The Beach House

The game has only just begun. Radio Silence Directors Matt Betnelli Open and Tyler Gillette are back for Round 2 with their new horror comedy film, Ready or Not 2. Here I come. Samara Weaving returns as Grace, The Battle of Warren and Bulletin Bride, and is joined by stars, Catherine Newton, Sarah Michelle Geller, Sean Hadasey, Nestor Carbano, David Kronenberg, and Elijah Wood. After Grace marries into a mysterious family and is forced to play a life or death theme of hide and seek, she emerges victorious. But what she didn't know is that by winning, she triggered a whole new twisted battle. This time with her estranged sister-fade on her side. The duo faces a shadowy group of rival devil-worshipping families who control the world, and they must fight to the bloody death for the ultimate prize. Two times the kills, two times the Satanic rituals, and two times the human combustion. Don't miss the full tilt insanity. Ready or not to, here I come. When it hits theaters, March 20th. On a windslet walk in Camarthen, while someone tries to use your card details to hire a speed boat in Cannes, this is a moment you relax. Knowing that Barclays Advanced Tech has helped to spot the fraud in under a second, and their expert team are on hand to close it down. So you can get back to being windswept. Oh! Just one of the ways we're protecting our customers 24-7. Search Barclays for protection. Barclays, backing your future. No. This is Creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepy pastures and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened, or about simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. Placeholder. Placeholder. This audio is being played because the voice scheduled to appear is currently, sick, out of town, unavailable, indisposed, unable to speak, or other. Their health and well-being are currently unknown. There is no audio to be played to be played to be played from supposed archival footage. The FCC is unaware of any such transmissions and should not be taken as fact. You did not hear anything. Remember. Our first story this week, haunted by the silent presence of her husband after his suicide, a grieving woman retreats alone to their familiar coastal rental, hoping the place might finally force him to acknowledge her. Instead she finds something inescapable. From writer, Deseret Horton and narrated by Heather Thomas, Creepy Precense, The Beach House. I paced slowly across the slightly uneven wood floors, letting my fingers trail across the top of the dusty, aged blue couch. This house was a rental, something my husband and I did every year. Not quite for an anniversary, but something like it. My hands wiped themselves absently against my pants, as though to wipe away the gritty feeling my mind attached to unfamiliar furniture. Looking at the large bay windows, I caught a view of my husband's back, his face to the wind that I knew must be blowing, even though there was no evidence in his body language to suggest it. Fall is always windy on the coast. I turned to the kitchen, thinking perhaps to set my bag down and peruse the empty cupboards. I imagined the cobwebs inside, and the spiders sitting upon them, perhaps feasting, perhaps sleeping. It gave me some satisfaction to think that, unless I opened it, I would never truly know. In that moment they could be doing anything at all, working miracles or raising the dead, or perhaps they were running away, abandoning the webs they toiled so hard to build, and deserting their mummified meals. When I turned back to the large dingy window that faced the bland gray sea, my husband was gone. Why had I come here? This trip would change nothing. Our problems would remain. They may even get worse. There could be no progress in this forced habit. No tempering of our marriage forage, no understanding through deep conversations and dark secret shared. What we each had was forever our own, and nothing could be done. No amount of confessing could traverse the inevitable breach that lay between us. If I thought his words could wound me, his silence was ultimately worse. It sliced me to the bone, and made something ache within me, much like a long run of a flu fever. Aiden was always serious. Any smiles earned were always hard one and fleeting. At first it seemed like he saved them all for me. Later, I could never tell if he gave them away to others, or simply stopped smiling altogether. He was prone to bouts of melancholy that would wax and wane like a sour moon, infecting those around him with a sadness like quick sand. When his mood finally tilted the other way, it felt like a slow climb up a hill toward the warm morning sun. I would tilt my face to him with my eyes closed as we stood in our kitchen and made coffee, or worked in our backyard, just feeling the glow of him. I knew the warmth was temporary, and I tried to draw in every bit of it. We did not speak about this trip. I made all the plans on my own. I left them out where he could see them, and wondered if he would make an appearance. I was apprehensive of either option, whether he would or wouldn't. Deep down inside, I was sure that I didn't want him to, but felt like I owed it to him to have a bit of faith that he would show. Our memories of this beach house were not all happy, but they were real. That's what felt most important, the sense of realness that was so lacking in our current state of being. I set my bag on the kitchen table, which wobbled under the weight of my cracked leather purse. The noise was jarring. I shot a glance at the window to see if it had disturbed Aiden. Nothing but the wind whipping the penance that hung from the railing where he had leaned. The grey water rolled far away, making it almost seemed like the waves were crashing in slow motion. I felt like I had missed an opportunity for something, though I wasn't sure what it was. With a sigh, I walked back outside to my car to grab my suitcase, and then made my way up to the makeshift bedroom. The house was shaped like a squat little a-frame, with monstrous bay windows facing the sea, and a loft upstairs that acted as a bedroom, with a bed, a dresser, and a tiny bathroom. It faced the large empty expanse of the roiling Atlantic, and overlooked the kitchen and living area. Between the kitchen and the living room stood a black painted iron spiral staircase that I had once thought so quaint, but soon grew tired of, once I realized it was very hard to make an angry impression during an argument when you had to spin round and round and round before you could disappear. I could feel myself losing time, even as I tried to unpack. I would jerk and find myself staring off at the clothes in my hands, and wonder how long I had