Creepy

Day 3 - Knocking Geoff & The Lake That Doesn’t Reflect the Same Sky

37 min
Apr 9, 202610 days ago
Listen to Episode
Summary

This episode of the Creepy podcast features two horror stories: 'Knocking Geoff,' about a fire lookout tower worker who encounters a mysterious doppelgänger of her mentor after his disappearance, and 'The Lake That Doesn't Reflect the Same Sky,' about a swimmer who discovers an impossible, alternate sky beneath a lake's surface with unknown entities lurking below.

Insights
  • Isolation in remote work environments can amplify psychological vulnerability and make individuals susceptible to unexplainable phenomena or perceptual distortions
  • Legends and folklore often emerge from genuine traumatic experiences, becoming diluted through retelling but preserving the emotional truth of the original event
  • Sensory perception in extreme conditions (heat exhaustion, fear, disorientation) can fundamentally alter reality interpretation, raising questions about the reliability of witness accounts
  • Mentorship and human connection serve as critical anchors for individuals in crisis, making their loss or ambiguity deeply destabilizing
Trends
Growing interest in psychological horror grounded in isolation and sensory unreliability rather than supernatural goreNarrative exploration of how personal trauma becomes collective mythology through informal storytellingThemes of duality and alternate realities reflecting contemporary anxieties about identity and authenticityUse of remote/wilderness settings as metaphors for psychological vulnerability and loss of control
Companies
EverPeer
Data storage and infrastructure platform sponsor mentioned in pre-roll advertisement for AI-scale data management
IG (Investment Platform)
Financial services sponsor offering stocks, ISAs, and commission-free ETF trading mentioned in mid-roll advertisement
Burger King
Fast food sponsor advertising kids eat free promotion during school holidays in mid-roll advertisement
People
Alicia
Co-host engaging with the main storyteller at the campfire framing device
John
Primary storyteller for both creepypasta narratives in this episode
Jeff (Jeffree Vanderberg)
Central figure in 'Knocking Geoff' story; Vietnam veteran and search and rescue worker who mysteriously disappears
Quotes
"The horrors persist and so do I."
JohnOpening segment
"Whatever you do, don't let that thing in. It isn't me."
Jeff (over radio)Knocking Geoff climax
"It was like the other Jeff had disappeared mid-knock, mid-shout, mid-breath, mid-thought. Like he had spontaneously ceased to exist. Control X."
JohnKnocking Geoff resolution
"What if I wasn't looking at a reflection at all? What if I was looking at something below the surface of the water?"
JohnThe Lake story turning point
"Somewhere beneath that quiet surface, another sky waits. And I'm afraid of the day that it decides to look back up at us."
JohnThe Lake story conclusion
Full Transcript
in the race to scale with AI. You need data infrastructure that can match your pace. EverPeer's data storage platform brings all your data into one hub. No silos, no scrambling, just instant access to tame your data chaos. And with EverPeer Storage as a service subscription, your storage and security upgrade automatically with zero downtime. Your infrastructure stays current, so your business never slows down. Visit everpeerdata.com to learn more today. With EverPeer, you're not just in the race. You're built to win it. No. This is Creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepy pastas and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened or not simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. Hey, John. Can I ask you something? Of course, Alicia. I don't want to sound ungrateful. Great. I appreciate that. It's not really a question, but... That wasn't my question. I just wanted to... Check to see if I'm okay. How'd you know that that's what I was going to ask? It was due. Usually around this time, someone asks me if I'm okay. I mean, I can tell you the real answer, but given that I'm from Minnesota, let's be honest, no one really wants to hear that. Right? So how about I just say the horrors persist and so do I. Okay, but... I like encamping. What? How are you liking camping? The mattress is in the cabin's comfy? Yeah, they're pretty good. I really wish I had a mattress sponsor to shut out right now. Missed opportunity. How about dinner last night? Did you enjoy the Smashburgers? Well, yeah, but... Do you like how I was able to get a signal booster so you all could call and text while we're out here? I figured it would help with feelings of isolation. Yes. Thank you for that. Cool. I'm sorry. I feel like I cut you off a couple of times back there. Did you have something else to ask me? No. No. Never mind. Done and done. So, want to head over to the campfire and tell a story? Sure. I can tell you all about knocking Jeff. All right. Yeah, I've got a story. You guys have all been talking about shadows in the