I Got Hired At A Modeling Agency | CreepCast

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Tales from the Creep. Creep. Maybe. Creep. You're new to the channel. If you're unaware, it is a subreddit. Where our fans go to post stories outside of r slash no sleep. So, if you're interested in writing a story, then maybe go there. People like to read stories and stuff. It's a nice little community is all I'm going to say. All right? Okay. All right. You got it. And the first story we're starting with is, I got hired at a modeling agency and things got weird. You ever model? Did you ever do any child modeling? No. Did you do child modeling? I did for a local business for a local gene business. Is this real? It is real. I wore a little jeans and I had a little, little apple in my hand and it was a little thing for back to school thing. It was, they, they chose two kids from my school and I was one of them. Are those pictures out there somewhere? God, I hope not because I went to, I looked too hunk and cute. Someone can find it. I get that's a bounty. Someone finds that. If someone finds that, I'm going to have, I'm going to have to have a fucking word with them to be like, stop, get, get away from me. Stop following me is what I would say. Oh, someone's going to find that please. No, I never, I never did any modeling as far as I know. I can't even, I feel like there was a couple instances where I was a kid. Like I think one time the local news was doing a story at some like that near, you know, Appalachia and all there was a reenactment of like, revolutionary war stuff. And I went to that and I remember the local news was walking around and they were like, Hey kid, what do you think of this? And I'm like, it's really cool. And they just were like, thanks. And that was it probably never made it to air. I do. Oh, I actually, your voice sounded so gross. It's really cool. Like, okay, cool. I'm getting away from this duck child, this duck boy. There was, there was one time. So when I was a kid, I went to the Cincinnati children's museum, which is like a big museum where you can like play with blocks and like watch through glass and stuff like, or whatever. And they were doing a commercial for it while I was there. And they were like, Hey dude, they went to my parents and was like, can you be, can your son be in the commercial? And I'm like, yeah, I want to or whatever. I remember the camera came near me while I was at this table where it was like these big Jenga blocks that were supposed to teach you like, I don't know, structural integrity or whatever. And I remember I thought I was going to look real cool when they brought the camera over to me. So I tried to build like this really elaborate like tower at the moment the camera swings over to me, the entire thing collapses like on cue and I was just like holding the pieces and I got embarrassed and I just turned around and put my back to the camera. And then I remember the commercial came out and I was like, Oh, I want to see it. I want to see it. My mom found the commercial and pulled it up and they cut even the footage I was in the background of they were that upset. Well, can you blame him? Can you blame him? You're a bad child. You're a bad kid. That was my brush with modeling. I feel, I feel like though I've made up for public appearances now as an adult, but as a child, I'm like, Oh, I'll never, I'm never going to make it. So here we are. So who's laughing now? Cincinnati children's museum. She has to hold that against them. This is by the way, is written. Written by grunge sea bunny. And I'm very looking forward to it. And I want to say that there's a top of the, and we're going to put, we're going to, I'm going to say this now because it is at the top. There is a content warning. It said, it says brief, very brief use of homophobic language, references to fetish content, implied animal harm, not graphic. - As long as you have to say the homophobic stuff, that's all that matters. - I will say the homophobic stuff. I will, I will fall on that shield. My favorite comment on the video we did about the, the gay dads camping is there's the part where you found out the dads were gay and you went, Oh, okay. Two gay dads. Got it. And someone commented and said, Hunter was being homophobic, not in the sense he didn't like gay people, but that he was actually afraid of them. - You know what? I, it was just my media literacy. I didn't know. So then whenever I registered my brain, I did. Oh, okay. Got it. And I want to say that people's response to that episode. I thought that that story ruled. - I thought it was cool. I thought it was a fun little monster story. - Now granted people don't like it. - Well, people, I don't think that they enjoyed the fish, but you know what? It went there. It went there. - What are we? A bunch of Protestants now? What's a problem? I guess we suddenly have standards now. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. Start burning witches at the stakes and stuff. Bunch of goddamn Puritans. Sure. Yeah. We can't delve into fish every once in a while. Then what's the point of the show, Isaiah? - I guess we got an audience of pilgrims here. We got to take care of, so. - Got to watch out. - But checking out Grunge Sea Bunny, they've posted on No Sleep before, but now they're posting in Tales from the Creeps and talking to other writers about their stories and stuff like that. And that's really cool to see. - And this is tagged with looking for feedback. So we will be giving feedback. - We will be brutally honest. We'll be so mean. - Also, we, we are on Spotify. - Took me a second to realize what I was going to say. We're on Spotify and Apple Podcasts, anywhere that you can listen to a podcast, we're there. So if you don't want to watch this on YouTube, maybe like audio platforms, consider checking us out there and giving us a nice little rating. It does help us out. And also we just released the video, Gemini Home Entertainment did a Creep TV episode in a long time. And it like, we had to do a bunch of different edits and stuff. So on Patreon though, it went up two days earlier. So if you want to be, get content earlier, get extra content, consider checking out our Patreon. If you want a little extra on the side, if not, it's all good, but Hey, it's there. And baby, it's waiting for you. So Isaiah, are you ready? - I am ready. So our first story, I got hired at a modeling agency and things got weird. It was the start of the fall semester and I was already unraveling. Combination of admin being on my ass and my illiterate students caused icy bitterness to replace the blood in my veins. My wife, Wren, saw the stress slowly replacing my skin and suggested we take a day to go to the beach. Of course, I protested. I still had 30 worksheets to grade. She refused to take no for an answer. Before I knew it, we were at the beach in matching sage green bikinis. Sat on my tattered beach chair while Wren tanned on a towel next to me. - Close your laptop, it'll overheat. I have to answer these emails. - I replied as my fingers danced across my keyboard. I hit send and immediately opened my next unread message. - Dear Mrs. Mendez, after catching my daughter reading an inappropriate book, I investigated the complete list of books you assigned your students and I am appalled at the blasphemous and borderline pornographic books you've been suggested to your students. I will be contacting the administration about this to ensure you suffer the fullest consequences. Sincerely, a total fucking bitch. Just kidding, it's Emma's mother. - Also known as. - Yeah, AKA Emma's mother. - AKA. I closed my laptop with the deep sigh. - That bad? - Wren asked as she set up and took off her tortoise shell sunglasses. - It's actually a by-fall for thinking the picture of Dorian Gray was a suitable book for 17 year olds. I thought Californians loved- - That is- - Huh? - The picture of Dorian Gray, why does anyone have a problem with that? - Why does anyone have a problem with anything? - It's like one of those tame old literature. Oh, yeah, that's all right. They're terrible. These people are dumb. - Hunter's take of the day. Hunter's hot take of the day. Why does anyone have a problem with anything? - Get it framed on your walls, ladies and gentlemen. Why do people fucking freak out about anything? That's my critical. That's Hunter's critical thought of the day. - Hunter watching like live league execution videos. - Oh, what the hell's the problem? - Boys can't have fun anymore. - So what? I guess like this is a human experience. I can't, okay, whatever. - I guess we have problems with this now. - What is the picture of Dorian Gray about? - Because we all are gonna have a problem. It's the story of the guy who. I think I can't remember if it's a deal with the devil or a witch or whatever, but the picture on his wall ages and he stays young. And the deal is he can just never look at the picture. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I don't know. Maybe it's just because it's too shocking. Oh, I can't, I don't think there's anything sexual and I may, I may be completely misremembering something, but it's just about like his people become terrified of the picture. So he begins to become more and more of a recluse because of it. I can't remember anything that drastic in it, but anyway, maybe it was just jerking soft putt or something. That'd be so sick. Picture Dorian Gray. Then Dorian went into the corner. It always comes back to that for you. Jerking his soft putt. It doesn't matter what the topic is. And then in quotations, bring it around to that. And then in quotations, in quotations, it's like Dorian looked up from the corner and quotation, it says me jerk, me soft putt. I'm so, I'm so careful now to not give you landmines, to set off, to take you into those directions. Like I'm very careful with my wording. If you don't even need it, you just jump into it. If you were, if you, if, if, if your child went to school and came home, like, yeah, we're reading this book and you were like, oh, that's Dorian picture of Dorian Gray. Yeah. He talks about pulling the soft putt. Would you, you'd probably be upset. I mean, I wouldn't, I think it's kind of funny, but I'm sure. Anyways, I scoffed. I thought Californians love the gays. Not anymore. They don't. I'm going to the bathroom. Editor cut this out, but she just has like a giant shit stain on her bikini. Okay, go ahead. I don't think that's that. How, why does that need to be cut? Why can't everything you just said about Dorian gravy left in? All right, well then cut everything out of Dorian Gray. No, no, no. I'm saying what's with this double standard of yours? Why is poop suddenly off the table? Well, I thought that the Dorian Gray thing was tasteful and the poop thing was Oh, did you? Okay. You know what? Editor, leave