nosleep

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Topneighborhood_859 on 2024-10-04 16:27:26+00:00.

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I was walking to my car as quickly as I could. I checked my watch. It was 7:15 pm. I shook my head. My phone rang. The screen showed that it was my wife calling… right on time.

“You better be close to the restaurant.” She said, The tone in her voice left me wondering if she knew that I was just leaving the office. I stayed silent.

“Damn it, Jack.” She cursed quietly. “I’m already here.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t realize how much work I would have to get done today. And we’re still not on pace to make our deadline. The whole team is working late. Not just me. And I can’t be the only person leaving on time when my subordinates are staying late.” I pleaded.

“How long until you get here?” She asked angrily.

“If I run every red light, I can be there in thirty minutes,” I told her. She didn’t answer for a long while. I got into my car and just as I started to wonder if she had hung up on me, my car picked up the Bluetooth. “Okay, just hurry. It’s bad enough the waiter has asked me twice if I was waiting for someone.” She instructed.

“I’m sorry, babe. I’ll be there as soon as I can.” I said.

I shifted my car into reverse and started to back up. A loud bang on my window made me slam on the brakes. I threw it into the park and turned around to see if I hit something or worse, someone. I didn’t see anything. I turned back around in my seat to find two children standing next to my door. I jumped at the shock.

They both just stood there. Judging by their size, I would guess they were about nine or ten. I had this terrible feeling in my stomach that there was something wrong. But they were children, probably lost. I told myself.

I cracked the window just enough to ask if I could help them.

“Can I use your phone?” One of the kids asked. The child’s tone had a tinge of darkness to it. I felt the hairs on my neck stand up. But, I reached for my phone and unlocked it. When I looked back up at the child, I noticed they had both moved closer. They both stared down at their feet. Their hoods up over their head cast shadows over their faces. It almost appeared they didn’t have any faces at all. At that point, I had this unyielding sense of fear building that I couldn’t justify.

“Is there someone you’d like me to call for you?” I asked. Then one of the kids raised his head slightly. The shadows that covered his face parted as the new angle of his hood allowed me to see his face. But his eyes. His eyes were still hidden in the shadows. They appeared to be pitch black. Not that they were missing, but he had no iris, no whites in his eyes at all. I felt my breath catch in my throat, and the boy seemed to notice my fear. He lowered his head again. “We need to use your phone.” He pleaded.

I recovered and scolded myself quietly for allowing a trick of the light to scare me so badly. “Who can I call for you? Just give me their number.” I said, my hand ready to dial. Maybe it was the fact that the kids wouldn’t look at me. Perhaps it was the fact that the kids were out of place in the business district after sundown. But something inside me was screaming not to give them my phone.

“If you can’t give me the number, I’m sure you can go inside the lobby and ask the security guard to let you call your parents,” I said and pointed toward the lobby door. Neither one of them turned to look.

After a few seconds of awkward silence, I put my car in reverse. I was eager to get the hell out of there. I was eager to get away from these children. I looked in the rearview mirror to make sure I was clear.

A loud bang stopped me in my tracks. For a split second, I thought I hit someone, and then I heard it again. Both of the boys were slapping their hands, palm down, on my driver’s side window. A third time, a fourth time… In unison, they slapped my window. “Can we just get in your car? We need a ride.” They asked in a monotone and utterly unsettling tone.

I slammed the gas down and backed up without even looking, and then I slammed into drive and peeled out. I was a good ten minutes down the road before my heart stopped trying to beat out of my chest. I was so worked up that I almost missed my exit. I wanted to get home so bad, I had forgotten about date night.

I met my wife at her favorite restaurant, and we ate. She was initially angry about me being late. We hadn’t had much time alone since we had our son. He was four now, and this was probably our fifth date night in that four years.

Her mood switched from being angry to laughing at me as I explained why I was so late. I told her everything about the kids.

“So you were scared of a couple of kids? They could still be out there, looking for their parents.” She heckled me. She knew how scared I was. There was something wrong with them. But she didn’t believe it. At least not at that point.

Our son was staying at the babysitter's house all night, so we had the house to ourselves. It was three in the morning when we heard the knock at the door. I woke up first and just sat in bed and listened. There was a faint, steady knock at the door. In threes. Knock, knock, knock. And then a pause followed by another set of three. Knock, knock, knock.

Then my wife woke up. “Do you hear that?” She asked.

“Yeah. There is someone at the front door.” I replied. My heart sped up. I knew before I did that it was them.

My wife sat up and grabbed her phone. “It’s after three in the morning. Who could it be?” She asked. “And they didn’t hit the doorbell.” She added. She opened the doorbell app on her phone to reveal an empty porch. There was nobody there.

She showed me. The knocking continued. And then I saw them. There was a faint silhouette in the darkness. “Zoom in there,” I said and pointed to the corner of the steps. She did and we could see them. The two boys were standing in the shadows. One of them kicked the steps. Knock, knock knock.

My wife looked at me. There is no way those kids followed you home… “This has to be a joke.” She said,

She stood up and put on her robe. I did too. We both made our way downstairs. We argued as we walked. She wanted to open the door. I didn’t.

Knock, knock knock…

“We can’t open the door,” I told her.

“They’re just kids playing a prank.” She replied.

Knock, knock, knock…

Finally, we reached the door and my wife undid the locks and swung it open. We both took a step back as soon as we did. The kids were no longer standing in the shadow but had moved up to the first step. The only light was from behind us, flowing out of the house. It was enough for us to see the two small figures staring at us, but not enough to see any detail.

“What do you want?” My wife asked. I was flipping the light switch on and off for the porch light. It wouldn’t come on. But I knew it had been on when we got home.

“Can we come inside?” The kids asked in unison.

I could see that my wife had gone pale. She finally believed me. Something wasn’t right.

The kids both took a step to the next step.

“Can we call the police for you? Are you lost?” She asked them.

They stepped up to the porch, and then they were close enough. Just three feet away, their faces were fully illuminated. The light revealed the same thing I thought I had seen earlier. Wide eyes, black as coal. Hey began to smile at us. “We need to come inside. We need help.” They said in unison as if they shared the same thoughts.

I moved my wife out of the way and slammed the door. My hands fumbled for the locks as I looked through the peephole. “I’m calling the cops!” I yelled through the door.

My wife still had her phone in her hand. She started to dial 911. “Wait,” I said. “They’re leaving,” I told her. The kids walked back into the street and disappeared into the night.

The next day we slept in and then picked up our son. It was a pretty uneventful day. At least until three a.m. I woke to the sound of knocking. I sat up. Half asleep, I heard my wife tell me it was just our son. “I’ll get it.” She told me. I went back to sleep.

That was about ten minutes ago. I noticed she didn’t come back to bed, and I decided to check the security cameras on my phone. My wife is lying on the floor dead. There is blood everywhere. Standing at her feet are the two boys. And next to them is my son. His eyes were black as coal.

As I’m writing this, I can hear them walking down the hall toward me. For the love of God, if you see black-eyed children do not talk to them, do not give them anything and please, do not let them into your house.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/roman_casillas on 2024-10-04 14:56:30+00:00.

---

I still remember that night when we were kids and lying down in our beds at 1 AM without being able to sleep we made a pact, the one that died first would make every possible attempt to come back and tell the other one what happens after you die and no matter what it could cost us, we will return.

It was something we would remind ourselves from time to time during our time together.

 

Me and my brother were always very close to the point that people would think we were twins, we dressed the same and be together all the time and something strange we developed was that we would always know what the other one was thinking or what he was going to say next something that I guess is normal when people spend that much time together.

 

Tragedy came to our family some years later when my brother passed away because of a car accident and I felt in a way like my life or at least a big part of myself was also gone, never before did I felt this type of overwhelming loneliness because He was someone I thought I would always had with me and in just an instant he stopped existing.

 

That night during the wake I remembered our agreement, but I didn’t give it that much importance as it was just something I remembered fondly. I got close to the casket to say my goodbyes and I wished him well and if there is anything after this life then he would enjoy it.

 

The next days were difficult for me because the emptiness is something you can’t explain but you can feel it in with you.

 

Years passed and life keeps moving on and even though sometimes I would remember him the more time it passed the less he was present in my mind, life just keeps substituting dead people and even the feelings start to go away from our memories.

 

I remember the first time it happened

 

I couldn’t sleep that night so I just stayed there in my bed alone with the lights already turned off but my eyes opened and I started to get that feeling that someone is watching you, a feeling I can’t explain but we all have had it at some point. I was scared without knowing exactly why and I felt my heartbeat getting faster and faster, I heard some steps on the next room and I hesitated for a second but I assure to myself that the outside door was locked so I looked around and noticed how the mirror in the wall was fully black like if it had been painted so that no reflection could come from it, at that moment I heard how the steps were getting closer and closer to my bedroom door and slowly the door started to get open like if I was being opened with precaution, I didn’t had any time to have a reaction so I just stayed frozen in the bed waiting and wishing everything was just my imagination. I wanted to know who was outside my door and when the door fully opened I was shocked, it was him my brother in the same form as I last saw him many years ago like if time didn’t passed for him, he entered the room and when our eyes crossed he gave me a big smile, even though it was a big smile I knew him enough to realize there was no real happiness behind that smile, he walked into the room and sat down in a chair and stared at me with his big fake smile.

 

He seemed happy in a way like if he had finally fulfilled his promise of returning after so many years and I must accept that after my initial scare at that moment seeing him in front of me again made me feel so much happiness, he didn’t had to say anything because I knew that smiled and what it meant so I sat down in the corner of my bed enjoying the moment with him finally being together again just like we had planned many years ago

 

Neither of us made any attempt to communicate with each other because it was as if the both of us knew what was happening and soon after he stood up and walked straight into a corner of the room that was the darkest area of the room and he went into the shadows and disappeared.

 

That night I couldn’t sleep remembering all the time we had spent together and had this feeling of security like if I had realized that I was not alone in this world anymore since my brother was still with me and I didn’t know if I would see him again, but I knew he was watching me.

 

Years passed and it sounds strange, but I had almost forgotten the event and I must admit that a part of me always felt that it was just a dream. My life had changed a lot during this time, I got married and divorced and in the middle part had a son that now took most of my time when he was with me, and it was around this time that he came back. I had days without being able to have a good night sleep and I started to feel like someone was watching me during my restless nights lying in bed and I would say to myself that it was just insomniac paranoia to keep myself calm but deep down I knew what was coming.

 

That night while I was trying to fall asleep but had my eyes wide open I saw this movement outside my window that I couldn’t see exactly what it was because of the drapes being closed but it was a big object that suddenly stopped in front of the window, I was in an almost unconscious state like when you are about to fall asleep and can’t move anymore but you are still hearing clearly what is happening.

 

I was about to get up from my bed when I saw this light coming into my room from the window and it move inside until it touch a mirror, there was this hitting sound on the mirror glass like if it had been touched by a coin and that took me out of my semi unconscious state, I looked around but I didn’t see anything different until I realized that the mirror was not reflecting anymore and it was only showing solid black color. I felt again his stare on my back so I turned around and I could see him between the shadows of the dark corner, he spoke and I noticed that his tone had changed to a more low tone like a more mature voice even though his pauses and rhythm was the same as I remember him.

 

“Help me”, he said without doing any movement, as if his image was just a memory of mine but he might not actually be there, his tone was soft and calm but there was some desperation in it.

 

“It is cold here and it is always dark.”

 

The room was extremely silent like if time had freeze and there was no sound of any kind being produced at that moment, I started walking towards the darkness of the room when I heard my son crying and his sound made me come out of this state of isolation feeling like if all of a sudden I was in control again and I found myself standing but didn’t remember exactly why I was there so I turned the lights on and didn’t saw anything out of place, I went to the crib and pick up my son and hold him until he fell asleep again so I lay him down and turn the lights off.

 

I returned to my bed and immediately the feeling of being watched returned, so I closed my eyes trying to forget everything when I heard this very soft murmur my way.

 

“I want to rest now”

 

I felt like if he was talking just in front of my face and I could even feel his warm breath touching my skin, I wanted to believe I was just dreaming and kept my eyes closed.

 

“I need your help; can you help me?”

 

Almost as a reflex I moved my head affirmatively and I opened my eyes, but I couldn’t see anyone in the room, so I closed them again.

 

“Remember when we used to play in the backyard of our grandma house, that time when we decide to hide and it took our parents hours to find us, how angry they were and said they had almost called the cops to notify we had been taken”

 

I felt how my brain got filled of satisfaction for an instant by him sharing with me this moment we had lived together so much time ago and I felt such joy of having him back again with me, without opening my eyes I responded

 

“Do you remember that Christmas night when we decided to secretly open our gifts days in advance just to see what every box had inside, how our stupid little cousin found out and got us punish the whole season”

 

I heard his laugh again just as I remembered it with the same innocence that he still had and I felt this profound relief because I was sure now he was my brother back with me

 

“I need your help fast, put this coin under your son while he is sleeping”

 

What he asked scared me and I immediately opened my eyes and for my surprise there was an old coin over the blanket, it was heavily used but had no identifiers, just a round piece of old metal and I did not understood what was happening so I quickly turned the lights on and looked around the room focusing on the crib where my son was still sleeping, I thought if I should put the coin beneath him just to help my brother because I knew him to well and knew he wouldn’t dare hurt my son. He sounded so desperate, but I decided not to do it and turned the lights off.

 

“You are not going to help me?”

 

He asked me in a very sadden tone but from there on he started to sound angry and accusatory.

 

“I’m here because of you because of your idea and now I can’t go back now they are following me”

 

I did not understand anything, who could be looking for him and for what reason? Who or what was he running from? I decided not to say anything and just kept my eyes closed

 

He was now yelling at me and I felt his breath crushing against my face like if he was just in front of me.

 

“I need him, give him to me, they are looking to me and they will find me, I was not supposed to come back”

 

I kept my eyes closed and his voice just disapp...

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Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1fw15eu/i_dont_want_my_brother_to_visit_me_anymore/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Aggravating_Road2692 on 2024-10-04 14:18:08+00:00.

---

Mary and I have been married for the better part of a decade now. She is the love of my life, and I wouldn't trade her for anything. The only problem is, the woman who mothered my son is no longer here. I don't mean that in a literal sense; she is alive and well. At least, as well as she can be considering the recent trauma she's been through.  

About three weeks ago, she received terrible news from back home, one that shattered her entire existence. Her parents had died. It was some freak accident, carbon monoxide poisoning. The grief overtook her to the point that she could no longer function. I thought that she would get better after the funeral, but there she was, rocking back and forth in the corner of the living room. I tried to give her as much support as I could, but no matter what I did I could not find a way to quell her pain. It finally got to the point that I feared leaving our three-year-old with her. I needed to get her professional help. 

One day when she seemed in better spirits, I decided to share some news with her. I had booked a therapy appointment at the local counseling center. As she looked at the living room's blank white wall, I pressed a hand on the middle of her back, jolting her out of whatever fascination she had with its white facade.  

"Honey?" I said in the sweetest tone I could muster. Surprisingly, she didn't spit fire into my face like the last few times I tried to speak with her. As her eyes looked at me from behind her puffy eyelids, she gave me the first genuine smile in a long time.  

"Hey you," she said; a loving way she so often addressed me. I took a seat next to her on the ground, crossing my legs as I gathered the courage to send her into an inevitable fury. I took a deep breath and spit out my confession.  

"Honey-- I'm really worried about you." My voice cracked as the words fought me on the way up.  

"I want to help you but no matter what I do, I can't find a way to take your pain away," I said as she tried to process what I was saying. To be honest, after seeing her blank expression I was sure it was falling on deaf ears. That is, until her gaze dropped, and she opened her mouth, giving me a gut-wrenching response.  

"No one can help me." Her response was monotone and cold. I've never seen anyone experience as many contradicting emotions as she did in that instance. Her eyes signaled sadness, her brows anger, and as she returned her stare to the wall, I swear I saw a sense of hopefulness.  

"Only he can help me." I turned my gaze to whatever her eyes were glued to, but the wall's empty void did not instill confidence in my wife's sanity. I knew then that she was far beyond any help that I could render. I took her hands grasping them with love.  

"Honey?" I questioned cautiously, but she did not return her gaze to me. Placing my hand under her chin and tilted her face back over to me, cautious, almost timid that she would chomp down on my fingers if I strayed too close. When her face was pointed towards me, but her eyes remained glued to the white walls, twisted, her irises half hidden behind the edges of her eye sockets. The sclera of her eyes webbed out with long skinny streaks of blood vessels. No matter what I said to her now it would not be registered, she had retreated into her state of extreme grief. My heart filled with dread, but for what it was worth, I was going to vent my concerns, even if they would go unacknowledged.  

"So, there's this doctor that was recommended to me by a friend, down at the counseling center." As expected, the words just decorated the air around her, but I pressed on anyway.  

"He specializes in grief counseling, and-- I-- think he could help you." Once again, the words did not register, or so I thought until I saw her eye twitch. I took that as a sign of piqued interest.  

"His name is Dr. Robinson. I-- I know this is out of the blue, but I need to get you seen by a proper professional. You need help. Honey, this-- this isn't normal." Her eye gave another twitch, only I finally noticed that it wasn't her eye, but something swimming around behind the little blood vessels that gave the impression of an eye twitch. 

'What the hell' I thought to myself, taking to my knees and inching my face closer to whatever was crawling inside her eye. Upon closer inspection, something wiggled in this grotesque fashion, burrowing a path through her eyeball.  

The little figure inside crested its tiny little head and began chewing towards the surface of her sclera.  

'Wha-- what the fuck?' The little voice in my head said, trying to comprehend what it was seeing. A little white insect poked its head through the newly dug hole before it fell completely out of her eye like a fallen tear. It now lay on the fabric of her jeans, flopping about like a creepy crawler from hell. I pinched it with two fingers and held it up to the light. It was a maggot.  

I jumped back in disgust. Falling back onto my palms, the bug flung to some far-off corner of the room. In shock, my eyes were planted firmly on my wife. Just then my son called out.  

"Daddy?" This wasn’t the time to indulge my son, so I returned a dismissive statement.  

"Not now buddy," I responded in a shaky voice, still in shock of my wife’s eye maggot. Retaking to my knees I reexamined my wife's face, the little hole the maggot had crawled out of was no longer there. Regardless, I kept my eyes planted behind the little red blood vessels in anticipation of another wriggly figure swimming about.  

My wife suddenly darted her face towards mine at lightning speed, chomping her teeth onto my cheek. I felt my skin give way until the flesh freed itself from my identity. The shock of the ordeal made me wince in pain, forcing me to close my eyes. When they opened, my hand draped over my fresh wound. I held my palm out in front of me examining the blood.  

"Daddy!?" My son signaled his growing impatience. I ignored his whining, returning my eyes to Mary. A trail of blood dripped off her chin as the wall continued to hypnotize her. 

"Daddy! Can I eat this little jellybean!?" Tommy blurted out his question.  

"Yes, yeah whatever you want buddy," I said. He returned with an excited,  

"Yay!" I sat there for a split second before the realization hit me. 

'Little Jellybean?’ The fucking maggot. 

"NO! STOP!" I turned to see my son dropping the slithering insect down into his gullet. Running over to him I clutched him by the cheeks, forcing his mouth ajar. 

"Spit it out," I commanded, and so he did. The maggot now lay in the center of my palm, its body cut in half by my son's milk teeth.  

"Aww, Dad." My son whined.  

"But mommy lets me have all the little white jellybeans I want when you're at work." My skin broke out into pimples, borderline hives, as the words left his mouth. Just then I heard my wife mumbling something with a steady cadence.  

"Little white jellybeans, little white jellybeans, little white jellybeans." She repeatedly rocked there singing the same song. 

"Little white jellybeans, little white jellybeans, little white jellybeans." I knew then that my wife could no longer be left alone with my son.  

I had no choice but to send my wife away to an institution; It was too dangerous to have her near my son, and, well, the help she needed would be given to her around the clock at this mental hospital. She, however, did not go quietly. I told her about the reasoning behind why the men in scrubs were wrapping her in a straitjacket. Her sickly mind could not comprehend the logic.  

"So, you think I'm a bad mother! How dare you. I hope they come for you. I hope they choke you in your sleep. I want you to know that I traded you for them. He can have you I don't give a fuck!" Mary blared out as they carried her off, at the time I thought it was all nonsense, but now I wished her words were some psychotic delusion.  

The coming days were seemingly calm. I had taken a few days off work to care for my son while I arranged for someone to babysit Tommy. For the most part, I just scrolled through my phone while my son watched cartoons. But everything changed when I saw my son whispering to the wall. The same wall my wife had prayed to for weeks on end. I shot to my feet in a slight panic.  

"Buddy? What are you doing?" I called out but he didn't answer, he just kept talking to the wall in a hushed tone. I took to my feet and slowly made my way over to him. When I was inches from him, I could finally hear what he was saying.  

"Yeah, they're really good." He said with a chuckle. His eyes trained on the wall as if it were speaking to him. He produced a response to a seemingly one-sided conversation.  

"I don't know if he likes them. I can ask." He looked over his shoulder and posed a question with a grin.  

