130 million people take road trips every year, 15,400 of them are never seen ...
passenger that's been circulating online lately? A young couple set out on a van-life trip,
“but a few nights in, they came across a brutal car accident on the side of the road. I'm not talking”
about a typical crash, something about this was off, and there's one detail that keeps coming up. The car they found had three deep scratches carved into the side, not dense, scratches. They stopped, they saw it, and then they left. But here's where things got strange. Not long after creepy things start happening. They began to feel like they weren't alone in the van, like something followed them from that road. People online have started connecting it to something they're calling the passenger.
Supposedly, it attaches itself to anyone who encounters it and marks their car with three scratches.
And once that happens, it doesn't let go. If these reports are true,
“this couple didn't just witness something on that highway, they carried it with them.”
From Andre Ovidal, director of autopsy of Jane Doe, comes passenger. Only in theaters may 22nd, get tickets now. No. Chilling and disturbing creepy pastas and urban legends in the world, whether these stories truly happened, or perhaps simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language, listener discretion is advised.
What you know what? Close enough. Just happy to get back to things and settle in where I belong. Now, I did have a little chat with the station manager about some things, and unfortunately it seems
“like the station has been experiencing some issues with their feed. Sorry about that,”
downside of our business arrangement, I guess. I always told that while there could continue
to be some interruptions in the future, that the nature of the interruptions shouldn't be an issue. Though he did mention that it would probably still be a good idea to at least take the messages into consideration, whenever that means "absure" it's nothing to be concerned about. Well, maybe someone should be, but who am I to say? Let's get to this week's stories so I can get back to increasing myself around here. First off, from writer A Hawking area by Jimmy Furrier,
creepy presence, the last lag. Grandma used to say nothing good starts in a peach colored sky. She'd say it from her porch rocker. The one that grown, like it had opinions, while snapping green beans into a bowl older than my mother. I'd sit on the steps doing my homework, and she'd peer over my shoulder at the horizon.
Like she was reading something written there in a language I hadn't learned yet. She would point at the horizon with a bean and say that it was God's warning blush. That it means something starting, and it won't end clean. She's been right so far. The sky's doing it now. That bruised peach spread. Like someone took a fist to heaven's soft parts.
I'm standing in the town square with 47 people watching me in that particular small town way. Where nobody's actually looking at you, but you can feel every eyeball like a thumb pressed to your spine. They hand me the torch at dusk. Mayor Wickham does the honors. His hands liver spotted in the steady as a jewelers. The torch itself is older than the town or so they say. The woods gone black with age and grip oil and probably blood. The nobody mentions that part in the ceremony.
The flame sits on top need as a train dog or engine gold behaving itself in a way that makes my stomach tight. It feels too light to obedient. Like it knows where it's going and it's just humoring me. Wickham says his voice pitched for the back row of a church that ain't there. That the relay has been a tradition in this town since found in 1823. Every seven years,
A bear is selected.
We are renewed. He doesn't say what happens if the flame doesn't make it.
“Don't need to. I've seen the memorial plaques.”
Nero little brass rectangles on the town hall wall. Names and dates and something else. Most of them warn as smooth as worry stones. Emma Cartwright, 1837. Thomas Reed, 1851. Sarah Oaks, 1886.
And my favorite. The one that made me laugh the first time I saw it.
Back when I still laughed at things. Bearer Unknown, 1907. They lost a whole person. Just in his place, them like car keys. We can place as a torch in my hand. His fingers linger a moment. Not a fiction. More like he's checking to make sure I've really got a hold of it. Then I won't drop it. The second he lets go.
Tells me of the path as marked in the destination is clear to trust the flame and the flame will trust you.
“Which sounds wise until you think about it for more than three seconds?”
Then it sounds like the kind of thing people say right before they shut the door and leave you outside with the walls.
The crowd doesn't share. They don't plot either. They just watch. But light and still. The way people stand at funerals. Stift shoulders, press lips, hands folded. There'll be a pot look after. I know. Casseroles and sheet cakes and someone's famous seven layer bars that are really only six. But nobody's got the heart to correct Mrs. Chan after 40 years. Comfort food for the condemned. I had just my group with the torch.
The wood's warm, warmer than it should be. Look, it's been sitting in sunlight even though
we're standing in shadow. Welcome ass to me if I have any questions.