corners of your eyes or odd sounds in the woods that are all probably just animals or the wind. I swear, it's like you've all forgotten that the mountains are full of life, especially when there's no other people around. It's pretty obvious some of you are making up your own takes of popular creepypastas on the spot too. But something happened to me personally. Something so messed up that I still can't make sense of it. Some of you might have heard versions of this one before, but those are all just rumors. I was the only one witness to what actually happened that night, so you'll be getting the real deal from me. It was a few years back before I became a forest ranger. Geez. Was it really eight years ago? What is time anymore? Anyway, I was fresh out of college with a degree in environmental science and I was adrift. It didn't matter how many jobs I applied to, the only emails in my inbox were rejections. The local coffee shop wouldn't even hire me. 13 months had gone by without a single interview. Years later, I was still getting the occasional fresh rejection email from all those applications I submitted back then. What a joke. After a full year of unemployment, I went back to my university's beachside town for an alumni dinner my old Beach Volleyball Club organized. Can y'all imagine me diving for spikes in a bikini? Actually, wait, please don't. So, yeah, I didn't plan on drinking that night. But the whole group went bar hopping afterward and I was in a place mentally where I couldn't say no to a good time. They were just so scarce, you know? I told myself one beer would be enough for the night, but after listening to my friends' gush about their new jobs, new engagements, plans for moving, or even their first vacations using paid time off, I needed something stronger to keep me smiling and nodding and oh wowing amicably. I'm sure some of you have been there. I remember another two beers, then ordering a vodka red bull and who knows how many shots of who knows what after that. I woke up the next morning in my cheap motel room with a blurry memory and barely enough time to pack up by checkout. I scrolled through all the texts and missed calls while I sat hungover in a Starbucks, drowning in a vinty ice americano. I'd done or said something unforgivable and lost all of the friends I considered my real adult friends and one fell swoop. To this day, I still don't have the full picture of what I did that was so bad, but I guess knowing doesn't change much. I don't mean to be oh poor me, but I really wasn't doing well. I was scrambling more than my morning eggs. Felt just as mixed up inside too, to be honest. Many of you have probably felt that way at some point. We all do dumb things when we're young, so just look at me to know it gets better. But yeah, that's where my head was when I met Jeff. It's probably how he came to mean so much to me so quickly. Meeting him was like finding a raft in open water. It was what made his disappearance all the more disturbing and why it still eats me up inside. Jeffree Vanderberg was old enough to be my grandpa. He was a lot nicer than my real grandpa though. They were both Marines and sent to the same Vietnam, so I never understood how they could be so different. Now I've come to know that people handle horrible things in their own ways. Jeff's hair was all salt and peppery, like a fox's coat in winter, and he had a mustache fit for a sheriff straight out of a spaghetti western. He always wore these round, wiry glasses with thick lenses too. It made me nervous to think of a day where he might lose or break those glasses, alone and miles deep in the wilderness. I met him when I started working in the gift shop at the Kings Canyon National Park Visitor Center the fall following the alumni incident, as I came to call it. I was so sick of myself and a run out of appealing distractions back home, so I took the plunge. I couldn't run away from myself, so I ran away from everything I knew instead. And ended up out here in the Sierra Nevadas while I tried dipping my toes into sobriety. Jeff was the kind of guy who went out of his way to be kind. There wasn't anything pervy about it, so don't give me that look. He was part mentor, part concerned father figure, part comedic relief. He was my friend. That was something I really needed back then. Somebody to genuinely care and not look at me like I had already failed out of life and should just quit already. I think he could smell all that despair wafting off of me and latched on. He'd seek me out whenever I clocked into my shift and it was slow enough for him to leave his post at the information desk. He'd switched between asking me what was hip with the kids, lately, and telling crazy stories of survival in the wilderness, some harrowing tales of his time working in search and rescue, and he'd even throw in a few ghost stories every now and then. Although, after what happened, I think that those ones might have been true too. Jeff was the reason why I ended up in a