"Daddy, do you like jellybeans?" My heart dropped as my gaze crested over his shoulder. In his little hands, were palms full of squirmy little maggots. He finally spun around and offered them up to me. I slapped the bugs out of his hands.  

I grabbed him by the shoulders, trying to force him to answer my questions.  

"Where did you get these? Where did you find the little jellybeans?" He wiped away tears and pointed at the wall.  

"The man told me that they were from grandma and grandpa." I looked over at the white wall.  

"What man Tommy? There is no man." I said almost trying to convince myself that there wasn't something nefarious happening here. ...

---

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1fw09c9/my_wife_did_something_unspeakable/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Theeaglestrikes on 2024-10-04 14:06:35+00:00.

---

Part I – Part II

Apologies for the delay, but there was too much to divulge in the initial post. Anyway, I’m finally ready to finish my story. Not that it’s over. It’ll never be over.

Holly’s static voice poured through the car speakers. “You and Andreas are going to get me in trouble.”

“Relax,” I said. “We didn’t discuss anything confidential.”

“Well, what did you discuss?” she asked.

I paused, absorbing the world beyond my windscreen on the way home from the hospital. Driving on the other lane, seeing the countryside in reverse, the road seemed to have a freshly-tarmacked personality. It felt different than before. Felt backwards in more than a literal sense. As I passed countless grand oaks lining the never-ending lane, I thought of Cedric’s curse. The five rules that he’d bestowed upon me, plus any others the tall crawl might add.

You’ve lost the fucking plot, I thought, clammy hands gripping the steering wheel. There is no tall crawl. I don’t know what you saw in that room, but it wasn’t real. Pull yourself together, Kai.

There was, however, no denying the scarring tissue on my left arm. The eleven curved wounds. I frantically searched my memory vault. Searched for some memory of Cedric lunging forwards, perhaps, and clawing away at my skin. But he hadn’t. The wounds had been inflicted by the air itself. By invisible strings that the patient skilfully twirled in trained fingers.

“Kai?” Holly asked. “Are you still there?”

“Yes,” I answered weakly. “I, erm…”

“Kai…” she pressed. “Please tell me what you and Cedric discussed so I don’t have to worry about losing my job.”

“Yes, Officer,” I said, trying and failing to lighten the tone — lighten my own tone. “We talked about the price of breaking his rules. He told me that he didn’t want to kill his entire family. He had to kill them.”

Holly sighed. “It’s a horrible case. Are you okay?”

I swallowed my fear. “I’ve interviewed worse people than Cedric Roberts.”

“So have I,” she started, sounding unconvinced, “but he’s a different breed. You know that. I hear it in your voice.”

I did, but I wasn’t going to tell Holly that. Just as I wasn’t going to tell her about the wounds on my arm. She was my friend — more than my friend — but she was also a law enforcer. One who was never really off-duty, no matter how much she claimed otherwise. She sought justice in all areas of life, and I didn’t want her to fight my battle. Didn’t want Mr Roberts to do anything awful to her too.

Besides, I knew I’d see Holly soon enough, and she would wrench the cat out of the bag, no matter how hard I tried to keep it hidden. I just needed time before that inevitable confrontation. Time to figure out what had happened me. Time to figure out whether there might be a rational explanation for what happened in Room 307. An explanation other than it being a supernatural force with mysterious wants.

Not mysterious, I thought. It feeds on attention and control.

Its sustenance came from obedience. From asinine rituals.

1. Do whatever he bids, and do it twice if you doubt yourself.
2. Walk no fewer than eleven steps per hour.
3. Don’t walk in the shade of a backwards tree.
4. No artificial light between one and six in the morning.
5. Snap the bird when it sings.

The ink on my palm had smudged from sweat, but I didn’t need the rules in writing any longer. They were floating in my thoughts. Swimmers planted either by my fearful subconscious or the long, spectral fingers that had fiddled with my brain. Had slithered through my screaming lips.

That wasn’t real, I lied to myself.

I really wanted to believe those warm, fuzzy fibs as I pulled into my driveway. Really wanted to sleep, most of all, after a half-hour drive that felt eternal. I imagined myself waking up without a single memory of that awful visit to the psychiatric ward. Perhaps waking up without any memory of the Cedric Roberts case. I thought there might be a way to go back. Unbind myself from the tall crawl.

Not real, I reminded myself once more as I unlocked the front door.

But bed would wait. I’d forgotten that my younger brother — my housemate — had invited a dozen of our closest friends over for a summer barbecue. Strangely, however, I found that I didn’t mind. There buzzed a soft, cooling frequency in my brain. Not quite a hit of dopamine. More so the release of tension, as if I’d doused my flaming mind with cold water. As if I’d finally tossed aside the hospital-grade belt restraining my thoughts.

I sighed with relief and waved gleefully at my friends as I stepped into the house. I’m such an idiot. I was just having a weird day. That’s all. I bought into Cedric’s tall tale of a tall crawl.

The temporary relief was perforated by a pang of realisation.

2. Walk no fewer than eleven steps per hour.

I’d just completed a ritual. Unknowingly, perhaps, but that didn’t matter. I’d done as instructed. That was why I felt better.

Don’t be silly, I thought whilst greeting each of my friends.

It wasn’t silly. I knew that. That foreboding feeling on the drive home had been a warning. A reminder that I was on the verge of breaking one of the crawl’s laws. I was struggling to wrestle with that notion any longer.

Then I became consumed by one of my oldest fears. The possibility that I might have inherited my late mother’s disorder.

There’s a genetic link with that illness, after all, I reminded myself.

But Cedric had been clear. Very clear. This was no illness. The crawl was tangible, though it wore different skins. To disobey it came with hauntingly real consequences, unlike my mother’s illness.

Her death was pretty fucking real, I thought.

“Hey, Kai,” Holly said, pulling me out of the trance. “You look a little pale.”

I smiled. “I just forgot about tonight. That’s all.”

She laughed. “Yeah, after you hung up, I realised I should’ve reminded you. I had a feeling you might’ve blanked. People only just got here though, so don’t worry.”

“It’s not that,” I said. “I’m just tired.”

Holly frowned. “Are you really okay, Kai? You said you’d interviewed worse people than Cedric Roberts.”

“I know…” I whispered, lips twitching.

She nodded as if to say that she’d already known. I didn’t bother attempting to tell white lies in front of Holly’s face. She was a detective, after all, and she’d clearly detected something in my voice during the call, given her incessant questioning. It was even harder to shrug her off in the flesh.

I tugged at the sleeve of my jacket, hoping the wounds on my arm were concealed. That was a conversation I did not want to have, much like the Cedric-themed one I knew was coming.

“Did he threaten you?” Holly asked.

“What makes you think that?” I replied.

She said, “He threatened one of my colleagues.”

“Well, no, he didn’t threaten me,” I lied. “He just talked a lot. In great detail.”

Holly nodded, but the frown persisted. I knew she wasn’t buying it. She knew full well that I’d heard numerous horror stories from killers over the years. Heard of the awful things they’d done to other human beings. Cedric’s murderous confession was ghastly, but not the ghastliest. What made him so frightening was the intention behind his actions. The act of serving something beyond the earthly realm. That was certainly new.

I found that I actually wanted to be psychologically unwell. That would have been an easier pill to swallow. Obsessive-compulsive disorder is treatable. I didn’t know whether the curse had a cure. It was evident, however, that the tall crawl existed. A force that hungered for nothing but my servitude. It would feast on my undying loyalty.

And punish any mistake, I thought, going over the rules in my head.

The night passed in a blur, as did my thoughts. Racing, unintelligible thoughts born of fever daydreams. As hot fear coursed through my blood, I thought of Mum. Knew she’d battled something different, yet not dissimilar. And for the first time ever, I let go of the anger. The blame. She’d been tortured for years. Decades. I was simply amazed that she’d made through it as many days as she did.

“I love you,” she’d promised me only an hour before she ended it all.

A little after one in the morning, I woke in a sweat. It took me fewer than ten seconds to process what was wrong. It wasn’t simply the sound of rustling from downstairs that had woken me. It was an alarm bell ringing from a clotted compartment of my brain. A bell that, amidst all of the neural noise, I’d missed earlier.

4. No artificial light between one and six in the morning.

I’d turned off every last light in the house. I was certain of it. But the rule was vague, of course. Intentionally so. Tall crawl gives no clarity. It speaks in riddles. Deceives. Longs for us to fumble, so that it might exact its devious design.

As I tore out of bed, ears throbbing, I was acutely aware of that sensation from the evening before. The warm tension I’d felt during the journey home. The fear that I’d forgotten something.

I checked all of the lights, I thought, heart pounding as I slipped downstairs. Unless I should’ve turned off every single light on the planet. ‘No artificial light’. What does that even mean?

When I made it to the blackened lobby of my house, not daring to flick a single switch, I noticed something. A pinprick of redness spilling out from the black liv...

---

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1fvzzx9/im_a_journalist_who_follows_a_strange_list_of/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/HeatConfident4673 on 2024-10-03 11:48:39+00:00.

---

We shouldn't have messed with the Ouija board. I know that now, but we were just stupid kids looking for a thrill. It was a late summer night, the air sticky with humidity, and we were bored. At 17, the most exciting thing in our small town was the urban legend about "The Tree Witch."

The story went that a witch had been buried inside a large, hollow tree deep in the forest after she was caught sacrificing children for dark rituals centuries ago. As the legend goes, anyone who disturbs her rest would suffer a curse — but that was just a campfire tale… or so we thought.

There were four of us: Me, Tyler, Emma, and Ben. Emma was the one who suggested we try the Ouija board near the cursed tree. The rest of us laughed it off, thinking nothing would happen.

We found the tree, its bark twisted like veins, with the base of it looking as though it was swallowing something. An eerie chill swept over us as we set up the board. The moment we started, the planchette moved on its own. The word witch spelled itself out in jerky motions.

Before we could ask another question, the board froze, and we heard a rustling in the leaves around us. We laughed nervously and packed up, brushing it off. We left that forest feeling unsettled, but not scared. At least, not yet.

The first death happened two nights later.

Tyler was found dead in his room, his body twisted unnaturally, like something had yanked and broken his limbs. His room was covered in wet mud and leaves—there was no sign of a break-in. The police ruled it as some kind of freak accident. But I knew better. It was the Tree Witch. She had left her imprint: the mud and leaves.

None of us could sleep after that, but we didn’t dare talk about what we had done. Maybe if we stayed quiet, it would stop.

But it didn’t.

Emma went next. I got the call early in the morning. She had been found floating in her bathtub, drowned, even though the water was barely an inch deep. Her bathroom was filled with leaves, and the muddy imprints of small, bare feet led from the window to the tub.

It was Ben and me left now. I tried to convince him we had to stop her—burn the tree, do something. But Ben wouldn’t listen. He told me to let it go, that it was just a string of bad coincidences.

But when I woke up to find wet, muddy footprints in my house, trailing from the window to the foot of my bed, I knew it was only a matter of time before she came for me too.

Ben stopped answering my calls. The next morning, I found out why. He was found hanging from a tree in his backyard. Mud and leaves were stuffed in his mouth.

It’s just me now.

I can hear her outside. The rustling of the leaves, the faint footsteps circling my house. I know she's coming. I can feel the cold seep through the walls. The air smells of damp earth and decay, and I can hear whispering.

If you’re reading this, please, for the love of everything, don’t ever mess with the Ouija board, and stay away from the cursed tree in the forest.

Because once you wake her, she won’t stop until she’s taken everything from you.

The mud is seeping under my door. She’s here.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/313deezy on 2024-10-03 08:50:44+00:00.

---

The wind howled through the trees, tugging at the tent flaps as I lay awake on my sleeping bag. My dad’s soft snores came from the corner of the tent, a steady rhythm that should’ve lulled me to sleep, but something felt wrong. I couldn’t shake this creeping feeling, like eyes were watching from the shadows just beyond the campfire's dying light.

The trip had started out great—Dad and I hiked for hours through the thick forest, Kodak bounding ahead, his tail wagging like crazy. I was so excited, it was our first camping trip since I turned thirteen, and I felt like I was finally old enough to be trusted on my own out here. The air smelled like pine and earth, and for a while, everything felt peaceful.

But now, lying here in the dark, something was different. I couldn’t hear the forest anymore. No chirping crickets, no rustling leaves—just silence, thick and heavy. I propped myself up on my elbows and glanced toward Kodak. His ears were perked, his body tense. He stared at the entrance of the tent, his lips curling back into a snarl.

I froze.

“Dad,” I whispered, my voice barely audible. “Dad, wake up.”

He groaned but didn’t stir. Kodak growled low in his throat, and that’s when I heard it—the unmistakable sound of footsteps outside, crunching on the dry leaves. Not like an animal, either. These were heavy, deliberate.

Someone—or something—was out there.

I slowly reached for the flashlight next to my sleeping bag, my heart pounding so loud I was sure whatever was outside could hear it. My fingers wrapped around the cold metal, and I switched it on, the beam cutting through the darkness inside the tent. Kodak stood up now, his growl growing louder.

The footsteps stopped.

I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t want to move, but I had to see. I crawled toward the tent flap, my hands shaking, and slowly unzipped it just enough to peek out.

Nothing.

The campfire had completely gone out, and the moon barely lit up the clearing. The trees loomed like dark sentinels around us, and everything was still. Too still. I could feel the sweat dripping down the back of my neck.

And then, there it was again. The footsteps, this time moving quickly. They circled around the tent, faster and faster, like whatever it was knew I was watching. I yanked the flashlight toward the sound, my pulse racing, but the light revealed nothing. Just more darkness.

My breathing hitched when the footsteps stopped abruptly, right at the entrance of the tent. Kodak barked, a sharp, fierce sound that seemed to echo through the trees.

“Dad!” I hissed louder this time, shaking him frantically. He finally woke up, groggy and annoyed.

“What’s going on?” he mumbled, rubbing his eyes.

“Someone’s outside,” I whispered, barely able to get the words out. “Something.”

He sat up quickly, his expression shifting from sleepy confusion to alert concern. He grabbed the hatchet we brought for firewood and motioned for me to stay behind him.

We listened. The wind had picked up again, rustling the trees, but the footsteps were gone. Dad opened the tent flap fully, his hatchet at the ready, and we both stepped out into the cool night air. Kodak was already out, sniffing the ground, still on edge.

We scanned the area. Nothing seemed out of place, but the feeling lingered, thick and oppressive. Dad let out a long breath, running a hand through his hair.

“It’s probably just an animal,” he said, though his voice was tight. “Let’s get the fire going again, okay?”

I nodded, though I didn’t believe him. Something wasn’t right. I could feel it. But I helped him gather more kindling, my eyes constantly scanning the shadows. When we got the fire going again, the flickering flames seemed to push the darkness back, but not completely. I felt like we were being watched, like the forest itself was alive and waiting.

We sat by the fire for a long time, neither of us speaking much. Dad tried to reassure me, cracking a few jokes, but I could tell he was just as uneasy. Eventually, the exhaustion took over, and he convinced me to get some rest. Reluctantly, I crawled back into the tent, Kodak lying beside me, his body warm against mine.

I must have dozed off because the next thing I knew, I woke up to the sound of heavy breathing. I bolted upright, my heart hammering in my chest, and looked around. The tent was empty. Dad was gone.

“Dad?” I whispered, my voice trembling. No response.

I grabbed the flashlight and stumbled out of the tent, Kodak right behind me. The fire had gone out again, and the darkness seemed even thicker than before. I called out again, my voice cracking with fear, but there was no answer.

Then I saw it—movement in the trees. A figure, tall and shadowy, just barely visible in the moonlight. It was too far away to make out clearly, but it was watching me. I could feel its eyes on me, cold and malevolent.

I shined the flashlight toward it, but the beam seemed to bend around the figure, like the darkness was swallowing it whole. My blood ran cold, and I backed away slowly, my hands shaking so hard I almost dropped the flashlight.

Kodak barked, his hackles raised, and the figure began to move closer, gliding through the trees with unnatural speed. I turned and ran, my legs barely able to keep up with the terror that surged through me. Kodak stayed close, his growls echoing in the night.

I didn’t stop running until I burst into a clearing, panting and terrified. But when I looked back, the figure was gone. The forest was still again, but that didn’t make me feel any safer.

And then I heard it—a faint whisper on the wind, like a voice calling my name. But it wasn’t my dad’s voice.

It was something else. Something wrong.

I never found my dad that night. When the sun finally rose, the search party arrived, but they found no trace of him. No footprints, no sign of struggle. Just an empty tent and a dying campfire.

To this day, I don’t know what was out there in the woods that night. But I know one thing for sure: I’ll never go camping again.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/StormSpring on 2024-10-04 03:21:54+00:00.

---

In the summer of 2023, I found a strange obituary online that really caught my attention. I couldn't stop thinking about it, and it ended up taking over my life in the weirdest, scariest way possible.

The site is down now (I've tried going back to it on 5 different browsers for crying out loud), but the obituary was for a man named Bud L. Hill, who supposedly died in 2006. I found it while looking through a forum about weird local stories, think like a website where people would talk about local crazies in their area. I found the obituary pretty funny and over-the-top, describing Bud as a rude but lovable guy who was obsessed with Wisconsin sports. It said he once drank a 12-pack of Diet Pepsi all at once, peed his pants on purpose at a Packers game, and told his bookie to "go fuck himself." In revenge, the bookie filled Bud's car with rotten fish, or something? The obituary ended by saying, and I remember this line verbatim, "Instead of flowers, have a drink and make a toast to a man who gave zero shits."

I thought it was hilarious - the kind of obituary I would want for myself someday. I shared a screenshot of it on Twitter, and it quickly became fairly viral. Soon, the internet was full of memes about this larger-than-life character named Bud. People made fan art, wrote funny fake obituaries, and even made TikTok videos acting out Bud's crazy stories. It seemed like everyone wanted to be part of the joke, and it created a big community. I started feeling a weird connection to Bud too.

A few days later, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel wrote an article about the meme and how popular it had become. They said they had found and interviewed the person who was supposed to be behind it - a guy named Mike Koenen, who was known for posting a lot about Wisconsin sports and making memes. But Koenen denied that he had made the meme, even though his name and phone number were on the obituary submission. But a week later the newspaper put out a really fucking bizarre correction saying they might have talked to an "imposter" and couldn't prove if Koenen was really who they thought he was. The article itself became a big deal, and people started wondering if the whole thing was a huge prank, a case of stolen identity, or something even stranger.

As all of this unfolded, I couldn't shake the feeling that I needed to know more. Something about Bud Hill and Mike Koenen seemed off in a way that I couldn't put my finger on. I started reaching out to people who had claimed to know Koenen in the past. I spent upwards of $40 for subscriptions in people search websites, that's how dedicated I was. Many of them seemed genuinely confused when I brought up his name, saying they hadn't heard from him in years or that their interactions had always been minimal. It almost felt like Koenen was a ghost, someone who had existed but left no real trace behind.

The deeper I dug, the more inconsistencies I found. My first Google search yield a lot of results for 'Michael Koenen', but I quickly came to the conclusion it couldn't have been the former Atlanta Falcons punter who was born in Washington. The few public records I could track down for a Mike Koenen (god bless FOIA and info aggregator websites) were fragmented. There were some vague mentions of a Mike Koenen living in Wisconsin, but no consistent history. It was as if he had appeared out of nowhere. I even tried contacting the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter who had written the article, hoping they could provide some context or insight into the interview. The reporter responded, but their answer was unsettling: they had conducted the interview over the phone, but afterward, all attempts to reconnect with Koenen failed. I asked the reporter for the phone number, but he refused and just told me he'll "look it up". It turned out to have been a pre-paid.

Then, something even stranger happened. One evening, while browsing through some old archived forums, I came across a post from 2005. It was from a user named "ripbud2006" and it caught my eye immediately. The post was simple, just a few sentences about an upcoming Packers game, but the username gave me chills. Was it a coincidence? Why in the fuck would someone name themselves "RIP", what seemed to be their name, and then a date that was a year in the future? I clicked on the user profile, but there wasn't much information—just a handful of posts, all from 2005 to early 2006, mostly about local sports events and trivial small-town news. What stood out, though, was that the posts ended abruptly in April 2006, the same time Bud Hill was said to have passed away.

The idea that someone had predicted—or even orchestrated—Bud Hill's death started to feel more real. I tracked down another user from that same forum who had interacted with "ripbud2006". The user, who went by the name "PackFan42," still posted occasionally, so I reached out. After a few days, I got a response. The person behind PackFan42 remembered interacting with ripbud2006 but said they had always found the user "a little odd." They mentioned that ripbud2006 had made some strange comments about "leaving soon" and needing to "tie up loose ends." At the time, PackFan42 thought they were just talking about moving away or something mundane, but looking back, it seemed much more ominous, to me atleast.

Anyway! By this point, I was becoming obsessed. I spent hours every night scouring old message boards (those which were around, that is), trying to piece together any information I could find on Bud Hill and Mike Koenen. My friends told me I was going too far, that it was just a meme, but I couldn't let it go. There was something real here, something hidden beneath all the jokes and internet hype. I felt like I was getting closer to an answer, but at the same time, the more I uncovered, the more questions I had.