In all honesty, I have about 600. Starting with Y-Me, and ending with what the fuck is actually happening. But I've learned in the three months I've been stuck in this town. That questions don't get answered. They get deflected with another story and others saying. Another bit of local wisdom that sounds profound, but means nothing. No sir, I say. He knots satisfied. Steps back in the crowd parts. The path begins.
I came to Millbrook because my car broke down. That's it. That's the whole story. No dark family secrets, no inheritance from a mysterious uncle. No vacation gone wrong. My transmission gave out on Route 47 about two miles outside of town limits. And I limited in the garage on Hope and Neutral. The mechanic. Man named Dale. Who had exactly 14th in Infinite Patience said it should take two weeks.
Maybe three. Because he's got to order the part special. I should have called the tow truck. Should have hitched to the next town. Should have done a lot of things. But Millbrook had a diner with good pie in a moto with clean sheets. In a library with paperbacks, that still had that old book smell. And I was tired. So hot tired. I've been driving for two months, actually.
Picking up ships where I could, sleeping in the back seat, running from nothing in particular. And everything in general. The kind of tired that makes bad decisions feel like rest. So I stayed. Got a job washing dishes at the diner. Rented a room at the Pine View Motor Lodge, which had neither pines nor view.
“But did I have hot water in a land lady who didn't ask a whole lot of questions?”
The town collected me quick. That's what small places do. They gather you up whenever you want,
Collecting or not.
Within a week, people knew my coffee order. Within two. They knew I didn't like talking about
“where I came from. Within three. They stopped asking. I should have known that was a bad sign.”
People who stopped asking questions aren't being polite. They're being patient.
Then came the knocking. The first mile is easy enough.
Dustin crickets in the smell of cut grass going to sea. I walk through a old town where the house is lean into each other like drunk sharing secrets. Ports lights flicker on as I pass. Not motion sensors. Just people lighting the manual one by one. Making my progress. I see faces and windows. Misses apple white on birch street. Her face pale as candle wax.
“The huge twins on the corner. Both says of eyes tracking me in perfect unison.”
Old man Garrett standing in his doorway. Mason jar in hand. Watching me in the way you'd watch a horse you'd bet money on. None of them wave. The air smells like rust and wet leaves. Decades of the same family is living in the same houses. Cooking the same recipes. Repeating the same stories until truth wears down to a smooth, comfortable shape. I passed the pharmacy where I bought aspirin last week. Hardware store where Dale sent me
for a fan belt that never came in. Post office where the clerk always asked if I was expecting mail.
Like it was a test I kept failing. Every place knows me. Every place has made room for me in its records. My brain thinks already getting heavier. A torch weighs more than it should. Or maybe I'm just weaker than I thought. Three months of diner food and bad sleep catching up to me. Street curves. The house is spread apart. Trees press in. That's when I hear them. Footsteps. Soft as a church ladies whisper. Careful as a cat on a fence.
Matching my beat for beat. I don't look back. Around here folks have a saying if something follows you after dark. Let it. Which sounds wise until it's your neck tingly and your shadow walking double and your breath going shallow in your chest. I keep walking and the footsteps keep following. The knocking started on my second week in town.
Seven taps. Always seven. Always the same rhythm. Quick as a heartbeat counting down.
Pause. Seven more taps. Pause. At first I thought it was a radiator. Then the pipes. Then maybe kids playing pranks. The millbrook wasn't the kind of place that had kids who pranked. Had the kind of kids who said yes ma'am and mode lawns for five dollars and went to bed at 830. The knocking came at night. Always after midnight. Always when I was right on the edge of sleep.
“A soft place. Were you not sure if you're hearing things or dreaming them up?”
I set up and listen. Nothing. And lie back down. I mentioned it to Dale one morning. He was under the hood of a bug. Hands black with grease. Not looking at me. He said that old building settle. For two hours straight. He answered that by saying old building settle slow. I let it go. But that night I stayed awake sitting in the dark with my back to the wall. Watching the door. The knocking came at 1247. Right on the door. No mistaking it.
I stood across the room. Put my hand on the knob. Pressed my eye to the people.
Nothing.
dedication of the deeply stupid. Right on the fucking door. Riding in front of my face.
“But there was nothing there. Nightgank did open. The walkway was empty. The night was still.”
The motel stretched out quiet on both sides. And on my door at eye level was a mark. Pale chalky. Like someone dragged a finger tip through dust. Seven lines. Four verticals in a slash. Then two more. Like Tally marks.
Like something was counting down. The air changed after the first mile. Go sweet.
