#creepypasta

This is the culmination of the first series of stories, and the one that ties them together. It mostly stands on its own, but it was written for people who've read the rest. If you've only time for a few first, read 9 West, Stock and The Roll, which it leans on hardest. The full order is: The Road Over Crockanroe, The Hearthstone, Red Jenny, The Keeper's Bowl, The Brandy Pad, 9 West, Caldragh, Stock, Each Uisce, Hungry Grass, The Roll, The Fetch, The Narrows.

Hi, I’m Zack, and I’m going to share my experiences with Carbon, a high-tech security lab. Though I’m sure you know me for my experience as a security guard watching over an abandoned Disney park that had lured children to their demise. I had never wanted to talk about any of my other experiences before, but now that I’ve said my first one, I think it’s time for me to explain.

I want you to imagine this. At 3:04 a.m. You open your eyes with a deep breath, released into the room like a coin dropped into a deep well. To your left, the window sits—a sheet of slate framed by curtains that almost meet, sealing in a night as dense and unleavened as wet soil. Moonless, starless space stretches beyond the glass. Across the room, the wardrobe doors rest slightly ajar, holding an interior that is blacker than black.

The job was simple. It paid well enough. Even if it hadn’t, I would have taken it anyway. After nine months of unemployment, choice stops being a luxury and starts feeling like arrogance. I started on a Tuesday. Odd, I know. They said they were in a rush—something about the previous guy leaving without notice. Apparently the guy just walked out mid-week and never came back. A red flag, sure. But red flags fade when rent is due.

I’ve been a Cleaner at the Association for six years now, and in that time, I’ve seen my fair share of strange and horrifying things. I still can’t decide what’s worse—the half-decayed corpses of creatures that shouldn’t exist or the Wardens, walking around freely, who can transform into absolute monsters in the blink of an eye. But the strangest, most unsettling experience of my life didn’t involve blood or gore. It involved a series of conversations I’ll never forget.

You know, I never thought I’d end up as a glorified janitor for a secret organization. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a firefighter or maybe an astronaut. Something cool. Something heroic. Instead, here I am, scrubbing ichor off walls and hauling mysterious black garbage bags to incinerators. But hey, life takes you places, right? And to all those comments asking, “How’d I got recruited by the Association?” … Well, buckle up. your prayers had been answered.

Do you remember the games you played as a child? Running around outside, making up rules, inventing magic where there was none? Maybe not. Maybe that era was already gone by the time you grew up. But I’m sure a few of you—old farts like me—still remember. Those days were magic. We’d stay out past sunset, climbing trees, chasing each other barefoot through the grass, playing whatever game we could dream up on the spot. But there was one we always came back to.

I’m a trucker. Been one for almost twenty years. I’ve seen a lot of strange things on the road—but nothing like this. It happened during my early years, when I still ran long international routes. The kind that cut through nowhere, threading across mountains and ghost towns. I was somewhere in northern Spain, driving through the Babia y Luna Natural Park, heading toward Portugal.

Halle and I had only been living in Brunswick, Georgia for a few months. We moved here from Tallahassee over the summer and honestly, we missed home. But hey, the area had grown on us. We liked the beaches and the culture. But one place we hadn’t checked out yet was Jekyll Island. Jekyll had a mystique to it to say the least. It had history given that it once served as a vacation destination for many of America’s wealthy elites during The Gilded Age. The opportunity to visit said island arose…

I'm a Disney fanatic; if you were to ask me something, I'd know it. But sometimes you don't know EVERYTHING Disney does..

After they came to our door, my sibling stopped being a “problem.” That’s what my parents wanted, at least. But all I can remember is them being a normal kid. Yeah, they caused trouble sometimes–but they were young. That’s it. That’s all it was. Nothing that wouldn’t have passed on its own. And that’s exactly what those two people promised when they showed up. They didn’t look strange at first. Just calm. Polite. Like they’d done this a hundred times before. Five minutes, they said.

In June this year, my son came up in one of my lobster pots. He'd been dead nearly seven years. I'll explain that. But I wanted you to have it first, the way I had it, on the deck of my boat at half five on a Sunday morning in June, with the tide going slack in the Narrows and the gulls screaming and the pot coming up over the gunwale dripping, and something in it that wasn't a lobster. Once you know the rest, you'll not hear it the same.

He smelled like blood. I could smell him from a good distance away. The scent lingered in the air well after he’d gone - a coppery tang mixed in with his cheap perfume. It was that smell before I first looked upon his face that told me there was something very wrong with him.

If you've ever done a walking tour of the Derry Walls, there's a fair chance I've told you about the fetch.

The widow, Laura, walked into the garden. Cracked Stone walls surrounded her, their green vines slithering toward bushes plump with blood-red berries. At the center of the garden stood a rectangular stone basin shaped like an angel. It knelt before the pool as if to deliver water from its mouth. Yet what flowed was bleak black water, filled with sticks and the smal bodies of dying insects. When she was younger, she remembered tossing coins and watching them sink into the water's darkness.…

“HELP!” I yell, at least I believe I’m yelling, the feeling of my skin bubbling, is it bubbling… I don’t know. I can feel it, but I don’t know if it is what I think it is. I am or at least what I believe I am… I don’t know. It’s cold wait what does cold feel like again sigh I think I sighed. My body grows old and decayed, my flesh turning a colour I cannot perceive, my hair falling out of my grotesque scalp or what’s left of it. He… no, IT did this. My senses have been stripped away from me, I…

There's a name tattooed on the inside of my left wrist.

I was eleven years old when it happened. It was Halloween night, and my parents had gone out with my aunt to a party across town, planning to stay overnight at a hotel and return the next afternoon. That left me at home with my seventeen-year-old sister, Jessie, and our older cousin, Hannah. I absolutely adored Hannah; she was the fun, cool older cousin who always brought us treats and took us on adventures.

The email from Becca arrived at 3:14 AM, blinking on the screen like a dying pulse. It contained a single, corrupted video file and a trembling plea: “My little sister Kaylee went missing after she found that tape. Please... find her. Don't let them put her to sleep.”

In shadows of October dawn Was when the sickness came Foul breath of death wanton Denizens plagued in blain . I saw from high window As death drew nigh in tow Courier sent afar Then close my door ajar . As the leaves grew redder And the days grew dire My flock grew fettered Flayed upon the pyre . Cast in glow of dying wick I, too, could feel the sick Solitude in this shadowy hour Locked away inside this tower . Rolling past autumn plains Haze of grey sinks low