been standing there, fingering the stitching. Aiden was nowhere to be found. There was no clock in the bedroom, and I clunked back down the spiral staircase to dig my phone out of my purse in the kitchen. The edges of the swalls were darkening, and my phone said 517. It felt wrong, but I couldn't quite remember what time I had arrived. I had simply sauntered up into the house like a zombie, with no real thoughts in my head, not bothering to look at things like my phone or a clock. A creek resonated from upstairs, so soft it could have been a mouse mousy across the floorboards, so soft I was certain I had imagined it. Aiden? I called, my voice cracking with lack of use. How long had it been since I had spoken out loud? There was no answer from Aiden, and deep down, I didn't expect one. I think I had mostly given up on getting anything resembling a real response out of him. Our marriage had become an endless purgatory of silence, and with the light taps of a keyboard in the background, I could almost feel myself becoming invisible. I stood listening to see if additional phantom creeks would fill the space, but only the wind remained, a constant noise, which was so loud it sounded almost like nothing at all. Aiden was a journalist, we met Ed and Ben T was covering for an online news forum he worked for. I was a teacher for an online school at the time, and we had a training seminar titled, Teaching in a Time of Crisis, which seemed to be an intentional act of polarization. Aiden was there to interview the teachers who found themselves amid the crisis, with emphasis on how shitty the conditions were, and how we were setting up a generation of kids to fail in a world that was swiftly approaching its end. He was of a less polarizing opinion than his paper, and was kind to us, even sympathetic to our plight. Perhaps even depressed on our behalf, this would become a common theme with Aiden and his work. He always seemed to take it to heart much more than those he was interviewing, who were knee deep in whatever it was. He would often sit awake at night, staring out the window or at the ceiling, or into his cup of coffee. At first it was something that drew me toward him, that this man could feel things so much more deeply than anyone I had ever known. I was even a little bit jealous. What must it be like to dwell deep in the sadness of others? I know now. I have Aiden to thank for that, I guess. Infinite sadness on his behalf. I was drawn to his dark and mysterious nature, his serious appearance, and his wounded facade. I thought that someone who could feel things so completely was exactly the change of man that I needed. It was a double-edged sword. The pain of the human experience was brought swiftly through him, and before I had time to regret my decision, I was stuck at the bottom of the lake of reality, and trying not to drown. I knew what I was getting into, but it didn't feel like a threat to my being until it was much too late. Rather than going to town for groceries, I opted to climb back up the swirl of a staircase and lie in the creaky bed, musty from a regular use, but lumpy nonetheless. I closed my eyes and listened for my husband, and the opening of the door, or a squeak of a hinge from a cupboard, or the muffled clunk of shoes on the stairs. I listened for anything that would give me a notion of what was going through his dusky head. The thing with being invisible, listening for the faint notions of others, is that it makes you bone-weary, and every day you find yourself a little less present. As the years carried on after our meeting, subsequent coupling, and then consequent marriage, I could feel Aiden drifting away from me, and I could do nothing. He was an unmoored ship, an untethered family dog. I knew he was floating into the ether, and I resented him for not taking me with him. I felt like he could have, if he had only tried. But Aiden, eternally disappointed in our marriage and our life together, excluded me even in his drifting. He avoided my gaze and spoke less and less until finally he was completely silent. How I hated him at that moment, as I walked through our front door and saw his stiff, lifeless body hanging from a rope over the banister at the top of our stairs, his eyes averted from me, even in death. I had a brief dalliance with anger, but it was fleeting and half-hearted. Mostly, I resented him, and the way I now felt like only half a person, someone who was grainy and unclear on the edges. He had taken him any chance at permanence I had acquired, and skewed time into a bizarre track. As I lay in our shared bed, only a few feet from where he had hung himself. I saw his back pass briefly through the doorway. His chambray shirt was at perfect odds with his dark curls. He did not glance my way. After this, I began to try to find ways to make his visage appear once more, even though I was unsure that he was real. I yearned to catch a glimpse of him. He was always silent and never so much as glanced my way. After eight months, I began to feel as though I was mistaken. Surely, I was the ghost and ate in the grieving widower. He would excel in that, I was sure. Even in death, I could not instigate a reaction in him. No rage, no sorrow, no love. Only the back of his head, or the side of his pale, chiseled face. I took a leave of absence from work, and no one seemed to mind. I gave no thought to what my end goal was. I really wanted to see my husband's face. I wanted to make him look at me, force him to speak a word, any word, one more time to me. I wanted him to make me feel seen, and real, and solid. It became my passive obsession, one I tackled with a sort of weak, lackadaisical aggression. The beach house seemed like the only logical way to test my theory. Though I don't think I could have explained why. It wouldn't hold up to scrutiny, but it felt like a pull in the dark depths of miles of water over my heart. Most importantly, it was a real thing to do. Perhaps it would help enforce the sense of clarity of personhood that I was craving, one that Aiden refused to deliver. So I booked the house overlooking the water, one that was so rarely sunny at the times we could afford to rent it, like early October. I left the papers around the house, though I couldn't bring myself to speak about it out loud. I had no friends or family, so there was no one to share my plans with, or try to talk me out of them. When the time came for me to drive to the beach house, I hadn't physically spoken out loud, and at least a few days. During my drive I kept the radio off just in case. I didn't want to miss a rasp, grown, or whisper. I had trouble keeping my mind on the road and tethered to the present moment. I kept drifting off and