Rot, sweet. Like someone left a pie out too long and the fruit inside went soft and wrong. The footsteps behind me are closer now. Close enough I can hear the slight drag of a heel. The way the pace adjusts when I adjust mine. Whatever's following me isn't trying to hide
“anymore. It's just staying back there. Patient. Waiting for her. For what?”
For me to run. To turn around. To drop this thing. My left calf cramps suddenly. A hot twist of muscle that nearly sends me to my knees. I bite down on a gas and keep walking. Limping now. Dragging that leg like it belongs to someone else. The torch wobbles in my grip. The flame flickers just once. And I grip it tighter despite the cramps screaming up my leg. The wood's hot now. Actually hot. Like I'm holding a brand fresh from the fire.
But I don't dare. Let go. Trust the flame what comes in.
“I'm starting to think it was less advice and more prayer. The street lights are gone now.”
Just move through branches. Just shadow on shadow. Just the path whining ahead into the trees that all look the same. The road's gone from payment to gravel to dirt. To something that might be a path. Or might just be where nothing grows. Sweat runs down my back despite the cold. My breath comes in ragged poles as sound too loud in the quiet. Cold touches my spine. Not wind to deliver it for wind. A tap. Light as a spider landing.
Then a stroke. Like fingers checking the grain of wood before carving. I walk faster. The thing behind me matches pace. The trees close in. Trunks thick as cars. Roots humped up through the path. Like the earth's spine showing. The flame throws wild shadows. Makes everything look like it's moving. Leaning in. Breathing. My long spine. Each breath is working now.
Real work. The kind that makes spots dance at the edges of my vision. I had the ground slopes up. The hill. The one that teens dare each other to climb at night.
And always come down from pale and quiet. If they come down at all. They don't talk about what
they saw up there. They just stop laughing as much. Stop staying out late. Start going to church. At the top sits the altar. I can't see it yet. But I know it's there. Everyone does. A stone bull. Wide and shallow. Blackened with centuries of something nobody talks about. The town calls it the renewal site in the official documents. Call it other things in private.
The dead.
That deep muscle fatigue that says you've gone too far and your body's done pretending.
“The hill's steeper than I looked from below. And the paths barely there anymore.”
Just a suggestion in the dirt. I have to lean forward. Use momentum. Keep my weight over my feet or I'll top of backward into. Into whatever is following me. My breath comes in gasps now. Harsh and wet sounding. The torch wavers. My grip slipping with sweat. Despite the cold
eating through my jacket. The flame burns brighter. Hotter, eager. Like a dog that finally spotted
its real owner. Behind me the footsteps stop. A silence that follows is worse. I keep climbing.
“They came for me on a Tuesday. Now with pitchfork surre torches. This isn't that kind of story.”
They came with casserole dishes and kind smiles and patience that felt like walls closing in. Miss Apple White knocked first. Holding an eye in by 13 of something involving cream and mushroom soup and fried onions on top. She said she'd heard I've been having trouble sleeping. Water bring me a little something because comfort food helps. I hadn't told anyone that. She handed me the dish she was warm. I took it because refusing felt dangerous in a way I could
name. Thank you. I said. She smiled and touched my arm. Her hand was cold.
“She said that I would do just fine the town had faith in me. Before I could ask with that meant she was”
walking away. Her orthopedic shoes squeaking on the concrete. That casserole sat on my counter for three days. I didn't need it. Something about it felt wrong. Not poisoned. Worst. Like eating it would be a green to something. Men came the huge ones with cookies.
Men all man Garrett with a six pack of beer. Then Dale finally looking me in the eye with
nothing in his hands at all. He told me that the park came in. For my car I asked to what you were blind. Yeah. So I can leave. He was quiet for a long moment. Then he said I could. Could. Not can. Or I said. Here applied that I could stay. Be a part of things. Help the town the way the town's helped you. I watched dishes for minimum wage. That's not the town helping me. That's me earning. He then said the relay is coming up.
And just like that, everything clicked into place. The knocking, the mark of my door, the casseroles, the cookies and kindness. They'd been counting measuring, choosing. I'm not from here, I said. His response was to let me know that that's exactly why. The top of the hill opens up into a clearing that feels older than the trees. The grounds bear rock. Smooth like water wore it down over centuries.
The altar sits in the center. The stone bowl wide as a kitchen sink. Blackened on the inside with char and older stains. I'm gasping now. Double dover. One hand on my knee while the other keeps the torch up right through sheer stubbornness. My legs are shaking. Trumbling so hard. I can hear my jeans rustle. And beside the altar stands it. I don't have words for what it is.
