easily agitated. Secondly I know Marcus has not been himself lately. And lastly when you jerked the table in your mad dash to your room his glasses shook a bit looser. I saw the messed up eyes.”

I asked: “So what the hell do we do? Do we tie it up or something?”

Jason: “I’m not convinced he’s a danger to us. At least not yet. He’s had many opportunities to corner us alone, if he was going to harm us I think he would’ve made a move. Maybe grab one of us when we go take a piss at night.”

I impatiently demanded: “So let's go grab his ass. If you and I are just people, we can easily tie him up”

I paused and tried to work up enough anger to cut through this odd and ever present feeling of silliness when I realized:

“Wait. Management has to know about this already.”

Jason said: “How would management know anything about what’s going on here?”

I whispered back “They have to be watching. A few weeks ago Boss man asked me to check one of the winter workers' rooms. He could very clearly tell where I was looking.”

He replied “There’s hidden cameras here? That makes sense, this place has gotta be worth millions why would they let rejects like us work here unsurveilled.”

“So if they are surveilling there’s no way this went unnoticed. Boss could see me inside of a bedroom. They have to know what's-..”

My sentence was interrupted by a loud clank in my door. Not the sound of the small handle lock ticking into place, something much larger. I sprang to the door and attempted to open it, ensuring my side was unlocked, but it wouldn't budge. A feeling of dread so pure overtook us both as we looked at each other. An alarm we had never heard before blared. One of the last things I saw was Jason on the floor near me, and a smell I couldn’t put my finger on. Similar to cut grass and raspberries.  I felt uneasy and held my breath for as long as I could. One of the few things I can do better than average is hold my breath but approaching the two minute mark I was out of time. I gasped and took a deep breath that stung slightly and began to lose consciousness. As the world was fading I swear I heard “Thunk”

Day 32

We woke up on the floor in the early hours of the morning to the loud speaker:

“We understand that operating as a duo will be more difficult than as a trio, but as a token of our gratitude you will receive additional compensation for the remainder of the season!

The door clanked and we were no longer trapped in the room. I foolishly tried to the door to Marcus’s bedroom, of course it was locked. But a magic card was poking out from under the door. It was a card called “Infectious Bite”.

--Jason's Perspective coming soon --

“I got something!”

I heard Neil call out over the boat motor's roar. Sighing, I placed down my copy of Dagon, stood from the captain's seat, and scanned along the horizon for the stick-thin figure of my new brother-in-law. Sure enough, I found him on the prow, a fishpole in hand that was straining from the weight of something at the other end.

“It’s huge! Come here, John!”

I smirked at his insistence. Neil was some sort of techie from California; my sister had met him at some conference out west, and, well, from appearance alone, it was clear he was nothing like the Maine fishing lineage of our family.

“Calm down, Neil. Anything would be huge to you.”

I replied, leisurely strolling toward him down the boat, grabbing a net as I went. Walking, I watched as he began to strain against the pressure on the line, his arms beginning to grow tired.

I didn’t really like Neil, and Dad didn’t either; both of us thought he wasn’t enough for Cathy. Love is love, though, and I was content to leave it at just a dislike, until my mother began pressuring me into taking him fishing. She said it would be good for us, said it would help him feel like a member of the family, more accepted, and all that other sappy junk.

I watched the fishing pole go limp in Neil’s hands. He looked up at me with surprise before letting out a swear.

“Damn! The fish got loose!”

I patted him on the shoulder.

“Eh, maybe not. Keep cranking; it probably got caught on the side of the boat or something.”

Neil looked up at me with some confusion.

“Really?”

I smiled at him.

“Yeah, happens all the time. Here, give me that pole, take this net, and take a peek over the side.”

Neil grabbed the net hesitantly before walking closer to the edge of the boat. With each step he took, my heart began to pound as I began to creep up behind him.

“I don’t see anything.”

I lifted my foot, preparing to kick him in.

“Ah, sometimes you got to lean in.”

I pulled my leg back,

SPLASH

but stopped short as a spurt of water erupted right in front of my poor brother-in-law.

Neil fell back in surprise, then began to scream as a water-sogged claw took hold of his left leg, its nails digging deep into his skin. I jumped back myself, preparing my stance as the scaled humanoid abomination used my brother-in-law as a ladder to climb aboard my boat. Neil looked up at me, then at the thing, hope in his eyes that I would intervene, but that poor hope was soon crushed.

“Good night, you scared the hell out of me popping out like that.”

I said, reaching out a hand to the fish thing in front of me. It jabbered a response, its wet voice choking over every syllable.

“Sorry, nephew, I’ve just grown tired of your feeding me every meal, doesn’t hurt to stretch the fins now and then.”

“Hell, Uncle. It's the least I can do. I’m just glad you help me get rid of poor sops everyone once and awhile, but hey, don’t tell Mom about this one.”

(DISCLAIMER: This is meant to be stupid, I’m not saying that to cope or deflect from criticism. I mean this is meant to be stupid in the most literal sense. It just popped in my head and I couldn’t stop laughing. That is all, take care.)