then would be startled by something on the road, or a turn that needed to be made. My husband stayed troublingly silent. I knew there had to be a way to get more out of him than the back of his head. It felt crucial, like I would disappear without his ghostly acknowledgement. It took me a few moments sitting in the driveway for my brain to catch up with the fact I had arrived. The beach house sat in front of me, a sandy relic of our very human existence. As I lay in bed instead of getting the food I knew I would need for my time in the house, I listened to the nothing. I contemplated the lack of contact from Aiden, and not for the first time. Wondered if I was going crazy. A breakdown would have been understood, even expected in my situation. But that didn't feel like the answer. At some point I fell asleep. I only knew because I closed my eyes for a moment, and when I opened them again, it was almost pitch black. I could hear the waves and their angry smash against the shore, much closer than earlier, and I knew the tide must be in. I waited for my eyes to adjust to the inky dark. My inner ear tickled and I frowned. I didn't remember falling asleep, but my sudden awakening gave me a feeling of wrongness. I listened intently, straining to hear anything and everything over the dim roar of the constant sea outside. There was a sound. I lay blindly in the dark, tensed and waiting for some sort of recognition. A sound came, a light creek and scrape foreign combination, yet so familiar to me. I sat up stiff and wide-eyed. Over the top of the loft rail, the edge of the moon glowed like a rotten yellow silver. The creek scrape sounded again. I turned my head toward the spiral staircase at the side of the loft. I could just barely make out a shadow of something on the banister. I grabbed my phone and scrolled up on the screen to turn on the flashlight. I shone it toward the shadowy staircase. It looked like a rope, neatly tied at the top in some intricate knot I would never know the name of. I frowned and stood up from the bed, wrapping my sweater flaps closer around me, and crossing my arms across my body. I took a stiff step toward the stairs, my knees and ankles cracking. The fall weather at the beach never seems to agree with my body. My feet on the middle stairs seemed ungodly loud, and the moon offered less light through the oversized windows than it should. It was so cold I felt like I should see my breath. How had I not noticed this as I lay sleeping with nothing but my sweater? I felt goosebumps begin to form up and down my arms. Around and around I stepped down, trying to make my feet silent and careful not to miss a truturous step. I breathed a small sigh of relief at the bottom for having made it down without tripping, and looked up to the top of the banister. My body reacted before my mind could fathom what I was seeing. Hanging from that neatly tied rope on the banister was Aiden's bulging blue face, his eyes forcing at his lids and staring at me with a look of strained accusation. I took a step back with a gasp and tripped over the edge of the stairs, crashing to the ground in a shock of noise. My mouth snapped shut with a jolt and I felt the exquisite pain of a bitten tongue. I squeezed my eyes shut ferociously, trying to push the pain in my mouth down to a manageable level. When I could get a breath I snapped my eyes back open. A tightly and intricately coiled macromay strap hung down from the rail with a small green plant hanging at the bottom. No dead husband, no bulging eyes, no blue face. I carefully stood and after feeling like nothing more than a sore backside was prominent, I tipped over to the macromay holder in plant. I reached out hesitantly to touch it, afraid that it was real and that it wasn't. Shrodinger's plant. It was real and my hazy arrival I must have missed it. Maybe now I was getting somewhere, getting a reaction from him. I was both pleased and terrified. I let go of the plant and wandered over to take a seat on the grubby couch. I needed to get my thoughts together and decide what to do next. I needed to do something bigger. I needed him to speak to me. I needed him to say the things he couldn't before he died. I deserved that much. I flipped on all the lights on the first floor. I went into the kitchen and opened the jars sitting on the counter, praying that one of them had some years old coffee grounds. I could throw into the aging pot sitting on the counter. Terrible coffee is the cure for all midnight malarkey. I was in luck. I scooped an exorbitant amount into a suspiciously yellowed filter, filled the top with water and turned it on. After a moment it spotted to life. I grabbed my keys and walked out the front door to my car. I unlocked my trunk, grabbed one of the banker's boxes within it and brought it inside. I did this again and again until my trunk was empty. Then I poured a cup of coffee and sat at that rickety table. After I found aid in dead, I felt like I was silently crumbling. Luckily he hadn't made much of a mess in his death, but I could still feel him in the house. Though I would never catch more than a glimpse of the back of him, I could not deny the urge to do more. I sold the house quickly, accepting the first offer that came my way, much to the chagrin of my real estate agent. I opted to sell as is, with everything inside, except a few personal items. As soon as the money was transferred, I booked the beach house that aid in never really seemed to love, but always insisted on visiting. The transition happened silently. There was no one to tell. No parents, no husband, no real friends who were deeper than an acquaintance or work gathering. The grieving widow role set people farther away from me, and I didn't have the energy to reach out, even on my darkest nights. All my energy was spent trying to see aid in, to make him appear, to hear his voice, or get a sign from him. Anything, anything to show me that our marriage had meant something to him. That I had meant something to him, more than just a live body to share a space with. He had meant everything to me. He was my whole life, was I really asking for too much? The only things I took from home were my clothes, my laptop, the stacks of unedited articles from Aiden's office, and his laptop. I threw them all into boxes, and marveled at how small our lives could be, contained within three littered boxes in a suitcase. Everything else was the property of the new owners, a young couple that I hoped wouldn't mind the lingering silence that seemed to press in on you from the walls. Then I packed my old corolla and left for the beach house. Now with one hand on the coffee cup, using the warmth as an anchor, I opened the first box and pulled