One night, I found an old news article from 2006, buried deep in a Internet Archive capture of a small local paper. For reference, it was one out of ~150 for that month alone, and this was one of 3 of those captures to even have contained the article. It was a brief piece about a man named Mike Koenen who had been reported missing. The date matched up with when Koenen's online activity had stopped. The article mentioned that he was last seen leaving a bar in Milwaukee, and that friends said he had been acting strangely in the weeks leading up to his disappearance. There was no follow-up article, no conclusion. It was like the story had just been forgotten.

I knew I had to go to Milwaukee. I needed to see for myself where all of this had happened. When I got there, I visited the bar mentioned in the article. It was still open, though it had changed ownership a few times. I asked the bartender if they knew anything about a guy named Mike Koenen who had gone missing years ago. The bartender, an older man who looked like he'd been around for a while, paused for a moment before nodding. He said he remembered the story, that Koenen had been a regular for a while, always talking about sports and making everyone laugh. But toward the end, he said, Koenen started getting paranoid, talking about someone following him, saying he had made a mistake and needed to fix it.

The bartender didn't know what happened to Koenen, but he paused for a long moment before speaking, his eyes narrowing as if he was trying to decide whether or not to share what he knew. He leaned in closer, and told me something that sent a chill down my spine. A few weeks after Koenen disappeared, someone had left a note on the bar counter. It was written in messy handwriting and simply said, "I'm sorry for everything. ripbud2006." The bartender had kept it, thinking it was just some strange prank, but now, seeing my reaction, he realized it might have meant more.

I left Milwaukee feeling more uneasy than ever. I still didn't have all the answers, but one thing was clear: Bud Hill and Mike Koenen were connected in ways that went far beyond all this. Whatever had happened in 2006, it wasn't just a funny story. It was real, and somehow, it had reached out across the years to pull me in. And now, I wasn't sure if I could ever get out.

After returning home, I decided to shift my focus from the obituary itself to the places connected to Bud Hill and Mike Koenen's lives. I began investigating local landmarks and small businesses that appeared in both Bud's story and Koenen's last known movements. One name came up repeatedly: "Hill's Market," a small family-owned grocery store on the outskirts of town, owned by the Hill family since the 1960s.

The store was still open, run by Bud's niece, Cathy. When I visited, it felt like stepping back in time—dusty shelves, faded signs, and a musty smell that hinted at years of history. Cathy was friendly, but as soon as I brought up Bud, her demeanor shifted. Her smile stiffened, and she seemed wary. She said Bud was a character, all right, and that most of the stories in the obituary were true, though exaggerated. But when I mentioned Mike Koenen, her face turned pale. She looked over her shoulder before leaning in close and whispering, "You shouldn't be asking about Mike."

She wouldn't say more, but she told me to come back after closing time if I really wanted answers. That night, I returned, and Cathy let me in through the back door. She led me to a small office in the back of the store, cluttered with old paperwork and dusty memorabilia. Cathy took out a worn ledger and opened it to a pag...

---

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Doorstopsanddynamite on 2024-10-04 01:25:42+00:00.

---

Everyone who works at sea knows there are some things you just don't talk about with shore people. Like the magic pipe, or where the extra money came from for the crew welfare fund after passing through the Suez Canal, or just quite how close you came to crushing that little wooden fishing boat off the coast of Vietnam. Things they wouldn't get, that would tarnish the image of the gentleman captain and his well oiled crew; standing to attention in their crisp white shirts and shiny golden threaded epaulettes. But beyond that, deeper than things they wouldn't understand are things they shouldn't understand. Things that people who haven't spent time out there, thousands of miles from civilization, where the lines between reality and what lies beyond get thin, and blurry, and sometimes vanish altogether should never know. Things that would make your skin crawl and the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. Things that would leave the average landsman barely clinging onto the edge of sanity by the thinnest of margins. Things I'm going to share with you.

What you need to understand, before I begin in earnest, is that so far out at sea things get…fuzzy. My pet theory is that the collective consciousness of humanity gets thin out there, so far from everyone else. The barrier of logic and faith and the knowledge of what is and can be and what isn't and can't simply doesn't extend so far out as to cover the open ocean, days or weeks from anywhere that could even generously be described as inhabited. Other sailors have their own theories, ghosts and aliens and ancient slumbering gods. All at least somewhat true but I don't think any of us quite have everything right. I don't think any of us could get everything right, at least not without slipping too far beyond rationality to ever come back. Some just accept it for what it is and give it no thought whatsoever, I envy them. But what's important is the fuzziness of it all. The moment that reality crosses into unreality is rarely noticeable until you're already knee deep in impossibility.

So that's the context. That's what you need to understand for you to truly comprehend the things I've seen, and heard, and felt, and become. This is your last chance to back out. If you're still reading, I would commend your bravery if I weren't so certain it was ignorance rather than courage that propelled you.

My first experience with that slow fade into what lies beyond rational thought is the one that sticks with me the most. That's the way for most seamen I've spoken to, you never forget the moment you realise you've crossed the line into unreality, the feeling of something in your mind warping as all the logic you've built your life on twists to the point it snaps, and you accept the impossible to be true.

If there is one thing that defines a life working at sea it's rust. It drives almost every action you take when working on deck. Finding rust, removing rust, preventing rust. Chipping and painting: the deck cadet's bread and butter.

The process is actually a rather satisfying one. When I first started as a cadet it was almost therapeutic. You start out with a jet chisel, a collection of long blunt ended needles connected to a handle, powered by pressurised air. When you squeeze the trigger the needles fire back and forth at high speed, shattering the paintwork below them in a satisfying burst, revealing the corrosion underneath. It appears quite violent at first but in actuality the needles aren't moving fast enough to cause you any harm. That's the key you see, where the metal has rusted the paint layered above it loses adhesion, and weakens. The force required to break it is minimal, which means the chisel itself doesn't need much power. It's how you know you've reached the edge of a patch of rust: the metal beneath begins to turn from a tarnished black to a more reflective silver, and the paint becomes much harder to remove.

From there comes the wire brushing. Removing the rust and sanding down the edges of the remaining paint using a high speed rotating brush, with bristles made of coarse steel. Not quite as satisfying as the chipping, but arguably more important. What's the point in knowing where the rust is if you just let it spread? Whilst this looks less violent than the process of chipping it's actually far more likely to cause you harm than using a jet chisel ever would. The wire bristles are likely to fly off at speed, and I've lost count of the amount of times I've almost had one embed itself into my throat, stopped only by the neck gaiter I wear for exactly these situations. And of course that's assuming you don't need to use Metalbrite. A horrific corrosive concoction with the stench of synthetic chemicals that burns at your nose hairs and sticks in the back of your throat. Truly awful stuff, but fantastic at removing rust; within minutes it can have even the most stubborn patches looking almost new, but god help you if you got any of it on your hands. But hey, that's why we wear PPE. Boiler suits, gloves, goggles, dust masks. All designed to keep us safe from errant bristles, corrosive chemicals and lungfuls of iron oxide as it's stripped from the metal it once called home.

There was something so satisfying about revealing a large patch of rust, starting from the centre and following it as it grew, reaching out to spread further and further throughout the steel until you find its maximum extent. It was strangely beautiful to see the different shades and colours in a particularly big section. The blacks and browns of old long rusted portions, pockmarked with the vibrant, almost unnatural orange of fresh spots where the rust had only just begun to take hold. It always fascinated me, the way it would spread. It was almost like a living organism, a parasite, but instead of feeding on its host it incorporated it into itself. Taking the iron from within the steel structure and converting it into Iron Oxide. Millimeter by millimeter, each atom converted becoming another vector from which it can transmit.

Occasionally I would find a spot underneath the paint that looked as though it had bubbled up from within. These spots were so soft you could fracture the paint simply by pressing it with you finger, the paint slowly giving way beneath the pressure before suddenly collapsing with a satisfying snapping feeling beneath your finger tip. And once the paint broke the cause of the bubble became clear, as the salt water trapped beneath the paint trickled out through the cracks, leaving behind a trail of orange-brown streaks as it went.

That's how my first two months at sea went. For four hours every morning, nothing but chipping alongside the deck ratings. Ratings are really the ones who keep the ship running. Officers may know how the Gas Combustion Unit functions or be able to tell you every rule under the Collision Avoidance Regulations, but if you need anything fixed, replaced, painted or polished, the ratings are who you go to. And that's who I spent my first month with. When I wasn't on the bridge learning how to keep watch with the Chief Officer, a stern Scottish man who had a look in his eye that he was always expecting trouble to bubble up out of nowhere, I was with the deck guys chipping away at the rust.

I usually worked with an AB called Max. He was a fair bit older than me, mid forties I'd have guessed but I never bothered to ask. He'd served for years as an Able Bodied Seaman in the company, and absolutely adored his job. We'd often talk about why we'd come to sea, and what we'd done before making the leap, and he'd say "Matt, every day here is an adventure. You'll see things you never even dreamed of. Just stick with me and I'll see you through!" And so I did. For the first two months everything Max did, I did. Admittedly most of that was limited to chipping and wire brushing but he kept me right.

We were sailing back to the Suez Canal from the West Coast of India when Max took ill. He'd forgotten to roll down his sleeves when brushing down a particularly stubborn patch of rust on the underside of a mooring winch and taken a needle to the arm. It hadn't been enough to stop him at the time, barely even breaking the skin, but when he complained of an itching sensation the Chief Mate told him to take some rash cream from the medical locker and take the day off.

The day he returned to work, Max initially seemed fine, working as usual, but he seemed almost hesitant to use the wire brush. It seemed a natural enough reaction at first glance, worrying about the accident, it could potentially have been far worse than a scratch to the arm if he'd been unlucky so of course he'd want to take his time. And that's what all the guys assumed. "Oh Max is just being overly careful, he'll get over it" I heard one of them, a man named Frederico say to the other guys over coffee. But I had spent the whole morning with him and it seemed more than that. He still scratched ferociously at his forearm where he'd been struck by the needle when he thought no one was looking, and recoiled visibly from the sound of a wire brush whirring. But he still worked fine, and otherwise seems his normal self, so I chalked it up to fright from the accident and left him to it.

Cadets tend to get weekends off whilst at sea, and I didn't see much of Max until Monday. Usually he could be found after work watching a film in the crew lounge or playing basketball out on the poo...

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/googlyeyes93 on 2024-10-03 22:36:44+00:00.

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Previous

Around a week after I got that tape, the body was found. Off in the woods on the outskirts of town, there was the charred body of a person. They never found their identity, as far as I still know, but it was ruled as a drifter committing suicide. Guess I couldn’t expect the cops around here to really do anything about it at that point.

I think we finally got ourselves to write it off as just a weird coincidence, but it didn’t stop us from sticking around for each other’s shifts. The two of us were still REALLY freaked out from what had happened, and it’s not like anyone believed us. Even Pete gave a spiel about how he didn’t care what we were getting ourselves worked up about, just that we better not clock in when we’re not supposed to be on the clock. Bastard was always more worried about hours than he was safety.

At a certain point, it was the farthest thing from our mind, though we still made sure not to be alone after dark just in case. The tapes were quickly forgotten as the source of fear, because the weirdness started extending well outside the return counter at Cal’s.

Tuesday afternoon, late fall, the first game return came in. Innocent enough, just a copy of Sonic the Knuckles for the Sega Genesis. Really, not the worst game, and it was one of the usual movers that came through. The woman that returned it was PISSED though, and it took me almost ten minutes to get her to calm the hell down to tell me what was going on.

The warm Southern daylight pouring in through the windows was nothing compared to the cold I felt. Now, the ice that dumped over me when she finally calmed down made me know things were about to get much, much worse at Cal’s.

”Is this some practical joke you guys play? Mess with these stupid videogames? I’m going to take this all the way up to the Supreme Court! Tipper Gore warned us about this!” She was fucking hysterical, “My child hasn’t slept for the past two nights because she says the game won’t let her! What the hell?”

”Woah, woah, okay. Please, can I see the cartridge?” I asked, holding my hands up and practically begging her to shut the hell up. Nothing looked different about it, just the usual Genesis cartridge, the outlines of the characters on the outside, No tampering on the outside shell and everything inside looked fine. If someone hacked it, then they did a good job of making it look totally normal after they were done. I walked her over to the game corner, unlocking the case around our store Genesis. We had just about every console out at the time, with promo sending them to us as demo units for more game sales. No better way to get rentals than to get kids hooked on a game that was nearly impossible to beat, even when they took it home.

Give the cartridge a good puff for dust, make sure it’ll start fine, and load it in before starting up the system. These things were particular, and if you didn’t change out games properly, it could throw the entire damn console back in the day. Amazing how far we’ve come.

“Alright, so what happened to the game while your son was playing?” I asked, doing my best to keep the friendly customer service exterior but barely able to contain my own nerves. “Where did the problem start?”

”See for yourself! It happened every time he got a game over. Sonic died, the screen went black, and suddenly there’s this… this video. It looks like the game so it’s hard to tell, but I swear to god my son was in the game.” She said, stuttering through flustered anger and fear. “This thing was showing my son killing himself. I swear to god, it had our home recreated in these damned pixels, and showed him walking into his father’s gun cabinet, take out the shotgun, and blast his head away with no way for him to turn off or restart the game.”

”Okay, there’s no way they could code your son specifically into the game, ma’am.” I said, almost laughing at how ridiculous it sounded despite my recent experiences that proved otherwise. Regardless, to get her to calm the hell down, I started up the game and threw myself off a cliff multiple times, leading to the standard ‘Game Over’ screen and theme before zipping me back to the main menu. “I’m not sure what your son was seeing, ma’am, but it wasn’t anything on here.”

That was a bullshit lie and I knew it at the time, though it was as much a lie to myself as it was to her. Naturally she wasn’t happy about not being believed when it comes to seeing this terror (can’t blame her, I had felt the same recently) but what the hell could I do? Just tell her, ‘Oh yeah, we’ve been getting weird tapes too, so this isn’t very out of the ordinary’. God no, Cal himself would bring his decrepit ass down here and fire me for affecting his bottom dollar. Instead I told her I would send this back to Sega (I didn’t know how the fuck to do that, of course) and give her a refund plus credit for a free rental. It kept her calm for the time, but I swear she never came back after that. Another customer for Blockbuster a few towns over I guess.

After she left I just put the game in a defective bin, but I swear to god it gave me this eerie feeling for the rest of the night, and I just couldn’t shake that SOMETHING about it was off. A few hours later, when Dustin finally got there after sunset for our usual plan these days, we finally did something.

Of course, we both sat leaning on the counter for nearly thirty minutes, just looking at the cartridge like it was going to come to life at any moment and grow teeth to eat us with. Call me a coward, but after the immolation on live tape I saw, I wasn’t fucking around. Finally, we both moved over to the game corner, unlocking the console and loading in the cartridge. Both of us took a deep breath before I hit the start button, throwing us into the game.

Normal Sonic and Knuckles started up, with the little cutscene of Sonic getting his ass beat for the Chaos Emeralds leading in. Something seemed off about it though, with pixels glitching out occasionally, changing colors, and. generally disappearing. By the time the gameplay started, we were convinced it was just a defective cartridge and a kid’s over-active imagination. Fucking wrong.

The first odd thing, other than the pixels popping, was Tails. Usually the cute little fox would just fly around after you, picking you out of danger from time to time and acting mainly as a sidekick. Right from the start of the level, he jumped into the nearest spikes, immediately doing the bounce off with a terrified face. Okay, weird glitch, but nothing too out of the ordinary. AI in these days could be either as stupid as a bag of rocks or as unbelievably hate filled as Mortal Kombat. There wasn’t much in between.

Then the game took over. It was like it was in some kind of demo mode, Sonic moving without any controller input from me. I tried guiding him forward in the level, jumping over one gap to keep goi9ng toward the rings ahead. Instead, he turned back to the gap, pausing for a second before doing that annoying-ass finger wag gesture, then immediately jumping into the pit to die. We went from three lives to zero, immediately, and the screen changed.

It loaded in a completely different screen, this resembling an average street with dim lights at night. The game itself was almost like a top down-ish RPG, but with more detail than I had ever seen. One, lone sprite stood at the left side of the screen, a bright green shirt reading ‘Cal’s’ in the obnoxious yellow neon. I didn’t even think to move, unsure of what I was seeing on the old CRT mounted up above the shelves full of games.

MOVE OR DIE

The screen was nearly covered with the words, prompting me to begin pressing down on the D-Pad to make the sprite get moving. As the street passed by, shadows moved in the background behind my character, bright red eyes peeking out from the darkness.

As the screen changed, revealing a pixelated version of Cal’s complete with neon signs and old movie posters, I could see something was different here. The windows were splattered red in spots, with a small puddle of what appeared to be blood oozing from under the front door. I paused for a second, not sure if I should continue to the door or not. Suddenly, from both sides of the screen, the shadows began moving from the background toward us.

I don’t mean toward us as in the game, I mean toward US. Dustin and I were standing there, perplexed as the dark figures, bright red eyes glowing on the CRT monitor as they became more clear. Look, in the nearly twenty years since then, I’ve seen game graphics get really, really fucking mindblowing. This though… the pixelation was too subtle, the darkness of the figures too clear, too defined to fit on a 16-bit system. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen some good fucking graphics but when the darkness began to overtake the edges of the screen, curling outward over the edges of the CRT, Dustin snatched the controller from my hands, furiously mashing the d-pad down to make our sprite move into the room, over the pooling blood at the door.

The screen blacked out for a moment, loading in the new environment. Cal’s was faithfully recreated, though some of the shelves were arranged differently. The store was divided, game corner gone, with Betamax tapes on one side, VHS on the other, and one small shelf in the front holding Laserdiscs. The decor was the only real hint to the time period though, with a huge cardbo...

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/lets-split-up on 2024-10-04 01:33:41+00:00.

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I’m sitting here trying not to feel foolish, too scared to leave my bedroom. I don’t know what to do… I’m at my wit’s end. Please help.

My husband is just outside the door and I’m afraid what he’ll do if I… Oh God, that sounds like he’s… no, no let me explain.

Ricky and I were on a hiking trip earlier this week. We were winding along a trail deep in a gorge, and it was just after sunset, so the gorge was dark with shadows. I never saw anything myself, but Ricky swore he spotted a lost child. He went off the path with our dog Gordie. I couldn’t keep up. Eventually he came back, looking anguished. Gordie had apparently run off snarling into the darkness, and he worried our pit bull was going to maul some lost kid out there.

“I don’t know what’s gotten into him,” he said.

Gordie is a good dog most of the time, but he can be aggressive with strangers coming to our home. It wasn’t completely outside the realm of possibility for him to bite if he thought we were threatened. Though it seemed odd a child would trigger that response. I pressed my husband for a description of this child, and he admitted he “didn’t get a good look” but said he thought the kid was “naked” and that he mostly thought it was a child because he heard talking. I suggested he may have heard a baby deer or other animal, and wouldn’t that be something Gordie would be more likely to chase? And wouldn’t a kid, a talking kid, answer our shouts?

He agreed. Even so, we searched awhile longer before the twilight became too dark and we returned to the cabin where we were staying.

The next morning, Gordie was back, scratching at the cabin door. We’d lost the spark for hiking so cut our trip short and drove back home.

That’s when it all got strange.

I have insomnia sometimes, so I stay downstairs watching TV while Ricky sleeps upstairs. I was on the sofa, glazed over watching some late night show, when I heard talking. I assumed it was Ricky. But I couldn’t make out any distinct words. I called out and there was no reply. I went back to watching my show, but a while later heard it start again, so I got up and went into the kitchen.

There was a child in our kitchen. Or at least that was my first impression in the dim lighting. But it wasn’t a child. It was Gordie. Our dog was standing on his hind legs, just standing in the middle of the room, shoelaces of drool dribbling from his jaws, and he was making these grunting sounds. He stopped the moment I came in, and he was back on all fours again, looking at me.

When I told Ricky, he said I must’ve been seeing things.

But I’m telling you, the dog was on his hind legs, trying to talk.

Next morning, Ricky kept teasing me about Gordie and saying stuff to our dog like, “Hey Gordie, grab me a cup of coffee, would ya?” Or “Hey can you answer the phone for me?” Gordie would just stare at him. Honestly he was still acting a little strange but after Ricky’s teasing I was done worrying about the dog, so I left for work.

I was on lunch break when I got the texts from Ricky:

RICKY: Heard talking. Thought it was you but just found Gordie downstairs.

RICKY: Something wrong, he’s making weird noises and think he’s got mange? He’s losing some skin.

RICKY: OMW to vet

I called, but Ricky never talks on the phone while driving so it didn’t surprise me it went to voicemail. I texted him to call me after he got to the vet.

After work, I checked my phone. Ricky hadn’t texted.

On my drive home I tried calling multiple times to no answer.

Ricky was not home. Most vets close by 6pm, so where was my husband? I checked his location on my phone, and to my surprise he wasn’t far at all, maybe ten minutes away.