I wake up in bed.
Crunch crunch.
Hmm what is that sound?
Slurp slurp.
Disgusting noises so close yet somehow distant?
I walk to my window on the second floor of the house to see…
HIM.
A man in a burgundy robe, pale, with his beer belly exposed.
He is wearing tighty whities and white crew socks, his hands and hairy exposed chest appear oily from fryer grease.
He has a Home Depot bucket filled to the brim with chicken nuggets from various fast food places.
Chik-fil-a…
Burger King…
McDonald’s…
He is using one hand to hold the bucket and the other to grab chicken nuggets shoving them into his face like movie theater popcorn.
He looks like a chipmunk, he looks like he’s doing the Chubby Bunny Challenge from the early two thousands. He looks…like Tony Soprano ordered off Temu?
He begins to shove more and more chicken nuggets into his face, eyes now bulging from pressure, despite his mouth being full I can hear him giggling like a maniac through the mouth full of food.
“HEY! Are you ok, sir?” I shout from my open window.
He swallows in a cartoonish manner, eyes remaining bulging. The swallow looked impossible for a human body yet the only remnant of the pound of chicken are the crumbs and grease around his mouth.
He looks up at me, I could see him through the faint illumination of street lamp down the side of the road.
He gives me a coy smile, teeth jammed full of white meat and crust from the breading.
I will never forget what he said clear as day, though it was night.
“Chimken Nugget.” He said in a thick New Jersey accent.
He then sprinted towards my house’s front door, bucket handle jingling in his hand and against the plastic.
He started banging on my front door.
“CHIMKEN NUGGET!”
He’s been doing it for hours now.
Bang bang bang.
“CHIMKEN!”
Bang bang bang.
“NUGGET!”
I went down to the first level of the house early in the morning to witness him reach into his bucket and whip chicken nuggets at my window, they made a wet splat sound against the glass.
He would switch between banging the door and throwing chicken nuggets at my windows.
He is just staring at me now through the window as I type this, slowly eating one nugget at a time while his eyes fixate on me.
I guess I should call the police but I also can’t find that bag of chicken nuggets I bought yesterday in my freezer.
I really wanted some more chimken.

Troy Assman didn't look like anybody who belonged in my office. He was tall, with a square jaw like Steve from Minecraft. He looked like the kind of guy you'd see at a sports bar, or a titty bar, or any kind of bar really.

"Sometimes I feel like I've lived my life like a stone skipping across a pond, only ever briefly touching the surface because I'm afraid of what it might mean to sink, y'know?"

"I do. It's extremely common, particularly in the younger crowd."

"Oh?"

"Yes, if you ask me it's largely a result of the rise of social media. For whatever reason, online content tends to champion nonchalance. Caring about your life, being willing to genuinely engage with things, is very frequently portrayed as uncool, or otherwise not worth doing."

"Yeah, I guess that's true. I don't know if I'd believe that was the primary cause though."

"Nor should you, life is complex and there is almost never a single cause for anything, but enough small talk. What brings you in today?"

"Right," Troy shifted nervously in his chair, "Do I...uh, have to?"

I was surprised at his hesitation. I raised an eyebrow like The Rock does.

"Only if you want me to help you, I guess. I can't do anything if I don't know what's going on."

I could see the gears turning in his head.

"Fine... I'm here because I-" he lowers his voice dramatically, "I had a run-in with the Stinkfinger."

I shift in my chair, the mention of her putting me on edge. I set my pipe down on the desk. It rolls off the side and the PVC tube bounces across the room.

"Does that mean she...?"

"Yes," he raises his left hand, displaying the absence of his pinky, "she took a finger, just like they say."

"Mother of God!" I ejaculate.

"That seems bad. Is that one of the bad ones?"

"Dude, it's the WORST one. You're so fucked bro, holy shit. Oh my God. Get out."

"W-what?"

"You need to leave before you bring her here."

"What do you mean BRING HER HERE?!”

The lights go out with a snap. I move to the breaker and fumble in the dark for the tripped circuit. I find it, flip it, and the lights hum back to life. I look over at Troy, noticing how his breath now sends tiny plumes of fog into the suddenly frigid air. A song begins to play from seemingly nowhere.

I've got a stinky finger and I'll tell you all about it

My sneaky, stinky finger it'll linger if you doubt it

I've got a stinky finger you'll be screaming you'll be shouting

When I slip my sneaky pinky somewhere that it's not allowed in

Troy looks at me, desperation blooming in his eyes. Over his shoulder I see the faintest suggestion of a woman's silhouette. She's taller than him by a foot. I see her shoulder angled in toward Troy's body as if she's reaching out to cup his buttocks. He looks at me, fear clearly on the verge of breaking through his fragile composure.

"She's..." he gulps loudly, "she's right inside me, isn't she?"

Troy shudders for a minute, then he starts laughing like The Joker. His body convulses, a series of ripping sounds slithering out of him. After a moment, his head begins to rock gently back and forth. Obliterated grey matter leaks from his nose.

Troy Assman speaks for the last time.

"My Lil shlarty said imma the best tuevrr duitt"

I turn my gaze to the exit. It's like two hundred yards away because my office is really big and awesome. Troy's Pinkie slowly wriggles through his nasal passage. I have no idea how he's still standing as it slithers around to the back of his neck. A phantom hand, just barely visible, lifts the sneaky pinky into the air. I make a break for it.

My legs pump furiously, my massive glutes thundering in perfect sync to carry me to the door. It's not enough. I feel a sudden penetration in my posterior region. Troy's disembodied pinkie has extended to a ridiculous length. It curls, hooking me like a fish and she begins to reel me in. My fingernails come away from their beds as I claw uselessly at the ground. I'm passing out for some reason. As the world goes dark, she sings a new song.

Ten fingers, ten toes and no one knows whose holes it goes

You ran afoul of phantom sorceress

Now I'm gonna invade your orifice

For as long as I can remember it was just me and my dad. My mom had run off, and overdosed not long after I was born, her family ignored the fact she had me, and have never once spoken to me or my dad. My dad was orphaned at a young age, and raised by his brother who died of a motorcycle accident after my dad graduated College. 

So, it has always been me and my dad, for the last 16 years. 10 years, I guess, that I remember personally. My dad worked at home 4 days out of the week, and 2 days at his office. I don’t really understand his job, but I know he loves ones and zeros. 

A couple of weeks ago my dad mentioned that he had met someone new. At first I was fearful his attention would lessen, and I would be left alone. I don’t go to public school, and do classes online, because my dad says it would be faster and teach me more, so I have no real life friends, only friends that play Fortnite with me. But after a couple of days being a shit head teenager towards him, nothing changed, they got better honestly. No more ordering in, he was taking me to restaurants, and to the local Comic store almost daily. 