out a stack of articles, and I began to read. I read and flipped and read, sipping my stale coffee every few pages, stopping only to top off my cup when I felt the warmth leaving my hand too completely. For hours, I sat and read articles in global warming, mass animal suicide, droughts, floods, hurricanes, military coups, more depressing news than I ever thought possible. I wonder he was so despondent. I needed a break from the flood of catastrophes. I stood up with my coffee and walked over to the colossal windows. A storm was slowly moving in, and the waves were beginning to rise. A white foam sprayed in the air and was carried far by the wind. I had hardly noticed the screams of the wind. I stretched my back and turned back towards the table. It looked wrong. I frowned, trying to place what was so off about it. My frowned deepened as I realized that one of the boxes was missing from the table. I was at the table in two steps, moving the lids around, checking under the table, and trying desperately to remember if I had set it down somewhere as I stood, or if I had moved it absent-mindedly while I read through the other two boxes. I searched the kitchen in the living room area, and it was nowhere to be found. I was completely baffled and slightly unnerved. I poured the last of the pot into my cup, my hand shaking from tension and overcaffeination, and sat on the musty couch. A small side table painted blue sat to the right, and nestled on top of that with a shell that was not from this beach, nor any in the great state of Maine, was a small guest book. I always thought guest books were funny things, almost like graffiti. A way of telling a world that doesn't care. Here I am, I did this thing, and knowing that no one would ever read through it. Those invisible people, just hoping for someone to acknowledge them, and their families kite-flying competition, or the amazing crab cakes they made for their family reunion on this rocky pretender of a beach. I decided I would grant them reality. After all, I could empathize with their situation. I too longed to feel perceived again. I was about 12 pages in when my fingers stopped on their own accord, and settled on the loopy signature at the bottom of the page. I had been skimming through these, as they were extraordinarily boring for the most part, when I realized that I recognized the name at the bottom. Aiden. I went back and read through the entry. 6.15.2006 We love this cute little beach cabana. Makes a perfect couple's getaway, and we couldn't be more relaxed. Jessica and Aiden. Mechanically, I flipped to the next page. I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding when I saw a message about a girl's weekend in a bridal party. I flipped again and again, loosening a bit. And then I froze. My heart sinking as I read through the swirly scroll in the middle of the page. 4.2007 Even though the weather was terrible, this beach house is the perfect place to be with the ones you love. Everything was perfect. Aiden and Mandy. I tore through the pages now. Posing only to note how many times I found his name on the page. 17.17 different entries with 17 different women, none of them me. This could not be a coincidence. It's not like they gave a discount to men named Aiden upon booking. There was no Aiden convention on the coast. I felt like I had swallowed the depths of the sea. I tried to understand what I was seeing to forego the conclusion my mind was coming to. Was this why he was so distant, so sad? Was he hiding a life of serial non-monogany even before we had met? The most recent entry was in January of this year. I had thought he was on a trip to his works headquarters. There was nothing suspicious. He had answered my calls and texts with minimal delays. He told me he loved me in his quiet way, where you were never quite sure if he said it or if you imagined it out of wanting. 17.12 of which were during the time of our relationship. I slammed the book shut and threw it across the room where it hit the window with a hollow thunk, a little disappointed that it didn't break the glass. I jumped up from the couch, feeling hot tears beginning in my eyes. I stomped up the middle stairs in a circle, round and round to the top. I was bitterly reminded of the fights we had had here, and my struggle to make it an impression as I tramped up these stairs and away from him. Always enormously disappointed when I'd look back to see him unfazed and staring out the windows at the stormy sea. I wanted a shower. Surely the warm water would distract me from the terrible things my mind was turning over and over like a fish on a line. I marched into the tiny bathroom off the side of the bedroom and yanked on the water as hot as it could go. I let it run, waiting for the steam to blur my vision and bring back a bit of the fog that I had sat in for these last months. I turned out of the bathroom and marched back toward the bed and stopped short. Right next to the pillow I had rested upon only a few hours ago was a banker's box, the lid slightly askew. I stood rooted to the spot. I had no way to explain how the box had gotten up here. It had to be Aiden. Defiantly, I turned back toward the shower, now determined not to look in that damned box. The bathroom was full of steam now, the running water practically boiling. The mirror had fogged completely except for a tiny portion on the bottom. I wiped my hand across it to reveal my tear-streaked face and jumped as a man's figure moved from behind me. Out of sight of the mirror. I whipped around to see nothing, my heart pounding. I backed out of the bathroom until the back of my legs hit the bed and I sat upon it with a huff. There must be something he wanted me to see, right? There had to be some message for me within the cardboard walls. Heart still pounding. I turned to the box and flipped the lid off. I pulled out a handful of the papers inside and tried to focus on the words. Articles about missing women from his work all unedited. The whole box was full of them, more than I could count. And suddenly I knew even before I read what I would find there. My hands drifted through the pages as I searched for it. My breath stuck in my throat as I read the names I knew would be there. Jessica, to say my heart's sank would be a drastic understatement. More like my heart cracked apart and slipped below the sea in sharpened pieces, much like the Titanic. I moved through more papers until I found Mandy's name. I knew without bothering to look through any more that I would find the other 15 women in there as well. There were endless implications from this and none of them made me feel any better than the others. The cold rage settled in my guts and I began to ferociously