all of it. I know I'm tired of this. Rin pointed at the Rin pointed at the call motion waves. Bathroom's that way. Or I could walk. Oh, sorry about that. Yeah. I thought, I thought Californians liked us gays. Also, I picture editor, editor cut this. I just want you to know that. And I hope that I just wanted to put that in your mind. So you have it there too. Go ahead. Thanks. Before I could walk to the nearest crab shack, a man in a three piece suit and a briefcase approached us. Excuse me. I'm sorry to bother you ladies, but I couldn't help, but notice how beautiful you both are. Right. After I just said, that's good. All right, good. I'm glad you're having a good time. Rin and I shared a quick look. Thank you. You put the palm of his hand on his chest. My name is Howard Burton. I run a local modeling company and you ladies would be perfect models for our website. Modeling. Right question as she stood up. Modeling. Say what size shoe do you ladies wear? All right. This is where I would immediately be like, get the fuck out of here. Oh, okay. You look quite exquisite. Um, started glancing at Rin again. trying to gauge if she was as weirded out as I was. We both were seven and a half. Perfect! True niche. My company could use girls like you. With compensation, obviously. Made my ears perk up. How much? I'll rate startup at $1,200 an hour. Always paid in cash. This has to be pornography. I would, I mean, like, a million percent. First off, a guy is approaching you, and he's like, hey, you're both really beautiful. Which, obviously, you gotta watch out for that anyways. But then also just be like, the first thing after that is, what size shoe do you wear? You get to know that motherfucker's drooling, and he's just like, this little piggy went to the market. This little piggy. You know what I mean? Can't trust that. Yeah. A jaw dropped. And what would we be doing? I run a website dedicated to highlighting the different aspects of beauty. We are currently focusing on legs and feet. There it is. There it is. Well, at least they're not wasting any time. Howard handed me, a business card. Give us a call if you're interested. We'll set up a date for us to pick you up and take you to the studio. You'll pick us up? We send a car for all of our models. With that, he walked away. There's no way we're doing it, right? I took out my phone to search for True Niche. It sounded like a 20-year-old tech billionaire's failed AI project. It has good reviews. I scrolled through the monochromatic interface, filled with women's arms and long latex gloves, and feet and heels so high they look like weapons. A tab for men was available, though with a significantly smaller supply. Below the tab directing you to the About section was a password-protected exclusive tab. The website seems legit. There's a hit on a website dedicated to body parts. There's an exclusive tab you have to pay for, and she's like, I mean, it checks out to me. I mean, it does read, and I will be honest, it does read like porn. Does it not? Yeah. Exclusive. Exclusive to me reads like a different word for porn. Yeah, of course. Absolutely. When we got home, I immediately called the number on the business card. A disembodied woman asked if I was buying or selling. Selling? How it approached my wife and me today. I heard some typing on the other end of the line. What's your address? As I told her, my wife looked at me from across our kitchen in utter disbelief. We're typing. We'll send a call tomorrow at 9 p.m. 9 p.m. to get driven out, to be paid $1,200 an hour. To get pictures of your feet. Bro, I would, there's no fucking shot. You're getting killed and dumped in Mexico. Yeah, there's, I mean, don't get me wrong, $1,200 an hour is fucking amazing, but I mean, I mean, come on, 9 p.m. Can we do noon? Can we do like a more normal time? Whatever happened to a good midday foot and shoe? Yeah, exactly. If you're going to sit there and lick and suck my toes and shit, at least can we just do it at lunchtime? Come on now. Yeah. Perhaps on a nice veranda with witnesses. Yeah. And an olive garden in public. In an olive garden. Yeah. A tour of Italy and some tootsies, dude. Come on now. Yeah. The manager, the manager of olive garden comes by. It's like, um, ma'am. And you're like, well, I'm getting $1,200 for this. Oh, right. Right away. Also. Yeah. Like the manager of an olive garden is going to give a fuck. They're going to be like, you want more breadsticks? That's all they'd say to you. You love to just talk down. Olive garden. Olive garden. Olive garden. Olive garden. Olive garden. Olive garden. I've never had a bad time at an olive garden. It's not that good. It's really not. You don't know how, what you're doing. Then you get the Nogi soup and you get, and you get the calamari and then you get, you get the, you get the angel hair with the five cheese marinara and it's delicious. God, you said there's something going on with your voice today. You sound deathly. Are you sick? No, I've been talking to people all day. So it's probably a little, a little strained. Well, let me tell you, our listeners are going to suffer this episode. Buddy, the way you said angel hair made my skin crawl. Anything that should be the, you should just, you should do the, all the voices by the end of this. It just sounds like a goddamn throat went through a cheese grater. Angel hair. I'm actually quite enjoying making you do most of the reading this time. So that is true. You've, you've done the heavy lifting. You've done the heavy lifting. Yeah. This is just like saying the homophobic things in an episode. This is your cross to bear. Not mine. If it's a cross, I must carry. Then I will carry it. She hung up before I could say anything else. You did not just do that. Do you realize how dangerous this could be? I mean, if you don't want to come with me, that's fine, but I'm not going to pass up this opportunity. She pressed her tongue on the inside of her cheek. I don't like this. I don't like living off a teacher's salary. Took an energy drink out of the fridge to help me finish grading my classes, worksheets. While Ren left the kitchen with a huff of disapproval. The next day, a black van stopped. Oh gosh. A black van stopped. The back door opened in front of the house. The back door. Listen, not even a sliding door. The back door opened. Oh my God. With only two empty seats. At least we're, at least we aren't alone. Yeah, that's, you're getting murdered. A black, a black 1986 Chevy Astro. Get in. In the back. Fuck that. When have you ever seen someone get in the back seats of a car from the back of a van? Fuck that. In, in movies where people get kidnapped. That is true. Probably black phone. Black phone was probably the last one. Yeah. After making sure I had my wallet and pepper spray, I stepped into the van. Fresh meat. The woman to my left said, excuse me, parked at her. I put my hand on my back to signal that maybe it wasn't the best time to get into a fight. You're new. Fresh meat. Whoever this character is. I already don't like that. I don't like that already. She's going to have a stripper name. I can already tell you that. It's like that kind of quirky Harley Quinn attitude. 1 million percent. I cleared my throat as the inside of the van began to close in. What's your name? I needed at least one friend there. And she was the first person to acknowledge me. Crystal. And you are. Oh my God. All right. There you go. I mean, can I at least get a bear trap there? Holy moly. That was great. In my head, in my head, I was like, what would constitute a stripper name? But that, yeah. He'd just be like, Kristen. and you are? I feel like I should give her like a bit of a Crystal and you are? Yeah, a little cigarette rasp. Oh yeah, I've been grinding the poles all night, sweetie. Alice. I pointed my thumb at my partner. Rin. How do you got a two for one deal with y'all? Roommates or both? Oh. Oh. Crystal, you are a character. What's saving you? That cigarette voice is doing a lot of the heavy lifting on that slur. I'm not going to lie to save you. I'm going to say, yeah, immediately constituting the cigarette thrash and then getting hit with a is just crazy, crazy back to back. I mean, the bear traps like it's like it's like that in scene and mouse hunt when they have like a million mousetrap set up. It's like that was bear traps as I said. I'm in a scary house, but don't worry about that. Instead, what you should be worried about is getting in on today's sponsor ultra pouches. You know, believe it or not, waking up in the morning and immediately filling your body with caffeine or nicotine to get in order is probably not a good thing. Just ask yourself how many cups of coffee, energy drinks, nicotine pouches or vape hits do you think you do in a day? Then ask yourself the follow up question. Are you proud of that? These things can make you feel good in one sense, but also put you on edge, give you anxiety. 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It pays for designer. - Drained her fingertips across her chest, flaunting her Chanel necklace. - Can't complain. - We spent the rest of the ride in silence. Howard greeted us as we entered the studio. - Welcome back to True Niche, ladies. We have some new members joining us. So make sure to be welcoming. - A short man in a black polo and khakis handed him a clipboard before walking away. - Let's see here. - He put on thin frame glasses, accentuating his beady little blue eyes. - Crystal, Daisy, and Amber, you're with her. You're with Fred, Cherry and Jade, you're with George. Alice and Wren, you're with Dave. - Clapped his hands and walked over to us. - Everyone to their places, chop chop. - Wren grabbed my hand and squeezed. - Where exactly are we going? - She asked as everyone dispersed. Howard smiled. - Room 106. Depending on what we're shooting, you'll be either in a room or outside the parking lot. Today, we'll start simple. Follow me. - I think I'd rather be in the parking lot where people can see me. - I would love to do this on asphalt if possible. - No, no, no, no, this is Crystal's territory. - Yeah. - Keep me outside to burn. - Yeah. - Flip me when I start to char. - Yeah, Fred over there, we call him spatula. - Okay, all right. It was fine until you brought a man, and like the implication was there. You didn't have to elaborate. - Hey, Fred was just introducing the story. - Mm-hmm, call him the spatula. We followed him to a bright room with pretty standard photography equipment. Softbox's lighting kits illuminated a gray leather couch that stood at the center of a white backdrop. - Dave, meet our new girls. - Howard said while the photographer messed with his camera. - I'm gonna check on the rest of our ladies. You kids play nice now. I mean, my God. - Yeah, very creepy. No question. Dave looked at us with a sinister gleam in his eyes. - Nice. - He