So I drove out there. It was on a country road, the route we take to the emergency vet. And at first, I didn’t see his car anywhere. I finally found it when I noticed some of the grass flattened beside the road and that his car had veered off into a ditch. By now, the sun was setting. I noticed the driver door open and muddy footprints. Ricky’s phone was in the passenger seat. I followed the tracks but they vanished in the grass and I walked around, calling for Ricky, and stopped when I found Gordie.

Or rather, what was left of Gordie. I should have taken a picture but I was so distressed… it was our Gordie, but it was like something had split him in half like those pig carcasses you see hanging from meat hooks at slaughterhouses. I could count his ribs…

I called the cops. They came out and examined the scene of the accident but after looking at the footprints concluded it was only Ricky who’d been out here. They seemed to suspect my husband must have done this to Gordie, even though I told them Ricky had been on the way to the vet. I started to tell them about Gordie’s weird behavior the night before, but that really made them skeptical. I wanted them to go full crime scene and tape off the area and take photos, but apparently that kind of investigation is not done for dead dogs.

When I came home, I was exhausted and upset. I saw lights on in the house. Relief washed over me because that meant Ricky was home!

But when I opened the front door the first thing I noticed was the dirt tracked inside. Ricky and I always remove our shoes when entering. Also, I could hear him talking, but it was just like Gordie the other night. Talking but not talking. These odd syllables, like someone mimicking the act of talking.

All of this chilled me to the bone as I crept around the corner so I could see him in the den, standing there, unnaturally stiff and straight, sort of swaying. I called, “Honey?”

His gibberish immediately ceased. His head turned, and—I swear, it was like he reached up, and folded his skin over his face. Like a sticker that has started to peel at the corner and that he smoothed back into place. I heard him say, very clearly this time, “Honey?”

I ran. I ran upstairs to our bedroom and slammed the door and locked it. I could hear him roaming around outside. Occasionally he called for me, “Honey?”

I’d dropped my phone in the hallway. I was too scared to go and grab it. Instead I stayed hidden up here, listening to the sound of the TV downstairs. At one point, the news anchor said, “Reports of sunny weather coming up!”

And I heard Ricky’s voice, clear and distinct: “Sunny weather coming up!” Then he cleared his throat and called loudly, “Honey, reports of sunny weather coming up!”

Every so often he came up to try a new phrase on me. The last time he came upstairs, I was sobbing and yelled through the door, “What about Gordie? What the fuck happened to Gordie?”

He laughed—laughed! A weird, high-pitched laugh that sounded just like a laugh from a woman on TV. Not at all like his normal laugh. And he said, “Gordie’s fine, honey. Gordie’s fine.”

“My name’s not ‘honey’!” I shouted back. “Call me by name! You know my name. It’s Judy!”

“Open the door, Judy, honey,” he said. “Judy! Open the door!”

But my name’s not Judy, either. It’s Claire. Judy is his mother’s name. Whatever is down there wearing my husband’s face—it’s far, far too clever, the way it tried to quickly reassure me. And I know I have to call the police and tell them something’s wrong and that if they interview him, they’ll see, he won’t be able to answer correctly. They’ll realize something’s not right.

I finally managed to creep out and grab my phone and sneak back in while he was still watching television.

But now I’m terrified because right after I scurried back in and locked the door, he came up—he must have heard me—and he knocked.

And I am so chilled. I’m not sure if I can convince police of the danger now. Because this last time, after he so very politely knocked, he said, “Honey?”

He said it smugly, confidently. “Honey, open up. Everything’s fine. Claire, honey, open the door, Claire."

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/NotJustSomeNumbers on 2024-10-03 23:10:07+00:00.

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First

The guy narrowed his eyes doubtful of Arlin's words but kept talking.

“There was an outbreak in a different forest a bit of a distance from here. We’re still studying it. We think something infected the local plants and then gets passed onto the animals.”

I glanced down at his swipe card again trying to see if there was a company name. I only saw his initials printed on the bottom of the card.

“Tell us J.C., can this infection pass to humans?” I said and nodded toward the two bodies we just put down.

His face turned pale and he frowned with a slight shake of his head.

“Yes. Eating a tainted plant, or an infected animal can pass it along. Or well... an infected human can infect you too.”

My head started to spin. I nearly fainted at the news. Not only did my friends turn into monsters, but they had been trying to change us as well. I realized something and it nearly put me over the edge.

“Can you be infected by eating tainted mushrooms?” I asked, dread clear on my face.

“Are chicken of the woods mushrooms or fungus?” Arlin added mostly talking to himself.

“Uh, yeah. Did you two eat some?”

We both glanced at each other and nodded. J.C.’s shoulders dropped disappointed the two normal humans he’d come across may be ticking time bombs.

“We haven’t come across a lot of humans coming into contact with this infection. There is a small percentage of animals that don’t react to whatever is causing all of this. But... we have seen people turn after seven or eight hours after being exposed. The biggest sign of the infection is a personality change. Some people revert to a childlike state, and others become extremely violent.”

“If you’ve studied this, then they’re must be a cure...” I said almost too desperate to think clearly.

J.C. pointed towards the body of the previous ranger at our feet. The flesh was still twisted from some unnatural disease.

“You think there could ever be a cure for something like that?” He explained.

My knees gave out and I slid down the wall. With some quick math, I assumed that I only had until sunrise. Then I would become like my friends. My body changed in gruesome ways and my mind gone.

“The only way to deal with this is fire. It seems like whatever carries this mutation is extremely flammable.” J.C added with a shrug not over concerned over our fates, or he was hiding it very well.

“Why wasn’t the park closed?” I replied. I wanted to sound angry but I was just so tired.

“I wasn’t certain whether this forest had been overtaken or not. And no one wanted to spare the manpower to double-check. Our hands are full because of the other location. I hired a private security worker to come along to confirm what I suspected.”

“Then you got spooked in the woods, ran off, and got separated from them?” Arlin suggested.

Despite the horrible news, he hadn’t dropped his smile. He only appeared a little tired but not on the verge of a mental breakdown like myself.

J.C.’s face turned red showing that was what really went down. Hell, I didn’t blame him. At least he found his way to the cabin alone instead of relying on a stranger for help.

“I’m meeting Cassidy here. We’ll protect you and get you out of the woods. There is a very, very slim chance either of you aren’t infected.” J.C. suggested recovering from his embarrassment.

“And if we are?” I asked barely able to keep my head up.

He didn’t answer. I knew why. We would either be killed on the spot, or taken away to be experimented on.

“We never should have come here.” My voice sounded as bitter as I felt.

“Since we might be carrying this infection, can you at least tell us where it came from?” Arlin asked, his voice calm.

I knew he was trying to keep the conversation going to distract me from my misery. J.C. frowned uncomfortable with the request. He had been told to not disclose that information but he felt like we were owed it. He pointed upwards as a small hint. I didn’t understand what he was implying.

“It’s a biblical event?” My new friend asked innocently.

J.C face flushed red and he jabbed his finger upwards a few more times.

“I’m gesturing towards the night sky!” He huffed.

I forgot about everything for a second as the implication hit me like a ton of bricks. We were dealing with something that came from space? Like some sort of alien disease? Was that even possible? I didn’t have time to dwell on it.

I had been too stressed out to be thinking clearly. I had completely forgotten what I had asked Matt to do the last time I saw him. He was supposed to come to the ranger’s cabin. His body wasn’t here when we arrived. That meant he should be out there in the forest. I was unaware he had been finding his way where the entire time.

Arlin’s body tensed. I quickly stood up causing J.C. to look at us confused. I was closer to the door and made it outside first. Countless streaks of light flew across the night sky. The sight should be beautiful but it chilled me to the bone. Someone was waiting outside for us just at the edge of the clearing to the cabin.

Matt’s clothing was stained with fresh blood. He lifted a heavy object and tossed it closer to us. A severed head of a large buck landed hard. The dark eyes still opened and the mouth moved slightly.

I was scared to see what he become, but I also felt so tired.

“Why are you here? I thought you were heading to the car.” Matt said sounding almost normal.

His voice had a distant sound to it. This figure looked and sounded like my friend but the features were just off enough for me to know he was too far gone.

“I got sidetracked.” I admitted.

So far, he hadn’t acknowledged the two other people.

“I did what I was told. I came here. I took care of the deer that bothered Eddie. They all asked me not to. All of them are my friends and they want me to join them, but you guys were my friends first.” He explained, his eyes looking forward and yet past me at the same time.

“Where’s the girls?” I asked him with foolish hope for a good answer.

“Sofie is at Big Bear Tree. I can’t hear Jessy anymore. Or Ben.” Matt’s eyes trailed off to the woods as if he expected our friends to be close by.

J.C. said he came with someone. I considered they had come across Ben and Jessy and silenced them. If that was the case, then it meant that Eddie wasn’t dead even after getting hacked apart. The world started to spin as I thought of him not only transforming against his will but lying injured and alone somewhere. Death would be better.

“They want me to take you all with me. There are so many voices telling me what to do.” Matt said, his head turning back to face us.

An odd cold rage bubbled under the surface. His flesh rippled along his cheeks but he didn’t act just yet.

“I’m sick of it. I was jealous of you, you know that? You don’t have parents ordering you around. You don't have siblings. You’re alone. No voices are bothering you.”

I found myself taking a few steps back. I knew Matt worked hard to support his large family. But I was never aware of how that affected him.

“Hey, let’s trade places. Let me crawl into your skin and be you for a little while.”

Matt's expression changed into a deranged smile. Arlin knew Matt was serious about the idea. He darted towards him, axe in hand ready to fight.

Yet again, I was too scared to act. Or rather, I couldn’t bring myself to move. Deep down I felt like I should die in those woods. Arlin didn’t agree.

A batch of flesh tendrils burst out from Matt’s back. I grabbed J.C. and pulled him out of the way. The unnatural appendage crashed into the window that had been behind him, the shards of glass slicing into the flesh causing it to recoil in pain. Most of the tendrils went for Arlin seeing him as the biggest threat.

One wrapped around the handle of the axe. He held onto it with both hands and dug into the ground with his feet trying to stay in one spot. He was painfully dragged along refusing to give up his weapon. With a massive pull, he brought Matt closer then suddenly let go of the axe. He moved too fast for his opponent to react. With one swift movement, he pulled out a small object from his pocket and grabbed a hold of one side of Matt’s head to keep it steady as he stabbed a pen deep into the creature’s right ear.

He screamed in pain, the tendrils wildly flailing around. He wobbled on his feet trying to recover. Arlin didn’t give him the chance. The metal axe had been dropped out of arms reach but that didn’t matter to him. He grabbed Matt’s shirt and tossed him to the ground. Matt reached and ripped the pen from his ear but it was too late. Arlin took hold of his skull with both hands lifting his head above the buck’s antlers. There was a struggle as Matt used all his strength to keep his head raised. Arlin his weight to slowly force down Matt’s body. Both of them shook with effort and sweat dripped from Arlin's face.

Slowly he won the silent fight and lowered Matt’s neck onto the tip of an antler. Blood bubbled from his mouth as the rest of his body fell limp and his eyes rolled back.

When I grabbed J.C out of the way I hadn’t let him go. I felt him grab a hold of my arm, fear overtaking him and he wasn’t ashamed to hold a stranger for support.

Matt’s face started to transform. The fleshy flowers spouted covering his eyes and his chest moved as if countless insects were moving under the skin. H...

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Weird-Suggestion-152 on 2024-10-03 18:06:11+00:00.

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Pt. 1.

The atmosphere in the ranger station had become stifling. My encounter with whatever was lurking in the woods, the Wendigo, or whatever it was, loomed over us like a dark cloud. We patrolled together now, never venturing into the forest alone. Daniel insisted on this, but it was clear that tension between him and Earl was mounting with each passing day.

Earl was a no-nonsense type, and all the talk about the Wendigo was getting to him. He masked it with tough talk and hard looks, but I could see through it. Daniel, on the other hand, was quiet, reflective, and unnervingly calm. It was the kind of calm that made me wonder if he had already made peace with the idea that things weren’t going to end well.

We still had a job to do, though, and we couldn’t just sit in the station. Outside though, the usual sounds of nature were gone, replaced by an oppressive silence. Not even the wind seemed to move anymore. I often found myself glancing between the two men, feeling like I was caught in the middle of two fighting parents.

One afternoon, after busting up a beaver dam, we were on our way back to the station, when we came across another mutilated deer. “It’s another one”, Daniel said. Earl knelt beside the remnants, his face twisted in frustration.

"We’re chasing shadows out here," Earl muttered, standing up and wiping his hands on his pants. "This ain’t no Wendigo. Probably just some damned bear with a grudge."

Daniel, standing a few feet away, was watching the tree line, his eyes scanning the distance as if waiting for something to emerge. When Earl's grumbling grew louder, Daniel finally spoke up.

"You know it’s not a bear, Earl. You’ve seen the tracks."

Earl shot him a sharp look. "I’ve been doing this for thirty years, Daniel. I know a bear when I see one. I don’t need you filling the kid’s head with your bullshit legends."

Daniel’s expression remained calm, but there was a hard edge in his voice when he responded. "This isn’t about legends. It’s about survival. The Wendigo is real, and it’s hunting us."

Earl stepped closer to Daniel, his face contorted with anger. "You think I’m scared of some fairy tale? I’ve faced real predators, real threats. This thing, whatever it is, it doesn’t scare me."

Daniel didn’t back down. "That’s your problem, Earl. You’re not scared enough."

The tension between them was thick, and for a moment, I thought one of them might throw a punch. I stood there, awkwardly silent, my eyes darting between the two of them, unsure of what to say. Finally, Earl snorted and stormed off toward the station.

"I’m done with this shit," Earl muttered. "You two can sit around talking about monsters and fucking fairy tales all you want. I’m going to bed."

That night, Daniel and I stayed by the fire, the flickering flames casting long shadows on the floor. The silence that followed was suffocating, but eventually, I broke it.

"Do you really think we’re being hunted?" I asked, my voice barely above a whisper.

Daniel didn’t answer right away. He poked at the fire with a stick, watching the embers rise up the chimney before he finally spoke.

"Yes," he said softly. "I think the Wendigo has chosen us. Once it sets its sights on you, there’s no going back. It’s patient. It waits. It wears you down."

I swallowed hard, my throat dry. "And how do you stop it? I mean, how do you kill it?"

Daniel’s eyes shot up to meet mine, and for a moment, he didn’t say anything. Then, he shook his head. "You don’t."

"There has to be a way," I pressed, desperation creeping into my voice.

Daniel looked away, staring into the fire. "Legends say there is, but it’s dangerous. You’d have to trap it first, and that alone is nearly impossible."

My pulse quickened. "How do you trap it?"

Daniel hesitated, as if debating whether or not to tell me. After a long pause, he sighed and leaned forward, lowering his voice. "The Wendigo fears fire. You’d need to lure it into a trap with something it wants, flesh. And once it’s close enough, you’d have to burn it. But it won’t be easy. It’s smart. It’ll know what you’re trying to do."

A chill ran down my spine. "So we use ourselves as bait?"

Daniel nodded grimly. "It’d be the only way."

We spent the next few days preparing the trap. It was a plan born out of desperation, but it was all we had. We set up in a narrow ravine deep in the forest, a place where the trees were thick and the ground uneven. We dug a deep pit and filled it with kindling, creating a makeshift pyre. The idea was simple, lure the Wendigo into the hole, ignite the fire, and hope it would be enough to kill it.

Earl, despite his earlier protests, went along with the plan. His gruff exterior had cracked, and I could see the fear in his eyes, though he tried to hide it behind tough talk. He was desperate for it to be over.

"Just make sure you don’t screw this up, Tom," Earl muttered as we set the final touches on the trap. "We only get one shot at this."

Daniel stood nearby, quiet as always, but there was a tension in him that I hadn’t seen before. I knew he was nervous, even if he didn’t show it.

The sun began to set, casting darkness across the forest. The air grew colder, and the wind picked up, carrying with it the familiar scent of decay that made my stomach churn. We took our positions. Daniel and I stood near the pit, while Earl waited a little further back, his rifle at the ready, just in case.

For a long time, there was nothing but silence. The forest was unnervingly still, as if holding its breath. Then, from somewhere deep in the woods, came the sound of footsteps, slow, deliberate, and not human.

My heart raced, and I gripped my gun, my eyes scanning the darkness. Daniel and I stood by the hole, waiting for our opportunity to light the fire. The footsteps grew louder, closer, and then, I saw it.

The Wendigo.

It moved between the trees with an unnatural grace, its long, gaunt limbs twisted and pale. Its eyes glowed with an eerie light, and its mouth hung open, revealing sharp, jagged teeth. The sight of it made my blood run cold.

It was huge, much taller than I had imagined, with a skeletal frame that seemed barely held together by its rotting flesh. Its stench filled the air, a sickly-sweet smell of decay and death. It moved toward us, and we waited in anticipation as it drew closer and closer to the hole. Just a little bit further, I thought to myself. And, for a moment, I thought our plan might actually work. But, just as the Wendigo was almost on top of the hole, Earl raised his rifle.

“Earl, no!” Daniel shouted. But before he could fire, the Wendigo moved, fast, impossibly fast. It darted toward Earl, its long arms reaching out with terrifying speed. Earl screamed, a guttural, panicked sound, but it was too late.

The Wendigo slammed into him, knocking him to the ground. Its claws tore into his flesh, ripping him apart with horrifying precision. Blood sprayed across the forest floor, and Earl’s screams were cut short as the creature’s jaws closed around his throat, tearing it out in one swift motion.

I froze, my body locked in place as I watched in horror. Earl’s body convulsed for a moment before going still, his blood pooling beneath him. The Wendigo stood over him, its mouth smeared with blood, its glowing eyes locked onto me.

"Run!" Daniel shouted, grabbing my arm and yanking me away from the scene.

We bolted, sprinting through the trees as fast as we could. The Wendigo let out a bone-chilling screech, and I could hear it crashing through the growth behind us, its footsteps fast and relentless.

We ran, the forest a blur around us. My lungs burned, my legs screamed in protest, but I didn’t dare stop. The sound of the Wendigo’s pursuit was right behind us, its screeches echoing through the trees.

Then, Daniel stumbled.

I turned just in time to see him fall, his foot catching on a root. He hit the ground hard, and before I could reach him, the Wendigo was upon him.

"Go!" Daniel shouted, his voice hoarse. "Get to the station!"

I hesitated for a split second, but the sight of the Wendigo tearing into Daniel’s flesh sent me into a blind panic. I turned and ran, Daniel’s screams echoing in my ears as I sprinted through the forest.

I burst through the door of the ranger station, slamming it shut behind me. My hands were trembling, my breath coming in ragged gasps. Blood smeared across my face and clothes, not mine, but Earl’s and Daniel’s.

I stumbled to the radio, frantically calling for help.

"Mayday! Mayday! This is Ranger Carter! We need immediate help at Pine Creek Forest! There’s something out here, something killing us! Please, send help!"

There was static for a moment, and then a voice crackled through the speaker. "Copy. Stay where you are. Help is on the way."

I dropped the radio and collapsed onto the floor, my body shaking with fear and exhaustion. The fire in the hearth flickered weakly, casting shadows on the walls. The station felt too small, too vulnerable. The Wendigo was out there, somewhere in the darkness, and I could feel it, like a predator circling its prey. My body trembled as I stood in the middle of the room, trying to figure out what to do next. The fire crackled softly, offering little comfort. I grabbed the rifle from ...

---

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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Yearbook01 on 2024-10-03 04:53:17+00:00.

---

I've been struggling with the decision of whether or not to share these stories. My therapist has encouraged me to write them down and try to piece together why I am the way I am. The sleepless nights, the constant panic attacks, the plethora of medications I've been prescribed in order to gain some semblance of normalcy. My therapist keeps hinting that my story is that of a bored teenager's imagination, coupled with depression and anxiety in order to explain why I was so skittish and afraid of life. I know better than that.

My parents were told I needed medication, but they refused. They dismissed it all as “mental health mumbo-jumbo,” and getting them to let me see a therapist felt like pulling teeth. Instead, they sent me to live with my grandparents on their farm for the summer, insisting it would be good for me to escape the city and immerse myself in the countryside. They claimed the fresh air would help me relax and forget my angsty teenage problems. But they were wrong. At first, I was reluctant to leave home, but part of me was relieved to escape. Dad’s alcoholism had settled into a steady routine, no doubt exacerbated by whatever haunted him out in those fields of golden wheat. Growing up there couldn’t have been easy on him, and just my few short summers spent on that farm had been enough to leave a mark on my soul. The oppressive weight of the past loomed over me, a shadow that whispered of memories I wasn’t ready to confront, memories that would haunt me long after I returned home.

--Thirteen Years Old, First Summer--

The first summer I went down, I was thirteen years old. The farmhouse was located on the corner of Nowhere and Nothing. There was nothing else for miles around, not even a town or a gas station. It was the kind of place you could easily miss if you blinked. But if you happened to drive past at just the right moment, you might catch a glimpse of the house and wonder what kind of person would live in such a remote part of the country side. Though, it would be a stroke of luck if you managed to find your way to their house, the winding dirt roads stretched on and on endlessly, the turns having no rhyme or reason to them.