slam the papers into the box. I threw on my shoes not bothering to turn off the shower or grab a coat and marched down the spiral staircase with the box in my arms. I couldn't see from the tears in my eyes and tripped down the bottom step, catching myself with the box on the table and banging my hip hard on a chair. This only fueled my fury. I balanced the box on my bruised hip and whipped open the door. It was raining now and the wind was blowing fiercely. I forced my way through the barrage of icy needles blowing against me and headed toward the angry surf. I stopped in the glacial water with the incensed waves colliding above my knees. I screamed in frustration, in desperation, and with hurt, it tore at my throat and was immediately captured and silenced by the shrill whipping wind. I dumped out the box of papers and poured all of those women into the sea. I tossed the box angrily and the wind carried it behind me and back to the shore. I just wanted to be real to you. I wanted to mean something. No, I wanted to mean everything to you like you did to me. How could you do this to me? My shouts were muffled and harmonized with the high-pitched whistle that thrashed my loose hair into my face and my eyes. I began to cry harder. I felt like the tears might freeze to my cheeks. With some work, I took off my wedding ring and hurled it into the approaching waves. Everything? I sobbed. My heart lurched as I realized what I had done and sloshed forward, desperately feeling with my hands in the sand and rocks. No matter what he had done, no matter the monster he was, that was all I had of him. I began to get frantic as the waves slammed into my face as I crawled along on my hands and knees, fingers fumbling in the briny waters. I began to choke, the cold waters leaving me numb all over. I have to let him go, I thought. I turned back to the shore, the waves crashing into me from behind, toppling me forward as I struggled to stand and walk out of the water. How had I gotten in so deep? Suddenly I was pulled flat and my stomach beneath the waves as something wrapped around my leg, pulling me backward. I panicked, flailing my arms for purchase, but coming up with nothing except handfuls of sharp rocks in sand. Further and further, I was pulled into the bitter depths until the waves no longer slapped at me but enveloped me. I looked up to see the surface of the water too far overhead and thrashed harder. My lungs burning to release the bit of air I had been saving. I tore my eyes away from the surface and down to try and peel away whatever had me tangled and screamed, hushed bubbles, as Aiden's dark blue-tinged face met mine. I saw that it was his hand wrapped around my ankle like a vice. As we sank further and further down to the rock-stroon ocean floor and the icy cold began to fill my mouth and lungs, he floated up to face me and I saw him silently mouth one word. Everything Our second story this week, a disgraced former politician retreats into isolation after the financial crash, only to discover his neglected backyard pond is a portal to hell. From writer, Steve Tornas and narrated by Cole Burke Hart, creepy precense, my own shallow depths drown me. My life restarted on the long edge of suburbia in a small white house. From the backyard porch past a murky shallow pond, I could see a forest on a hill full of tall and spindly pines. I bought the house because of the way the cool mist hung from the branches christened by the morning light and I felt invigorated by my imaginative wanderings. So appreciate my sense of betrayal when, hiking for the first time past the canopy, the forest was hollow and bare and dry. The floor sunk beneath my boots as I walked. It was an earth or soil I stumbled through but decades of dry to leaves and needles. The earth was so suffocated, not even the smallest of plants grew. There were no mosses on the tree trunks, only the dark brown shapes of fungi slowly digesting bark and wood. If it weren't for the green canopy above, I'd have assumed the trees to be dead and that I was walking through the detainee husk of a forest. Perhaps I shouldn't complain. I bought the house dirt cheap right after the financial crash of 2008. It was brand new too, built quickly and cheaply with a plasticy feel that didn't quite match the Pacific Northwest aesthetic but never really felt out of place. My neighbors were technically numbered companies with their ownership constantly traded for lower and lower values until everything became a stranded asset. As a result, no one lived near me until very recently and because of that initial absence, I never sought them out once they arrived. In those first couple of years I felt like I was living in a deserted neighborhood which suited me just fine. Society was too unbearable and I felt that an isolated retreat was necessary for my own being. Straight from high school, I volunteered and then did paid work on political campaigns, mostly at the state level. Until I ran myself. For a brief moment, I felt like I was on the verge of something new. I remember the cheers, the smiles, the veid promises which were more rhetoric than anything else. It was a safe writing, only lightly jerrymandered with a guaranteed pension. I thought I had it since I was replacing a retiring incumbent and had inherited all his endorsements and campaign staff. But, as these things often go, economic forces and federal decisions beyond my control and my run. It's a chapter of my life I want to leave blank, which unsuccessful, ambitious people will understand. There's a lot of my life that I don't like thinking about. So, I moved. Being unable to reconcile the electorate, I thought I knew with their judgment of me. But maybe being away from people for so long wasn't a good thing. Without any neighbors to impress, let alone guests, I let the house fall apart. Especially the yards front and back. I never mowed and it was slowly being reclaimed by the forest. The lawn, which the developers had haphazardly planted, had turned to moss. In the back, there was a small, nameless pond, maybe a quarter of an acre. Before this year, ducks would rest at the pond on their migration, and as a result, the pond was always filthy, with a floating layer of algae, bird-shit, dead insects, pine needles, and thin strands of white mycelium. If you moved the layer around, through its murky, yet shallow depths, you to just barely made out slimy, yellowed branches and logs. They never decomposed, which made me think that oxygen couldn't reach the bottom. There didn't seem to be much animal life, even when I first moved in. No fish, of course, though in that first year I do remember seeing tadpoles and eventually frogs, but it was only for