fire lookout tower the next summer. I was worried about going crazy out there all alone on the top of the mountain all summer long, but he said he could be in the next closest lookout and that we could radio each other and chat just like we'd done every day at the visitor center. So I agreed. He pulled some strings, and after some training, I found myself unpacking a backpack on a cot and my own fire lookout on Sawtooth Peak. The lookout was a rickety wood and glass box atop a toothpick scaffolding. Stairs led up from the ground to a hatch that opened up to a wood plank deck that encircled my little house above the world. Inside was a cot, a bedside table that doubled as a bookshelf, and a counter that wrapped around the interior with windows above, and cupboard stuffed with supplies below. In the center was an island counter with a firefinder, a circular map of the area surrounding the lookout used in pinpointing smoke signals. I kept my binoculars and pair of ultra-high frequency handheld radios on the shelf below the firefinder, at the ready to make reports or check-ins. My worries of going mad with boredom melted away my first night. I had my friends Jack Kerouac, Joan Didion, Shirley Jackson, and John Steinbeck to keep me company while surveying the mountainous wilderness in every direction beneath bright blue skies and fluffy whipped cream clouds. Those first couple of weeks were really sweet. Almost too sweet. Then, of course, there was Jeff, just as he'd promised. Sometimes he'd radio me randomly to check-in, touch base, make sure things were still swell over there. We'd always radio each other around dinnertime to talk about how the day went and chat about anything and everything that came to mind. Jeff would usually bust out one of his countless stories. I felt like a child again, getting a bedtime story before drifting off to sleep whenever he did. That night finally came around halfway through the season. Life hasn't been the same since. Jeff and I were chatting over the radio on our unofficial frequency, like we always did. I'd finished dinner and was sipping some peppermint tea and peeking out the windows at all the stars, while Jeff chattered on about the time he narrowly avoided an avalanche. He'd been hiking alone somewhere in the John Muir wilderness when winter when it happened, and was sure to tell me how dangerous it was to be out there alone, especially when weather can turn so quickly and it's well below freezing. He was mid-sentence explaining to me what I should do if I find myself conscious but buried in snow when I heard a banging outside. Wham! Bam! Bam! Bam! I'd seen a handful of hikers during my short time on the mountain, but they usually showed up around mid-day so they had enough time before sundown to hike on to the next permitted camping area. My lookout was along a backpacking loop that connected a few of the other lookouts in the area, and the camps were strategically placed between each lookout by the Forest Service. I was grateful since it meant I could have my peace and quiet at night, which was what made the interruption that night so jarring. It was dark out, hours past nightfall, and the knocking sounded desperate. I called out to the knocker, asking who they were and what they needed. It sounded like whatever it was, it was urgent, but I was also a woman alone in a tower in the middle of nowhere. I had the hatch to the stairs outside perpetually latch shut and padlocked out of paranoia, as well as the door to the main entrance of my little box. Double locked, double safe. Even when no one was around, or rather, when nobody was supposed to be around, it was that hatch, my first line of defense, that the knocker had pounded. I couldn't get a look at their face because of that, but that meant that they couldn't see me either. The knocking paused and the voice that shouted back to me sent chills down my spine and prickled my skin with goosebumps. It was Jeff. He said he had been attacked at the lookout and escaped into the mountains on foot. He managed to navigate his way through nearly 20 miles of wilderness, as the crow flies, to my lookout on Sawtooth Peak. He had no food, no water, no shelter, no extra layers of clothing. He begged me to let him in. But his story didn't sound quite right. That journey would have taken him over a day to make, but I'd been talking to Jeff as often as I usually did during that time, and he hadn't mentioned anything about an attack or a treacherous journey through the wilderness. It didn't make any sense. I had just been talking to him over the radio when the knocking began, too, and he was as calm and cheerful as ever. It was an absurd fever dream. How could the same person be in two places at once? If one of them was a fake, which Jeff was real? Why did they sound so alike? I'd held on to the push-to-talk button during my interaction with the Jeff from outside, but released it while confusion skated through my thoughts and figure eights. Jeff's voice came in over the