Human shaped the way a scarecrow is. If the scarecrow was built by something that had
Never actually seen a person, just hurt them described over a bad phone line.
Two tall joints bent wrong. Lims that look carved from driftwood and dark intention.
“It doesn't move. It doesn't need to. It's presence is enough.”
I straighten up. Trying to catch my breath. Trying to look like I'm not about to collapse. My heart hammers against my ribs hard enough to hurt. The flame in my hand roar suddenly. A sound like hunger. Like a recognition. The thing turns its head towards me. The sound is wet. A click like a jar lid breaking its seal. Brilliant. The voice doesn't come from its mouth. If it has mouth,
the voice comes from everywhere inside my skull from the ground beneath my feet.
“Locals like to say a voice can curdle milk. This one could curdle bone.”
I should run. Every animal part of my brain is screaming at me to drop the torch and run.
Get back down the hill. Get back to my car. Get out of this town and never look back.
But my feet kept moving forward. One step that another. My right leg nearly gives out and I catch myself. Stumbly. The torch dipping low before I haul it back up. Because I know. The way you know things in nightmares, the way you know things when you're drowning. That running won't help. Whatever deal this town made.
“Whatever debt keeps it alive. I'm part of it now. I was part of it. The second my”
transmission died on Route 47. The second I decided to stay. The second I was too tired to keep running. Behind me. Something size. A thing that followed me up the hill. I still don't look back. I don't dare. The creature at the altar opens its arms. The torch heats up in my hand. A little too eager. A little too alive.
Mom always said that if you're walking toward trouble. Walk like you're meant to.
So I do. Across the clearing each step. An act of will over collapsing muscle. Pass the point of return. Right up to the altar's edge. My vision swims. I'm not sure if it's exhaustion or fear or something in the air up here. Something that makes reality feel thin and feeble. The flames burning white hot now. Searing my palm.
But I won't let go. The debt. The thing says. Not a question. The debt. I reply. Because what else is there to say? I lift the torch. The fire leaps from the wood like it's been starved for centuries.
Like it's finally going home. It pours into the stone bowl.
Filling it with light that's wrong to look at. Light that makes colors I don't have names for. Behind me. Something screams. A sound sharpened up to slice the night itself. High and terrible. An ending in a girl that might have been words once. The thing that followed me. Thing that's been following this town for 200 years. Waiting. Feeding on the ones that don't make it.
The ones who drop the torch are run or refuse. The light flares. The scream cuts off.
Silence again falls like a curtain.
The path down the hill is empty. No footsteps. No shadows moving around.
“Just darkness and trees in the distant lights of the town below. A claim made.”
A debt paid. A name removed from the ledger.
Probably mine. Wouldn't be the first time this town forgot someone politely.
The officials step out from the tree line like they've been there all along. Maybe they have. Mayor Wickham. Miss Apple White Dale. The Hugh Twins. Others. All wearing the same calm expression. The same Sunday as your face. As if we just finished a bake sale. Wickham says that the relay is concluding and thanks me for my service.
“My hand throbs where the torch burned it. I looked down. But my skin's unmarked.”
It's not even red. What now? I ask. Miss Apple White smiles and says that now I go home.
Get the rest that I've earned. And in seven years. Sure applies that in seven years. They'll find someone else. Someone new. Someone passing through. Someone lost. I say. Dale says yes. Someone lost. But not unkindly. They start walking down the hill. I follow because there's nowhere else to go. At the bottom, towns let up warm. I could smell the potluck from here.
“Casseroles and cakes and Miss Chan's famous sixth layer bars. By glance back once.”
Fresh footprints line the path. Two sets going up. Only one coming down. And there. At the tree line. Barely visible in the dark. A figure. Watching. Waiting for the next runner. The next bearer. The next person who's just tired enough. And just lost enough to stay. Behind it. Others. Shapes. Shadows. The ones who didn't make it. Emma Cartwright. 1837. Thomas Reed. 1851. Sarah Oaks. 1886.
Barron unknown. 1907. And now I suppose whoever I was before. I became what I am now. They all write my name on a plaque or they won't. Either way, I'll be here in seven years. Standing in the square. Watching the next person take the torch. Watching. Waiting. Making sure the deck gets paid. Some things don't need following home. The old timer say.
They know where you live. They know. Because they never laughed.