crouched down to get a closer look at our legs. - You have a birthmark. - He became Spanish between those lines. - Si. - He said as he poked the side of my right ankle. - Do you want to cover it? No, it's fine. I responded, not seeing the danger in such a small mark being visible. He set his camera on the tripod and beckoned us over to the couch where he handed us a pair of black thongs. - Hey, hey, what is on? - I did as directed. Why are these so cool with this? I did as directed, Ren begrudgingly followed. As a silent command, he handed us hot pink stilettos. - All right, let's get started. For now, just do what feels natural. - With no other direction, I crossed my legs. Blinding flashes of light erupted in the already bright room. Metallic clicks filled my ears as Dave took the photos. - Ooh, nice. - So I tried a few other positions. I noticed Ren wasn't moving. I thought she just wasn't sure how to pose. - Just do what I do. - I said, trying to be encouraging. - Right, 'cause you're such an expert. - With a sigh, I lay on my back and raised my legs so they were completely vertical, prompting Ren to do the same. - Hold that. Do not move a fucking millimeter. - He said as the camera shutter sank. Finally, an hour had passed. Howard came back and gave us our payment in cash as promised. - Same time tomorrow? - The following gigs were pretty standard. After a long day of teaching and grading papers, I'd put on heels, ballet slippers, or Doc Martens, and pose to show off my legs or feet, depending on the day. Sometimes we even shot close-ups of our knees. We wore fishnets or sheer tights here and there, but. Howard said our viewers preferred to see as much of our skin as possible. I wasn't going to complain when we were getting free routine pedicures. Crystal and I had begun getting close. After my first week, she invited me out for drinks after a shoot. - How's Howie treating you? - She asked before taking a sip of her Aperol Spritz. - Good. Will that change? - How long have you and your wife been together? - Hmm, five years. - You're lucky you were recruited together. - This job isn't something you can easily explain. - It's just modeling. - For now. - All right. - It's leading somewhere here. - Yeah. - Where are we going? - It's going to get worse, it'll get worse. I feel like, you remember that story, Normal Porn for Normal People? - Oh, sure. - Where it's all just kind of bizarre videos, but then there's a chimpanzee that beats a woman to death? - That was a part of our first creepy pasta grab bag. - Yeah, yeah. That's how I feel right now. - I have a feeling you're, actually, you know what, you're probably right. It is probably going to be something like that, where it's like, hey, take this- - It'll be something super weird. - Yeah, take this fish and beat it to death. You're like, what? - Yeah, step on, or what's, you know, this is really graphic for the audience, but you know about crush videos, right? - Do I know about crush videos? - Yeah. - Explain. - Well, I don't really want to, but it's this genre of like extreme pornography where it's like women crushing small animals to death with their feet and stuff. It's super evil, illegal, and stuff like that. But I imagine this may be going in that direction where it's like, okay, now you have to step on like a small animal or something like that. - I see. - Like weird fetish content. The money we were earning went to the typical bills, car payments, and student loans, leaving us enough to enjoy the quiet luxuries of a morning Starbucks coffee and brand named groceries. Though I couldn't help but feel twinges of jealousy when Crystal would show me the new designer clothes and jewelry she bought. I asked Howard about how Rin and I could increase our earnings. And as soon as the words left my mouth, sinister smiles spread across his face. He led us to the studio's parking lot, our usual white backdrop set up. - This is where we film our more exclusive content. - Howard said as a group of interns filled a plastic bin with a viscous red liquid. - What's that? - That? is the blood you're going to be dipping your feet into. - Here we go. you're not serious howard smooth the front of his blazer with his pale hands it's very simple all you have to do is dip your feet inside move around a bit very simple there's huge market for it it's oversaturated actually but the top site for a reason absolutely not ran angrily grabbed my wrist we're leaving started walking but i didn't move we are leaving aren't we howard smirked you're free to go alice but but it's double the pay for so little work and it only gets better from here looked at the pool of blood and stifled the nausea rising inside my stomach where exactly did the blood come from i asked as if that would make things better a local butcher i weighed my options i could leave penniless or shoot a simple video pulled away from rin's grasp and said pathetically i'll see you at home shoots started progressively getting more intense tarantulas and snakes were placed under the threat of my fishnets hissing cockroaches roamed the expanse of my legs after a scene involving hundreds of acupuncture needles crystal and i went out for a midnight snack one of howard's many drivers took us to a local fast food joint you're lucky we're not filming your face crystal said with a mouthful of fries why is that what do you mean why is that you're fucking rolling around in blood why wouldn't i want my face in it yeah also you're a teacher why was i a teacher of children would i not want people to know i'd do that kind of thing i asked picking my grilled chicken sam picking up my grilled chicken sandwich since howard implied our viewers would rate my content higher if i lost a few pounds i've been watching what i ate you look terrible i'm grown just my hands rub the side of my face deep purple eye bags started to push through the skin of my face i know i know i haven't been sleeping lately nightmares i could still feel last week's centipedes you need to relax girl how's wifey still not happy with me maybe she's right we were doing fine before maybe i should quit maybe you should i did it not that night anyway instead i bought new swimsuits and dragged her into the beach i landed the sand with her and watched the ebb and flow of ocean waves sitting in new beach chairs who drank smirnoffs and compared seashell collections she told me about her co-workers who were definitely screwing but constantly denied it for a moment things felt normal we were walking along the shore when a football landed at our feet i saw one of my students jog up to me rare but not necessarily unwelcome occurrence sorry about that when he leaned down to pick it up he jolted backwards his face turning a sickening white before he sprinted away i looked down thinking he saw a crab or bug of sorts but all i saw was my right ankle yeah maybe don't put identifying birth marks on extreme fetish websites oh yeah one night as usual i entered the studio following howard to the parking lot i noticed the camera wasn't at its usual height instead it was much lower we're gonna try something new today he said before taking a kiwi out of his pocket and unceremoniously dropping it onto the ground with an aggressive stomp he crushed the fruit seeds and green flesh splattered on the pavement simple enough yep here it goes here it goes we're getting there i nodded i could see the appeal for the asmr if not fetish purposes dave handed me a pair of incredibly uncomfortable louis vuittons and positioned me in front of the camera an intern holding a cardboard box dumped the contents at my feet guinea pigs and bear trap and i was right sadly normal corn for normal people what a bear trap isaiah all right well let's get this show on the road dave said so incredibly casually interns stood crouched at both ends of the set to keep them from escaping i saw the confusion on my face just like i showed you said with the dark smile i was absolutely stunned you're kidding right i laughed desperately hoping this was all a big joke our clients pay top dollar for premium content no way i said trying to keep my voice from shaking it's a thousand for each one i looked at the small creatures innocently roaming around six thousand shook my head and kicked off my shoes i'm done you're always welcome back if you change your mind just give us a call harrod handed me another business card this time with a different number as i stormed off i swore i heard him say you'll be back wren was ecstatic when i told her i quit even suggesting we go out to celebrate my newfound freedom another month of the fall semester passed and i had almost forgotten about the whole thing i was cleaning out my purse when howard's business card fell out went to throw it away until i realized i never read the back there was a password my eyes widened quickly i pulled out my phone entering the password for true niche's exclusive tab innocent thumbnails and gruesome titles greeted me frog stomp roach crush kitten squish each video had at least a four star rating i thought i was lucky for quitting when i did like she does every month wren went to visit her mom in the next town over i wanted to go with her as i usually did but my schedule kept me from doing so because goodbye she left the house that afternoon i checked my emails and saw one from principal kane saying i needed to attend an urgent meeting with her at the end of the day my lesson on fahrenheit 451 passed far too quickly good afternoon miss mendez greeted kane you know emma's mother ms davis i assume turned to the woman sitting in the gray office chair yes of course i gave a smile that didn't reach my eyes we've spoken many times sit in the chair next to her and looked back at kane what's this about can you explain the reading list you gave your students screw my life i thought yes ma'am this year my students have an ap exam in which they write an essay based on a book of their choosing i gave a list of college-level books for them to choose from can you list some of these books please there's 1984 the handmaiden's tale the picture of dorian gray that one interrupted miss davis that's the one my daughter was reading i looked into it and it was highly inappropriate i cleared my throat your child is in a college-level class and therefore she'll be exposed to more mature literature if you have an issue with a particular book emma has plenty more to choose from exactly my point the books you have suggested are pornographic like that lolita one clenched my fists gain started speaking what exactly is the issue or the book is literally about pedophilia it's absolutely ridiculous mrs mendez is that true i swallowed the lump beginning to form in my throat there's no way for me to win this the book follows an adult character who has an inappropriate attraction to children which the book