radio then, telling me, whatever you do, don't let that thing in. It isn't me. I was so conflicted. I had noticed anything different in the voice over the radio. I was convinced that I knew, Jeff, that if it hadn't been him chatting and telling his usual stories, I would have noticed. But I didn't. So it had to be him. It had to be. That was what I decided, but it still twisted me up inside to not unlock the padlock on the hatch and let the other Jeff in. Especially since those desperate cries sounded so much like him. I struggled to hold myself from reaching out to a person crying out for help, a person who helped me to find new meaning in a life that I was about to give up on. But I convinced myself that it must have been a ruse, some sick trick to get at me or into the lookout for some reason or another. I don't know. Fear, logic isn't always real logic. I felt like a kid barely hanging on by a thread, but that thread had grown, slithered up my arm, and had wrapped around my neck. I stayed on the radio with Jeff until the man at the hatch quieted. It was so strange. An hour in and he was still hammering with the same vigor he started with. But then he suddenly went quiet. Silent. I put my ear to the door, thinking he would be clunking down the stairs to crunch on the dusty, gravelly earth below. Or maybe he'd be banging, clambering around, up and over the steel scaffolding to the planked floor before the door. Instead of either of those options, I heard nothing. Nothing but the night wind blowing through the gaps around the door in its frame. It was like the other Jeff had disappeared mid-knock, mid-shout, mid-breath, mid-thought. Like he had spontaneously ceased to exist. Cut straight from a Word document. Control X. I said good night to Jeff over the radio, then stayed on guard and awake all night. I sat on the floor with my back against the door, so I'd hear any kind of movement up the stairs the moment it happened. But nothing stirred. It wasn't until the sun's rays were poking in through the windows of the lookout the next morning that I realized Jeff hadn't said anything back in response over the radio when I wished him a good night. Jeff was the kind of guy to rise with the sun, starting his days with stretches and a side of coffee. I'd have no way of knowing, but I had the feeling back then that he was the kind of guy who made his bed every day, too, just like my grandpa. I snapped to standing then and went over to the radio. He'd definitely be awake and alert to hear me on his end, and let me know I was being silly for worrying so much. I was just being paranoid. Of course he would respond. He always did. Except for that day. I tried to reach him all through the morning with no luck. After downing a can chilly for lunch, I tried again. That time I got a response. Although it wasn't the one I was hoping for. Adam from Search and Rescue spoke to me over the pseudo private frequency Jeff and I used. It might be more accurate to say that it was our favorite frequency, since we always had it to ourselves. Adam said that he was at Jeff's lookout and wanted to know about the last time I talked with him. I hesitated then, thinking of the strange night I had, and asked what was going on. Until then I'd convinced myself that I'd been talking to Jeff over the radio the night before, but Adam's presence shook that foundation. It took a while after that first chat over the radio with Adam, but I eventually learned all there was to know. It was infuriating just how little detail there was. The day before, Jeff hadn't called in over the radio for his daily check-in with headquarters. At first, they thought he was just late. No big deal. When they still hadn't gotten a response from him by that next morning, Search and Rescue was sent to investigate. What they found stumps them to this day. The lookout was quiet and tidy. Jeff kept a tight ship. There was nothing to suggest that there had been a struggle or violence of any kind. Besides Jeff's absence, there were only a few odd items of note. There were two mugs of cold peppermint tea sitting out on the counter. One was half drunk, the other was completely full. It was like Jeff had a guest over who didn't tell him they were allergic to drinking tea. Another odd thing was that all of his bedding on the cot was missing. They searched the surrounding area but didn't find the bedding or Jeff anywhere. Nobody has seen or heard from Jeff since I talked to him over the radio the summer that I worked in the fire lookout. At least, not officially. Jeff's disappearance was so strange that of course, word of it spread like a wildfire through the park's service. I accidentally let my story slip around a campfire. Much like this one, in the months after that night after it won too many beers. Old habits die hard. Rumors of knocking Jeff made it as far north as Lassen volcanic wilderness. There were tales of frantic midnight knocks at the doors of fire lookouts and cabins. Even the occasional tent up and down