130 million people take road trips every year. 15,400 of them are never seen again. Have you heard
the story of the passenger that's been circulating online lately? A young couple set out on a van-life trip. But a few nights in. They came across a brutal car accident on the side of the road. I'm not talking about a typical crash. Something about this was off. And there's one detail that keeps coming up. The car they found had three deep scratches carved into the side. Not dense. Scratches. They stopped. They saw it. And then they left. But here's where things got strange.
Not long after creepy things start happening. They began to feel like they weren't alone in the van. Like something followed them from that road. People online have started connecting it to something they're calling the passenger. Supposedly, it attaches itself to anyone who encounters it and marks their car with three scratches. And once that happens, it doesn't let go. If these reports are true, this couple didn't just witness something on that highway.
They carried it with them.
comes passenger. Only in theaters may 22nd. Get tickets now. And next, from writer J.T. Johnson and Nareta by Nicole Goodnight, creepy presence. The bad thing. I chained a candy with Shelley. It's your turn not mine. Don't like it. Talk to Shelley about it. I glared her in her pretty pink shirt and dirt-free fingers. Her mouth crawled into the smuggest little smile as she hands me the disgusting bucket. The contents inside slosh and slurp
around the unwashed tin. They smell old and rancid and like pennies as I look at it. Then back to Shelley.
It isn't fair. I never have candy or anything good to trade with Shelley like the others.
I almost always have this chore. Doris stays a little longer. The way she looks at me reminds me of how I regard the pigs. I hate the little beasts. The way they smell and sound. How their fat little bodies roll and stomp around in the yard. Lucy says they're useful because they feed us. She likes to paint things up into pretty little circles as if everything has a purpose.
“You can't hate the pigs' dottie. You have to understand that they are how we survive.”
Without them, we'd be starving bones like the gentries down the road. And look where they are now. Dead and in the ground. Lucy had been the only one of us who'd found herself in education. She had been the one who taught us how to read or tried to anyhow. She said I struggled more than
the others had. Don't you worry, Dottie. Not everyone needs to know how to read. You have other
reasons to be here and those make you just as worthy as the rest of us. Don't you fret none. I had tried to find reassurance in her words, but couldn't. There was a sourness left inside me. A deep-rooted worry that my lack of knowing how to read made me fall short to the rest. You can cry all you want. Doris ran a shiny nail across her other fingers. But a trade is a trade and unless you've got something. How do I do it? I said pushing myself up to stand.
My legs aching from the chores I'd done earlier. A blister still oozing on my palm from when
“I'd mucked the pig pen. I just want you to leave me be. That's all I ever wanted,”
to be left alone, to not be given all the damned chores the others didn't want. Mary gives
Shelley what she calls spicy grape juice, which she made somewhere up back where I never dared
to go things to the rooster. Lucy went out into the world to earn her keep. She was the one who brought home the bacon, which I thought was stupid seeing as I was the one who had to cut the meat off the fat beasts. Doris didn't do much of anything really other than run her mouth, of course. Eddie, whom I considered my only friend at this point, said she was pretty, and that would help us in time. Not just yet, she ain't quite ripe enough,
whatever that means. I found it odd that the only one who seemed to earn their keep here was me, while everyone else sort of just lived here. Eddie said it was on a count I'd been given the shoulders of a working man, and that ain't no one else here do it, Daddy. I wait until Doris leaves,
“watching her clean pants switch around her feet as she steps carefully around the soupy muck of”
very yard. I trudged to the old seller, the door soft and rotten from rain, already my throat clenches as I hoist one of the doors open. There's a foul stench that rushes up at me. There is hot and cares with the smell of human stink. Let me out. The voice is wet and slick like not. If curdled was a sound, it would be the sound of that voice. Let me out. My feet are heavy as I stomped on the stairs. The slaps sloshing nearly over the rim until I slow my steps,
reminding myself how long it takes to get the stink out of my clothing. I paused at the last step, wondering if Doris had intentionally waited until the sun was below the tree tops, taking with it the warm glow of the day. The seller is dark, and stinky, and void of light all together. Even on the brightest of days, there's no light down here. But, prefer to do this tour when I can raise up the stairs out of the stinking dark. The sun
sometimes washes away that chore better than any shower ever could. I stand still, listening to the sickly swallows and gulps that hiccup out from the darkness. The floor is soft as I leave the stairs, being careful not to lose my balance against the uneven stretch of wet dirt. There's something like laughter bubbling in the furthest corner of the seller. Here's your supper. I say, flinching at the way my hands nearly drop the bucket under the ground. I hurled the slopp in the
general direction of the awful noises, a stray splash of it hits my cheek and I want to cry out, but I don't. Instead, I shake the bucket the best I can with my sore arms and hope to jesus himself, enough of the slopp has hit the floor. I'm halfway up the stairs when I pause. I can see the sky from here. Fat clouds had started building up into a promising storm for later. I turn, listening to it eat. To the bone sharp drag of old fingers clawing up the dirt where the slopp
is landed. I listen for two heartbeats before stomping my way back to the outside. Slamming the door shut before throwing the old board down onto the lock. I don't look back as I drop the slopp bucket
Run back to the house.