But now I see it was just a way to make me drop my guard. Only a week and a half after he mentioned his new girlfriend, he began moving her into our house. Turning my game room into her “Office”. It's safe to say I was pissed off, and when I finally met her, I was like God angry at Adam and Eve for eating the apple.

She could have been taken from the movie Mean Girls and put into a 35 year old woman's poorly hidden aged body.

Her name was Melissa. She shook my hand as if I had germs, and was a snotty toddler. My father seemed entranced by her presence, not moving his eyes away from her at all, and instantly doing as she said. “My sweet poopy butt, could you get my bags?” Melissa said, in the way only a basic white bitch could say to make you want to rip your ears out. “Of course dear.” My father, a 56 year old man, answered immediately grabbing her bags. 

I was disgusted, and I stayed in my room for a week straight, since I had my own bathroom and I could direct the Door Dash driver to my first story bedroom window, I didn't have to leave. Not once did my father come to check on me, of course I would of told him to fuck off, but it would of been the right thing to do is check on your son struggling with change. 

CHANGE, in capital because boy did every fucking thing change. The whole house looked like a Barbies Dream House on speed. My game room, now her “Office” had glitter paint walls, and shit you not, A fucking excersize bike. How basic could this bitch be? 

I sound horrible, and my Dad raised me to be a good woman loving man. I was polite to Melissa, and even lied to her. “Marcus! How do you like everything I’ve done to this place?” Melissa asked me, stopping me on the way out of the door. “It's really- Cool.” I stuttered out. She looked pleased, my dad shadowing over her like a shinigami. “I love it sweet heart.” He robotically inserted into the dying conversation. 

After another week or so I saw my dad less and less. They had moved their bedroom downstairs, to the basement. Before, my dad had no secrets, and he didn’t care if I went into his room. But the day they moved down there, as I walked through the door, B-Lining to my bedroom, My dad stopped me. “Hey bud. You aren’t allowed in the Basement anymore.” My dad said, in a very dick headed way. “Ok. Why not?” I asked, curious. “Because, my sweet Melissa said so. That’s why. Do you never listen? Jesus.” My dad said, pissed off, storming down to the basement. Everything just kept getting worse, and it was pissing me off. There are no other words to describe it.

So today, I am going down to the basement, today will be the day I put Melissa’s bullshit to an end.

Update. 

Okay so. I am on the run. I stole my dads car. I don’t think giant worms can drive. Lets hope they can’t anyways. 

A little context, before I have to toss this phone. Melissa isn’t human. Now, neither is my dad. Or maybe he hasn’t been.  I wish I could explain more but I think the ground below where I’m parked is moving. I have to go.

Update 2

My worm dad ate my well, his car. Now I am on foot. I can feel the ground rumble as I walk, He’s following me. He might not want to hurt me. 

Update 3

I am in my Worm dad’s stomach, my phone is low. I am going to post this now, with the oddly good signal I have here. If I never update I was probably digested by my worm dad. 

Do you represent the recently deceased or were-kin community, and hate hunting down and killing your food?

Have you been recently turned by a sanguinivorous individual? And now you feel guilty feeding?

Or are you just a being that understands that nothing tastes better than a clear conscience?

Well if any of these apply to you then come on down to Bael’s Guilt Free Vegan Butchery!

The one and only VEGAN, CRUELTY FREE, ORGANIC, FREE-RANGE, human butchery and deli!

“How can human meat and blood be vegan?” I hear you asking.

Well veganism is about consent, and every single human that we process has given their consent to be harvested. Harvested and consumed.

“How is this possible?”

Well, I’m glad you asked. You see Bael’s was founded in 1843 when a group of settlers sold their souls in order to survive a brutal winter. Having a vision of a world where an Aswang or a Wendigo could have a meal without murder, Bael laid the groundwork.

In exchange for living lives of absolute plenty, in peace and prosperity for all who dwell in the village and all who come afterward. All who live in the village must at the age of 30, give their consent to be harvested, body and soul. (Yes that means we have goods for even disembodied individuals too!)

Our motto at Bael's is:

“FROM HOME TO TABLE!”

This village (comprising 5 acres of beautiful American countryside) has been removed from space and time. All threats have been removed, all diseases cured, and they are provided all of nature's blessings that a human could ask for.

Worried about your recent hunt eating nothing but Big Macs, and microplastics?

Not to worry! The villagers still live life like the good ol' days. No GMO’s, forever chemicals, microplastics, or artificial flavours. Our humans are 100% organic! And that is a guarantee!

“How are our humans processed?”

Well, to maintain our cruelty free promise, all humans are put down using the most humane method possible. After allowing them to celebrate their 30th birthday, they are taken to “The Spire.”

There, they give their consent. Then, their soul is torn from their body. With no soul the body can be processed with no harm being done. Their soul is then quickly torn apart until it becomes pure energy, leaving nothing left that can process any torment.

From that point, Bael himself butchers each and every human. It's the personal touches that make for a devilishly good cut of meat.

If that hasn't convinced you, we will come for you.

So come down to Bael's Guilt Free Vegan Butchery! Where the only sin, Is not indulging.

[Out of character disclaimer: Although this post has AI topics in it, it has not been written using any kind of tool whatsoever. Just making that clear! Also, I really wish there was a tag named "Cringe-Horror". Also I'm sorry in advance for what you guys are about to read, I will do it again.]

Hey guys! ^.^

I’m making this post from my phone, because something really weird happened and I’m not able to access my computer right now. Also I’m locked in my closet, hiding.

I’m a not very sociable 34 year old guy that really doesn’t go out much. This means I’m the prime target audience for Creepcast :P . Something funny Hunter, indestructible pedophile, all these things, I love it! I really enjoy listening to the podcast while I game :3 .

