My Sugar Daddy Asks Me For Weird Favors | CreepCast

and Alyssa are always trying to outdo each other.

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Welcome back to Creamcast.

Today we are doing an author grab bag from user E-A-P-A-T-B-P-A-K-A Gabby on R slash no sleep.

She has the most popular story, most upvoted story on R slash no sleep.

And it it finally is coming around.

Also, the title of it.

My Sugar Daddy Asked Me for Weird Favors.

I love how that's the most upvoted story on R slash.

On all sleep no sleep.

Which makes sense.

Yeah, but the titles here on some of her most popular stories are just fucking awesome.

My Sugar Daddy Asked Me for Weird Favors.

We're reading every month a parade would pass through my hometown, but we were never allowed to look at it.

Hello?

And then lastly, there's a man who follows me around and narrates my life, and he started to say some unsettling things.

I love, and you know that I love, you know, that I know that you know that I love stories like this that have that nice kick of the nuts title.

You know what I mean?

Just something immediately like, ooh, hello.

I'm window shopping already.

I'm sneaking.

My hands are pressed against the glass, and I'm like, hello?

What's in there?

I'd love to read what you have.

And also, like, you know, we got to read this one.

We read so many no-sleep stories.

And if you go to no sleep and sort by top and of all time, your number one is, my sugar daddy asked for weird favors.

Like, that sounds like a hunter formula if I've ever heard one.

Oh baby.

I love I love it.

I love the idea too of

because I feel like this could also just be a regular Reddit post and it would still be just as horrifying.

So I'm really curious to see like does it does it slip into the paranormal?

Does it slip into like, you know, all these like other kind of like non-normal conventions or is it just going to be a really sleazy man?

Either or it's going to be disgusting and i love that i'm excited it's going to be brutal whatever it is i'm certainly excited for it too so you can check out the author e a p ep i feel like there's an easier way to say this i can't figure out ep epatabig e a p a t b uh p uh their link will be in the description they seem to be kind of no sleep royalty because everything they post like blows up gets a ton of upvotes so hopefully this is cool it seems like they have like a really dedicated fan base on R slash no sleep, which is pretty sick.

I mean, even stuff that's come out this year, thousands of upvotes, which, you know, we're past the, I would say, the heyday of R slash no sleep.

So, to still get that kind of engagement is really cool.

Um,

and I think that it just goes to show that there is some kind of uh reader base that is there with them.

So, as always,

we have the link in the description, not only of the YouTube video, but the online

like Spotify, Apple Podcasts, wherever you're listening us we will be having some kind of link to make sure you get that engagement there and uh go support the reader or the authors uh because they are the lifeblood of the show they are they are they are they're the only reason this train keeps ticking and uh also i mean it's cool work so always support cool work um Now, listen to this, Hunter.

I didn't realize this until I started looking at the top of all time on No Sleep.

Okay, so first place is this one, the Sugar Daddy one, right?

Right.

Second place is My Wife Has been peeking at me from around corners.

Class.

She's done that one.

Third is something walks whistling past my house every night.

Done that one.

We haven't done the fourth one.

She sold my happiness in glass jars.

She sold happiness in glass jars.

That's, you know, I immediately thought of that meme where it's like you put the figurine in the glass jar and you fill it with grum.

Yeah, yeah.

So we haven't done that one.

I'm just going to ignore what you said.

We haven't done that one.

The fifth one is called A Shattered Life, but it's by a user.

I'm pretty sure we've read one of his stories, M59 Gar.

But then after that, six is My Job is Watching a Woman Trapped in a Room.

Seven is I'm a search and rescue officer for the U.S.

Forest Service, which is the stairs in the woods.

We need to, and I want to put this up.

We've covered a lot of the top one.

Eight is the Glenmont Metro.

Yeah, so we, so we have, we've covered quite a bit of them then, which this is the first time I think we've ever actually gone to like R slash no sleep and like, what is the top story?

We were talking about that today.

We found this one.

We were looking through her profile.

All of the names of the stories are fucking awesome.

She's like super active in the storytelling community.

I think that's great.

And we were talking about this before, too.

We have got to redo Stairs in the Woods in the way that we do it now.

Like the first episode of the show.

It was just us kind of talking about the story.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It was more so us just being like, then this happens instead of just reading it and reacting to it.

Well, we thought at at the time we're like surely no one's gonna sit down and listen to us read an entire story that was that was the that's insane i was like people are gonna think this is so boring and then that became the thing that people wanted more than anything so that is one story we i would love to uh read redo give it like a proper reading i think that should be our two-year anniversary i think yeah i mean we're coming up on it here in you know four four five months or something like that yeah so yeah and i there's a lot of other parts to the series now, so we could cover the whole thing.