that first year. By the summer, the pond would develop this terrible smell that would get stuck up in your nose, it smelled of sewage and decay. I'm not kidding, the smell was so bad you could choke on it. So, when it got intolerable, I would do a small poolnet and remove that floating layer and dump all that gunk deep in the woods. Looking back, I probably should have drained and filled in that pond. Whatever I did was the bare minimum of maintenance, and I did it grudgingly. I did contemplate draining it to every summer's end, but when I thought about dredging the bottom and cleaning up all those years of deterioration, I couldn't bring myself to do it. I'd only ever been someone who'd brush against the surface, rather than get my hands dirty and plunge into the depths. Besides, I wasn't up for that heavy task. For many years, I had been hit by nightmares, and after giving up any hope for a dreamless rest, had become chronically miserable, and physically weak. Becoming ill in health due to a lack of good sleep is a horrible way to live. Every few nights, I would have a re-appurring nightmare about being back in high school. There were no lights, except for a sunset, trespassing through the window, the light slanted upwards, illuminating just the highest part of the walls. Not knowing why I was there so late, I'd walk down the hallway, eager to reach the exit and go home. My footsteps echoed on the laminated floors as I walked past classroom after classroom, a long parade of a single student. Unnerved by the echoes, I clashed my backpack tighter. It always sounded like too many steps. In the middle of the hallway, I stopped. Something is there. Something is always there. I turned and looked back at the locker. There was a knock coming from inside. It was slow, drawn out as if a repetitive habit. I held my breath and slowly stepped away, but with each backward step the knocks got louder. Until the locker door started to shake and shudder, twitching at its hinges, a strapping nail, a beating heart, my shoes echoed again. The last time I ran, never looking back. Sometimes, I would run up a dense to the locker to stop whatever was inside from coming out. Usually, I would tumble backwards, fall into the ground like a pile of books as the window blinds behind me dropped like an axe. But it didn't matter what I did. Regardless of how far I got, the locker next to me would open and something would grab my throat and pull me in, encased in rough darkness like being buried alive. There was no door for me to hit. There was no mouth with which to scream. Then I'd wake up, light from a curse. A dream-like state broke in, exhausted. I'd find myself tumbled up in bedsheets. It didn't happen every night, but when it did, the following morning, I'd buy a fish. One of those psaimis fighting fish. It was to calm me down, you see. I had an aquarium in my living room, and watching the fish move around and occasionally fight and eat was relaxing for me. I always had two fish at most. It was relatively low effort since I never had defeat them. Then two would turn to one, and it was mesmerizing. Right until the last moment, their fins and plumage were a swirl of amelite that would bleed into the water as they swayed. One week, though, I had those terrible dreams for three days in a row, and I just didn't want to go to bed. It felt traumatic to even lay there, and I couldn't stay by the aquarium since I only had one fish left, and it didn't want to do anything. So I waited by the window, drinking a late coffee just as the coolness of the soft summer night swept in. When I suddenly got hit by the putrid smell of the pond, which had turned a dark red in its nestled corruption, and then I saw a dark hand emerge out of the pond. It moved so slowly out of the water every inch and effort. I couldn't believe what I saw. I rushed downstairs and felt this dread of something happening just out of sight. My stomach twisted in knots as I quietly crept towards the kitchen window and stopped. I saw the hand. It extended from the now boiling pond, blackened by frostbite, each finger broken and mangled, but despite the visceral agony, it was moving with focused desperation. As the hand pulled itself forward, it extended itself from the sludge. I took a step back petrified. Behind the forearm, tense with muscles, was the upper arm covered in bruises with bits of flesh torn off or barely hanging. After a few more minutes of struttles, I saw the beginning of a shoulder. I was terrified about what kind of face would soon appear. A scream was stuck in my throat. Just as I began to see the start of a neck, the hand and everything attached was violently pulled back into the pond. I lowered the window blinds and fell down in relief and shock. After what felt like an hour, I stood up and went outside. The trees rustled in the cool wind and I walked towards the pond until I was right at the edge and stared in. Where the hand was dragged back into the pond, I found a fender nail and scratch marks. Looking down into the pond, I felt a presence watching me. The water parted slightly and out emerged a paper letter. I took it. My hands slightly trembling. The letter was sealed, but addressed to me. I opened the letter. Paul bent. We created a portal between your backyard and hell. As soon as this particular punishment is done in about 300 years, we will close the portal. As a sign of our regret for this inconvenience, as well as the influence of underworld fumes on your psyche, we will take 500 years off your sentence once you arrive at hell. Warm regards. Unreadable. Beyond comprehension. Terrible hand-writing. The letter shook and disintegrated into a wet sludge which stained my hand. I took myself to bed, exhausted. The morning light just arrived. I fell asleep. A risk I was finally willing to take. In the late afternoon I awoke. It was, surprisingly, the best sleep I had had for the last few days. I didn't dream of anything but stillness and peace. It was what I needed. I didn't want to dream of anything bad or even good, just nothingness. But then I saw my hands stained black at the tips. It looked like necrosis and there was a slight pain when I held anything. But luckily, after a wheat, my fingers returned to normal. After the days had worn off, I took a hike in the forest to reflect on what to do. I entered the hollow, moving through the trunks, sinking and rising under layers of pine needles, until I reached a small rock cliff. I began to climb it, wanting to reach the top to rise above everything. I was about four meters up, feeling some pride in the effort. But then I lost my grip and fell backwards into the needles which broke my fall. I lay there, on hurt, looking up at the canopy. I