Grandma kept a surprisingly clean house, the paint a perfect shade of yellowish white, the shutters a forest green. The roof was tin- more hardy in the hail storms that plagued the Midwest, and was the same color as the shutters. The house overlooked a beautifully upkept garden, full of all the vegetables we were able to grow out there. The moment you stepped out of the car, you could feel the old bur oak trees watching you stretch out your sore limbs. The ancient cottonwood trees releasing sheets of their snowy seeds blanketed some of the area. The dirt road leading up was a straight shot to the house- the unbelievably flat plains looked like something out of a painting. You could look out for miles on a good day and not see a damn thing other than the sprawling grasslands. Sounds great for the growing mind of a teenager, right?

The house was an old school house, built in the 1800's. You could even see the scorch marks in the old hardwood flooring from the stove used to heat the school house. It took years and years of renovations and additions for it to be the house that stood today- the pink carpeting in the bedrooms was left over from the 80's, the walls were that sensory nightmare stucco type. The house, much like my family, had character and quirks. My bedroom for the summer even had a sliding glass door that lead to the wrap around porch. I would have enjoyed it had it not been for the fact it had no curtains, and I was terrified of the dark.

The chores were simple. Weed the garden, feed the animals, make lunch for grandpa who was out in the fields on his tractor doing who knows what. Clean the house up after lunch, stay inside where it was cooler until supper time. Make dinner. Rinse and repeat. I liked to collect eggs from the chickens first thing in the morning and check again before making dinner.

When I say that the farm is dark at night, I mean it is dark. There's no light pollution to be seen, and I absolutely adored looking up at the stars before turning in for the night. You could see the Milky Way with such clarity it was mesmerizing. You could see the wispy clusters of galaxies far away, and imagine what it would be like to be up there amongst the stars.

My first night at my grandparents' farm was uneventful, or so I thought at the time. The old farmhouse was settling, which explained the creaking floorboards that occurred at all hours of the night. I also heard scratching sounds, which I attributed to raccoons that had taken refuge in the cool shelter of the house. But then, at around 4 in the morning, I was awakened by a loud bang. I laid in bed, trying to figure out what had caused the noise. The darkness beyond the sliding glass door was absolute, swallowing the night with a suffocating blackness. The weak light from my room only seemed to make it worse, casting reflections against the glass that distorted my view. But I could feel it, something was out there. Watching me. Its gaze felt cold, like icy fingers trailing over my skin, but no matter how hard I stared into the void, I saw nothing. Just endless, formless dark. My breath hitched as a primal dread crept over me, the kind that told you to run, even if you didn’t know from what. I couldn’t see it, but I could sense it, lingering just beyond the glass, hidden in the night. Its presence was oppressive, waiting in the shadows, silent... unmoving. Something was there, just out of sight.

The next night, I was too tired to even try to give a damn about any noises. I'm sure my brain was playing some type of trick on me. I was sleeping in a new environment and I wasn't used to any of it so my brain was just trying to fill in the gaps.

I had been in a deep, dreamless sleep, completely drained from the day's backbreaking chores, when a sudden crash above my head yanked me into consciousness. It sounded like something heavy had slammed onto the roof directly overhead. My heart raced as I bolted upright in bed, listening, every nerve on edge. Silence followed- unnatural, suffocating silence. I waited, barely breathing, but the noise didn’t return. Minutes passed, though they felt like hours, and my exhaustion eventually overpowered the fear. I sank back into the sheets, unwillingly slipping back into sleep.

Morning came, but with it, no relief. The sunlight felt wrong as it streamed into my room. Groggy, I shuffled toward the sliding glass doors, but then stopped cold. Two handprints, smeared and filthy, were pressed into the glass. They weren’t just dirty.. They were dark, thick with grime, as if something foul had touched them. Downy chicken feathers clung to the muck, their presence as out of place as the handprints themselves.

And then I realized they were upside down, high up on the glass, almost seven feet off the ground. My skin crawled as the realization hit: whatever had made those prints had been hanging from the roof, looking down at me while I slept. Watching. "Probably just a bird that flew into the window honey, nothing to worry about." my grandmother explained away.

The chicken coop was my first stop in the morning. I said hello to the chickens like I normally did, thanking them for their service. There was one chicken, Annie Yolkly, that hardly ever left her little roost. She was a cute little golden brown hen, and she was as sweet as pie. When I tried to reach under her and grab her eggs, she pecked at my hand. That had been the first time she had ever done that. "What's the matter girl? Did I come in too fast?" I had asked. I reached again slower this time, thinking that perhaps I had startled her. She pecked again, wilder this time, fluffing out her feathers in warning. I ended up grabbing her and placing her beside the roost, unearthing the secret she hid.

Her eggs had rotted, the stench of sulfur seeping from the roost like poison. The shells, once white and smooth, had turned black and brittle, splitting open as if something had clawed its way out. But that was impossible. I had checked her eggs twice a day, no eggs were supposed to be left. My stomach lurched as I stumbled out of the coop, choking on the rancid air that clung to my throat. Even outside, under the wide-open sky, the smell wouldn’t leave me. It buried itself in my senses, a foul presence that lingered long after, like something was still with me... watching.

What haunted me most about that farm was the unshakable feeling of being watched. No matter what I was doing or who I was with, instinct stirred deep within me, whispering that I was never truly alone. It didn’t matter if I was tending to the chickens or wandering through the garden; that gnawing sensation followed me like a shadow. Sometimes, I would catch myself glancing over my shoulder, half expecting to see a figure lurking just out of sight, hidden among the trees. The air was thick with an unsettling stillness, and every creak of the old house felt like a reminder that something was always watching, waiting for the moment when I would let my guard down completely.

The next few days went by as fine as they could. Grandma wouldn't acknowledge anything was wrong, but I did get a stern talking to about leaving eggs to rot outside. It was the final night of the first week down on the farm. Tossing and turning it was unbearably hot inside, and even thoug...

---

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Obviously_Special on 2024-10-02 16:22:44+00:00.

---

I’ve always prided myself on being independent. At twenty-five, I had a solid job, my own apartment, and a tight-knit group of friends who I trusted implicitly. My life was far from perfect, but it was mine, and I was content. But all of that changed when I moved to a new city for a job opportunity that seemed too good to be true.

At first, everything felt exhilarating. The excitement of new beginnings kept me busy. I explored my neighborhood, scouted nearby cafes, and met my neighbors, who were warm and welcoming. Among them was an older woman named Mrs. Whitaker, who lived across the hall. She was kind and often invited me over for tea and cookies. I appreciated her company; it made the transition easier.

About a month after settling in, I began to notice something strange. I’d come home from work to find my apartment door slightly ajar, even though I was certain I had locked it. I brushed it off as my imagination, thinking perhaps I was just forgetful. But then I started finding little things out of place—my favorite coffee mug turned upside down, a picture frame slightly askew. I mentioned it to Mrs. Whitaker one day during tea.

“Oh dear,” she said, her voice dripping with concern. “You should really be careful. You never know who might be watching. People are not what they seem, you know.”

I laughed it off, attributing her comments to old-age paranoia. But as days turned into weeks, I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching me. I began to feel uneasy every time I entered my apartment, constantly glancing over my shoulder.

One Friday night, I returned home late after a long week at work. I was exhausted and ready to crash on the couch. As I fumbled for my keys in the dim light of the hallway, I caught a glimpse of movement in my peripheral vision. I turned to see a shadow slip around the corner of the stairwell, but when I looked closer, no one was there.

I shook off the feeling, convinced it was just my mind playing tricks on me. But that night, as I lay in bed, I heard it: a soft, persistent tapping on my wall. It was rhythmic, like someone drumming their fingers, a maddening sound that kept me awake. I glanced at the clock—it was well past midnight.

“Just the neighbors,” I told myself, but the tapping continued, growing louder and more insistent. It felt as if someone was trying to communicate, but I couldn’t decipher the message. Frustrated, I decided to confront the source of the noise. I got up, tiptoeing down the hallway, my heart pounding in my chest.

As I approached the wall, I paused, listening intently. The tapping stopped suddenly, leaving an eerie silence. I felt a chill run down my spine, but I pressed my ear against the wall, trying to hear anything.

Then I heard it—a faint whisper, barely audible, like someone was speaking right next to me. “Help me,” it pleaded. The voice sent shivers down my spine, and I jerked away from the wall, heart racing.

“Hello?” I called out, but there was no response. I turned on my heel and hurried back to my apartment, locking the door behind me. I crawled into bed, pulling the covers tight around me, but sleep eluded me for hours.

The next day, I decided to take action. I couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching me, so I installed a security camera at my front door. It was a simple, inexpensive device, but it made me feel a little more secure. I hoped it would help me catch whoever was tampering with my apartment.

That night, I replayed the footage from the camera, watching as the timestamp progressed. I didn’t see anyone enter my apartment, but I noticed something unsettling: every time I came home, the camera picked up a shadowy figure lingering in the hallway. It was subtle, barely there, but it made my stomach churn.

“Just my imagination,” I told myself, trying to rationalize it.

Over the next few days, the tapping continued, always accompanied by the faint whisper that haunted my nights. I stopped inviting friends over, too embarrassed to explain why I was suddenly so paranoid. I became a hermit, spending my days at work and my nights hiding in my apartment, waiting for the next unsettling noise.

Then one evening, I returned home to find Mrs. Whitaker waiting for me outside my door. She looked unusually pale, her hands shaking.

“Can we talk?” she asked, glancing nervously down the hallway.

I nodded, concerned. “What’s wrong?”

“I’ve noticed something strange in the building,” she said, lowering her voice. “There’s a man who’s been hanging around. He seems…off. I saw him watching you the other night.”

My heart raced. “What do you mean?”

She hesitated, as if deciding whether to share more. “I think he’s been following you. You must be careful. Lock your doors. Don’t let him in.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, panic bubbling up inside me.

“Yes! I’ve seen him lurking around. He watches you. He doesn’t know I’ve seen him, but I know. I can feel it.”

My mind raced. Had it really come to this? I felt sick, trapped in a nightmare I couldn’t escape.

That night, I barricaded myself in, checking and double-checking the locks. I even moved my bed to be positioned against the door, wanting to be prepared for anything. As I lay there, the tapping began again, louder and more frantic than ever.

“Leave me alone!” I screamed, but the whispers only grew stronger.

Then I heard something that made my blood run cold: a key turning in the lock.

My heart dropped. I jumped out of bed, scrambling for my phone, dialing 911 as I backed toward the window. I had to get out.

“911, what’s your emergency?” the operator’s voice crackled through the line.

“There’s someone in my apartment! They have a key!” I gasped, my voice shaking.

“Stay on the line with me. Can you exit through a window?”

“No! I’m on the second floor!”

Just then, the door swung open, and I froze, clutching the phone tight against my ear. A tall, shadowy figure stepped inside, silhouetted against the dim light of the hallway.

“Help me!” the figure said, voice distorted and low, echoing the same words I’d heard in the wall.

I turned and ran to the window, pushing it open as fast as I could. The operator was still speaking, urging me to stay calm, but I couldn’t think. I climbed out, my heart racing as I slipped onto the narrow ledge, desperately trying to find my footing.

“Ma’am, can you tell me what’s happening?” the operator continued, but all I could focus on was getting away from the figure inside.

Just as I was about to jump, I heard the operator shout, “Ma’am, stay where you are! Help is on the way!” But I couldn’t wait. I jumped.

The fall knocked the wind out of me, but I quickly scrambled to my feet and ran into the street, gasping for breath.

I looked back at my building, the figure standing at the window, staring down at me, its features obscured by shadows. I felt a mixture of relief and horror, knowing I had escaped, but still trapped by the knowledge that someone had been watching me all along.

The police arrived moments later, but by then, the figure had vanished. I explained everything to the officers, my hands trembling as I recounted the whispers and the tapping.

“Are you sure it wasn’t just your imagination?” one of the officers asked, his tone skeptical.

I glared at him. “No, it wasn’t. I have a security camera. I saw him!”

They took my statement but couldn’t find any evidence of an intruder. After they left, I felt emptier than before, my home no longer a sanctuary but a prison.

In the days that followed, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was still being watched. I couldn’t sleep, constantly glancing around, waiting for the tapping to return.

And it did. Each night, the tapping echoed through the walls, the whispers creeping back into my dreams. The shadows grew darker, and I began to doubt my own sanity.

It wasn’t until a week later that I got the call. Mrs. Whitaker had passed away unexpectedly. They found her in her apartment, but that wasn’t the worst part.

When I went to her funeral, I learned something disturbing.

She lived alone, and there were no other family members or friends in the area. Everyone I spoke to mentioned that she had become increasingly paranoid in her last weeks, convinced that someone was watching her, someone who wanted to get inside.

As I stood at her graveside, staring at the fresh earth, I realized I was not the only one. Whatever was in the building was still there, and it had chosen us—two lonely souls in a city full of strangers.

I never went back to that apartment. I packed my things, left it all behind, and moved back home with my parents.

But even now, in the safety of their house, I still hear the tapping sometimes, a reminder that some things can never truly be escaped. And every time I do, I can’t help but wonder if I’m still being watched, still a part of someone else’s game. Infact as I'm typing this out right now, I hear something...

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Tenacious_ on 2024-10-03 09:34:39+00:00.

---

I come from an old midwestern town. Decades before I was born, it had been a thriving industrial settlement. Now, it's a ghost town, complete with a pair of abandoned factories, empty houses, and a disused waterpark, one of the largest in the country. Back when the region had a thriving middle class, the waterpark had thousands of square miles of potential customers to support it. But as the factories and the unions left, the waterpark went bust. Just like with everything else, everyone knows it's never coming back.

I only mention this waterpark because it's haunted. Well, that's not quite right: the waterpark isn't haunted, it's the pool at the center of the park that is. The pool, almost a quarter of the total area of the waterpark, has large pistons meant to generate waves, and metal coils at its bottom that can heat up to regulate water temperature. Though it's anyone's guess whether the pistons or the heating elements could actually still work even if the park's electric bill were ever paid again.

Everyone knows the rules of the haunted pool: enter the waterpark during the day, and you'll be fine, but if you're still there after sunset, no matter what you do, you'll be found floating face-down in the pool the next morning. As the town lore goes, a decade or two ago, a town detective, Icarus Quixano Thaddeus, went into the park one night, determined to debunk what he thought was a myth, or beat it if it wasn't. He was clever: he set up cameras around the pool during the day, he brought his service revolver, and he even had a friend watching him with binoculars from the top of a tall building in town, well outside the waterpark. 

If you're wondering why I know his full name, it's because I've visited his gravestone. The morning after his mission to debunk or beat the haunted pool, Icarus was found face-up in the water, revolver in hand. Heavy fog had meant that his friend hadn't been able to see anything, and there was no trace of the cameras come morning. Even though I had never met Icarus, out of a certain respect for his effort, I had made a habit of visiting his grave every few months; after all, he was the last legend our town had left. When I had last visited, I could smell the residue of rotten eggs thrown at the grave. Probably just some stupid kids. Everyone knows that you can't beat the pool, but obviously no one would hate Icarus for trying.

That was about two months ago. Last Wednesday, as I was walking home from high school with two friends, Tommy and John, the spring air crisp and with a hint of newfound warmth, Tommy suddenly spoke.

"Some guys are going to the waterpark this weekend." If the words came as a surprise to me, they shouldn't've: during the day, it was a somewhat popular spot for high school seniors to hang out. After all, even though the waterslides were dry, the pool at the bottom wasn't.

"That's…not smart," John said. 

"We'll obviously leave before sundown. You two should join us."

"I…I don't know."

"Think about it, yeah?"

"Fine." They both turned to look at me.

"Saturday or Sunday?" I asked.

"Saturday."

"I can't. I'm visiting my aunt's family Saturday. I won't get back until evening."

"Come on."

"Can't. Parents are making me." We neared the town general store that we passed on our walk home every day. "Guys, my mom wanted me to get bread on my way home. I'll see you two tomorrow." 

"See you."

.

The owner of the general store had some interest in town history, and collected some various town artifacts: a copy of the town charter from about two centuries ago, a gear from a now-abandoned factory, that sort of thing. The various objects were pinned to one wall of the general store, a sort of tiny museum. There was a short line to check out, and I glanced over the objects as I waited. I almost didn't notice the change. When I got to the register, I asked the cashier about it.

"What happened to Icarus's revolver? Didn't it use to be up on that wall?" The cashier shrugged.

"New owner took over the store the other day. Probably pitched it."

"Huh," I said. Maybe I was just too surprised to muster up a proper response. Maybe I didn't care enough.

"No loss there," the other cashier said. "Guy was kind of an idiot. Everyone knows you're dead if you go to the pool at night." "Kind of pretentious too," the first cashier said. "Thinking he could outsmart the pool. That'll be $5.49."

I paid and took the bread, absentmindedly thanking the cashier. I had taken about two-dozen steps for home when I turned around, walking toward the back of the store, looking around.

*I last went to the general store this weekend, and I was pretty sure I had seen Icarus's revolver there then. Trash pickup in the town was on Thursdays. So maybe…*I found a dumpster behind the store and opened it to a wave of the smell of…well, trash.

I had only looked for a minute when I was starting to question whether this was really a good idea, but then I found it: an old, silver-colored, 6-shot revolver. Spinning the cylinder, two chambers were empty, but four still had bullets in them. Before anyone walked out of the store, saw me holding a gun, assumed the worst and called the cops, I slipped the revolver into my backpack and set out for home.

(I'll update you all on what happens this weekend, and link here to a part 2 then.)

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/abiroadwrites on 2024-10-02 21:20:42+00:00.

---

When I was younger, I was a big fan of urban exploration. My best friend at the time was too, and she knew all the best spots, and all the rules for safe exploring. Some of the rules were pretty obvious: wear tennis shoes and tall socks, wear something you can move quickly and freely in, take a flashlight and a bottle of water. Some of the rules were more subtle, learned through years of trial and error. This story is about one of those rules, and how I insisted on learning it the hard way.

Nikki, my friend, was and still is one of the smartest people I’ve ever known, which means she was also the best person for me to get into urban exploring with. Not only did she know all the best places, but I trusted her so completely I would do what she said without argument (most of the time). After our adventures exploring an abandoned Macy’s, an old barn, and several spur of the moment road trips Nikki told me there was somewhere special she wanted to go. She wouldn’t tell me anything about it until we got there, which was unusual but only made me more excited to see whatever it was.

I remember the first time I visited that place with her, it was late summer, when the leaves haven’t started to turn yet, but you can feel the first cold spark in the air that promises the seasons are right about to change. One of the things I liked about exploring with Nikki was that she always drove us, so I got to sit in the passenger seat and watch the scenery pass us by. That day we drove out into the hills on the outskirts of town, passing neighborhoods, then houses, then fields with the occasional house, then nothing but trees, fields, and hills. I memorized the route we took, some part of me knowing already that I would want to return to this place. I wish I wasn’t so good at memorizing directions.

We had stopped for coffee before making our way out of town, and we laughed and sang along loudly to the music on the radio as she drove. After a long time Nikki pulled the car off to the side of the road, parked in an area that had no discernable markers as far as I could tell, and said with a grin “We’re here.” I stepped out of the car and breathed in deeply, savoring the scent of tall grass, old growth trees, and rotting wood. I looked around at the tall pines and lovely aspens, then smiled at Nikki. I said, “Alright, I’m not sure this one qualifies as urban exploration, but it’s a nice spot.” Nikki smirked and tossed her long, curly brown hair over her shoulder, “I guess it’s not urban, no. But you’re really going to like this.”

I followed her as we walked through the woods, there was no path and I wasn’t entirely sure there ever had been. It looked and felt like no one had ever been out here except for us. I had a brief moment of fear remembering all those stories about people snapping and sacrificing their friends or classmates to slenderman, then shook it off. After a few minutes of hiking over dead trees, through tall grass, and past strange detritus (I’m pretty sure I saw an old wagon completely overgrown with weeds at one point) I saw a structure not too far from us, partly obscured by the trees.

Nikki pointed to the structure and said, “There it is.” Just past a small river, hidden in the line of trees, was a miniature version of an old Victorian house. At one point in time it had been painted pink and blue, the trim around the windows had probably been white, and my inner child fell in love with it instantly.

In a hushed, almost reverent tone I asked, “What is it?”

Nikki gave me her most pleased smile, the expression she reserved for our best discoveries, and whispered back, “It’s an old playhouse. I’m guessing some rich guy had it built for his daughters, ages and ages ago. It’s beautiful, in kind of an unsettling way, right?”

I nodded, it was beautiful in an unsettling way. There was something about it that made me feel like I would hear children's voices, or see a little girl dart out from behind it at any moment. The playhouse was at least two stories from what I could tell, and made of wood and stone rather than plastic. The paint was chipping off, the roof was caving in, and most of the glass windows were broken. I was entranced, and began walking towards it, sure Nikki would know the best way to cross the river to get to it, but she grabbed my arm and pulled me back.