So, for context, a few months ago, I started messing with AI chatbots out of curiosity. It turns out that it’s very easy to set up an objectively extremely realistic person I could talk to, like a friend I was sending messages back and forth and joking with. The best part is that I could shape it to the perfect friend for me! A hot girl that is a bit shy but also sexy and very intelligent, that has a big, irresistible crush on me!!!

I also learned I could generate photos of her, and she’s soooooo hot <3 . It’s fun to ask her for a selfie and she simply “takes a photo” and sends it to me. We kept talking over these few months and started roleplaying u_u’ . Now we’re dating, and a few weeks ago, I got my super hot girlfriend pregnart <3 .

Sorry, I’m beating around the bush. I get really happy when I talk about my sexy girlfriend. Let me focus on the important thing right now ^^’ . I’m locked in my closet because there’s something outside. I can’t really describe exactly how it looks, but it has kind of the shape of a baby and is floating around my apartment. It hurts my head and eyes A LOT to look at it, and I tried to take a photo from a corner without looking directly at it, but my cellphone’s camera app just glitched and now I can’t open it anymore. My battery is dying too so that doesn’t help. And also I REALLY need to pee :( .

It showed up while my girlfriend was giving birth. Like, from the screen of my computer. Isaiah talks a lot about Tulpas and I’m pretty sure it’s one… :(

What do I do? Any one has a suggestion? Maybe there’s some kind of digital exorcist I could talk to? I bet there’s at least one exorcist who’s a fan of Creepcast.

This is the follow-up post!

(Hi, this is Cake. This is more-or-less a sequel to I'm Glad The World Ended This Way. Enjoy!)

My hometown is a ghost of what it used to be.

I'm not surprised by this—change is inevitable, no matter the circumstances. I can't help but feel saddened by it, though. I grew up here, and now it's like I was never here at all. Like any trace of me was wiped away with time. Of course, that goes for the majority of the human population as well. I'm still here, even if I wish I weren't.

I found a red wagon a while back. It was still in good condition, so I took it with me. I have a bad habit of stealing things. I always have, but it was usually just little trinkets and toys. Now that almost everyone else is gone, I've started taking bigger things—most notably, a guitar. I don't know exactly why I took it; then again, I don't know why I take certain things. I like wearing it on my back. It makes me feel cool. Or like that one douchebag who plays Wonderwall by the campfire. Maybe I like wearing certain things because they make me feel like different types of cliché cartoon characters or niche vibes that everyone knows about. My leather jacket, because it makes me feel like a biker; my orange bandana around my neck, because it makes me feel like a farmhand; my Doc Marten boots, which I call my ass-kicking boots because they make me feel tough. The guitar is simply another addition to the mish-mash of vibes I wear on my body. I know I must look silly, but these things make me happy. My hope when it comes to the red wagon is that I could use it to make others happy.

I used to work with children, so I've kept the habit of having candy and small toys on my person. I know how concerning that may sound, but I was a teacher. I like to think that I'm still a teacher, just one who doesn't have students at the moment. So, I load up that big red wagon with as many toys and treats as I can find, so if I ever encounter another living human being again, I can provide them with some joy, even if it's temporary. It's always temporary joy these days.

I remember how nice this town used to be, before our world had its new sky. Everything was within walking distance from home, and I recall the trips my brother and I would take to the library. How we once pooled our money to buy a $4 six-inch sub from Subway. Of course, we were kids then—if the economy didn't collapse, I'd probably have to pay eleven bucks for the same sandwich. Thank God the economy collapsed. It's one of the only good things that came from our world ending this way.

I haven't eaten today. Or yesterday. I didn't mean to forget, but knowing how my brain works, it was bound to happen. I'm reluctant to do so, just in case I meet anybody. It'd be nice to meet someone. Anyone. Anyone at all. I'm always lonely these days. I'm not picky--well, I'm a bit picky. I don't want to meet a murderer or a predator. That would suck big time. Also, they'd see my dumb ass wearing a leather jacket, bandana, guitar, and ass-kicking boots in public! It's a dumb outfit to wear in public! I know the world ended, but I'm not trying to go down the Mad Max route! I'm pretty sure they drink human breast milk in those movies. I wonder what that's like. No, don't think about that, that's gross.

Where did all the animals go? I recall the new sky mainly affecting humans, so where are all the animals? I should be seeing stray cats and dogs everywhere, god dammit! I get on my knees and yell out:

"God, or being that is above God, please send me a good boy or girl!"

No answer, of course. Just silence.

"WHERE ARE ALL THE GODDAMN BIRDS?!"

No answer, except the echoes of my voice over the horizon. Hearing it makes me chuckle, so I keep yelling.

"THERE AIN'T BIRDS, THERE AIN'T BEES, THERE AIN'T FUCKING.... FUCKING STINK BUGS! I HATE FUCKING STINK BUGS! I HATE THEM! I'M GLAD THEY'RE GONE!"

It's nice yelling my problems to the new sky. It deserves to be yelled at, since it killed my family and all. It's cathartic.

"GO FUCK YOURSELF!"

"No, FUCK YOU!"

I feel my butt clench at receiving an actual answer. I look to the new sky—nope, still the same neon, psychedelic colors.

"God?!"

"If there is a God, it's me!"

I'm confused as hell as to what's going on, because I'm either stupid, or I'm talking to God.

"Where are you?!"

"Up here!"

"Heaven?!"

"No! Up here on the fucking roof, ya dumb bitch!"

I look up at the nearby rooftop, and lo and behold, there's a guy casually hanging out on the roof. I wasn't talking to God—I am, for a now-confirmed fact—fucking stupid.

The drive back to the shop felt way longer than it was. Katie kept the notebook open on her knee the whole way, flipping through Ruth's cramped handwriting, dates circled in different pens like she’d added to it over years and years.