help myself to the slabs of ham shelly has prepared. I pick up the peas and potatoes. I don't bother to complain when they give me washing chores for the plates and pans. When it's time for sleep I pretend not to hear doors and Lucy talking. They've each had two glasses of Mary's special juice. They say I'm too young to have it. They talk of things that I find either boring or things I just can't understand. They talk of men of propositions and proposals. Things that sound
quite dumb to me. I wish they would talk about the bad thing about when it might be let out and
“can leave again. I shut her. Even in the warmth of my blankets, when I think of the bad thing,”
there seems to be no warmth that can reach me. When I finally sleep, I dream of the bad thing,
and has gotten out from the cellar and has made it into the house. And the dream it goes to the room with the babies. I watch like a spider on the walls that eats them. It's long, sinewy arms moving like wet ribbons. In the morning I am back with the pigs. One of them is sickly as it sulks around the pin. I feed the others before taking the sickly one to the cellar, sending it down the old stairs. I think there's something like a chatter of giddy laughter. It reminds me of how babies laugh
with their mama's. I send the door shut and wonder if anyone saw me do it. Shelley doesn't like it when we waste the pigs. But I think it makes the most sense to just do away with the sickly ones. Like how she used to do with the chickens when we had them. When I see doors later on in the afternoon, she's rang a dress that seems much too pretty for our little farm. Shelley's behind her and she's breathing a yellow ribbon into doors as hair.
“Lucy has smudged a bit of red stuff on doors as cheeks and for a minute. I think doors”
looks like mama of the most of us all. Eddie stands behind me in murmurs. She's about right now. Any day, Daddy. I wonder what he means. Not knowing things makes it harder when you can't read. Lucy takes Doris and Daddy's old car and Shelley tells me that she's off to do some work. I snort laughed at that. I don't even try to hide it from Shelley.
Doris has never been much for working. Shelley doesn't say much to my laughing.
It occurs to me that I'm missing something. But I don't have time to think about it before it's time to finish my own work. It's my turn again to feed it. Shelley takes the bucket behind the house and when she comes back, it's heatful of more of that slushy slops stuff. It stinks worse today and I assume it's because the sun was hotter. Shelley agrees before going inside to start supper. At the seller, I don't go right in. Instead, I sort of peer into the
“darkness and waiting for the pig, but it never comes. So it just pigs them. Not just slops. I think”
before stomping down the stairs. This time the slop does slush out and lands in a hot ooze on my shirt. In the darkness, I can hear it mumbling. The words are fat and full and I think of the dream
of how it had been hunched over the crying babies, slurping them up arm by arm, foot by foot.
I shake my head and step onto the floor. Today the darkness seems a bit lighter and I can almost make out the tall odd shape of the bad thing. I feel a cold shiver as it stands still, perhaps regarding me in the same way. I hope you liked the pig. I say, my arm shaking at the weight of the bucket as I hoisted up and out, the contents landing on the floor and chunky plops. When doors come home, her cheeks are bright circles of pink in her eyes are puffy. The red color
is gone from her lips and the ribbon pokes out of her pocket. I ask Lucy if she had fallen down, but Lucy tells me to let it be. Later on, Eddie says she'll be all right. Looks like she was right but enough after all. That night we ate burgers. It tasted so good I nearly cried. I can't even remember the last time I had cow instead of pig. Shelly doods on doors more than usual. Sheet doods on her quite a bit already. And I can't help but feel sour at the sight of everyone pampering
and bathing her. When it's time for bed, Lucy gives her something and a teacup and tells her to help her feel better. I fall asleep to the sound of the baby's crying for Mama. I think doors is crying too. I knew I would be dreaming again even before I fell asleep. And in the dream the thing from the cellar is back in the house only this time, it does not go to the room with the babies. It has come to my room. Door is his room. In my dream, I'm in my bed and I'm not a spider on the wall.