in no way glamorizes or encourages i blinked away the tears that threatened to fall it's on the official reading list for ap literature inside regardless there's no way for me to win this book and that's why i'm saying it's not good it's not a good book it's not a good book because it's not a good book because it's not a good book it's not a good book it's not a good book it's not a good book it's not a good book it's not a good book it's not a good book unfortunately i have to terminate your contract effective immediately please have your room cleared before you leave hey can you explain why students read these books well yeah you know they're famous books that you learned in college i love that i love that the principal i love that the principal too is just like i have no idea what these books are please tell me it's like all right what why don't why don't you know what these are the principal of a school that has an ap literature course have never heard of lolita quite the picture of torian gray fahrenheit 451 i can't and also people are complaining so you gotta go so we're gonna fire a teacher an ap teacher in the middle of the semester right now it'll be fine it'll be fine the rest of the day was a blur one moment i was in cain's office and the next i was on my couch crying i called rand hundreds of times only to be left on voicemail and i thought the day couldn't get any worse i got a call from her mother as soon as i accepted the call i was met with uncontrollable sobbing heart immediately started racing what's wrong where are you stop michelle home why what's wrong is rin with you she's in the hospital my blood ran cold i felt my face turn white what get down here as soon as you can inside the sterile hospital room i saw something that looked like my wife except she never slept on her back needles and tubes were shoved throughout her entire body brown skin was abnormally pale not sun-kissed with gorgeous tan lines she didn't even smell like herself her mom and doctor explained what happened a hit and run not sure when or if she'll wake up the cost god the bills we had money saved but it was nowhere near enough to cover the extent of her injuries for what i put her through i owed her the best care i could buy i excused myself at the hallway and rummaged through my purse until i found it called the number and was greeted by howard's voice i knew you'd be back six thousand isn't enough howard i'm nothing if not accommodating dave handed me a pair of chunky black combat boots and led me to the man tied up on the ground patches of gray hair grew on his otherwise bald head liver spots created constellations on his aged face his clothes had a layer of dirt and rigged of cigarettes screaming was muffled by the duct tape covering his mouth i believe 50 000 is more than a suitable offer 75. his eyes widened almost proud looks spread across his face he'll now just like we discussed dave started the camera i rubbed the front of my boot over the side of the man's face until i reached his temple lifted my right foot and no hesitation dropped it down man grunted with each impact blood spurted onto the asphalt top of my leg i looked down to see shattered pieces of teeth that shot out of his mouth his skull caved in wet cracks that made my stomach turn each stomp my foot got closer to the ground until i finally stepped into a pool of pure flesh and brain matter once the camera turned off i collapsed dry he even his sweat dripped down the side of my face i felt howard approaching me and without even looking at him i knew he was smiling i dropped the cash in front of me well done i'm sure red will be thankful i took the money and stood up nothing left my humanity I asked same time tomorrow and that is the end of the story because after that the author has a note that says this is my first real attempted horse please let me know your thoughts and then the story got taken off of no sleep at 144 upvotes for quote victimization victimization you know what uh it's a fun little it's a fun tale i like the idea of people especially uh like teachers getting into uh i guess almost graphic pornography just because they're not paid enough i think it's kind of interesting there was a lot of things i think if you did take a longer crack at the story like i really like the um what i thought was going to happen is so the person sets up that the woman's complaining about like the story's being too graphic or whatever i thought there was going to be more of a tie-in of my son's been watching your videos online or something you know what i mean like something along those lines to have those connect a bit more and i think yeah um i also think that's a good idea i think that's a good idea i think just it's like if just i guess for subjective thoughts i think teachers earn so little that i don't know if you have to have ren go into like a horrible mangled hospitalized i do think i do think there needs to be an event either you make it at the beginning that they're about to lose the house or something yeah or the accident you need you need an event where it's like i have to have money now because they may not be surviving well but a chanel necklace isn't a good enough reason to do no no no the violence i'm just saying i think you gotta choose one i think either you lose the job or you have a hospital thing having them both be both back to back i was like yeah but but you know i think like you have to have it yeah i think like i i knew what they were going there like you have to have an event that's like that's the catalyst that brings them back in and stuff but you know i think like if it was expanded upon i do like the idea of like you know having such an innocent job and then basically uh resorting to such a cruel and uh disgusting trade or whatever and having to do that in secrecy there's a lot that you could actually expand that story on which is pretty fun i think it's a good idea um i liked it i thought it was a well-done story um if it went farther let me ask you this real quick if it went farther would that be considered i keep seeing stories like i know that we've touched on this briefly but like splatter like uh what's the genre splatter punk is splatter punk yeah yeah would that be the same thing or is that not or is this just a i feel like not this story uh because splatter punk is kind of all about the descriptions of the violence and the gore and stuff like that it's almost like pornographic but it's about you know people exploding or blood or whatever i see um i feel like the actual videos would probably be considered splatter punk adjacent um so splatter punk is like it would it would like really go into depth and detail about how the guinea pigs should be being squished and stuff yeah and like the organs and the grossness and the squelching and things i feel like that'd be more attached to it where like the visuals that are being described are more so this is just kind of like a kind of kind of gory at least at the end you know horror story i'd say um but i like the direction i like the idea of like this person getting desperate and getting drawn into this bad world i like the quick mention of the kid seeing the birthmark that she wasn't afraid of in the beginning but should have been i feel like i agree with you hunter that if you're going to take it there then maybe she gets fired because someone identified the birthmark to kind of yeah kind of fun and then she she loses her credibility there's a lot you could do too with like the interpersonal because that would also be a reason because i feel like the like sure there's dumb principles but her getting fired is a little too like extreme but if she was found to be on these websites that would be a reason they'd fire a teacher right away yeah yeah yeah versus just being like oh your ap stuff is what you're you've upset the parents you're you're probably 17 year old students know what lolita is fired immediately i think that but these are these are really nitpicks only because the author asked for feedback i thought it was a great story and i really would like to see the author uh do more that was very well done i enjoyed that i thought it was also going to go to a thing where she goes back she gets tipped too much with the like vanity and the kind of like the wealth to where ren would leave her and then she gets distracted at work so then they like bring her in and she has to like you know she like his master something and then like she stomps on her kills her and then it's like basically like does something horrible in pursuit of this like you know to her spouse like to her partner or whatever would be interesting too but yeah i don't know it was a lot of fun i like that one um i thought that was a good one everyone take a moment small golf claps is there you doing it i'm doing it very good support for today's episode comes 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first walked into the eighth grade boys restroom it was only a mild stitch one that you and your buddy acknowledge and then move on within 15 minutes it had gone from mild to unbearable can i just give a friend can i can i just give a quick story real quick because this is just oh boy this literally happened to me in eighth grade too we walked into the restroom one time because like uh in schools there's usually like bigger restrooms and there's like some that have the smaller ones you know we went to the smaller one uh next to like our science classes and stuff and we walked in and someone was obviously just like decimating the land i mean it was oh it was so bad you say that like it's westward expansion it was it was they were ravaging the earth natural supplies they were they were salting the earth basically it was horrible but you're waiting in line you're doing whatever and this kid walks in he does oh my oh he like does the dracula cover with his arm you know he says oh my god what is going on i don't know who the person in the bathroom was i didn't stay there long enough to see who came out but you just saw his shoes and like while he was talking his shoes like shuffling he was just like leave me alone the kid was like this smells like carrots in here all you just heard the guy the kid do i hate carrots and that became is i hate carrots just like the most putrid shit smell ever i hate carrots so that that give me a thing where yeah we'd be at lunch we'd be like i hate carrots funny story anyways i hate carrots when i think of the bathroom for the story i think of the one i told the story in previously when we played bloody mary and they just beat me with a bag full of basketballs you remember that story right it just beat me with a bag full of first off the bag must have been so comically large against your tiny body it was bigger than i was oh yeah i can only imagine guys please there was another time i