the Sierra Navanas. The first time I heard somebody tell their experience with knocking Jeff, I couldn't sleep a wink. I felt so guilty that my shortcoming led to his legacy being diluted down to such a superstition. After a week thinking about it while I tossed and turned, I remembered what kind of guy Jeff was. Jeff was the kind of guy to crack jokes and ask what the kids were into. He was the kind of guy who loved telling tales of survival in the wilderness and he loved to tell a good ghost story. Taking what I knew about Jeff into account, I think he'd actually be happy to live on as such a legend. That was the only summer I worked in a fire lookout. I couldn't bring myself to go back to that tiny box atop that toothpick scaffolding. Sometimes I wonder what might have happened if I had made a different decision and went out there to unlock the hatch. Would Jeff still be with us? Or would I be gone too? I think I'm part of Jeff's legacy too. He's the reason I joined the Forest Service. I go back home sometimes for the holidays, but I don't talk to any of my friends from back then. Instead, I hurry back here to the people who took me under their wings. I have juniors, just like you guys, under my own wings now. Sometimes on campouts like this one, I'll tell them about knocking Jeff. When I do, I talk about the real Jeff. Every year on the anniversary of his disappearance, I go backpacking alone along the loop that connects the lookouts in that area. Hiking out in the open doesn't give me the same sense of hopelessness as being trapped inside the lookout. I bring a handheld radio clip to my straps, perpetually turned to hour frequency. Walking along the trail, I sometimes hear whispers I can't quite make out. I tell myself that that's because I walk in and out of different ranges, or that the radio is picking up stray signals. Every night, when I sit down to boil water for my dinner, usually a dehydrated curry or pad thai, I turn the radio back on and tell Jeff about my day, just like old times. And sometimes, he tells me about his. In a world of noise and uncertainty, IG is the investment platform that backs you. Take a reflexable stocks, ISA, which gives you the freedom to withdraw funds anytime and replace them in the same tax year, all without losing your £20,000 tax-free allowance. And if that's not enough, pay no commission on your stocks, shares and ETFs when you invest with IG. IG, trade, invest, progress. Your capsules at risk, other fees may apply, tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and is subject to change. At Burger King, kids eat free between the 27th of March and 20th of April, only on the BK app, so you can enjoy a moments piece this school holiday. Just don't forget them. Get one freaking junior meal with one selected adult burger meal, only available on the BK app at selected restaurants, can't be used with other promotions. Full TNCs at BurgerKing.co.uk forward slash kids dash offer. Where do you keep disappearing off to? It looked like you were just staring into the swamp. I didn't notice the reflection at first because the heat made everything feel unreal, like viewing the world through a pane of warped glass. There wasn't even a wind, making the air feel that much thicker and stale, even after the sun had set. I was sweating everywhere. I'm sure I could have made a funny real show in the time lapse of my shirt going from light gray to dark gray as the hours ticked by. We decided to go camping because none of us had air conditioning and the heat wave had turned our apartments into ovens. The woods promised shade and the lake the promise of relief, at least in theory. By the time night settled in, the water had become the only thing anyone cared about. A black mirror tucked between the trees. It was so hot that we didn't even want to go there while the sun was up. It felt like we got an instant sunburn as soon as we left our shelter. Drinking as much as we did the night before didn't help. I followed the others down to the shore without much thought. My brain dulled by heat and fatigue, and the last remains a whiskey. The lake looked smooth and dark, barely rippling as our bodies slipped into it one by one. The surface swallowed sound in a way that made everything feel distant, like we'd stepped out of the world and into something else. It's such a strange feeling. Being so hot you want to just lay down. Then the moment you touch the water is something that should feel like a relief. It hits so hard that it feels too cold. Even with the water probably being about 80 degrees, it felt like it might as well have been 40 at that moment. Still, after not long, it felt like a gift. It wrapped around my body, pulling the heat out of me. While the others splashed and ran around near the shore, I floated on my back a ways out, staring up at the sky and letting my body go slack. There are so many stars. You forget what light pollution does in the city. There are so many stars that look like someone had tossed