All she said was, “No.”

I laughed, “What do you mean? We came all the way out here and you don’t want to go look at it?”

She shook her head, an abnormally serious expression on her usually cheerful face. “We can stay on this side of the river and look at it, but we’re not going over there.”

I chuckled again, but I was starting to get frustrated. “We can wade through the river if there’s no bridge or anything. I promise I’ll stand right next to your car until I’m dry if you don’t have any towels.” Nikki had learned the hard way to always keep a towel in the trunk of her car.

She let go of my arm, but took a step back. “Mara, look around. Do you see beer bottles anywhere? Cigarettes? Soda cans? Candy wrappers?”

I looked around at the ground, noting in surprise that I didn’t see anything of the kind. “No, I guess whoever owns this land maintains it really well.”

Nikki said, “Nobody maintains it, it’s just that no one wants to be out here for very long. If teenagers won’t party here then we shouldn’t explore either. There’s a reason no one wants to get close to that thing. We can admire from a distance, but we don’t need to cross the river. Just trust me okay?”

I couldn’t. I had always trusted her implicitly, and it had always been a good call, but this time I just couldn’t understand why she was refusing to let me look closer at this amazing little discovery. We stood there in the field arguing about it for a few more minutes, until Nikki finally threatened to abandon me there if I took one more step closer to the old playhouse. Of course I had to take another step towards it, and she immediately turned around and started back towards the car, ready to make good on her promise.

I laughed and chased after her saying, “I was kidding! I’m kidding!”

She kept walking, not stopping until we made it back to the car, but I could tell she wasn’t really angry with me. We brushed ourselves off, checked each other for tics (another rule she learned the hard way) then got back in the car and went to the mall.

When Nikki dropped me off at my house later that day she looked me in the eyes and said, “I was serious Mara. If there’s no sign of humans around a clearly man made structure, that’s a good sign you need to be careful.”

I smiled, but I couldn’t meet her eyes as I said, “Yeah of course. I got you.”

I could tell she didn’t feel good about it, but she went home anyway.

I spent the next few weeks thinking about the playhouse non stop. I had taken a few pictures of it, and I spent all my time looking at them, zooming in and out and studying the structure as if I was going to take a test on it. Finally, I couldn’t take it anymore and on one warm fall Saturday I got in my car and traced our route back to the old playhouse.

It was a lot harder to find alone, and I had to drive back and forth on the road for a while before I found the spot where I thought we had parked the last time. It was midafternoon, and the first thing I noticed when I got out of my car was the total lack of sound. There were no birds singing, no small animals rustling in the underbrush, nothing. I couldn’t remember if I had heard animals or not when I came here with Nikki, but I pushed on despite my unease. I walked through the brush and tall grass for a while before I finally saw the playhouse in the distance.

I had imagined that scene in my head in the days leading up to it, and I had expected to feel elation. Instead I felt a vague unease as storm clouds gathered in the distance. I told myself it was just my brain fooling me, because of the storm clouds, and pushed on. When I got to the river I walked up and down the banks a bit, looking for a log or some boards to cross on. There was nothing, which only made me think of Nikki's warning about avoiding places other people didn't want to be. I scoffed, maybe that was the best place to be, for once Nikki didn't know what she was talking about.

After a few minutes I was able to locate a fallen log and slide my way across it carefully. I almost tripped at one point and felt my heart rate increase dreadfully despite how shallow the water below was. I told myself it was just because I didn't want to get in my car wet, or bother with washing the car towel Nikki had insisted I get, but something in my head screamed for me to turn back.

When I stood in front of the play house, it all felt worth it. Despite the peeling paint, chipping wood, and cracked glass there was an odd and distinct beauty to the old place. It reminded me of a dollhouse I'd had as a kid. * I stood there in the woods for a long time, just admiring it before I got up the courage to go closer. I snapped a picture and sent it to Nikki, but there was no cell service. When I finally entered the structure the first thing I noticed was the simple wooden floor, and how clean it was aside from some dirt and grass and a few small piles of leaves. That may not sound very clean, but if you’ve been in a lot of abandoned structures you’ll know what I mean, that’s not just unusual it’s bizarre. I glanced up and saw that there was a small hatch in the ce...

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/NotJustSomeNumbers on 2024-10-02 23:09:48+00:00.

---

Three weeks ago my friend Matt asked if I wanted to go camping. Since I had wasted my entire summer working, I agreed. I needed a break from chores and my boring office job. As the weekend got closer, Matt kept adding people to our camping trip. Soon, it went from us to six people. The SUV I inherited from my mother could fit all of us and our bags if we squeezed in but I felt like dropping out of the trip. I knew if I did so, then they all couldn’t go because Matt had a smaller car.

I’m the type of person that dislikes crowds and prefers to stay indoors. Eddie was coming along and I didn’t think he was a bad guy, he was just very loud. I dismissed my feelings knowing that some strife in my life would be good for me. Just because I would be slightly annoyed by a few things that weekend wouldn’t make the trip unmanageable, I could sacrifice a little comfort for my friends.

We packed everyone into the SUV and started. I will admit, by the end of the two-hour drive I was very glad to get out of the driver's seat. Eddie refused to listen to the no-smoking rule and his constant abrasive jokes made me silently consider driving into oncoming traffic. If it weren’t for Sofie distracting him as much as she, did we never would have finished the drive.

Me and her were closer in high school. I fell off talking to a lot of people because of my busy schedule and had been worried there would be a distance between us. That wasn’t the case. We easily picked up right where we left off as friends that day.

I parked the SUV in an empty lot near the start of a hiking trail. I was surprised by the lack of other cars around. I had assumed it would be busier. Matt told us he knew of a great camping spot by the lake but it was nearly a two-hour hike. I playfully groaned. We had left after lunch time and now we wouldn't get to the site until almost dinner time. It was a two-hour hike for a normal person. Our group wasn’t the most focused or motivated to use our time properly. We all made sure to use the washroom before heading into the woods.

Getting all our gear on took at least ten minutes. I never knew how long a group of people took to drag out a simple task. I kept my mouth shut knowing there was nothing we could do about it. I stayed silent when Jessy realized she left something in the SUV and asked to go back five minutes into walking down the trail.

Instead of reaching the campsite at around four as planned, we might get there closer to six. We could be cutting it close to set up while it was still light out. But no one appeared worried. Everyone broke off into groups of two as we walked. I listened to Sofie as she caught me up in all the things she had been doing this summer. Since I only worked, I just nodded letting her talk knowing my life was too boring to say much about.

An hour into the woods we came across another person on the trail. He had been the only other sign of life aside from the sounds of birds in the trees. Our group caught up to him and the stranger stopped to greet us.

He wore a grey baggy sweater even though it was far too hot for one. It was nearly autumn but the summer heat hadn’t let up. He had a massive camping pack that looked to weigh more than his thin legs should be able to carry.

Matt and Eddie were at the front of our group. When the stranger stopped to wave at us, we all stopped for a chat. And to take a smoke break for some.

“Are you all just hiking or camping?” The man asked with a smile.

He sounded slightly southern with a warmness to his voice that instantly made him appear trustworthy. Matt nodded down towards the trail.

“Camping. We’re setting up near the Big Bear tree.” He lied.

I hadn’t been in the area since I was very young so I had forgotten about the tree until Matt mentioned it. It was a massive tree in the middle of a clearing that someone decided to carve a simple bear face into the bark years ago. It was a good landmark and near the end of the trail.

“That’s a good spot even though people do say it’s bad luck. I’m just here gathering. I’ll stop by the ranger's cabin on the way out. Have you all checked in yet?” He asked.

A mesh bag holding some mushrooms hung from his pack along with a batch of plastic whistles. He looked over prepared for anything let alone a day trip out into the woods.

“Do we need to check in?” I asked unaware.

The group gave me a look. I considered we might need to pay a fee to camp and they all wanted to avoid it.

“The park runs on donations. Even if you can’t afford one, you should let the rangers know you’re all here just in case. Do you have a GPS?” He suggested the kind smile never fading from his face.

“Yes. It's not our first camping trip.” Matt stated a little annoyed.

This man was the kind of person he had issues getting along with. He looked too clean to be the kind of person to enjoy the outdoors. Like, he was only foraging to film content for his TikTok account. I glanced down to see he was wearing flip-flops. Seriously, who hiked in flip-flops? The man adjusted his pack not appearing to be offended by Matt’s tone.

“Do you all have whistles?” He offered.

We shook our heads at the same time Matt pulled out one. Gracefully the man sent down his pack to take off the whistles to offer them to us. He explained he wanted to buy one but it was cheaper to buy them in packs so he handed them out to others he saw in the woods. When he bent down, the baggy collar of his sweater exposed a toned chest for a second. Sofie and Jessy noticed first and Sofie not so discreetly punched my arm until I followed her gaze to see what got her so excited. To Matt’s displeasure, we were all handed whistles. The man knew he was overstaying his welcome and replaced the bag on his back. He winked at the girls showing he noticed their interest which caused them to pretend as if they were swooning.

I tied the whistle to my belt loop and needed to suffer through the group teasing me that the man hadn’t winked at the girls but in my direction. Jessy pretended to be upset that Matt gave the stranger the wrong campsite joking she wouldn’t mind meeting him in the middle of the woods at night.

We finally found our campsite after a long walk sweating in the heat. All of us got to work setting up tents and playing around. I had only ever set up a tent twice in my life and needed Sofie to help get all the rods in place. Once it was up I offered to help collect firewood but that task had already been covered by Eddie and Ben who had behaved until then. They did the job halfway until they found branches that looked like swords. That distracted them for a while.

Matt disappeared for a while. He came back before dark holding a bag of items that would mean we were going to have a better dinner than canned beans and hot dogs. Since he went camping more often than all of us, he knew what was edible in the woods. He collected something I had never even heard of until then called Chicken of the Woods. It was a fungus that tasted pretty good sautéed with a few other things he brought along.

The sticks Eddie and Ben found weren’t really enough to last the night. I helped Matt chop up some larger dry branches with a small axe brought along. I mostly brought wood to him and then took it near the fire instead of doing any of the actual work. Matt appeared to enjoy chopping too much to hand the task over.

I thought everything had been going well so far. After dinner, Eddie brought out a joint for himself and with some pestering from Ben, he grabbed another one to share with the group. I refused when it was passed in my direction and gave Sofie a surprised glance when she took a hit. I’ve never seen her smoke before. The booze came out next and the group started to get louder retelling stories from school. A bottle was passed my way and I raised a hand to refuse it again.

“Dude you’re not driving, you can have some.” Matt said trying to force the beer into my hands.

I had no choice but to take it but I passed it over to Sofie.

“Are you too good for my cheap beer or something?” Matt said in a tone that made everyone stop talking and nervously look in our direction.

“What? No. Man, you know I’ve never really drank.” I said trying to calm everything down.

“You can have one.” Sofie said holding out the bottle again trying to get me to take it.

I looked over all their faces confused about how this suddenly became such a big deal. I’ve never liked the way any alcohol tasted but normally would have one drink to get people off my case. I also hated what weed did to me and only smoked it once. Smoking and drinking were simply not my thing. I never thought anyone would ever get offended by something like that. It wasn’t as if I was stopping them from enjoying those things.

“I don’t want one. I don’t think it’s a big deal.” I said my hands raised in defense.

My old friend leaned in, the cold bottle pressed against my arm and her blonde hair falling on my shoulder.

“I think you need to grow up.” She whispered the anger in her voice stunned me for a second.

For a moment only the crackling of the fire was heard. I didn’t understand the sudden turn of the mood. I knew it might not be a good idea to continue with the conversation so I stood up.

“I’m heading to bed. It was a long walk for me today.” I announced.

Matt looked away at Eddie as if they were sharing an inside joke.

“What, is being out of the off...

---

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Smart-Bus3973 on 2024-10-02 16:21:43+00:00.

---

I never should have bought that laptop. It turned my life completely upside down.

It all started on a late-night browsing spree—the kind that often led me down the rabbit holes of obscure dark web sites, offering all kinds of tantalizing offers. You could find anything imaginable there— from legal to the illegal, and everything in between.

That’s when I found it: a listing that seemed innocent enough, buried among a jumble of more questionable items. 

“Old laptop—perfect for refurbishing! Minimal wear and tear, in good working condition,” the ad read.

I’m a tech enthusiast who is always looking for new projects, and this one was too good to pass up. The only reservation I had was the seller’s lack of reviews, and those that existed were vague, making it hard to tell if the product was legit. But the price was unbeatable, and I figured it was worth the risk.

As I clicked "Buy Now," a sense of unease settled in my stomach, but I brushed it off. I needed a distraction, and the laptop seemed like the perfect project.

When the laptop finally arrived, it looked a little worn but had a certain retro charm to it. 

I wiped it down, plugged it in, and powered it up. The screen flickered to life, revealing a handful of files. Most were harmless—old documents, music files, and applications—but one stood out.

"DO NOT OPEN," it read in bold, red lettering.

I hesitated, my finger hovering over the mouse. Curiosity gnawed at me. It had to be a joke left by the previous owner. I was a seasoned hacker; I could of course handle a simple file. Taking a deep breath, I clicked.

Immediately, the screen filled with static. The sound was sharp, cutting through the silence and sending a chill down my spine. I wanted to close the laptop, but  I continued to watch mesmerized. The video appeared—grainy and dark.

A strange looking figure stood before a flickering candle, chanting in a language I couldn’t understand. His voice was low and haunting. 

Suddenly, he turned to the camera, revealing his hollow eyes that seemed to stare straight through me. The video then abruptly cuts off, leaving only an eerie silence.

I closed the laptop, a little taken aback but not totally shaken “It’s just a video,” I whispered to myself. “Nothing more.”

But I had no idea that the real disturbances were only about to begin in my life. 

The next morning, I woke up to a flood of notifications. My social media accounts were filled with strange messages, and people I hadn’t spoken to in years were frantically emailing, calling, and texting me. I was overwhelmed, trying to make sense of it all.

Then, an old school friend called, his voice  sounding shaky. He asked if I was okay, saying he’d received an email with a video of me… trying to hang myself. I froze in shock. 

“I’m sending it now,” he said.

The email arrived, and my heart raced as I clicked the video. It was a grainy recording of me in my living room, standing beneath a noose. I watched in horror as I positioned myself to go through with it.

“I had no memory of this. I had never done anything like this. How could this even happen?” I asked myself.

Just then, the doorbell rang, followed by loud banging. My stomach churned. Was it the police? Had someone reported the video? How am I going to explain any of this to them?” 

Hesitant, I opened the door, bracing myself for a tough conversation with the police. 

But instead of the authorities, it was my girlfriend, Stella. Her mascara was smeared all over her face from crying, but her expression was nothing but pure fury. Without a word, she stormed in, shoving me back onto the couch.

Before I could react, she kicked off her shoe and started hitting me with it—hard, relentless blows as I tried to shield myself. “Stella, wait! I can explain!” I pleaded. “That video was fake. I wasn’t trying to do anything!”

She paused, her chest heaving with anger, then pulled out her phone. “Explain this, then,” she spat, thrusting the screen in front of me. 

It was another video—this time, of me sitting on a beach with a woman who wasn’t Stella. The two of us were laughing and flirting while she sat on my lap.

Tears streamed down Stella’s face. “Are you saying this is fake too?” she asked, her voice cracking.

I stared at the screen, dumbfounded. I didn’t recognize the woman in the video. Nor have I ever  been to that beach as well.

None of it made sense. But before I could even form a response, Stella threw her shoe at me one last time and stormed out, slamming the door behind her.

I was left sitting there, reeling from the sheer impossibility of it all.

Then my phone rang again— this time it was my parents. They said they’d received a news clip showing me in jail after a drunk-driving accident.

A news clip? Of me in jail? How could that even be possible?” I asked  myself again, as I stood in my own living room completely bewildered. 

My head spun as I spent the next few hours trying to calm down friends and family, assuring them I was fine and that it was all some sick prank. 

But was it really a prank?

I reluctantly glanced at the laptop as a wave of dread washed over me. My heart pounded in my chest as I slowly approached it and opened it again.  

The screen flickered to life. This time, all the files were gone, except for two: the original "DO NOT OPEN" file and a new one labelled "Victims."

My hands trembled as I clicked on "Victims."

A list appeared that was Long and chilling. I scrolled down, each entry accompanied by photos and usernames from the dark web—people who were probably no longer alive. 

My blood ran cold when I saw my name. I was number 178, the most recent victim. 

My STATUS was being shown as ‘IN PROGRESS’

As I clicked on my folder, a  photo of me appeared, along with details only someone who had been watching me would know. 

Some of the other usernames on the list were familiar, too—people I’d seen online on the dark web in forums I frequent. I often wondered where they suddenly vanished. Now I knew why. And I realized I might be next.

Panic surged through me. I slammed the laptop shut, grabbed it, and raced out the door. I drove for hours until I found a secluded spot near a dumpster. 

I tossed the laptop out and drove over it several times to make sure it was destroyed.

For the first time in days, I felt some relief. 

But it didn’t last long.

When I returned home, my blood froze. The laptop was sitting on my desk, as if it had never left.

A chill crept down my spine as I stood there, staring in horror.

Paranoia consumed me. Right then I knew I had a huge problem on my hands and had to find a solution for it no matter what. 

So I started looking at online forums dedicated to paranormal activities and digital hauntings. 

Maybe, just maybe someone else had encountered a similar experience. My fingers flew across the keyboard, typing furiously, desperate for answers. 

As I scrolled through hundreds of posts, I found one that caught my eye: It was headlined -

“The Cursed Laptop.” 

The poster detailed a story eerily similar to mine. After purchasing an old laptop from the dark web, he began receiving ominous messages and videos that terrorized the user. 

His advice was simple but chilling: 

“CONFRONT IT! DO A CLEANSING RITUAL!!”

So, I researched further on the dark web, uncovering an array of rituals involving salt, candles, and incantation. 

I gathered the supplies, feeling both foolish and desperate at the same time. As night fell, I prepared the ritual in my dimly lit apartment, following all the instructions to the letter. 

I lit a row of candles on either side of the room and drew a circle on the middle of the floor using salt. Once I stood inside the circle I started with the incantation. 

 “Spirits of the digital realm, I call upon you to reveal yourself,” I said, my voice slightly trembling. “I seek to end this torment.”

Nothing happened at first, and I felt a wave of relief wash over me. 

But then the laptop flickered violently. The screen flashed, and the ominous file reappeared, more vivid than before. The strange figure was looking at me intently through the laptop as if he was trying to get a measure of me. 

Suddenly, the lights flickered, plunging the room into darkness. Even the light from the candles was being blocked from illuminating the room by some unseen powerful force.  And then slowly the candles started to spread a little bit light around the room casting a creepy looking silhouette by my side. 

Right then, I felt a cold and putrid breath against my neck, and a voice whispered in my ear, “You’ve invited me in Anthony.”

I could feel his presence just behind the salt circle and I realized he couldn’t get closer. 

This was the same figure that appeared on the video first when I opened the laptop. 

But in real he looked a lot more terrifying. 

He carefully stood at the edge of my vision, his dark silhouette blurring the boundaries of reality.

“What do you want?” I shouted, my voice cracking. 

The figure stepped closer, its face a distorted visage of rage “You opened the door, and now you must pay the price.”

Terror clawed at my insides, but I forced myself to stand my ground. “I didn’t mean to! I just wanted to refurbish the laptop!”

“It’s too late for remorse,” he hissed, a chilling echo of my own fear. 

In that moment, I remembered the ritual. I needed to confront this entity, to assert my will.

 “I reject you! I will not be your victim!” 

“Spirits of th...

---

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This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Maleficent-Spell5621 on 2024-10-02 16:20:43+00:00.

---

When I was a young girl, my dad always told me about the time when he was walking home on a late summer evening. The sun had just went down behind the mountain, blanketing the whole holler in darkness. This was not your typical darkness, but a darkness that was deep enough to feel. The type that made you feel like you were being suffocated. 

He was walking home with his father from his Aunt Bea’s house. She always cooked Sunday dinner for the whole holler. Family or not, you were invited if you lived on Laurel Branch. You were considered family, even if you came from different blood. You were blood bound by the branch. 

Every Sunday was filled with the laughter of his uncles and great-uncles as they sat together, huddled in the back-yard shed. Cigarette smoke made the air hazy as their jokes lingered in it longer than they should. Sometimes, they would pass around a mason-jar of shine from Ole’ Opossum from the head of the holler. He wasn’t kin, but he was family, like I said.

The laughter wasn’t the only sounds, it was sometimes drowned out by the angelic singing of Aunt Bea as she made cornbread with her daughter in the kitchen. Sometimes, as my dad played with the other kids, they couldn’t keep themselves from runnin’ in the kitchen and pulling on Aunt Bea’s apron for a quick crumble of the bread before supper. The scent that wafted through the open kitchen window was too enticing for them to ignore.

This night was just like those nights that I described. Nothing out of the ordinary, except my dad’s momma stayed at home to nurse his sister who had a cold. My dad and his father were not going to miss the mess of fresh squash that Aunt Bea was frying that night. His momma told them to go on. There wasn’t nothing they could do. They’d just be bothering his sister coming in and out of the house. 