was in that bathroom and there was a younger i was like seventh grade i think and there was a kid in the sixth grade or whatever who thought i had made fun of him which i don't even remember the context i don't think i had or anything but he just decided he was gonna fight me one day and i don't know well he was just like a mad kid who was always like breaking stuff or whatever so i see he was just like this is a bad kid i don't know why he was just like a mad kid who was always like breaking stuff or whatever so i see he was just like this is a bad kid i don't know why he was just like a mad kid this guy pissed me off so he's gonna fucking pisses me off yeah so he's just gonna come like fight me while i'm in the bathroom or the locker room and someone had kind of mentioned it to me earlier that day but i didn't think anything of it and then i was in the locker i was in the locker room before basketball practice and i was changing in there and i was standing up and the kid walked in and like three other kids walked in behind him and i i looked up at him and i acknowledged he was there and then i looked down at my shoes and then i hear some movement and then all of a sudden i'm thrown directly into the lockers and what had happened is as soon as i looked away he ran at me and double legs in the air like did a flying kick yeah he scissor kicked me straight into the locker doors and i didn't get hurt that bad because he mostly pushed me into the lockers but he landed like his back and i was like oh my god i'm gonna die and i was like oh my god i'm gonna die and i back directly on the bench in the middle of the room so he kicks me i fall over and he's like he hurt his back if you can if you can please please try to re reenact the the sound you made when you got hit because i have i have i have a sound in my mind that you made but i needed to see if it if it matches it's probably like did you get that i think i think i think discord has cut it out i can't hear it i don't know if you can hear me but i just imagine it was i can't i'm gonna have to wait till this fucking episode is edited to fucking hear the stupid sound i need to hear it so bad hold on i'm gonna send you a voice memo yeah give me a voice memo this is such a stupid way to do this have fun with that i just sent it to you ah fair that's getting scissor kicked into a locker i mean just completely unexpected yeah yeah uh from yeah out of fucking left field but it didn't hurt me that bad but he got hurt so he stands up and he's like crying and he runs out and gets the the coach or whatever and says that i beat him up uh really yeah well i came out and i'm like he just kicked he just kicked me i don't know what happened yeah you have two doc martin friends on your chest yeah i'm like yeah here's my arm i got kicked in the arm um and i don't even think he got in trouble or anything i think the coach was just like hey cut that out like whatever stop that but anyway that's the locker room i'm imagining for this story anyway let's just start from the top we were three yeah yeah we've ruined we've ruined immediately fuck that up oh the smell had gotten worse somehow when we first walked into the eighth grade boys restroom it was only a mild stint one that you and your buddy acknowledge and then move on within 15 minutes it had gone from mild to unbearable my friend percy gagged when we walked past the floor drain that was fuming with the smell being janitors we're used to all sorts of horrible sights and smells shit filled backed up toilets used tampons stuck to the inside of a bagless garbage can ripped open garbage bags filled with half-eaten lunches now crawling with maggots you name it this was worse somehow it was somewhere between rotten eggs and burning hair but it had some other kind of quality to it like sweat it smelled alive mercy and i sprayed air freshener as best we could but it kept crawling back out of the drain pipe on the floor and expanded in the air we might ought to call the gas people couldn't be a leak i agreed and we put the out of order sign on the door and locked it when the gas line inspector showed up we took him to the restroom but when we opened the door the smell hit us it was like being hit on the bridge of the nose with the baseball bat percy gagged the gas inspector shot backwards and i said something that was a fireable offense it had built up in there and now we could taste it the gas man put a mask on and went in a minute later he returned and took off his mask with a deep gasp wiped the sweat from his forehead well there's no gas leak and nothing toxic was found maybe an animal got stuck in the potter's pipes and died i don't know open some windows and hope for the best but for the love of god do not let anyone in here you know whatever you do yeah for the love of god keep them out you don't have to worry about that i bet one of these middle schoolers did something they've always they're always doing something stupid percy laughed and said i remember in eighth grade i tried to bring my hamster school so i put him in a jar but but forgot to poke some air holes and you know he died the gas man said i don't see how that's funny i didn't say it was awkward conversation okay i'm gonna go i'll see you later that beat for beat read like you talking to nick that's true that is just him being like i remember i accidentally suffocated a hamster to death how was that funny i didn't say it was funny after percy and i got our own masks and goggles on we ventured back in and tried opening the windows the old piece of ship painted shut windows wouldn't give it was a balancing act between being forceful and not breaking the old window school hadn't been renovated since the 90s and most of it was in bad shape cracked paint gave way to cinder block exposed walls dead roaches around every corner history books that stopped just after 9-11 the list goes on i don't know what else anyone would expect town the high school was in only had about 3 000 residents most of which were elderly strap on percy's cheap face mask snapped and he started gagging told him to tie it but his eyes filled with tears as he gasped for air he started shaking so violently i thought he was going to break air started squeezing through his throat as he tried to breathe his face turned red and the tears mixed with the snot and the foamy thick saliva that slid out of his gasping mouth i had to drag him back out of the restroom and slam the door back before the smell got out but it was all over the floor and the room was filled with people all over the floor and the room was filled with people all over the floor and it was too late a couple of teachers coach tompkins and an older student ran up and helped me pull percy to the stairs so he could sit up coach tried to ask what the hell was going on but he dry heaved spit and walked outside towards the cafeteria the student got percy some water and one teacher ran to get the nurse what's going on the boys room the remaining teacher asked i don't know something dead i think but it can't be it smells beyond worse than death i looked over to percy who was calmer but still suffering i looked over to percy who was calmer but still suffering he looked over to percy who was calmer but still suffering he looked over to percy who was calmer but still suffering the student asked the teacher you think it's some biological weapon like the communist had the teacher shook his head and said what no it's rare in these stories that people play comedic beats that don't kill the tension that was yeah that was great just some stupid kid what no what are you talking about now the communist it's 2025. what the are you talking about i don't even think you've ever met sorry i just saw a red dawn so i'm just are we gonna get a shoot him yet go home school's over what are you doing here percy started blowing his nose into his shirt and once he was out of snot he kept rubbing and rubbing and picking and blowing until blood started coming out i can still smell it me i can still smell it i don't smell anything out here me either you didn't smell it as long as i did none of you did the principal who i didn't even notice walked up and told percy firmly to go home until he felt better which he did that night at about 3 a.m my apartment vibrated for three minutes by the time i was awake enough to make decisions it was over next morning i asked my downstairs neighbor about it and he said it was an earthquake earthquake? What's happened in California or desert? I thought the last one was over a hundred years ago, but I was wrong. There had been one that night, and the night before, but that one was one of those that's only technically an earthquake, the kind you don't feel. That morning, the smell was now coming from the drain in the girls' restroom, as well as the boys'. I was unfortunate to catch a whiff. It smelled angry, like if burning curdled toad cheese was oozing with hatred. Halfway through the day, the power went out, so school was let out early for the weekend. That Monday was a holiday, which meant a whole extra day for the smell to build up more. Percy hadn't shown up for work, and after I left, I tried calling him. After the third unanswered call, I drove to his trailer. The door was broken off the hinges, and every window slid open, and if they didn't slide, they were broken. His cat's litter box had been thrown out in the front yard. I poked my head in the door. "Hey, Percy, it's Lenny. Are you alright?" A scent of citrus hit me first, followed by mint and fresh pine. It was so strong, it was more of a chemical smell than anything. Inside, hanging from everywhere and covering every surface was car air freshener trees and the peel-top cans. All the fans were on max. I made my way to the back bedroom, where I could hear moaning. I saw what I thought was a towel, but it was his cat. It lay there, with a zip tie pulled tight around its neck. The tongue and eyes were swollen, sticking out at nothing. "Jesus." It just garroted his cat, my word. Percy shrieked from the bedroom. "Who is it? What? What do you want?" I got to his bedroom doorframe and looked in. He was lying on his bed, covered in splotches of blood that ran from where his nose used to be, down his mouth and on his hands. I kept scratching and picking at it. Part of his upper lip was gone, just teeth and bloody gums shined back at me. It sounded like when you pick your fingernails, but it was deeper and wetter as he dug deeper into his nasal cavity. Meat and skin were under his broken fingernails. Tears ran down his face. "This smell won't go away. It won't go away. Why won't anyone help me?" "Persy, what the fuck did you do?" He cried so hard he started to hiccup. "I don't know. It smells so bad." "Persy?" "I really like off the title. I thought this would be kind of a more goofy, you know, whatever, but I really liked the direction this is taking. Yeah, it's like a supernatural smell taking into it. That's cool. This is probably like a very, uh, I don't know if this is cringe to say or whatever, but it's reading almost like a fucking Junji Ito, uh, manga. Like I'm picturing it has like a very Japanese cadence to the way that it's almost like a folk tale or something, you know, like it has that appeal. Or it has that like feel to me. It feels very similar to the, uh, the spiral obsession and Uzumaki. Yeah. Like his, uh, at the beginning, the girl, I forget her name, but the girl's ma or the guy's mom, um, after her husband dies, starts to become obsessed with spirals. So she eventually digs out her cochlea because she thinks there's a spiral in her head. It's very reminiscent of that. It's reminded me of the, of the, uh, Greece story with like the obsession of Greece and the kid who is rubbing grease all over his face. Like popping his pimples and shit. It kind of, it's giving me that feel that end panel where all of the best pimples on the pace fobs and they're all so bad. Oh man. After the ambulance took him away, I went home and got drunk while I watched cartoons. I thought of, is this guy, you, no, no, no. I thought about it all. Smell Percy, the earthquakes, nothing seemed normal about any of it. This is incredible. Uh, Junji Ito, now that you mention it, like between the earthquakes, like the natural earth happened. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's like an evil unearthed from the, you know what I mean? It has that. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's some ancient thing that we're, cause most of Ito's stories are about like an event, right? That's like a symptom of some greater evil or entity that you don't really get an explanation on. It feels like that. Yeah. I woke up in a cold sweat later that afternoon after a shitty couch nap, something, possibly the tin cans of 16 ounce Pabst Blue Ribbon I drank was telling me that the earthquakes and the smell at the school were connected. The doors to the school would be locked, but I had a key. The lights were still out on that side of town, but I had an LED lantern. Got my heavy duty face mask, gloves, goggles, and boots. I stopped by a hardware store and grabbed one of those plastic suits with the hood you use for painting and a roll of duct tape. My homemade hazmat suit was ready to go. I never liked the dark hallways of an empty school. Some places, when they're empty, still have use. Being the only customer in a store is fine. The only person at a gas station is fine. But an empty dark school is like a corpse. No function. Just stillness. My footsteps echoed as I made my way through the halls towards the 8th grade side. Other than my breathing, I could hear the soft, prickly little scurries of roaches as they fled from the light of my lantern. Why were there so many of them? Even through my mask, I could tell the smell was worse and had filled the hallways. I could not imagine how bad it would have been if I opened the door to the bathroom. The floors creaked and felt more slanted than usual. A flashlight beam shone across the corner in front of me, and I could not turn my lantern off in time before the flashlight blinded me. The muffled voice of Coach Tompkins called out, "Who's there?" It sounded like he wanted to shoot me. "It's Lenny the janitor." He walked up to me. He had an army surplus gas mask on. I continued our conversation in the back alley behind the school, maskless. "What are you doing here?" I asked. "Could ask you the same thing, crawling around. I heard about your buddy. Real fucked up." "Yeah, no shit." "I think whatever's in the bathroom's got something to do with it." "Same here." He looked off and then back. "You hear about the Winters girl?" "No. What happened?" He sighed and rubbed his head over his mask. "She had been in the girls' restroom this morning, and she got sick in my class and threw up. But as the power went out, I'm telling you, I'm usually not one to believe in haunted devils and shit, but something didn't feel right about the whole thing. Plus, she threw up on the keyboard of one of the computers, and those are a bitch to clean." "You heard about the earthquakes, didn't you?" "Sure did. I felt it. I bet I was the only one that knew what was happening last night." He looked off and sniffed. "In the restroom, it smelled almost as bad as the first day, only with the mask on. We pried the drain cover off the floor and shone a light down. There was nothing. Not as in, nothing in the pipe, but nothing in the bathroom. It was a pipe. There was no pipe. There was nothing. The massive, cavernous space was below us." Coach trembled, and he lost his grip on the little flashlight, and it slipped into the drain hole. We watched, mouths agape, as it tumbled and twisted silently until it was a pinpoint of light in what might as well have been a sky of darkness. In the hallway, Coach and I just stared at each other and back at the door of the boys' restroom. "We gotta call the cops." "The fuck's the cops gonna do? We gotta call the army or something. The National Guard." "Scientist?" "Anybody." I stood there for a minute before turning back to him. "Does the automotive class still have the really long spool of metal wire?" I know like, oh, he's attaching a camera, not, okay. I was about to think they were going down there, and I'm like, okay, but the camera, the camera makes sense, yeah. Upstairs in Coach Tompkins' STEM room, he attached a 360-degree GoPro camera to a selfie stick while I rolled the barrel of wire from the vocation building to the hallway in front of the restroom. We tied the guitar string. I pulled out a thin wire to the end of the stick along with another small flashlight on the camera and triple duct taped everything solid. "How much wire do you think we have?" "I'd say about eight miles or more." We hit record on the camera, turned the flashlight on, and we slowly fished it down into the abyss. I don't know how much time went by, but we still had not reached the bottom. The wire started giving off that tapping sound that travels from one end to the other, like the slinky sound. Before I could tell Coach that's where they got the blaster sounds in Star Wars from, it started really moving, as if we caught a live one. We didn't like the sound of that, so we pulled the camera back up much quicker than we had let it down. It was still several minutes before it came back to us. Coach put on a rubber glove as I handed him the stick with the camera. He stopped recording and went to the tiny playback menu. We watched ourselves as we lowered the camera in, and we eventually, along with the drain opening, disappeared into the distance. The flashlight didn't even illuminate anything. Whatever cavern or cave that opened up. It was huge. Possibly under the entire school property. We didn't think about that, and sped through the solid black footage. He hit regular speed again, and we heard what we thought was water. Then maybe it was humming? We weren't sure. Then we saw them. I thought they were grubs, the way they convulsed, and how many there were. Then I saw the hair and the shoulders and the arms and the hands. Brown and green bones, yellow mud-like skin that fell and shifted as they all shuffled around over each other. All moving. All moaning. Most crying. Some wailed and looked more human than the others, and some were only moving rot. They saw us. They turned and all stared at the light. They all reached for it as if it would save them. Their glistening eyes were the worst part. The wailing gave way to shouting. Begging. One grabbed the camera and pulled it close. That's when the camera was pulled from his hand. as they disappeared back into the darkness, still calling out. I could make out words, but I chose not to hear them. I was frozen. Coach Tompkins was not. We gotta, we gotta get the fuck out of here. I started panicking, but was just walking in circles. Oh my God, I can't breathe in this fucking mask. He threw it off. Let's just go, man. Let's just go. How can we do anything? How can. He went into a coughing fit with spit stringing down his mouth. I'd either ignored it or didn't notice it before, but now I couldn't. The building started shaking again, much more than the previous earthquake. I heard them down there. He sobbed and grabbed me, but I shoved him off. What do we do, Lenny? We get the fuck out of here now. I turned and went towards the direction of the back door before I heard the massive rumble and crashes. I turned and through the door labeled boys, I saw the restroom fall in on itself and down into nothing. Coach Tompkins started running. Oh God. He slipped and fell into the growing hole. He sounded like an animal as he screamed. I ran to the back door of the school, passed my car, and down the street. I was deaf from my heartbeat, and I ripped my mask and goggles off and tried to catch my breath on my hands and knees in the street. I turned and saw the entrance of the school fall in along with the middle part of it. My car was fine. I passed out as I heard sirens and car alarms. In the emergency room, I watched on the local news how the rare earthquakes exposed to sinkhole under the school building, where they suspected the sinkhole had been forming for years, they also mourned the loss of their baseball coach and STEM teacher, Coach Tompkins. Percy was dead now, but they didn't mention him. He clawed too deep into his nose and reached his brain. The nurse came in and asked how I was doing. I frowned and shrugged. I'm fine. No, don't frown, mister. My daddy always used to call me "poor old Lazarus" when I would pout. What? Why? Well, he was Orthodox, you see. Christian, not Jew. He said that after the good Lord brought his Lazarus back from Haiti, he never smiled again, because of all the souls he saw that weren't saved. What? I'd be like. I'd be like, "Hey, could you get the fuck out of my room, you creepy bitch?" Holy hell. That's cool. Um, can you never come back into this room again? Thank you. A 76-year-old woman. I can imagine that's like a very, very old woman. Like, "Cool." I never heard of that, but I didn't say so. Then I asked her. Why are you wearing that face mask? Well, ever since that sinkhole formed, the town's had this weird bad smell going around. It's not too bad right now, though. Yet. That's the end of the story. I really like that story. What a fun one. That was. That was a lot of fun. I enjoyed that. Yeah, I, uh, I kind of thought that was the same thing. It kind of had, like, a quirky fucking fly. I had a real. It had, like, kind of a funny start. I really wanted to see that story, like, into, like, a fucking manga. Or, like, a comic or something. Yeah. That, like, I really. That. It gave me. Just all the visuals and stuff, my mind was just