salt into darkness. Eventually, I turned over and did the dead man's float for a moment before breaking the surface again and looking at the water around me. That's when I started to feel something was wrong. The reflection of the sky on the water was too clear, clearer than reflections ever are, as if the lake wasn't reflecting sky at all, but like there were stars under the surface of the water. And the stars in the reflection were brighter, even sharper. But there was no single moment where I recognized any of the constellations I'd just been staring at. At first, I assumed it was just my eyes putting tricks on me, strained from the heat and the sudden cold, clouded by the remains of a hangover. I blinked and wiped water from my face, then leaned closer, letting my chin hover just above the surface. The sky above me stayed the same, but the one below me shifted subtly. Stars seemingly sliding into new positions. I tried to match them, looking up and down, trying to get them to line up, but they never did. There were extra stars in the water, fainted first and then impossible to ignore, clustered in places where the real sky was empty. It only got worse when I noticed that the reflection didn't move with the water. The ripples passed through the lake as someone kicked nearby, but the stars beneath the surface barely wavered. They held their position, steady, patient. I told myself it was an optical illusion, the result of heat exhaustion or the way light bends through water or whatever other science answers a smarter person would have. I looked around, watching the other splash and swim, their movement sending silver flashes across the lake. None of them seemed to notice anything strange. It made me feel so alone, even as I stared at my friends just yards away. I forced myself to look back up at the real sky, grounding myself in something solid. The stars there seemed dimmer. And when I looked back down again, the reflected sky felt closer somehow, as if it had risen to meet me. That's when an intrusive thought forced its way in. What if I wasn't looking at a reflection at all? What if I was looking at something below the surface of the water? I tried to laugh it off, even come up with another possible answer. Because the idea was strange instead of inherently scary. I wasn't so much afraid as curious. I told myself that a quick dive would clear my head, that the cold and the pressure would snap me back into reality and I'd see there wasn't actually anything to see under the surface. I took a breath and dipped my face under the water, opening my eyes despite the sting. The world blurred in dark shapes and drifting light, bubbles sliding past my cheeks as I exhaled. The surface above me shimmered, the real sky breaking apart into fractured stars that scattered with every movement. Below me, the other sky waited. It didn't blur or scatter the way reflections should. The stars beneath the surface really were there and they were steady points of light. For the first time, I felt a strange sense of depth of the water, deeper than it ever could or should be. But still, it was curiosity that drove me. I kicked gently, letting myself sink, watching the boundary between reflection and depth pass over me like a curtain. The water grew darker and colder, pressing in on my ears and through my jaw as I worked to equalize the pressure the way I'd learned from snorkeling on a vacation to Mexico. With each foot, I descended. The reflected sky grew larger, filling my vision until I was all I could see. There was no bottom in sight, no hint of silt or rocks or the soft slope I knew should be there whether I could see it or not. This wasn't my first time in this pond. My friends and I had been here three or four times over the years. I knew I should have been able to touch the bottom by now, even without being able to see it. Instead, there was only that impossible expanse. Stars arranged in unfamiliar constellations that seemed to watch me in return. The feeling of being watched settled over me, heavy and intimate, like standing too close to someone in the dark. Pan-inflicted the edges of my mind, I told myself that the lake wasn't really deeper than I remembered, that night played tricks on depth perception. I touched the bottom before, just keep going, proved to myself that I was being irrational. Touch the soft sand then go back to the surface and laugh about it later. My lungs burned softly, a reminder of limits I chose to ignore for a few seconds longer. The pressure increased as I descended, squeezing my chest. The stars below seemed to brighten. Their light sharpening, allowing me to see in the darkness, regardless of how blurred my vision should have been underwater. And what's more, shapes began to emerge between the points of light, vast and slow, like impossible clouds. But they weren't clouds. They had edges and contours, forms that suggested mass and intention. The realization sent a jolt of fear through me strong enough to finally break curiosity's