didn't want to try again. So I stayed there, slowly sinking, thinking about what to do. I was shocked that I was already destined to hell. I never thought I was a bad person. In fact, when a bit drunk, I might admit that deep down, I thought I was a good person. Didn't I struggle enough as a candidate, promising to serve my local community to the point of sacrifice. Never forget, vote Paul Bent. I would have protected neighborhood character in the suburbs and promoted urban renewal in the core. There was so much good I could have done if given the chance. It was only that I didn't get the opportunity. I thought that even if I couldn't go straight to heaven, at least I should arrive part way at the very least purgedatory. But hell, I clenched my fists. I hadn't killed anyone or even wanted to. I wasn't evil, whatever that means. I considered moving away. But I realized that if I did, I might not get a reduction in my hellish punishment, in which case, I would suffer horribly for 500 years. With my ill health and mental stress, I didn't expect I would be long for this world, and considering how few years were likely left to me, they would likely pale in comparison with 500 years of punishment. It was a simple cost-benefit analysis. I stood up and wiped a thin layer of needles from my coat and walked home. As I passed the pond, I noticed that there were new scratch marks. It must have happened again, as I slept the night before. For the next few days, I became sullen and depressed and barely ate. When I looked in the mirror, I saw dark bags under my eyes and a face getting gawnter by the night. I stopped buying fish. What was the point? The last one expired, eventually. Maybe it is better just to die and get this punishment over with. Who knows, maybe my punishment in hell wouldn't be much longer than 500 years. If it was like 700 years or something, then I would be more than half done already. Then again, I kept thinking about that number. 500, a large number, but still small enough for me to grasp. Comprehensible, at least. But that was only a portion of some other undoubtedly larger number. Who knows, maybe I was doomed for tens of thousands of years, and the 500-year reduction was offered because it was such a small, almost meaningless number in comparison. And I was just living next to the pond. I wasn't doing anything. It was inconsequential, a byproduct of someone else's punishment. I didn't know what to do, but I began to spend more time staring at the pond at night, trying to learn more about whatever punishment was being needed out to that desperate soul who only had 300 years left. It was always the same hand. Any nail lost seemed to grow back by the next night, and any flesh cut away restored. But there was always the same stars and tattoos, which must have originally belonged to its owner. The tattoo was of a black dog with two oversized fangs, dripping drops of blood. I wondered if the person had belonged to a gang. I still don't know. There was a viciousness in the hands movements, a lack of remorse and mercy, as it selfishly dug itself into the ground. Did we deserve the same punishment? I couldn't believe it, and I began to imagine all the terrible crimes which that hand must have done, and slowly, my feelings about the hand turned from fear and pity to scorn. I despised the hand with all my imaginative might. I kept struggling to think about anything that I had done that could equal the hand's crimes, but I could think of nothing. One night I'd outdrunk and threw my glass at a wall, and when I stared at the broken shards on the ground trying to scry my future like some ancient sucessay or reading animal bones, I was hit by this memory from a decade ago. When I was young, and in high school, I bullied a person physically and emotionally, to the point that they transferred out of school. But it wasn't just me, it was practically the whole grade, and once that person left, nothing like that ever happened again. I couldn't even remember who that person was, or even their gender, though I am sure they were bullied because of their gender. It doesn't matter. They were there until they weren't, and life moved on. Anyways, there wasn't anyone else like that afterwards, so there wouldn't have been a point. We didn't speak about them again, not even in hushed tones because they were just gone. It was the day after I left them a note in a locker that that I remember. I didn't want to remember that. I poured myself a new drink in a fresh glass. Did I doom myself for something I couldn't even remember until that moment? Those actions as a young man brought me no joy or benefit. It was a pointless action. Besides, I wasn't that same person that I was back then. I hadn't hurt anybody since, and again, it was the whole grade. How could I be judged for something everybody did? I was so angry, and if it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have acted the way I did. It wasn't my fault. If they hadn't transitioned, if they hadn't been different, I never would have bullied anyone. Every night from then on, I tried to remember who they were, what they looked like. Any small detail I could remember that could lead to finding them, to get them somehow, to make everything right again. But my memory was as murky as that pond, and for the life of me I couldn't touch the bottom. The memories began to haunt me. I would drink and remember the taunts and the beedangs. I felt cursed by my own soul. Next to the pond, I sat and watched the hand, memorized its motions and the patterns of whatever force pulled it back into the lake. It was as if the moment to the hand had any sense of hope that it could drag itself out of its dark depths. It would be pulled back in. A sudden slackness before the pull, yanked back so easily, despite everything it must have gone through to reach that moment. It's a horrible punishment of giving and taking hope. I hated that hand, just accept your defeat, your loss, your punishment. I mentally howled. I got so angry that I cut a small sharp branch off of one of the pine trees and started to violently hit the arm. The hand, surprised, let go of the dirt and was instantly pulled away. For the first time in a while, I smiled. I found a new way to pass the time until the end, hoping that by helping in the punishment of that terrible hand, doing my small part, I was increasing hell's goodwill towards me. But now, whenever I hit the hand, it wouldn't react to me. It seemed to accept my thrashes as some new punishment that it must ignore if it ever wanted to escape. I hit it harder. I would break skin. The hand seemed to anticipate my presence, bracing itself from my inevitable and increasingly heavier hits. I would