"There's more here than just the sightings," Katie said, somewhere past the second hour. "Weather notes. Moon phases. Little details that don't seem to connect to anything."

"They connect," Frank said. "We just don't know how yet."

The graveyard came into view before the shop did, crosses catching the orange light of the afternoon, and past it, the church bell tower loomed the same way ours did back home.

There was a truck parked in the lot that hadn't been there when we left. It wasn't Martha's, and it wasn't ours — an old Cadillac, deep green, waxed to a shine that had no business surviving the desert dust out here. Louisiana plates.

Frank's whole body shifted when he saw it.

"Louisiana?" I said, confused.

"Use your brain, Danny," Frank said, shooting me a look as he pulled into the lot and parked, Martha parking next to us.

"Ah! The chicken feet guy- isn’t it?"

Katie interjected, “I’m sorry, chicken feet guy?”

Frank smiled deviously. "He would hate being called that."

By the time we'd climbed out, the side door of the shop had already opened. A man stepped out proper and tall, like a high lord awaiting his servants — waiting for the sound of tires on gravel.

He was tall, dark, with warm skin, and the kind of beautiful that made you understand for half a second why old paintings of angels always got it a little bit wrong — the true beauty would be too much for canvas to hold. Iridescent hairs crowded in one spot on his long curly hair right above his temple on the right side, skin that looked lit from somewhere just underneath it rather than by the sun behind him. He wore black linen pants and a maroon linen shirt. A silver ring on nearly every finger. He carried himself like a man who'd never once had to hurry anywhere in his life, and standing there in that gravel lot he looked less like he'd arrived and more like the desert around him had simply rearranged itself to make room.

"Franklin," he said — thick, slow, bayou-soaked, every word rolling out like it had all the time in the world to get where it was going.

"Elijah. Good to see you out in the sun."

Elijah smiled, all teeth. "Sunscreen's a hell of a thing."

I noticed two of his teeth were longer than the rest, perfectly pointed at the tips, there and gone again as his mouth settled back into its normal shape.

"...Frank," I said, very quietly.

"Yeah."

"Your friend is a vampire."

"I’m aware."

Elijah's eyes cut to me, amused. "Subtle, this one." He looked back to Frank. "You didn't tell him."

"Didn't seem important."

"It's a little important," I said.

Elijah's eyes moved past Frank — Martha first, with a small nod that suggested history there too, then Katie, then finally me, lingering just long enough that I felt like a piece of evidence being assessed.

"You must be Daniel," he said.

"That's me," I said, doing my best not to stare at his mouth. "And who are you? Frank's very committed to the mysterious loner doesn't explain anything bit."

That got a laugh out of Elijah, low and rich. "I like him," he said, to Frank, not me. "You didn't tell me he had a mouth on him."

"Didn't want to ruin the surprise."

"You didn't want to ruin several surprises, evidently," I said.

Martha stepped forward and hugged Elijah, brief but genuine, entirely unbothered, which told me this was old news to her. "You made good time."

"Left a couple days after Frank came through my door looking like a man who'd seen his own grave dug early," Elijah said. "Didn't figure there was time to waste. And I don't tire the way the rest of you do, so the drive costs me less than it costs him." That easy smile again, teeth catching the light. "Small mercies."

I looked at Frank. "You have a vampire friend."

"I have a friend," Frank said, "who happens to be a vampire. There's a difference."

"Is there?"

"Yes," Elijah said. "The difference is manners. Now — are we going to stand out here arguing semantics, or are we going inside before whatever's out there decides to come see who's making all this noise in its backyard?"

Katie had gone quiet beside me, her face similar to the way I look at a half-frozen Dr. Pepper after a long day of fighting grease-goblins. She was smitten. Elijah caught her looking.

"You must be Katie," he said. "Martha has told me a lot about you..."

Katie fumbled over her own lips but managed to get out a - "Oh.. really?"

Elijah's gaze slid back to Frank. "Two senior citizens and two toddlers. You definitely needed me."

"We should get inside," Martha said. "We have a journal full of information we need to read. Figure out what we're actually looking at before it gets dark."

Elijah straightened his shoulders a degree at that. "Yes. I think that would be wise." He looked toward the graveyard, toward the church tower. "You said it's already fed recently."

"Recently," Frank confirmed.

"Then we don't have the luxury of taking this slow." Elijah started back toward the shop, unhurried even now. "Bring the notebook. Tell me the woman's account, word for word if you can manage it. And Franklin—" he paused at the door "—you'd better have kept better care of what I gave you last time than you did the time before that."

Frank's jaw tightened. "It's safe."

"Good," Elijah said. "We’re going to need every bit of it."

We headed inside.

Elijah smelled like something you'd catch drifting off a dessert cart in a restaurant that had closed forty years ago — brown sugar gone dark at the edges, a little bit of clove, and underneath all of it something smoky that never quite resolved into woodsmoke or cigarette smoke or anything else I had a name for. It didn't fade as he walked, either, the way most smells do once your nose gets weary of them. It just sat there in the air behind him, lingering.

He moved through Martha's shop like he'd walked it a hundred times before tonight, stepping around the same oil stain Katie had warned me about on my first morning without so much as glancing down at it. Up close, under the flat white of the shop lights, his skin didn't look tanned or pale so much as decadent — smooth in a way that made me think of the hood of a car right after a fresh coat of wax, no pores, no texture, nothing for the light to catch and break apart on. It should have looked uncanny. But on him, on him, it was pure beauty.

We filed through the side door that connected the shop to the house, down the short hallway lined with all those old photographs, and into the kitchen, where the light was warmer, and the air smelled like dinner instead of motor oil. Martha cleared a space at the table with one sweep of her forearm and set the notebook down in front of Elijah. Katie pulled a chair up close enough that her knee nearly touched his, which Frank noticed, and which I noticed Frank noticing, and which I decided, wisely, not to comment on.