hold. I kicked upward, hard, turning away from the depths. The sky beneath me didn't receive the way it should have. For a moment, up and down felt reversed. The surface no more real than the stars below, both equally distant. I started to panic. This was known to happen to even professional divers, losing track of which way was up and ending up swimming down to their deaths instead of up to the air. My lungs screamed as I thrashed, bubbles tearing free and frantic bursts. The water around me seemed to thicken, resisting my movements as if the lake itself was reluctant to let me go. In the corner of my vision, one of the shapes shifted, a slow, deliberate motion that sent ripples through the star filled dark. And then, as if by miracle, I broke the surface with a gasp that seemed to tear its way out of my throat. No matter how much I tried to take in the air felt insufficient as I coughed and choked when my body shook. Somewhere in the distance, I heard my friends shouting from the shore, but it wasn't for me. They didn't even notice that I got under water, they were just playing some game. I started to swim toward the shore as fast as I could. I barely noticed that the sky and reflection were back to looking how they should. Halfway back, something brushed my leg. The contact was light, almost gentle, but it sent terror crashing through me in a way nothing else had. I kicked wildly, breaking into an uneven rhythm that wasted energy but felt necessary to stay alive. Whatever touched me didn't return, but the sense of being followed didn't fade. I could feel it beneath me. A pressure and presence that mirrored my movements without breaking the surface. The water seemed to hum faintly around my ears, a vibration that I felt more than heard. When my hands finally scraped against the muddy bottom near the shore, relief hit me so hard my vision blurred and I thought I was going to pass out. I stumbled out of the lake, water streaming off me, my legs trembling as if they were about to give out. I didn't look back at the lake right away. I focused on the ground beneath my feet, the solid certainty of dirt and roots and scattered stones. My heart took a long time to slow, each beat echoing into my head like a drum. My friends surrounded me asking questions I didn't have answers to. None of them were nearly as worried as they should be. Eventually, against my better judgment, I glanced over my shoulder, the lake lay still and quiet. The surface smoothed its glass. The reflection of the stars looked ordinary from a distance, like it had all been in my head. When I edged closer and looked down again, the wrong sky waited patiently, just as I'd seen it the first time. The extra stars burned a little brighter and one of the shapes drifted closer to the surface. It's outlined just visible enough to suggest a scale that made my stomach twist. I backed away, every instinct screaming at me to put distance between myself and the water. In the days since, I've tried to convince myself that what I saw was a trick of light and exhaustion. The heat wave ended, life resumed its usual patterns, and the world insisted on being whatever version of normal we knew at the time. Still, when I looked at a clear night sky, I find myself wondering how real it is. I never went back to that lake, and at this day, I still don't like swimming in anything other than a pool where I can see the bottom. Somewhere beneath that quiet surface, another sky waits. And I'm afraid of the day that it decides to look back up at us. Well, does it? Does what who now? The bayou. Does it reflect the same sky? How should I know? Okay, I'm gonna walk off into the dark. You're all free to remain silently sitting around the campfire, or talk. Y'all can talk when you're not telling a story. You know that, right? You all make me smile. Toodles, don't follow me. For more information on this podcast, including how to submit your own story for consideration, please visit creepypod.com. You can also follow us at creepypod on social media and YouTube. All stories told on this podcast are done so through Creative Commons share a light licensing, or with written consent from the authors. No portion of this podcast may be rebroadcast or otherwise distributed without the express written consent of the Creepy Podcast production team and the story's author. Imagine a city unlike any other simmering 300 years in a raucous gumbo of debauchery versus devotion. Catholicism. Confession is anonymous. Versus voodoo. I think I've done made a deal with the devil. What you call life. And what I called death. It's a mysterious crossroads where the denizens of this world and others. He is a trickster and I'm sure whatever he brought back from the world of the dead was a one-way trip. Collide daily. And for Detective Frank Dupree. I will see you in there. And Nicky, good luck. This will be a dark ride. Welcome to New Orleans, babies. Listen to something wicked on Spotify. Apple Podcast or wherever you enjoy listening.