transported to those black and white images. I just think that's so fun. Mm-hmm. I think the, uh. I think the final line from The Nurse is kind of implying that might have been hell. You know? Yeah, I think it's supposed to be hell opening up. Like, the stench of hell rising up. Yeah. And the souls down there that were begging for the light and stuff like that. Um. I think that's the idea. Was, like, Coach Tompkins and stuff? Yeah. Yeah. And I think that. I think that's a cool idea. Um. Like, all the souls down there. And, like, hell. Hell isn't fire and brimstone. It's more rot and decay. You know? Uh. And I think it's. I. At first, I was gonna say I don't like the idea of kind of explaining it, but it doesn't really explain it. It's just, like, an old lady saying something and maybe you could apply it, so I think it's fine enough. Um. I thought that was great. I love the idea of Percy digging into his own face. I love that it's like a cavern under the school, and I love that there's these, like, um, kind of troglodyte people down there in it, or whatever. Um. That was a ton of fun. I really liked that. Yeah. Really, that's fun. Uh. You know, approach to just, like, the fucking. When the earthquake opens something, or, like, a fissure, or. Something gets. Gets released through a natural disaster, and it, like, is un. Like, is the, uh. Basically the unlocking or awakening of something. It's pretty fun. I also really like just the little details that added so much to it, like going to Percy's trailer and it's full of all the air fresheners and the dead cat. And then I like him building the homemade hazmat suit to go there and the description of the GoPro and the wire and all that. All these little details that make the world feel very full and thought out and stuff. That was a great story. I enjoyed that a lot. Him picking his nose was awesome. Also, like, the little stuff. Like, at the beginning where it's like, "Oh, the school has a lot of roaches 'cause it's old." But then near the end, it's like, "Man, there's a lot of 'em." Like, they've been kind of brewing from the rot that's been in the school a long time. After the filth. Yeah. Yeah. All in all, that was awesome. Uh, flesh fries? Great job. I really enjoyed that. Does flesh fries have more stories? Also, two, uh, two fun, like, just disgusting ones. I hope Golden House is also kind of disgusting, a little bit too, if I'm honest. Honestly, uh, that may have been why Harry put them together, knowing Harry. Oh, sure. Um, I'm not seeing, they post on Reddit a lot. I'm not seeing another Tales from the Creeps one, but, um, flesh fries, write more stuff. Both of the authors we've covered so far write more stuff. Yeah. Well, do you want to end on the Golden House? We have one more story we're going to do today. This is from purchase number 9564. Um, and I'm trying to see. They post, they post in a lot of different horror spaces. They've post to the cryptic compendium and the midnight archives and stay awake. So they're posting a lot of this stuff across different Reddits. And one of them is, uh, tales from the creeps. And it looks like they have a few stories in tales from the creeps. I don't know if you guys have seen it. I can't feel pain. Makes this much easier. This is an interesting perspective, like a child being offered, you know, undergoing some ritual. It's also very beautifully written so far. Yeah. Yeah, very well written. My feet finally touch the bottom of the fireplace, sliding out from under me as I come to a rest at the bottom. The ropes go slack, then drop, slapping my back at the top of my head. There's a moment in the pale sunlight that I know my father is leaning over the hole up there. Taking one last look at the top of his daughter's head. Then I hear shuffling, metal scraping, far above me, and I know they're letting the prod down. I can't see it. My forehead now rests heavily against the blackened brick. My upper half still inside the chimney, while my waist and legs rest just out of the fireplace. Despite the ropes and all coursing through me, my heartbeat quickens, and I feel a steadily rising, drowning sense of panic taking hold of my limp body as I feel the metal prongs of the prod. Slowly pushing my body down and out of the chimney itself, the rest of the way out to the tall mouth of the fireplace. My eyes adjust, staring into the blackness. The dim, sallow light from the chimney does very little to illuminate the ancient room I'm in. I can just barely make out the filmy surface of a mirror glinting at me in the corner, stained with a decade of dirt and dust, rotted colonial furniture scattered around the room. Dried runnels of mud seeping from cracks in the walls. I feel coarse wooden floorboards under me, damp and decayed. Fly bumps against my forehead, near my eye. There's a long silence. I'm unable to lift my head up to gaze up the chimney at the world above, the one with my family and friends in it, and stare at the darkness around me instead. I hear my father say something from far above, but I can't hear it. It's probably meant to be a goodbye. But I couldn't have responded, even if I wanted to. A slow, dirty rumbling sound echoes down the brick hole, and the lid goes back over the mouth of the chimney, sealing me into near-complete darkness. I want to cry so badly. Although my chest shakes softly, my tear ducts won't respond to me. A fly lights on my nose. Then another. I squeeze my eyes shut. I can hear a low roar. A disjointed, buzzing chorus all around me. The world is drowned out by them. Thousands. Millions of flies. Buzzing. Woken up. Careening madly into each other and me. Peppering my face. Loud beating of insect wings in my ears. Sharp and curious. Tickling my arms. Crawling down my shirt. Keep my mouth closed with some effort, even as the little insects try to push past my lips, and the lump forms in my throat. I'm sweating. The flies can't get enough. My tongue feels swollen. I slowly try to move, to regain control over my body. My arms slowly slide and fold across my chest as I breathe hard through my nose. My legs sluggishly curl inward like a dying cockroach, and I lean forward through the cloud of flies, struggling to move. There's a small, rubbing texture against my calves and feet. Open my eyes to see that the gnarled wood of the floorboards is slowly, near-imperceptibly moving, shifting under me. Gnarled bumps and knots turning over like thousands of tiny worms moving under skin. I stare hazily through the cloud of flies as the wood writhes and curls. Even as the boards themselves retain their shape. I breathe heavily through my nose, trying not to hyperventilate. I'm drugged. This is a hallucination, and I witness many more as the hours begin to pass by. Slowly, like dim yellow sparks, the flies begin to glow. Softening. Shifting into little fireflies that light up the room in their dizzying, spiraling dance. They alight on my hands when I reach out to them. Tickling. Whispering little things. Little gold-feathered antennas sprout from their heads like moths, probing my fingers, sweeping along them like loving fingers. I breathe quietly, petrified by fear and curiosity. More light on my legs. My shoulders. More still crawl down the front of my shirt and up my chest. Small little wings beat against my face. I'm covered in them. I do not react when the little individual feathers of their long antennas slip into the pores of my skin. I hold still, obedient. Impossibly small, sensitive hairs spread inside my sweat glands, filling them with a tickling sensation before burrowing deeper. The flies, moths, whatever they are, begin to burrow inside the enlarged pores, seeking warmth. It feels like being pinched from the inside. Heat blossoms all along my skin. I look down at my arm, and a thrill swells through me when I see the blue veins of my arm turning a muted yellow. Watching as soft, insistent, hair-like tendrils begin to push their way through my veins, traveling with my bloodstream, pulsing, replacing my circulation with their own. I feel light-headed, and when I try to move my arms, I can't. The thin, web-like tendrils coil around my muscles under my skin. my skin, filling my veins, capillaries, and tightening. I wonder absentmindedly if they've reached my heart yet. I can hear low, muted, crumbling sounds, not from the room, but from inside me. Little cracks of friction as the tendrils under my skin bind me tighter, tighter. Sensitive skin around my groin reacts to the growing pressure. Thin gold alien veins under my skin snap tight around my muscles and I fall over onto my side, my leg jerking slightly, and I groan. Heat flushes across my face. I blink, but only one eyelid does. I'm trembling very slightly from the cacophony of sensations overwhelming me. My thighs are clenched together as pressure wraps even tighter around me, pressing and pulling all at once. I bite down on my lip and taste warm iron on my tongue. I can't even see the insects anymore, just a pencil-sized hole they've left in me, devoid of blood. My light-headedness grows. I suck in air, but it's not enough. Something presses at the back of my eyes. Abruptly, bile fills my throat and mouth and I vomit, spattering dark liquid on the rising floor that seems to twitch and dance under it. I gag, shivering as pulsing sensations wrack my body in waves, wringing out everything in my stomach, and slowly, things start to change. My hands fly upwards to my face, and it dawns on me that I've regained control over my limbs. Every movement sends flashes of pain through my body, and I moan, shaky and low, as I slowly crawl forwards out of the long-dead fireplace. I catch a glimpse of my hands, dotted with holes, and want to scream, but I can't, my throat clicking uselessly. I turn my head away from the stained mirror, unwilling to look as I crawl to the center of the room. Something isn't right. I realize it with a flash of fear. My eyes dart over to the window, shattered panes caked in mud, packed in by a wall of fossilized peat. The room was pitch black when they lowered me down here. I shouldn't be able to see. My lips part and I feel a pair of small, insectile legs scrape against the inside of my cheek. I'm in too much pain to care. Slowly, hesitantly, I rise up on my hands and knees, not strong enough to stand. I see something that wasn't there before. A multicolored door, with a sagging wooden wall at the other end of the room. I get closer, catch my breath as I begin to pick out details. A large, colorful mural is painted on it. Locusts standing on pale, flesh-colored orbs, antennae raised to two golden suns, one balanced on the other. Crudely painted figures in yellow, frozen in a dance below the two locusts, holding sticks with bells on the end. There's more, but the entire lower half of the door is rotted away, disintegrated into nothing. And it's