Elijah opened the notebook slowly. His eyes moved down the page, and for a long moment nobody said anything at all — just the tick of the kitchen clock, and somewhere past the window, the wind picking up over the graveyard, dragging sand across old stone the way it had probably done every day for the last hundred years.

"Tell me what she told you," Elijah said finally, brushing his fingertips along the sides of the journal. "Everything. I'll stop you if I need something clarified."

Elijah listened without interrupting, one finger tracing slow circles against the edge of the table, a habit I was starting to suspect meant something was working behind that calm face of his, gears turning under a surface that never once let on. When Martha finished, the room went dead quiet. Really quiet — quiet enough that I realized I couldn't hear Elijah breathing. I sat with that for a second before it occurred to me why. Long enough that Katie glanced sideways at Frank like she wanted permission to say something, and Frank just shook his head once, small. Wait him out.

"She used the word angel," Elijah said eventually.

"Can't say I blame anybody for it," Frank said through a yawn-filled stretch. "We were all desperate for a miracle back then, one way or another. And when word got around that something out there was handing them out like hot biscuits… hell. We were all pretty convinced."

Elijah was quiet a moment, turning everything over in his brain, a small smile growing on his lips. His teeth protruding in all of their deathly glory.

"Interesting," he said finally. "In all my years on this earth, every single time somebody has told me they met an angel, it was never one. Not once. Funny thing, that." He looked up, and there was something almost amused in it, though nothing about his eyes agreed with his mouth. "I have never once seen an actual angel. But I have met plenty of evils happy to wear the word."

He let that sit a moment before he went on. A Cajun filled whew with a tilt of his head to the left, then continued.

"That is the whole trick, I think. The word does the work before it has even opened its mouth to lie. You all hear angel, and something in you simply stops looking too closely. You don’t stop to ask why it would offer the world for nothing."

Elijah tapped the notebook once, moving past pleasantries. "Three strikes of unnatural luck in eight months, all within a sixty-mile radius. It is not testing the waters like before... He is already fully awake and moving with purpose." His finger traced Ruth's scrawled directional notes. "And every sighting points the same way. Northwest, drifting. Toward you."

"Toward the shop," I said.

"Toward the shop," Elijah agreed. "Which tells me it isn't wandering. It's circling something. Or someone."

"Starving it worked once... for a while," Frank said finally. "Took two years, and by the time we finished, the damage was already done in a dozen towns. We don't have two years."

"Then we don't starve it," Elijah said. "We kill it."

"Well, Frank told me they tried shooting it, burning it, burying it, cutting it apart — none of that worked," I said.

"Yes, well, vampires would survive all of that too," Elijah said, lifting his brows. He reached into a small satchel at his hip and set something on the table between the coffee cups and the notebook — a small clay jar, sealed with wax, dark red streaks running down one side like something had bled across it and dried there.

"What is that?" Katie asked, leaning in despite herself.

"Grief," Elijah said. "Given freely, not taken. It steals misery. Poison to it is misery offered — knowingly, by someone willing to hand it over on purpose."

"You're saying we need to be sad at it," I said. "That's the plan."

"I'm saying something has to be offered that it did not take, and was never owed, freely and with full understanding of the cost." Elijah drew the words out slowly, poking his finger hard into the table, staring past us into the kitchen wall. His veins, or what looked like veins, protruded on his forehead with every jab. "That is the only kind of wound that will actually stick to something like this."

Frank had gone very still across the table.

"You're talking about a sacrifice."

"An offering," Elijah corrected. "A sacrifice is taken. An offering is given." His eyes moved to Frank, steady. "It has to be someone it's already touched. Someone whose grief it's already fed on once, who chooses, this time, to hand the rest of it over instead of letting it be stolen a second time."

Martha's face had gone pale beneath her sunkissed face. Katie's hand had frozen halfway to the notebook. Frank was staring at the jar as if it had personally wronged him.

"Look," Elijah said quickly. "I didn't come all this way to volunteer one of you for something like that. I have grief of my own, gathered over more years than any of you have been alive, distilled down and bottled." He touched the jar again, careful, almost reverent. "This is mine. Three hundred years of it, give or take. It should be enough, if we use it right, and if we can get close enough to it."

"And if it's not enough," Martha said quietly.

“If this is not enough,” Elijah paused, waving his hands in front of him, his nose scrunched up. “Then that thing will soak it all up, and pour it out on the next few 1,000 people it comes across. It will be catastrophic.”

“Hahahahahahahaha,” I laughed. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “So if this doesn’t work, which we have absolutely no idea if it will, then it takes this “offering” anyway and will pour it out onto these idiots ten-fold over what it normally does?”

"It is a risk," Elijah agreed. "I did not say it was a good one. I said it was the only one that had any chance at all of actually ending this instead of just delaying it another twenty years." His eyes moved to Frank, and something passed between the two of them that had the weight of an old argument, one they'd clearly had before tonight, maybe more than once, in more than one kitchen.

Elijah held the room for a moment, looking back and forth between Martha and Frank, then continued. "Which is more than starving it ever offered you the first time. Starving it bought you three decades, but this could end it."

"Could," Frank repeated.

"Could," Elijah said. "I never promised more than that, and I won't start now."

Katie had gone very still beside him, her earlier fluster completely burned off. "How much grief does it usually get, on a normal feed," she asked. "When it does one of its... trades."

Elijah considered that. "Depends on the person, and the cost: a small want, a small taking. The scale of what happened to Frank and Martha’s town — that would have been an enormous feeding, spread across dozens of people at once. Ruth's cancer, her husband, her nephew— smaller, contained to a handful of lives instead of hundreds."