break joints. This became a regular routine for me on those sleepless nights. Although I never had taken pleasure in hurting someone before, it felt good and for a brief period, I stopped reflecting on my past and no longer looked inward. I was able to forget again. I would break fender bones. Those might have been some of my best times. Every night felt like a lifetime with an unending future. Last night, I went out with my stick. I don't know what happened. Maybe I walked a bit too close to the pond or maybe the pond it expanded without me realizing it. It had rained heavily during the day, so it was possible. Or maybe just this once, that soul was allowed to go a little further. Hell-accepting revenge as more acceptable than salvation. I was close to the hand and I whacked it and whacked it again, cut it until it bruised and bled. I couldn't stop. I was so focused on that downwards motion that released through pain that before I could react, the hand twisted, maybe even dislocated its arm and seized my leg. Its grip was unbreakable no matter how I thrashed and kicked. And when the arm was pulled down into the pond, I went screaming down with it. Our final story this week, an aging drifter returns to his abandoned childhood home, drawn by nostalgia and the promise of remembering who he once was before addiction and failure changed him forever. From writer, Emmy Rotter, Creepy Precense, it was 1977 when it started. I was a child, blinded by the novelty of my new life in California. I thought it was a land of possibility, eagerly beckoning me into adulthood. Little did I know that after that sweltering summer day in 1977, this promised land would soon become the bane of my existence in the birthplace of my addiction. I don't know how I ended up here. My vacant childhood home, standing motionless in the garden that spent so many vibrant days in, nostalgia been tempting me lately. It's pulled slowly becoming irresistible. And so, here I am, passing through the area seemed like a perfectly rational reason to see what life was like before I grew up and, coward in the shadow of reality. Unsurprisingly, the house was deserted. I let out a raspy chuckle at how easily the ancient doors buckled, pelting with dust and splinters as they opened. Little pained and determined as I headed inside. The main hallway was eerily quiet and cold. I shivered when I realized we were in the dead of summer. The restless chill nipped at me as I continued into the cramped kitchen. A hazy atmosphere obscured my senses slightly, but I could still make out family photos sprawled across the floor, leaving the walls bare with their rectangular stains. The kitchen was exactly how it was all those years ago, complete with a black substance covering the table. Our last meal. I bent closer, inspecting the dark sludge. The smell was musty and putrid, leaving me reeling. This sound of my choking coughs resonated through the empty kitchen, and I made for the stairs, eager to see my old bedroom. Sit cobwebs lined the walls, net a constantly wipe them from my face and clothes until I burst through that familiar blue door. A warm feeling and nostalgia washed over me, lingering in my chest. I felt tears sting my eyes as I saw the faded star wars posters welcomed me. Everything was identical. From the gentle caress of the carpet to the smooth texture of the walls, slowly I made my way around to the mirror. The grin dropped from my wrinkled face. Sad, pathetic excuse of a man stared back at me with an appropriate dopey expression. A bulbous hairy stump I bulged from underneath my dirty flannel shirt. My face had an oily sheen to it. Bulled spot on my head shined proudly in the sunlight streaming from the window exposed the greasy fingerprints coating the lenses of my glasses. I felt sick. Swifty I turned toward the single bed, biting my thin lips, dust billowed around me, almost applauding the dive that I had performed into my bed. I musty smell invaded my nostrils, but I ignored it. I was a little boy again. I loved from the bed running through the silent house into the garden. If the house hadn't created any impact on me, the garden definitely did. I resembled unruly moorland. Nature had reclaimed the space that I once loved to spend days roaming. Tall grass grazed my legs and wild weeds peaked out at me from every crevice. The once bright yellow paving slabs were smothered in a coat of weeds. I squinted my eyes against the powerful rays and surveyed the kingdom that was once mine. The swing set that my mother used to push me on was still there, and I ran forward, craving her touch one last time. Mommy pushed me higher. My high pitched voice screeched in joy. Her hearty laugh rang to the lush garden as she looked at my baby sister, with the adoration only new parents possess. I was holding her on my lap, enjoying how her little body resembled at all. She brought our family such happiness. My mother was left single after being deserted by my dead beat father, but she did a remarkable job at raising my eight month old sister and I. Each time I was pushed, I relished in the way the wind whistled against my ears, the sun hitting my skin, the smell of flowers and the chorus of grasshoppers. We don't need a dad, I roused, staring at the patch of lilies hidden behind in now imposing conifer tree. My footsteps made no noise as I approached them. The square of floor was small in size and very familiar. Panic gripped me as I bent over and searched feverishly through the lilies. Where are they? They were right here. I exclaimed. My face broke into a satisfied grin that stretched dear to ear. I found them. Two crudely crafted wooden sticks protruded from the cracked ground, staring at me accusingly. I laughed, the noise echoing through the garden. They were poorly made, but what can you expect from an eight year old? I threw my head back inside and ecstasy as the memories flooded me. They were both so weak. My mother was a fighter, but my sister was notably easy to snuff out. It's actually wanted me to do it. Her confused crying was priceless, but not as memorable as the pathetic way my mother spatter on blood at me as her life upped. You're a monster. She gargled out, pressing her pale shaking hands against the gaping wound that stretched from her stomach to her neck. I could have almost taken a picture. Her spitting such powerful words at me while her guts lazily spilled into a puddle around my feet. I leared at the wooden grave markers below me as the nostalgia faded away, finally satisfied. My family was special. They were my first. How many? 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, common, share-alite 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 stories author.