through this gaping hole that I can see nothing but darkness and dust motes floating through the air. I should be choking on dust, but I'm not. I can feel an intense, subtle vibration in my body, in my stomach, and under my tongue. I slowly crawl up to the hole and through it, passing under the remains of the door. I crawl through the door, rest in the center of the room. I look up and see her. Her splendid, gold-draped silk along all six moving arms. Her bare chest, wrinkled with age and decay, doesn't move at all. Her skin is iridescent, countless hard, reflective ridges running along her forearms and fingers, poking out in little sawtooth waves. Her face is obscured by a crude gold mask, one that seems so familiar. Her wide, open-mouthed smile beaten into it greets me, and I stare up at two wide, dried-out eyes that I'm not even sure see me. I'm frozen by fear and by awe. I feel rather than hear her speak. Vibration runs along the floor, into every pore of my being. The feeling of being closer fills my mind. I obey and crawl up to the four limp, still legs that protrude from under her torn dress, huddling there. The feeling of satisfaction fills my head, and I dare glance up at her. Her head is lowered, staring directly back at me, like it had always been there. My eyes search the mask, and I see the light. the large wire halo welded to the back, supporting the golden rays with names etched onto them protruding from behind her head. I breathe, trying to speak, but am unable to, emitting a hoarse whisper instead. The dry, wide eyes of God look back down at me through the mask, glitter of something akin to intelligence in them. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, her arms move, while the urge to remain still floods my head. I obey, drooping my head as she gathers me up, arms and legs curling around me, lifting me up. I feel tired, overcome with a sense of satisfaction and contentment. I feel like a kid again, back home in my father's lap in the hanging chair on our front porch as we watched my brothers play in the street. The memory takes hold of me, and I feel like a child again. I feel like a child again, back home in my father's lap in the hanging chair on our front porch as we watched my brothers play in the hanging chair on our front porch. I feel like a child again, back home in my father's lap in the hanging chair on our front porch. I feel like a child again, feeling my mind with the feeling of the sun on my skin, the hot smell of pavement and dirt, cold lemonade. I suck gently at the straw as I watch my brothers, listening to the distant shouts and laughs, the shushing of the trees as they cast a staccato of shade over the family car. I want to fall asleep, but I'm watching a movie later tonight and I don't want to miss it. I try to take the straw out of my mouth, but I find that it's not as easy as it seems. I can't. Frown, puzzled, try again, but the straw stays wedged between my tongue and the roof of my mouth. I try to pull at it, but my arms won't move, frozen in place. I begin to panic and the straw grows thicker, lemonade seeping out of it, gushing down my throat, no longer tasting sweet. I blink and suddenly I'm awake, staring into the dead eyes of God, her face split open as a long, thick, black mask pushes the mask upward and slides even deeper into my mouth, pushing against the back of my throat. I try to scream, but I can't. My vocal cords have long been eaten away. Her entire face is burrowed clean through with holes, and I can see flittling legs, antennae, and small insects crawling around inside each. The proboscis pushes deeper, intubating me, and I feel something sour and heavy seep out inside my throat. I gag and bite down as hard as I can, but the dark, shiny shell of the insectile tube doesn't budge. It hits me that she must have taken the memory away on purpose. She wants me to be present for this. She holds me still as I thrash in her arms, and as I choke, I swear I can see amusement in her wide, hungry eyes. After what feels like hours, I'm exhausted. I'm fitted to her, held to her chest as she feeds me, molds me. The viscous in my stomach and pledging my throat is not invasive anymore. It is now a necessary part of my anatomy, an organ I would die without, one of many that coil around and push into the holes dug into my skin. It was painful, excruciatingly so. Not anymore. Her limbs remain locked around my body possessively, and as I stay there, held and gestated in the dark, come to understand. I'm no longer just my own. I share it with her now, and I see everything there is to see. I see my town through a million yellow-hued eyes. I see my brothers crying in their rooms. I see Pastor talking to some tourists. I know the goings-ons of every animal. I see the foxtons and the little whispered thoughts of the kits inside them. The urges of every insect crawling underground, hiding on oily scalps. I can taste every substance on my buried tongue. I focus in on one room, and feel a surge of pleasure as I see Father worshipping us, bound together in the golden house. And I feel now the want, the hunger for all of them. I'm becoming something else, and if I could feel happiness, then I would be the happiest girl in town. I love these stories when it's, uh, basically some, somebody encountering some kind of like, you know, Lovecraftian God or something like that. You know, like, uh, it reminds me of the, I, is it, is the story I talked to God's at the one where like the guy, they have the ritual where they have to sleep with the moth. Is that what that one was? I think it's, um, I think the title of that story was something like my, I, we only got married at a certain age or something like that. Yeah. My, my dad didn't let us talk to girls. That's it. That's what it was. I, I feel it, it have a kinship to that one. Not just, uh, just because it's, uh, just that a ceremony almost, but also just from the perspective of this, like child having to go through with some kind of ritual. And then I love the kind of, uh, bug like quality that this God has and stuff, but it's, it's fun. It says so much and it's so clear in the imagery yet. There's still so much like to be had still, which is a lot of fun. Uh, just very beautifully written too. I mean, just like a very well thought out, very well crafted story. I think, I think what, what the story is to me is like, there's a vessel that these bugs possess, you know? Uh, and once the vessel becomes too old and too hollow to transfers, and I think we're witnessing a transferring. So the people of the town, or at least like the pastor in the church think of it as God, but it's really just like a monster beneath the earth that lives in this golden house. Um, that's like, it is both the, it's like the entity itself is the hoard of insects, right? That burrow into people and possess them. And every now and then it needs a new host. So this is a new host being passed off. Uh, but the people think of it as God. And it's like divinity being passed on. Hence why at the end, the girl, gets effectively the power of being like seeing the eyes of every creature. And also her father begins to worship her because now she is God. And then when her time is done, a new offering will be passed down. Um, I really liked the idea of having this like ancient entity that people worship and we don't get all the lore where it's not like, Oh, well, a guy comes into a small community and he sees the people worshiping this and he figures out it's a monster. We just see the effect of someone being used in the ritual. Right. Uh, and we can kind of build out the pieces from there. And it's so well worded. Um, it midway through, I was almost afraid it was AI by like, just like the, the language was so well done, but there is the sentence structure changes enough. And there's enough of the same descriptors used over and over. I don't think so. Um, like this is just a good writer who can like, you know, have some clever wording and choices. And I really loved the for the rest of the story. You can feel as she describes it, the bugs moving inside of her. Um, and then at the end, like what was eventually, what was at first painful to proboscis passing into her is no longer painful because now she is that creature. She's suckling at the mother one day to become the mother, uh, this like human bug hybrid that's filled with bugs, almost like a termite queen of sorts in this house. Um, and they call it the golden house and the mask is made of part of the beginning where, um, they collect all the earrings, they collect everything golden to kind of build shrines for this thing. And it could just be a creature that requires to be fed and they keep feeding it, but they think of it as a God because it's something beyond their understanding. That's really cool. Uh, you know, it's really cool that there's, uh, so many fucking talented writers in the subreddit, man. So many of these people are just doing so well. It's the level of quality of, of what's on the subreddit right now. It's just really, really cool. And I think it's really fucking cool to see. So I don't know. It's very, it's very cool and inspiring. I don't know, just a lot of fun. Um, but guys, that's our, that's our episode today. We appreciate you for hanging out and thank you so much for taking time to listen to this and hear some of the fan stories as well. It's always fun diving into the tales from the creep subreddit. And if you yourself want to write something, please write it, let our fans, you know, let, let the community read it and fucking help you with it or do whatever. Like, don't be afraid to do it. Just jump in and actually write something. You know, that's kind of the moral of the story of today's episode is, uh, these are all levels and these are all people that are just wanting to write some stuff and people that like want to read fun stuff too. So thank you guys so much for wanting to even submit those stories, but until next time, guys, be sure to check us out on Spotify, Apple podcasts, all the places we do. And if you want some extra goodies, be sure to go to Patreon. We've got some more stories there for you that are exclusive to Patreon, but until next time, guys, we will see you in the next one. Stay creeped. See you in the next one. Stay creeped. Uh, all three authors who read today were fantastic. Please go follow them. We'll have them linked below. Um, and most importantly, you know, all these stories are great. I've really enjoyed them, but I feel like this is a golden opportunity to kill Hunter in a story. And I haven't seen that yet. So we need to get those numbers up. Just saying, uh, thanks all you guys for being so cool and for building this community and please keep writing. Thank you for it. And once again, kill Hunter. Bye. Thanks for watching! ご視聴ありがとうございました ご視聴ありがとうございました ご視聴ありがとうございました