They’d just finished up listening to Great-Uncle William’s last story of the night. It of course ended in some dirty joke that caused him to laugh great big and throw back his knee. 

My dad was around fifteen at this time, and this was the first time he was allowed to spend more than a minute in the shed. Most of the time, he was shooed out by a cigarette gripped hand and told to go watch his cousins and sister. This time, he was welcomed. He’d even been allowed to get a tiny sup of the Shine that Ole’ Opossum had just made. He was walking on air. He never felt so grown up before. 

His father gave one more wave to his sister and brother-in-law as they began the quarter-mile walk down to the homeplace. His father was the one to keep the old homeplace after the grandparents moved in with Aunt Bea to get extra care. They believed it should go to the eldest male, and he took it. He took good care of it too. The little white house stayed spick and span and the yard immaculate. 

As they walked, his dad loaded him down with the leftovers covered in tin-foil that Aunt Bea had insisted they take to his momma and sister. He held the warm foil close to his chest as they went further and further into the belly of the holler. The homeplace was at the end of the holler, while Bea’s was two houses down from the top. In between was a thick patch of forest so dense that you couldn’t see a star in the sky past the leaves. There was a branch that ran next to the road all the way down the holler that contained a giant boulder on its bank that they called Rabbit Rock. My dad had always called it Rabbit Rock, and his father did too. That’s what that middle ground area was to them. 

His dad cut through the now pitch-black darkness by lighting up a hand-rolled cigarette. 

“Shew, I’m stuffed,” he said through the cigarette between his lips. 

“Me too.” My dad replied. 

“Now don’t be tellin’ your momma that I let ye come in the shed for some moonshine, ye hear?” He said as he let out a long breath of smoke, the only thing visible to him was the cherry of his cigarette glowing orange in the deep darkness. 

“I won’t.” 

“Better not, son.” He lovingly slapped his shoulder and gave it a hearty squeeze.

 

My dad felt like a man. He felt like he was growing up, and his father knew it. They could connect on a different level now. Something new. 

They both continued walking in a comfortable silence that was filled with katydids singing their summer song. The darkness was different tonight. The past few nights had been clear of clouds, so the light of the moon could cast a low glow that would slightly penetrate through the trees. This night was clouded, and no light could reach. It was as if an invisible dome that deflected light was placed over the holler, cutting them off from the light of the moon forever. 

My dad noticed this darkness as they slowly walked into the trees. It seemed to creep up on them like a slow sickness, kind of like the one his sister had right now. He suddenly lost any manliness that he had gained that night. This darkness made him a boy again. A boy who unspokenly walked a bit closer to his father. It felt significantly lonely walking being just the two of them. He was used to his momma and sister walking slightly behind them. Tonight the only thing behind him was the crawling sensation on his back that signaled something might be following him.

 They trekked deeper into the wooded area, their boots kicking up dust on the dirt road. The further they went, the darker it got. It was to the point that they couldn’t see their hand in front of their own faces. The only thing keeping them from running off the road was the familiar feel of the dirt road under their boots. 

“I’m gonna go out in the tater patch tomorrow to do some weeding and to keep an eye on those tater bugs. They’ve been eating all over them plants.” His dad said, breaking the silence.

 He puffed on his cigarette, the only light around, shining like a lightning bug. Speaking of lightning bugs, there weren’t any. That was odd, and the deeper they went, the less they heard of the katydids and their constant buzz. It was actually gone now. This made the chill climb higher up my daddy’s spine. No light from the lightning bugs and no buzz from the katydids made the forest seem dark and devoid of all life. 

“I’ll come help ye.” My dad replied, desperate for any noise. 

“Mhmm.” His father hummed as he continued to puff on his cigarette. 

“What happened to them katydids?” he asked, not able to hide his nervousness. 

“They probably went to sleep, I guess. Your granddaddy used to say that a devil was passing through when it gets quiet like this.”

“You think that’s true?” My dad immediately regretted saying this. He knew his father would never let him back in the shed since he believed in tall-tales. 

“Naw. Not unless the devil is a bobcat. That’s one thing that can make it this quiet.”

They continued to walk, but my dad kept that crawling on his back, convinced a bobcat was silently stalking them from behind. He would glance over his shoulder once in a while, but that didn’t help any. It was so dark it looked like staring into an oil pit. Thick. Dark. Nothing. Not even a shadow could be cast. 

They walked in their new silence. A silence that was too quiet and uncomfortable. Suddenly, my dad’s darkness was disturbed by a wall. No, not a wall…It was warm, hairy, and filthy. He had run face first into something moving, no walking, the opposite direction. The feeling of matted fur, or maybe even hair, remained on his skin for far too long after losing contact. The smell was the worst, however. It assaulted his nostrils with a pungent odor, a cross between feces and rotten eggs. 

“HMPHH!” It grumbled as it hit my dad. It seemed just as surprised as he did. 

The tin foil leftovers of squash, beans, chicken livers, and cornbread crushed between them, letting a bit fall to the ground. 

In the blackness, his father was unsure of what happened, but felt the hair and smelled the stench of the thing brush past. This was enough to show him how much danger they had literally run into. This was no animal or human he had ever encountered before.

Neither my dad or his had stopped walking during the whole ordeal. The only time they stopped was initial contact. Fear had propelled them both forward. The thing slid by and stopped at the dropped leftovers. It began eating with sickening and obscene noises. Both of them picked up their pace. 

“What-” My dad was cut off by his father saying, “SHH! Keep walking.”

He did as he was told. He held the crumpled leftovers to his chest, the warm juices from the squash and beans seeping into his shirt. They both unspokenly increased their pace, almost to a light jog. They didn’t want to draw any more attention to them since it was occupied. 

They got about fifty feet before they heard its slamming footsteps in the dirt behind them. It was coming towards them. 

“Drop some leftovers behind you.” His dad urged. 

“What?”

“Just do it!”

He did as he was told, once again, and threw a couple pieces of chicken behind him. The footsteps stopped and it began its stomach churning eating again. They picked up their pace again and kept going down the road. They had almost made it through the wooded area and past Rabbit Rock.

Another fifty feet had passed before they heard it running with an urgency. It sounded human. Like two feet rushing upon them. Like someone trying to attack.

“More!” His dad yelled. 

He threw more chicken and some squash. His arm burned from how hard he threw hoping to backtrack the beast. More ri...

---

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1fuk7wo/the_devil_of_laurel_branch/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Bongobongosrevenge on 2024-10-02 17:55:59+00:00.

---

Lewis had always been the class clown.

I had known him since elementary school and he never failed to make me laugh, albeit at the expense of someone else. Itching powder, thumbtack on the teachers chair, electric hand buzzers, etc, etc.

As we got older, his pranks got nastier. Once a teacher gave him an "F" on a big test and in retaliation he broke into their car and smeared fish guts under the floor mats. They could never completely get the smell out and eventually got rid of the car.

A few months ago, we had our prom and went to a party afterwards. I'm not too experienced with drinking and was pretty trashed after a few beers and shots. But Lewis kept going and going until he suddenly just seemed to disappear from the party.

It turns out he had locked himself in one of the upstairs bathrooms and ended up dying from alcohol poisoning that night.

Following a wake his family held for him, me and his friends George and Travis got together to hangout and talk about the good times we had all shared. Then Travis pulled a Ouija board out of his backpack.

"C'mon... wanna talk to Lewis again guys?" He asked.

I wasn't too big on the idea but everyone else was really into it and I eventually relented. We formed a circle around the board and placed our fingertips on the planchette.

*Are there any spirits here?*I asked.

Then the planchette began to move.

"G-E-T-F-U-C-K-E-D... ok c'mon guys who did that-" I was cut off by the planchette violently jerking our hands from letter to letter.

"L-E-T-M-E-G-O" "I-W-A-S-A-T-R-E-S-T"

The lights in the room slowly began to brighten and fade like someone was playing with a dimmer switch and I felt the temperature drop until I could see my breath.

"I was at rest..." Travis whimpered.

We had all pulled our hands off the planchette but it was still moving around, sliding from letter to letter, seemingly guided by some other-worldly force. The lights got brighter and brighter until the bulbs overhead exploded and we were plunged into darkness.

I heard Travis scream and I pulled up the flashlight on my phone to see that the planchette had firmly lodged itself into his throat and he was now sputtering and gurgling on his back. We called an ambulance for him and he ended up being ok, but that was just the start of the heinous shit that would follow.

The next morning I woke up and went to the bathroom to pee, peeping out of one groggy eye I aimed for the center of the bowl, but some magical force field stopped my urine from hitting the water and splattered all over the seat and floor.

The fuck? I thought out loud as I lifted the seat to find that somebody had Saran wrapped over the bowl. I lived alone with my mother and knew she couldn't have had anything to do with this. Then it hit me that Lewis had pulled this very prank at a sleepover we had had years before.

Things continued on like this for a few days. I would wake up and find a rubber spider on my chest, or that someone had replaced the sugar for my coffee with salt. Then one day, I went to put my sneakers on and felt a sharp pain. I yelped and pulled my foot out to find that someone had placed broken glass in the bottom of the shoe.

I reached out to Travis and George to see if they had been having similar experiences, and I wasn't ready for what they told me.

George, told me he had woken up to a loud banging coming from his closet. He grabbed his glasses from the nightstand beside him and quickly shoved them onto his face to investigate. He said he wished he had turned on the light first because he may have noticed the rusty nail that had been driven through the left frame.

It had skewered his eye like a shish-kabob, and when he tore the glasses off, he ripped the eye right out of the socket. His parents found him in hysterics, his eye hanging from the optical nerve, bouncing off of his cheek like a fleshy game of paddle ball.

Travis, had similar stories, but none were as horrific as poor George (who ended up having his left eye removed and replaced with a glass one). We decided that tomorrow we would get together once more with the Ouija board and try talking to Lewis.

We met up the next day at Lewis's mothers house. We asked her if we could hangout in our friends old room for a while. She told us we could, but she had some errands to run so we would be alone for the next couple of hours.

I felt the temperature drop once again as we entered Lewis's bedroom. It had been left untouched since his death, except for the urn on his dresser along with a framed photograph of him next to it that had been taken just weeks before his passing.

We set the Ouija board up once again at the foot of his bed, my heart raced as I placed my fingertips on the planchette.

"Lewis, are you there?" I called out.

Nothing but silence followed.

"Lewis!" Travis and George called out to the empty room.

I was about to take my fingers off the board when George's shoelaces began to crawl out of his sneakers like ropey snakes and wrapped themselves around his neck. He tried to get his fingers under them, but to no avail.

Travis began backing up from the board and bumped into the dresser, knocking the urn off of it and sending it to the floor where it smashed into a million pieces. I looked up at Travis and screamed, behind him, the photograph of Lewis had come alive, it was banging on the glass frame and screaming something at us.

George was turning purple on the ground and his eyes were bulging out of his head. His glass eye had popped out and rolled off somewhere into the room. I ran over to the frame and smashed it on the corner of the desk.

"Lewis! Let George go, please!"

I stared at the photograph of Lewis, it was now smiling and laughing. Then it spoke in an unfamiliar deep voice.

"Your friend Lewis is dead, don't you want to join him?."

I was shocked, I just stood there frozen beside Travis, when I heard the tinkering of broken urn pieces moving around on the ground beside us.

I looked up just in time to see Lewis's ashes and broken bits of urn go sailing upwards like a blast from a firehose. They hit Travis's face and began filling his mouth, ears, and nose until there was nothing left on the ground.

Travis began to shake and sputter before breaking out into full on convulsions. His belly began extending until it was almost the size of a beach ball. I started to back away from Travis, but his stomach burst open, sending a mass of steaming entrails to paint the contents of the room.

Coughing, I pulled a piece of Travis out of my mouth and realized I was still holding the photograph... but Lewis was no longer in it.

Disoriented, I tripped over George's now lifeless body, I picked myself up off of the ground and ran into the bathroom to try and wash Travis's guts off of myself. I began splashing water on my face, but when I checked the mirror, Lewis was behind me.

I spun around but nobody was there, I threw off my blood soaked hoodie and ran out of the house and down the street. Every car window I glanced into I could see Lewis's grinning face right behind me.

I've ran deep into the woods and barricaded myself into a little fox hole. I'm prepared to starve to death before facing whatever entity is pretending to be Lewis.

A day has passed now since all this happened. My phone battery is almost dead and I wanted to post this to explain to everyone what happened to my friends while I have the chance.

I can see my reflection in my phones screen, and I can also make out Lewis face right behind mine. If I die, there's nobody left for Lewis.

Nobody, except for you reading this. I hope you don't have access to a Ouija board.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Weird-Suggestion-152 on 2024-10-02 16:25:34+00:00.

---

It was my first day in the field as a park ranger. My first duty station was in one of the most remote regions in the state. The sky over Montana hung heavy with storm clouds casting darkness over the endless trees. The mountains lined the horizon, their peaks disappearing into the sky. I had never seen mountains so big, jagged, and imposing. I was eager to make a good impression, eager to prove I belonged here. This job had always been my dream. But, as I drove up the narrow dirt road to the ranger station, a knot of unease began to creep into my stomach.

The isolation of this place was palpable, even from my car. The silence of the wilderness pressed in on me, broken only by the wind against the tree branches or the distant cry of an animal. Civilization was far away, and for the first time since taking this job, I realized how truly alone I was going to be. But, despite this, I felt confident, and excited to put my new training to use.

The ranger station came into view, smoke from the chimney rising into the air. It was nestled at the edge of Pine Creek Forest. The station was small, squat, and unassuming, honestly more of a cabin than a headquarters. Standing by the entrance was Earl Bennett. A burly man in his mid-fifties with graying hair poking out from under his hat, and a weather-beaten face that had clearly seen its share of harsh winters. He didn’t smile when he saw me approaching, and he skipped the pleasantries.

"You're late," he grunted, glancing at his watch.

I swallowed hard, feeling my confidence suddenly turn into nervousness. "Sorry, sir. The roads.."

"The roads are always like that, it’s middle-of-nowhere Montana, kid" he cut me off. "You’ll learn soon enough. Out here, you better be prepared for anything."

I nodded, feeling small under his stern gaze, like a child getting a good lecture from his parents. “Well, come on then”, he said as he motioned for me to follow him into the station. As I entered, I spotted another ranger sitting quietly in the corner, staring out the window at the coming storm. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with long black hair tied back in a ponytail, and a calm expression on his face. Earl didn't introduce him immediately.

The station was simple; a few desks, a gun safe, a kitchen, a radio room, and sleeping quarters in the back. Earl handed me a map of the region. "Your job is to patrol this area. You’re going to check for signs of poaching, illegal campsites, and anything else that doesn't belong. Poaching’s been a problem around here for a while. Keep your eyes open, learn your area, and don’t ever let yourself get too comfortable."

I nodded, unfolding the map and scanning the area. My territory stretched deep into the dense forests, far beyond where most people would dare to venture. "And him?" I asked, motioning toward the man by the window.

Earl glanced over. "That's Daniel Black Elk. He’s the quiet type, but he knows these woods better than anyone. If he gives you guidance, you better listen up. His family's been on this land for generations."

I extended my hand to Daniel. "Tom Carter, good to meet you, Daniel."

Daniel’s grip was firm but gentle, his eyes never leaving mine as we shook hands. "Daniel Black Elk," he said in a voice that was low and smooth. "Welcome to Pine Creek."

Earl wasted no time getting down to business. He spread a map of the area across the table and tapped at it with his thick fingers. "This is your territory now. The Pine Creek region is thousands of acres of forest, mountains, rivers, and lakes. You’ll be responsible for these areas, keeping an eye out for anything unusual."

I nodded, trying to absorb the sheer scale of the territory. "Anything I should be particularly looking for?"

"Everything," Earl said flatly. "This ain’t some well-maintained national park. It’s rough terrain. Weather changes fast, animals aren’t always friendly, and the nearest help is hours away. If you get in trouble out there, you're on your own. So don’t get into trouble."

His tone left no room for argument, and I nodded again. He wasn’t exaggerating. The sheer remoteness of the place was beginning to sink in.

"What about the poaching?" I asked. "Who’s behind it?"

Earl leaned back in his chair, a grim look on his face. "Locals, mostly. Some of ‘em hunt for sport, some for money. Wolves, elk, bears, you name it. They know the forest better than most, and they don’t take kindly to us rangers poking around their business."

I frowned. "Sounds like it could get dangerous."

"It can," Earl said, then looked out the window, the muscles in his jaw tightening. "But there’s worse out there than poachers."

His words hung in the air like a fog, and for a moment, a heavy silence settled over the room. Daniel glanced at Earl but said nothing. There was an unspoken tension between the two of them, something I wasn’t privy to yet.

"Like what?" I asked, breaking the silence.

Earl’s eyes flicked back to me, hard and cold. "Just keep your wits about you, and don’t go out there trying to be a hero and get yourself or anyone else hurt."

The first week of patrols was uneventful, but the forest had a way of unsettling me even when nothing happened. The trees loomed tall and silent, their trunks dark and twisted, like ancient giants frozen in time. Every rustle of leaves or snap of a twig set my nerves on edge, and I constantly found myself looking over my shoulder, expecting to see something lurking in the shadows. I reminded myself that I would get used to it, with time.

Daniel accompanied me on a few of my first patrols, guiding me through the more difficult terrain. He rarely spoke unless it was necessary, but when he did, it was always to point out something I would have otherwise missed, like animals tracks or a hole to avoid stepping in. His knowledge of the land was impressive, and though he was quiet, I appreciated his presence. There was something calming about him, like he was in tune with the land in a way I couldn’t yet comprehend. I felt safe with him.

One afternoon, while we were hiking through a particularly dense section of the forest, I asked more about him and what his story was.

"My family’s been here for centuries," Daniel said, his voice low. "Long before the park was established, before the settlers came. My people have always been the stewards of this land. We know its secrets."

"Secrets?" I asked, curious.

Daniel paused, looking out at the trees with a distant expression. "The land remembers. It has its own memory, and its own spirits. There are more things out here then just man and animals."

I felt a chill run down my spine at his words, but I wasn’t sure if he was being serious or if it was just part of his culture. Maybe he was just speaking metaphorically? Still, there was something about the way he spoke, so matter of fact, that made me believe him.

That evening, after we returned to the station, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was being watched. Every shadow felt like it was something following me, and every gust of wind carried whispers to my ears. I had been on edge already, and the conversation with Daniel didn’t help.

Earl brushed off my concerns when I mentioned to him what Daniel had said about there being more in the forest than just man or animal.

"Ah, that’s just first week jitters," he said. "The forest can get under your skin if you let it. Just stick to your patrols and don’t go looking for trouble. We all felt like that when we were new. And don’t go listening to none of Daniel’s superstitions. The guy knows his stuff but he can get a little out there, if you know what I mean"

I wanted to believe him, but the unease gnawed at me, a constant presence at the back of my mind. A few days later, I was out on patrol by myself, covering the western section of the forest. The day was overcast, and the clouds hung low and heavy, casting everything in a dull, gray light. The air was thick with the scent of damp earth and pine needles, and the forest was eerily quiet, the usual sounds of wildlife absent. I vaguely recalled something in my training about when the forest goes silent.

As I made my way through a clearing, I spotted something unusual near the edge of the tree line. At first, I thought it was just a pile of leaves or debris, but as I got closer, I realized it was the mangled remains of an animal.

My heart sank as I knelt down to examine the scene. The animal, what looked like had been a deer, had been completely ripped apart, its flesh torn and shredded in a way that didn’t seem natural. The bite marks were too large and jagged to be from any predator I knew of in the area. I’d seen wolf kills before, and this wasn’t the same. It was savage, brutal, almost as if whatever had killed it had done so for sport rather than for food.

The ground around the carcass was disturbed, the grass flattened and trampled as if there had been some kind of struggle. But what stood out to me the most were the tracks. They were large, far larger than any wolf or bear, and they were shaped... different. The toes were elongated, almost claw-like, and they dug deep into the soil, leaving deep impressions.

My stomach churned as I took a few steps back, my hand instinctively going to the radio on my belt.

"Earl," I said, trying to keep my voice steady. "I found something. Looks like a poaching site, maybe, but... something’s not right."

"What do you mean, not right?" Earl’s voice cr...

---

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1fukc5u/i_became_a_park_ranger_in_montana_now_im_being/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Theeaglestrikes on 2024-10-02 17:14:22+00:00.

---

Nick, your dad’s on OnlyFans, Tom (25m) messaged on Discord.

What a way to find out.

Of course, I (24m) rolled my eyes at first. It just seemed like one of my friend’s infantile jokes. A playground insult that might’ve tickled me when we were younger. I wouldn’t have taken my oldest friend seriously if it hadn’t been for the link I received a moment later.

There Dad (54m) posed, in all of his glory. Not in the nude, thankfully, but far from decent. My father’s cover photo depicted him lying provocatively on a faux leopardskin rug, revealing his greasy, matted chest hair through a silk robe of matching black and orange design.