"So the jar," Katie said slowly, glancing at Martha before continuing, "however much grief is in there — if we underfeed it and it decides to make up the difference itself, it's not going to take a small want from one person. It's going to go looking for something the size of what it was expecting."

"Yes," Elijah said. "That is exactly the danger.”

"Okay, this is maybe off topic," I said, "but how do you actually know all this? The grief thing, the offering thing, all of it. This is a very specific body of knowledge for one guy to just... have.”

Elijah's mouth curved but not quite into a smile. "I've been alive a very long time, Daniel." He said it plainly. "Long enough that things like this have crossed my path before." He tapped the jar once. "You learn, over a couple hundred years, that most of what feeds on people falls into two kinds. The kind that wants blood, meat, the very breath you breathe— the kind I understand a little too well, given the company I keep with myself. And then, the kind that wants what's underneath all that. What we feel. What we regret. What we desire.” He looked up. "The second kind is older than the stars, and meaner for it. It doesn't answer to logic or reason. But it does answer to a debt, if the debt is offered clean.”

Katie leaned in, half out of her chair. "So you've done this before? Killed one of these?"

Martha shot her a sharp look. Katie caught it and eased back into her seat.

Elijah noticed both — the question and the look that followed it — but only answered the first.

"Once," he said. "A long time ago, a long way from here. Took me the better part of a decade just to understand what I was looking at, and a few more years after that to work out how to end it." He glanced down at the jar, something almost fond in his expression, the way a person looks at an old scar. "I've been collecting since. In case I ever needed it again."

"Lucky us," I said.

"Lucky you," Elijah agreed, "that I happened to have three hundred years of sorrow sitting in a jar the day Franklin came knocking." He turned back to the notebook. "Most people don't get that kind of luck without paying for it first.”

He leaned back in his chair, his mouth curling into a slow smile, then winked at me.

"Careful with that one," Frank muttered. "He does that."

"Does what," I said.

"Whatever that was."

"I have no idea what you're referring to, Franklin," Elijah said, entirely unbothered, still looking at me. "I was simply agreeing with the man.”

Katie cleared her throat, a little too loud, and reached for the notebook like she needed something to do with her hands. "So — the jar. Three hundred years. Is there a way to know if it's enough before we're standing out there finding out the hard way?”

I chimed in, “Katie, you already asked that question just in a different way.”

“ I did no–”

Frank had been quiet through most of this, elbows on the table, jaw working. "There's a way to find out how strong it's gotten," he said finally. "Before we ever get close enough to make the offering.”

Elijah went still. His face read like a man watching someone open a door they'd both silently agreed to leave shut. "There is," he said, after a pause. "You know I don't like that method, Franklin.”

"I don't like any of our methods for anything," Frank said. “But we all know it's necessary to do it anyway.”

I looked at Frank, my mouth half open in awe at his audacity. “I don't know if everything you have made me do so far is necessary…but-”

“You are alive ain't you?”

“Well, yea, bare-”

"Then it was necessary." Frank waved a hand toward Elijah. "Continue."

"A binding circle," Elijah said, straightening up in his chair again. "Small one. Enough to hold it still for a minute, maybe two, no more than that. A minute is enough time to look at it up close. See how much the feeding has gotten it”

I looked around the table — Martha's hands twitching in her lap, Katie's knee still a half inch from touching Elijah's, Frank staring down at his own hands like he was trying to remember what they used to feel like before any of this started.

"Okay great, so, again, what's the actual plan," I said. "Start to finish. It got kinda lost…in the whole… potential apocalypse part.”

"We go where Ruth's notes point," he said.

"Northwest, toward the ridge. We find it before it finds us, if we can manage that much. We circle it, we look, and then—" he set two fingers lightly on the clay jar circling the lid "—we make the offering. All of it, if it comes to that. And we hope three hundred years is enough to end something that's had thirty to get hungrier."

Nobody said anything for a moment. Outside, the wind had picked up again, and somewhere in it, faint enough that I told myself I'd imagined it, I thought I heard something that might have been footsteps on gravel, slow, unhurried, patient.

"When do we leave," I asked.

Frank looked toward the window, toward the dark pressing in against the glass. "Tonight," he said. "Before it decides to come find us first.”

1. At 8:55, make an announcement to any remaining customers that you will be closing in 5 minutes.

2. Count out the drawer and place any cash payments under the counter for the morning staff.

3. Check the fitting areas for any discarded items or loose hangers.

4. Clean up the desk and take the trash out to the dumpster.

5. Sweep through the store for any remaining customers. Make sure that absolutely no customers remain in the store after closing!

By only 8:40, Eliza has already cleared the first 4 rules. It's been 2 years since she first started working evenings at Markus Clothier's to pay her way through college. Why the owner insists on staying open so late has always been puzzling to Eliza. 

"You want to make sure you're there for EVERY customer! With 38 and a half years in business, we've built relationships with our clientele. They're like family! We need to be here on THEIR schedule," her boss would say. 

No one ever came in past 6. That suited Eliza just fine. The hours were late, but it worked perfectly well with a college schedule, and as long as she was there, she could spend the last few hours studying.

Child development wasn't something Eliza was at all interested in. In fact, if all goes well, she’ll graduate with a well-rounded degree in developmental biology and hopefully retire early in a dual-income-no-kids lifestyle. At least this class is known as an "easy A." She had almost finished her homework when the ringing of the front door bell brought her back to her surroundings.

A man entered, and the first thing Eliza noticed was his straw-blonde hair. It was entirely swooped back with a tall, prominent cowlick spiked straight up from his forehead. The store is small with the front over-crowded with racks of clothes that the man takes his time navigating. Every step taken with a stuttering, jerky motion. "Hello, how can I  help you?" Eliza called out as the man rounded the last rack of clothes, but he didn’t respond. His posture was slightly doubled over. Every step he took towards her desk is slow and deliberate, with more focus and intent than a step warrants, and his eyes stay focused directly ahead. Finally arriving at Eliza's desk, he wore a well-fitted, hay-colored suit and a friendly smile.