In my dream, I'm watching through white eyes as the things slips into my room. It is tall and wiery. This time it's made of old sticks and twigs and sludging mud that seems to ooze off of it. It stands at doors as bed, but I think it watches me. When I wake up there's a trail of black slime at both our bedcides. On my bed there's a strange and long hand print stained into the old quilt. The morning is filled with rain drops as big as a cat. The whole farm turned into a pond
and I have to practically swim my way to the pig pen. I can't help but watch the cellar more today. It is when I'm mucking the pen that I hear its strange and slimy voice. Let me out, Doddy. I can make it better. Just let me out. I can bring back mom and Doddy.
Would you like that Doddy?
It's words haunt me the rest of the day. When Doris and Lucy come home, Lucy says no one should talk
“to Doris. We have steak for supper with more sides than I know it to do with.”
Shelley whispers with Doris and I pretend I don't see the green paper. Real dollars. Doris hands to Shelley. Eddy gives me a grim look from the corner of the room. As if to say, she's earning her keep now Doddy. I still don't understand.
Maybe I never will. At bedtime Doris sleeps in Lucy's room. She's crying more than the babies do these
days. I like to think she doesn't walk around so smug anymore. When I say this to Mary, she smacks me and I try hard not to cry. I hate crying. But I hate even more that Mary struck me. I feel confused and mad. When everyone is asleep except the babies of course who never seem content now that Mama's gone. I find myself standing at the front door. I don't know why, but I want to go to the seller. Eddy seems deeply troubled by this. He lurks in the corner of the room and tells me to go back
to bed. Stop being foolish, Doddy. I tell Eddy to mind his own business. But I do go back to my bed.
“I don't have any dreams at all that night. The next day my mind can't seem to stop thinking”
of the day the bad thing came. It was the same day Eddy came too. Eddy and Mary who'd found the bad thing. She'd been being strange and have been busing herself reading from her peculiar books.
Books Shelley said had no business being in her home. When Mary read those books I always thought
terrible things happened. But the strangest thing of all was when the bad thing had come. We had only just buried Mama and Daddy a week before. All of us still hurting and confused and lost us to how to survive without them. The Mary had said she would be saving our farm. That she would find a way to make it all better. Then the bad thing came. Then came Eddy and Mary and Shelley locked the bad thing in the cellar and we all had to swear with spit on our palms that we'd never
ever talk to it. Shelley then made Mary through away all her strange books. After that Mary didn't speak to anyone for a while. When I asked about Eddy, Shelley had given me a strange look. It was the look she had sometimes when something was confusing her. She never said anything about Eddy. It was grateful they hadn't locked Eddy away, too. Eddy said he hadn't meant to come. The research has just got swept up along with the bad thing and found himself here on our farm.
No matter how much I asked, Eddy would never say where he was before he turned up here.
Still though, I'm grateful for his friendship. How does it maybe? Later on one of the babies become sick. Shelley does not make supper and instead takes the baby to town for the doctor with Lucy. When I asked if I'm in charge of feeding the bad thing, Mary tells me yes. But she never fills the bucket with that nasty slop stuff. I waited a while, even until the sun is nearly down and the heat from the day is gone.
I worried that the bad thing will come out if I don't feed it. I almost asked doors what to do, but all she does is cry now, crot up like a dog and won't look at anyone. I decided to take a pig from the pen, one of the smaller ones, and bring it to the cellar. It's too dark to hardly see anything, but I managed to make my way down the steps. The pig under one arm as I inch my way down the stairs. I know I should be afraid, but I'm not when I see the bad thing has bright yellow eyes now.
“I think about the things it said, and almost asked if the words were true.”
Before I can, there's a loud scream from inside the house. I dropped the pig and hurry up the stairs. I don't look back before slamming the door shut and locking it. Inside doors has gone its weight as a sheet and her mouth has a strange color. Mary is the one who is screaming. Her loud sounds make the baby who isn't sick start to cry. I want to cry too, but I can't. I'm too busy looking at doors. I can't help but wonder how she keeps her eyes open so long without blinking.
Mary doesn't stop screaming until Shelley comes back with Lucy. There is no baby with them. I watch a Shelley and Lucy carry doors outside. They tell me to stay put and won't let me follow. I stand at the door. They're hard to see in the dark, but I'm certain they're taking her to the cellar. When I hear the heavy door open, I know I am right. When Shelley and Lucy come back in, they are crying. Shelley sends me to bed because I keep asking too many questions.