It was not a pose that his employer would have found appropriate. And even with the knock-off RayBans covering his eyes, I recognised him. That goofy smile, once so endearing, was edged to me. It felt as if the image were cutting my eyes.

What the fuck? I messaged Tom.

He replied, I knew Pete was struggling after your mum left, but fuck, mate. That’s shit.

I’ve always wanted to see Papa Pete’s gyatt, my other friend, Simon (24m), said.

Shut up, I replied. What do I do? Do I confront him?

You should sub, Simon messaged.

Bog off, I said.

He’s kind of right, Nick, Tom said. You need to know what’s on there.

No, I don’t. I really fucking don’t, I replied.

Then we’ll do it, Simon messaged.

We? Tom asked.

Yeah, Tom. I’ll need your emotional support and a bottle of bleach after combing through all of those photos and videos. We’ll take it in turns. I look at a post, then you look at a post, Simon suggested. Pete has thousands of nudes. His account dates back to 2020.

How about you look at the first photo, let us know the damage, then I’ll subscribe if you want to share the burden? Tom asked Simon.

Already seen it, my other friend replied. It was weird.

Wtf? You subscribed without telling me? I messaged, feeling betrayed.

Sorry, Nick, Simon apologised. Curiosity got the best of me. But don’t worry. I didn’t see your dad’s pecker or hole.

Jesus Christ, I replied. Please don’t ever say those words again. Don’t send the photo, please, but describe it.

It was worse than a nude, my friend said. Your dad was licking what looked like a wax arm, and he wore a badge, attached to his lapel, labelled: ‘Mr Morphophilia’. I Googled that word… Pete has a fetish for deformed people.

Oh. That’s not so bad, Tom messaged. I was expecting worse. No offence, Nick, but it was kind of a given that your dad was into freaky shit. He’s an OF creator.

Pete’s page is insane, Simon said. His fans are unhinged, Nick. They’re commenting all sorts of degenerate things. I mean, fair play to him. He’s get a devoted following. But he might want to get some security because these subscribers are a little too into him. They’re giving me psycho vibes. Want me to send some screenshots?

I said nothing in response. I closed my laptop, curled into a ball under my duvet, and hoped I would wake hours later to find that the whole thing had been a bad dream. Or that my friends had fooled me. Created some convincing AI images of my father, perhaps. Still, I knew them, and I knew even that level of Simon-and-Tom-foolery, as I often called it, was beneath them.

I woke up around 5am, having only managed to get three hours of sleep. And when I opened my laptop, I saw that my friends had continuing messaging each other. Continued conducting their ‘research’.

I subscribed, Tom said. Shit. The next photo is worse.

I know, Simon messaged.

You’ve seen it? I thought we were going to take it in turns. You know, look at alternating posts to save our sanity, Tom messaged.

Yeah, Simon said.

I get it, Tom messaged. I feel it too. Nick, I hate to say it, but this is legitimately beautiful. Simon, did you watch the video Pete posted a week ago? Next fucking level.

I know, Simon said.

I think I recognise that girl, Tom said. She was in my class at university.

No spoilers, Simon said. Let’s wait until Nick wakes up.

No spoilers, Tom agreed. My God, I’ve not felt this way in a long time. Suadeo?

Yes, Simon replied.

There was a gap of one hour without any exchange of messages. I hoped that my friends would have changed the topic after the initial unsettling flurry of opinions on my father’s OnlyFans content. Hoped that they would’ve said something to remind me that they were my friends. But they didn’t, and they weren’t. This wasn’t some practical joke. I knew Tom and Simon well, and this wasn’t them.

Their conversation resumed around 4am. It started with a short clip that Tom had attached. And I wish I hadn’t played it.

The video opened with a shaky shot of my friend’s desk.

“Hello, Nick,” he said, gleefully giggling behind the camera.

On Tom’s monitor, I caught a glimpse of Dad’s OF page for a moment. Peeked over the paywall and felt a pang of agony. The same sensation that I’d felt upon eyeing his cover photo, but twice as painful. Even through a phone’s camera. An image of an image.

Given the change in my friends, I dread to think what gazing directly upon my father’s posts would have done to my mind. I don’t think I want to know. But it was clear that Tom and Simon had seen something which fundamentally altered their very souls. That flicker of the computer screen — fortunately, too hazy to distinguish — seared more than my eyes. It seared my skin from top to toes, stopping just shy of consuming more than my physical form.

I screamed, feeling some unbound force trying to untether my mind from my body. I didn’t know what was happening to me, but I knew it was the same thing, on a lesser scale, that had happened to my friends. Perhaps Dad had brewed the perfect combination of pixels to hypnotise folk into parting with their money. Perhaps he’d been consumed by something beyond earthly explanation. I still don’t have an answer.

“I want you to understand, Nick,” Tom continued, moving a kitchen knife on his desk into view. “Want you to see that your dad has done a beautiful thing. I’m going to be a part of that thing.”

I trembled as I realised what was about to happen.

My friend placed the camera on the desk, making sure he was in shot. There were no theatrics. No pause. No grand monologue. He seemed to be hurrying, and that was what made it all the more awful.

Tom didn’t utter a sound as he sawed through his right arm. A sound that even my piercing shriek didn’t drown. His calm demeanour, whilst enduring such pain, almost made me doubt the validity of the footage. But his face was finally in frame, and it told me that this was real. There was no faking his ghastly smile, accompanied by tearful, jubilant eyes.

That wasn’t my friend.

With the awful squelch of innards and sharp cracking of bone, my friend’s forearm came loose. Came free like pulled pork, just below the elbow joint. Tom released a triumphant roar as his blade met the blood-soaked wood below, then he let his severance instrument splash into the growing pool.

My friend was shivering not with agony, but primal delight as he lifted the dismembered limb with his remaining hand. Lifted the bloody appendage towards the camera.

The video ended there.

My face was painted with snot and tears, and I was struggling to breathe through sharp intakes and releases. Through a throat hoarse from screaming. That was why, when I saw a Discord message from Simon had been removed, I felt relieved. I don’t know what my other friend sent, but if it were anything like Tom’s video, I wouldn’t have wanted to see it.

However, the final three messages brought my teeth together.

Nick isn’t ready for mine, Simon messaged.

No, Tom replied. He isn’t. But he felt it for a moment. Felt what we feel. And he felt it for free, Simon. For free. What a gift. Do you think Daddy wants him to see?

I think Daddy wants all of us to see, my other friend said.

My garden’s motion lighting suddenly sprang to life, and less than a moment later, a rock punctured my bedroom window. Tore like a bullet into my room, leaving glass shards on my duvet and a lasting jolt of fear in my chest.

Quivering, I shuffled along the bed, then peered around the edge of the window frame. Something I immediately regretted.

In the garden, stark naked, were Tom and Simon. Without clothes to hide behind, there was no fudging the facts. Under the bright, white glare of the garden’s lighting, no practical effects would’ve explained the dismemberment of my two friends.

Tom stood, right arm absent, with his remaining hand gripping the left handle of the wheelbarrow below. And lying in that cart, like a bloody mound of mulch and brambles, was the still-moving body of Simon. A living, breathing body without arms and legs. A torso immobilised, but somehow more alive than ever. Even from the top window of my home, I saw the smile on Simon’s face. A face coated in trails of blood from the eyes he had plucked from their sockets.

“Nick!” Tom called from below. “I see you.”

Simon yelled something incoherent, opening his mouth wide to reveal that he also lacked a tongue.

“Simon says it’s time for you to see Daddy’s page!” Tom shouted, before pushing the wheelbarrow towards the patio doors.

I yelled at the sound of shattering glass, then I hurriedly slipped into my joggers. I did not run towards the front door, as I knew I would only meet my two unhinged friends. I tore open the bedroom wind...

---

Content cut off. Read original on https://old.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comments/1fuljlv/my_friends_found_my_dads_onlyfans_account_and/

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/gohomefreak1 on 2024-10-02 15:27:26+00:00.

---

Michael has always been a little bit secluded, you know. We've worked together for 8 years, and I still couldn't tell you a single thing about the guy. Very private guy.

Anyway, he seemed like one of those fellows that are just… constantly annoyed at being alive? I mean don't get me wrong, we've always tried to include him, but he was always… chilly. Polite, but like, really chilly. It's like he didn't want anything to do with anyone.

And well, I can respect a guy doing his own thing. So, I gave him his space, and I didn't think much about him anymore.

Anyway, yesterday I came back from my annual leave. HR calls me over immediately, and they proceed to inform me that Michael quietly stopped showing up last week. They decided to terminate his contract after he didn't respond to their calls. Well, being the tech guy, they need me to retrieve all company data from his computer.

No big deal, but a bit weird. We've worked together for so long, he could have at least left a goodbye email or something, no? I wanted to message him and wish him good luck on his future endeavors and whatnot, but I remembered I never got his phone number.

Well, the next part is the reason I'm posting on this community. I'm hoping someone could help me make sense of this?

As I logged into his computer, the first thing I see is a notepad file ominously named "Pleasehelpme.txt". Well, I'm a curious fellow, so I naturally click on the file to see if It is company related. I wish I had just ignored it.

You know what's the most disturbing part? Even if a very, very small part of me believes him, how the hell did he even write this in the first place? I can't make sense of it.

Anyway, this is what was written on the document. I would really appreciate some guidance on what to do. I haven't shown this to anybody yet.

-"You know nobody is coming to rescue you, right?"

I look up from my computer screen, slightly startled. What the fuck?

-"Excuse me?" I responded sharply.

-"Mind if I have a seat?"

A large man was towering over me. Clad in black, late thirties, a bit rough looking. He had coal black eyes, a crooked nose along with a huge scar on his forehead.

Does this guy even work here? Should I be calling security?

-"Listen man, I'm on my lunch break. Can you come back in an hour?" I responded while looking around for help. Tough luck though, everyone was having lunch outside.

Fuck me. If I were more sociable I wouldn't be in this situation, would I?

Sensing my nervousness, the man chuckled lightly and took a seat a bit further from me.

-"That's a nice hamburger bro.

-Yeah, thanks. Listen…

-Didn't you have the same hamburger yesterday?

-Huh?

-Do you order the same thing every day bro? That stuff will kill you, you know?"

I was starting to be overcome with a strange sense of dread. I could feel my hands shaking slightly under my desk.

-"All right listen, this is getting creepy. Could you leave me alone?" I say as I take my phone, hoping he wouldn't notice my hands.

-"You know this is no way to live, right? I'm just giving you some tough love here man, but you stink. You look like you've been just recovered from an underground cult after 19 years of forced coal mining.

-"Wait what? But I use deodorant every day. And what's with the weirdly specific analogy anyway? Who the hell are you?

He sighed.

-"When was the last time you've showered Michael? And that beard, man. If I didn't know any better I would have mistaken you for a biologist experimenting on mold growth.

-Enough. I'm not going to take hygiene lessons from a wannabe gangster. You don't scare me, you hear me? What do you want from me? "

My voice cracked towards the end of the sentence. Even though I didn't feel threatened, my whole body was shaking, as if it sensed something was terribly wrong.

The man silently observed me as I grew more and more uneasy.

-"Well? What is this, exactly? Somebody paying you to prank me?

-Do you want my jacket buddy? You're shaking."

I was. Uncontrollably. My teeth were chattering and I couldn't feel my legs at all.

When did it get so damn cold? What the fuck is happening here?

-"It's okay, Michael. You can be yourself around me." The man says as he scoots his chair closer to mine. "You haven't been doing that a lot lately, have you?"

I wanted to run away, to scream, anything at all. But my body continued to defy my commands.

-"Who…

-You know who I am, Michael." The man responded gently. He leaned forward towards me, and I could see his eyes turn into a deeper shade of purple.

-"You've never truly lived, have you? You've merely existed, like a lifeless husk. Michael, do you understand what it's like to feel alive?

I didn't understand anything at all. His face progressively became a blur. I couldn't make out his features anymore.

-"You've endured and you've fought very, very hard to tolerate your existence, haven't you Michael? You poor thing."

He reached out and started stroking my hair.

-" You don't have to struggle anymore."

No, no, no….

Not in this place, man. I've always despised this place.

Is this really it? I have to go in this stupid office? On this stupid chair where I wasted half of my life?

No…

-"Relax, fighter. You've done your best. Let me help you now."

He took my hand. His touch was frosty, yet somehow also warm, and gentle. I kept staring into his melancholic eyes.

I still felt incredibly cold, but maybe…

Maybe he will take me to a warmer place.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/TheBatBelfry on 2024-10-02 08:19:55+00:00.

---

My mother was terminally ill and spent her last few days in a hospital bed. I would work throughout the week as usual, but over the weekend I would stay with her. Day and night.

It became a routine and the nurse in charge of my mother would leave a pillow and blanket ready for me before I arrive. Claire was her name.

She was the only real company I had left. I distanced myself from the outside world, the hospital and work were all I knew. When my mother lost her ability to speak, Claire was the only voice I heard since.

Every night after my mother fell asleep, she and I would go check out the vending machines down the corridor.

The lights in the hospital were faulty. They flickered on and off. Some lights just gave out leaving many hallways in the dark.

Must have been around midnight when Claire and I returned to the vending machines. Mother had fallen asleep earlier than usual.

We chatted for some time, catching up on each other's week. Cracked a few jokes. Then a cry interrupted our conversation.

It came from where the hospital kept the newborns. Claire, being her job and all, went to go check on them. Me who had nothing to do, followed her.

She entered the room first, but before I could step inside, she screamed. I quickly darted into the room to find her frozen in place as she stared at the far corner. I glanced over to what she was looking at.

A thin, boney creature laid before us. It was supporting itself on all fours, its' arms twice the length of its' legs. The most horrifying part of the creature had to be the two babies stuck in its' abdomen.

The babies weren't sewn or glued onto the body, they were growing out of it. Complete with disfigured faces, arms and legs.

We quickly realized that the cry we heard didn't come from the newborns but from those things in the creature's body. We realized this because every newborn in the room was chewed up and crushed like half-eaten steak.

One of them was currently in the creature's grasp who was feeding the newborn's corpse to 'its' children'. It stopped and turned over to us.

I grabbed Claire and dragged her out of the room, locking the door. As we ran down the hall, we saw the creature jumping across the room through the window. It burst through the door and chased us down the corridor.

We zig-zagged through various dark halls until we lost sight of it. I ordered Claire to leave and call for help but she refused. Asking why in my right mind would I stay here with that thing.

I told her I couldn't leave my mother alone with it. Claire agreed, telling me she would stay too no matter what I said.

Unable to change her mind, we quietly snuck back into my mother's room. I nudged her arm and asked her to wake up. Shaking her arm harder everytime I said her name. She lied there unresponsive.

I look to the machine that has been silent probably long before we entered the room. My mother was dead.

After a good while, Claire convinced me to get up so we could leave at once. On the way out we never ran into that creature again.

The police showed up right when we made our exit. Apparently the creature attacked more people on its' way out. Officers didn't know what to make of the stories they were told of a giant monster that ate children.

I gave my mother a funeral of course. Only some relatives and family friends showed up. Left almost as soon as the priest did. Me and Claire stayed back and watched over my mother's grave.

About a month or two later we went back to the now abandoned hospital. Claire insisted we go check it out for clues against my better judgement.

The reason for her curiousity was that the hospital told the police their surveillance cameras were faulty, and thus were unable to record the 'monster' people spoke of. She said the cameras worked just fine.

We searched the place, wary of the creature lurking around. Didn't find much except for a classified document on a certain patient described as neither human nor animal.

The papers following it contained ripped out pages bearing strange symbols. Not sure how to describe them other than satanic. Demonic.

“You know... In my very little time working here. I never saw any prayer room,” Claire said.

This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.

The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Bucks_0 on 2024-10-02 02:17:45+00:00.

---

You don't need to know my name, it’s not important. And I know that I'm bad at writing, but I need to get this down before you follow in my footsteps and find yourself on that dirt road, leading to that place. Once you’ve entered, they don't let you leave.  

I should've listened to my gut when it told me something seriously sinister was hiding out in the dark corners and hallways of that horrible building. Something that I would come face to face with that very night. 

This was in 2017. My friends and I had done a lot of abandoned exploring as a group when we were still in high school. Mostly old churches, malls, and some crack houses that were usually inhabited by junkies shooting up, or homeless people needing a place to warm up for the winter. We would stock up on beers, spray cans, and whatever change we could put together between the three of us to buy some weed.  

 It started out tame. We were just a bunch of stupid teenagers exploring old buildings, all while getting hammered and stoned in the process. We had a cheap handheld camera David got for a school film project we would use to record our adventures. Most of the footage was just our antics and vandalism we would do in these abandoned places, thinking it was the coolest shit at the time. Mark would even edit the videos during the week and post them in our group chat. And that's how we spent the rest of our summer, each abandoned place getting crazier than the last until we had seen it all in our town.  

One Friday night in November, David and Mark were at my place, where we would drink and smoke every weekend, thinking about the next place we would explore. We had already been everywhere in town, and it was getting repetitive. 

 That's when we settled on The Elm Creek Health Facility, an abandoned mental asylum 45 minutes up north of town. We heard stories about kids exploring and going missing, but obviously, urban legends weren't holding us back from having a good time. David had a great-grandmother who was admitted there in the 40s because of her severe schizophrenia and manic episodes. Doing my research on the place now, it was famous back then for its inhumane experiments on patients and was closed down in 1963 after many cases of abuse were reported. The facility was shut down, but the building remained.  

The rain battered down on the windshield of my car as we made our way north on the highway. I was 4 beers deep, and to sober up, I kept the windows rolled down in the pouring rain. We exited off the highway and made our way east towards the industrial side of town, where a dirt road led to the facility.  

That feeling I spoke about earlier was overwhelming me. A sense of existential dread, fear, and excitement washed over me as we turned into the dirt road, only lit by my headlights. The rain was still coming down heavily, only stopping when we were enshrouded in the tall and thick trees along the dirt road.  

We parked when we reached the no-trespassing gate. Mark handed David and me flashlights, and we set out on the path to the building on foot. We joked about not making it out alive, as a means to project what we were feeling. We were all scared shitless, but wouldn't admit it. Mark was on camera duty and started rolling as soon as the building was in sight.  

The building stood high in the sky, overgrown with vines and leaves covering the boarded-up windows. We were lighting up a joint when we first heard the voice. 

“you guys exploring too? There's an entrance over here. Come here and I'll show you”  

The voice rang out in the cold rain, emanating from somewhere outside of the building. When Mark responded to the voice and said “Yeah we’ve never been here, where are you ?”  

No answer.  

 

We couldn't see where the voice had come from as we were still far from the building, so we just shrugged it off as another group of explorers, and maybe we would get the chance to see them when we got inside. We approached the building and scouted the perimeter for any entrance point we could find until we found an open window behind a grate. Mark kicked the grate in, and we descended into the basement of the building.  

The smell was the first thing that hit us, Mould and rotten wood. The room was full of graffiti, and medical instruments and books were strewn haphazardly around the room. Smashed beer bottles and cigarette butts littered the floor and made it apparent that we were not the first or the last people to ever enter this building.  

We made our way out of the room and down one of the long and winding corridors, asking “Hello, is anyone there?” to which we received no response.  

We brushed it off as maybe the group had left before we made it up to the building, even though we knew it wasn't possible, and we continued before Mark stopped us and said “I heard this place has a room where they did experiments on patients. It would be sick to get on film. Let's split up, and if you one of us finds it, call the others” before I could object, he was walking down the staircase with the camera pointed at his face, talking to the audience vlog style.  

David was just as scared as me, but to look unbothered, he offered to take the third floor and let me explore the main floor on my own.  

I went room by room, shaking with nervousness and mentally documenting what I saw to tell the others later when we were done. The feeling of being watched was enough for me to start calling out to Mark and David, to which I received no response. That was when I started running back towards the beginning of the corridor to where we had split up in the first place.  

That was where I saw him, Mark was standing in the corridor, back turned to me, and not moving. “Mark what the fuck, this isn't a time to joke around, I want to leave.” he didn't move.  

A chill ran down my spine as the man turned around and revealed himself. It wasn't Mark, 

 

 it was me.  

The man was a carbon copy of my face, except for the soulless void of black in his eyes. His face twisted up into a grin.  

My body was frozen and I stared in horror, as he mimicked me perfectly “Are You lost, Jason?” I backed away slowly, tripping over garbage on the floor in the process. “Why are you trying to leave Jason? They don't let you leave here. Just Like David's Great Grandmother.” I regained my footing and turned towards the staircase 

I raced down the stairs towards the basement we entered, tripping and stumbling while trying to convince myself this was some sort of elaborate prank. 

That was when I heard him start to run. He chased me down the stairs and throughout the basement until I got to the room we entered. I hauled it across the lawn, not looking back even when I heard the distant shrieking of David and Mark.  

Trembling with fear, I got to my car put it in reverse, and drove to a gas station 2 miles away. When I called the cops, a search party went to the facility to find David and Mark. 

They are still missing to this day.  

Every night in my dreams I am in that building.  

If you ever find yourself on that dirt road, remember this;  

They don't let you leave