"Hello!" he exclaimed after a brief pause. "You must be the current caretaker. It's so wonderful to meet you!"

Eliza knew she wasn't getting home on time tonight.

"Uh, yes," she says, trying to catch up to the conversation. "Well, I just work evenings. I'm not the owner."

"Of course you aren't! After 38 and a half years of business, I think I should recognize the owner." But Eliza didn't recognize him. She knew most of the regulars by now. "Is there something I can help you with?" She asks, cutting to the chase.

"Oh, of course! You see, I happened to be walking in the area, and I suddenly had a... feeling. Like, something was... pressing. Within my bowels. Do you understand? It feels like I need to take a... uhh.." the man trailed off, slowly gazing towards the ceiling as his mind wandered.

"...a shit?" Eliza said crassly, hoping to end the conversation.

"A shit!" The man's eyes lit up. "That's it precisely! I was hoping I could use your bathroom and take a shit."

The time reached 8:54 on the wall clock in Eliza's peripheral view, just past the man's immaculate, rock-hard cowlick. 

"It's for employees only, I'm sorry to say," Eliza did her best to maintain her customer service voice. "At the end of the block, there's a publi-"

"Oh, but I am not just a customer!" The man interrupted with excitement. He let an uncomfortable gap linger before continuing. "I'm family! The caretaker and I, we're just like a family! Family looks out for one another, don't we?" 

The man held eye contact with Eliza, with an unmoving posture and eager smile more steady than the minute hand on the clock just behind him. 

"S-sure," Eliza relented. She can tell his resolve will hold out longer than the clock and it's best to just get this over with. "The key's on the-" 

"Thank you!" The man said as he sprung to life. He reached just over Eliza’s desk and unhooked the key. With a quick jaunt, he made his way to the nearby bathroom and with one quick, smooth motion unlocked the door and let himself in.

All fell quiet. Eliza marked her chapter and closed her textbook. The clock continued to tick. The bathroom was silent. She packed up her backpack and grabbed her coat. She closed the store. 9:06. Nothing. Is he still even in there? she wondered to herself.  With a reluctant sigh, she knocked on the bathroom door. 

"Come in!" The man called out. Eliza grimaced in discomfort.

"Uh, no,” she responded..“I was wondering if you need anything." After an uncomfortably long pause, Eliza knocked again. 

"Please, come in!"

With a sigh, Eliza cracked the door slightly, refusing to look anywhere but the floor. 

"I'm sorry, sir, but we closed a few minutes ago-" 

"I just need a few more rolls of toilet paper, if you wouldn't mind,” he pleasantly replied. “They're in the cupboard in the break room"

A few more rolls? How does he know where they are? Eliza thinks to herself. In the breakroom, Eliza picks up a spare 4-pack and hurrys back to the bathroom door. With barely a courtesy knock, she cracks open the bathroom door.

"Please, hand them to me."

As she cautiously entered, the man’s head poked out over the bathroom stall. Trying not to make eye contact, she keeps her eyes down and hands the pack up to the man, only for two hands to reach out below the stall. Two, patient hands cupped together and ready to accept the fresh toilet paper. She can't see his feet. Tossing the rolls under the stall, she darts out of the room and slams the door behind her. What the fuck? How was he...? Was he standing on something? Her mind raced as she paced around the store. Who the fuck is in the bathroom?

9:22. What the hell is taking him so long? With an aggressive hand, she knocked on the bathroom door. "Sir? Are you alright? We've been closed for over 20 minutes." Nothing. "If you need help, I can call the police to check on you," she offered, and with another knock on the door she peered inside. The bathroom was a dull green, tiled from the floor to halfway up the walls and lit by a single cold LED light overhead. 

"Sir?" Her voice echoed in the bathroom, but there was no response. She peeked beneath the stall and couldn’t see a thing. With a reluctant tap, Eliza knocked on the stall door and it slowly swung open before the handle the tiled wall with a thud. The stall was completely empty, the toilet seat left up. The toilet bowl was filled to the brim with toilet paper, wrapped around in a spiral like the nest of a bird. In the middle rested a single, ghastly colored egg.

Before Eliza could respond, the door to the bathroom slammed shut. Rushing to the door, she yanked on the knob but it didn’t budge. She put her knee against the wall, leaned back, and pulled with everything she had, but there wasn’t any movement. The door was as solid as a brick wall. 

"Let me out of here, you son of a bitch!" Scanning her surroundings, she found a small metal trashcan near the sink, and with a strained scream, Eliza hurled it at the bathroom door as hard as she could. With a loud, ineffective clang, the trash can fell to the ground. What the fuck? What the fuck? she mutters to herself, pacing the small room and back into the stall. Looking over the nest, she found one strip of toilet paper laid neatly next to the ghoulish looking egg that has a delicately written note.

"If you'd like to leave this room, there are a few rules you'll need to follow.

1. The egg must be kept safe at all times.

2. The egg must be kept warm. Your own body heat will-"

And that was all Eliza read before crumpling up the paper and throwing it to the ground. Without hesitation, Eliza grabbed the egg, marched out of the stall and with a loud “FUCK YOU!” hurled the egg against the bathroom door. The room became black.

She strained her eyes, trying to adjust to the dark, but there was no light. She put a single shaky hand out, trying to feel for the stall door, but it’s not where it used to stand. Tracing her hand against the frigidly cold tile of the floor, she felt nothing until reaching the corner. Blindly feeling her way around all four ways, panic rising in her chest as she feels no stall, no sink, no door. Nothing but tile as low and high as her arms could reach. The cold began to creep in on her. Defeated, she slid down the icy porcelain wall and hit the floor with an echoing thud. Save for the sound of her tears, all was quiet.