It takes too long before I can sleep, and I'm grateful there are no dreams. Shelley and Lucy are not here when I wake up. I find Mary in the kitchen reading the books I thought she'd gotten rid of. She said she figured out what went wrong. She also said she was going to set everything right. She tells me to go outside till at her work. She keeps promising things will be better soon. When I leave to do my chores, I hear her start talking all funny words that
don't sound like words at all, almost like she's saying a poem. When she started it, the baby started crying, and Eddie said something awful is fixed into happen. He stands in the corner of the room still. There's no ignoring the look of worry on his pale face. I know I shouldn't, but I went to the cellar. Dors was on the stairs just inside the door. Her head was rolled back like she was hoping to see the sky. A fly crawling across her glossy eye.
Deeper inside the cellar I can hear the bad thing.
and I feel a terrible chill stir up my insights. I make my way to the muddy pan and count the pigs
we are down to four, all of them to healthy to give to the bad thing. I worry what will happen if it does not eat. I consider going to the back of the house, but Eddie stands behind me and reminds me of the mean rooster. There's something like a rock sitting deep in my chest and I'm not sure what to do. From where I stand outside I can hear the baby cry. I can also hear the slick and slippery voice of the bad thing, even all the way by the house. When afternoon comes in the day is blistering hot,
I find Mary's standing outside the baby's room. She has a strange look on her face and her hands are deep in her pockets. She tells me she knows how to fix things. She even says she can make dors better.
I told her dors looks an awful lot like mom and daddy did. I remind her there was no fixing them.
Mary tells me I'm a good kid, which I find a little odd. Then says since I've been so good at taking care of the farm, I can have some candy from her special box. I ask if I can have the candy from the kitchen instead, but she says no. Eddie says the candy from the box isn't real candy, and will make me sleepy. But I eat it anyway. I haven't had candy in a very long time. The candy from the box doesn't taste very good at all. Eddie was right, and I did get sleepy.
“I don't even remember falling asleep, but when I ate the candy, it was bright outside.”
When I woke up, it was almost dark and the house was the most quiet it has ever been.
I walked through the house feeling sickly, but I cannot find Mary anywhere. Even worse,
the cribs are all empty in the baby room. Shelly and Lucy aren't home either, and there's a strange smell all around, like someone cracked up in a dozen sun spoiled eggs. I'm worried about the bad thing, and he might have fed it. But when I go outside, the seller door is wide open. When I see this, it feels as if a thousand spiders have invaded my bones. In the kitchen, I can see Mary and Doris standing up back through the little window. Doris is blinking again, but her skin is still
white as a sheet. I don't know how, but she knew I was looking. She turned her head and when it kept on turning like an owls, I nearly fainted. Eddie stands in the corner and tells me
“to be very quiet. He says I shouldn't hide. I think Eddie is fixing to run away soon, and I wish he'd”
take me with him. He says he can't. The things like him and people like me can't go to the same places. He says if I'm good, maybe one day I can go where he goes, I fell asleep while I was hiding. And when I woke up, the smell of spoiled eggs was all around me. When my eyes opened, I screamed. The bad thing had found me. It was standing right over me. It's eyes were like big yellow moons. Mary and Doris were there, too. Mary said I was a good kid. She said that everything was going to be
all right. The bad thing took my hand. It was like holding a pile of sticks and bugs covered in sludge. She tells me over and over everything is going to be just fine. Find like sunshine, daddy. The bad thing clicks and creeks when it walks. It's like a walking tree. But if the tree
“were made of dead things, I don't think it is sticks in my hands that I hold. I think they're bones.”
I want to scream when it begins walking us towards the cellar. To the black door that stands white open like a greedy mouth. Mary and Doris do not go into the cellar with me in the bad thing. They stand at the side. And Mary tells me over and over it'll be just fine. But everything will be all right now. I realize Mary must have done another trade. But I'm too scared to think about what she could have traded to make everything better again. The bad thing whispers things too fast
to understand as we walked on the stairs. Doris glows at me the same way I glare at the pigs. I wonder if they're going to do to me what I do to the sickly ones. I hope I'm wrong. For more information on this podcast, including how to submit your own story for consideration, please visit CreepyPod.com. You can also follow us at CreepyPod on social media and YouTube. All stories told on this podcast are done so through creative comments share a
light licensing or with written consent from the authors. No portion of this podcast may be rebroadcast or otherwise distributed without the express written consent of the CreepyPod cast production team and the story's author.