And I also know the author.

We work together on a bunch of projects.

So I'm sure they'd be happy for it.

I can figure out specifically like how

many parts we should read or like what would be canon, what isn't canon, stuff like that.

So I think that'd be a good two-year anniversary.

Yeah, I think so too.

But as always, guys, be sure to check out E-A-P-A-T-B-P on Reddit for all the news stories that she posts.

Also, we will leave links in the stories to these specific stories, but feel free to just redirect and check out their whole catalog because they are very active and it's pretty sick.

I think that's awesome.

But without further ado, why don't we start off with the top rated, top upvoted story on R/Nosleep?

My sugar daddy asked me for weird favors.

Let's get into it.

Be sure to continue to support us on Spotify, YouTube, all that.

It means a lot.

We are now,

we're like 10th place in the world

on Spotify.

We were 11th.

We are almost top 10, ladies and gentlemen.

So if you want to help that crusade and fucking help us keep pushing and get our goofy ass in the mix of the Joe Rogans, the Theo Vaughns.

Oh, oh, Hunter, Hunter.

We're nine right now.

We're nine.

We're nine.

Why not number one?

We're

two.

We're ahead of Tucker Carlson.

We're two spots behind Caller Daddy.

We got it.

See, Caller Daddy, it was once talked to, now it's evolving.

Well, last year.

Do you remember we hit number one for a day last year on Spotify?

Because we got notified about it during our rap.

That we hit, there was no notification, no one told us anything, but we were number one in the world for a day, and no one said anything.

We didn't find out till the end of the year for a brief, brief moment.

And god damn it, you guys can help us get there again.

It was like a February 26th or something, just completely random.

It was a random day.

I don't know why it would happen that day, but I'll tell you this right now, everybody.

We have, I dare I say, the strongest, most dedicated fan base of podcasts out there on the internet.

Shout it from the rooftops in the comment sections.

The amount of interaction and love in the comments is fucking unbelievable.

And that's why I love you all so much.

Thank you for making the show a reality, a possibility, and for us to even be in the top 10 of podcasts.

You can't even believe how giddy we are and how lucky we feel.

So please know that it never goes unnoticed.

We love you all.

appreciate you guys very much well without further ado let's go ahead and get into it my sugar daddy asks me for weird favors me sugar daddy asked me for weird favors all right well i don't know how to feel about that accent i don't like it either okay

his tender profile said he was 45 but he looked to be in his early 30s at most looking for a sugar baby 700 weekly no sex oh that's so funny hunter that's the same thing that uh you know i saw when you first messaged me god talk about an unbelievable deal.

A sugar baby, $700 weekly

and no scrum.

No grum, no scrum.

How great is that?

You would do it in a heartbeat.

Oh, my God.

Oh, God.

Instantaneously.

I'd be like, I'd even do a little grum, a little scrum, a little grum.

I'd be your little barnacle in the bottom of your boat.

Why not?

Scrape me off, daddy.

I don't even want to picture what

act would translate into, what the barnacle might mean.

We're just going to keep going.

I'm sticky and I'm spread out and I'm stuck.

Okay, joke me off.

Okay.

Okay.

All right.

All right.

The part I was mostly making fun of you for was the part where it says you're actually 45, but you look in your early 30s.

Oh, good.

Yes.

Well, I am a youthful man for my age.

Of course.

It sounded too good to be true, but as a broken university student, broke.

Not broken.

I can't do it anymore.

It sounded too good to be true, but as a broke university student, I was willing to take my chances.

I swiped right and Tinder let me know it was a match.

His message came seconds later.

Hey there, sweetheart.

I cringed at that word.

I hated it, but $700 was $700, so I sucked it up and replied.

Hey.

His name was Jack, and he told me he owned his own business, although he never specified what kind of business it was.

We talked for a while before he asked for my Venmo to send me the first paysment.

After a few minutes, I got the notification.

I stared at the $700 for at least 20 minutes, expecting to wake up from a dream at any second, but it wasn't a dream.

You still there?

I clicked on the message.

Yeah, sorry.

If you don't mind me asking, what are you looking for in return?

Stared at the chat until he replied.

I'm just looking for you to do a few favors for me.

It sounded like it was going to be sexual to me.

Like what?

For example, the first thing I need you to do is pick up a delivery for me that sounded innocent enough but i was still expecting there to be some kind of twist seven hundred dollars to pick up a package come on even i wasn't that naive from the post office or something no

i'll send you the address but i'd rather not do this through tender

you got kick or can you give me a number

kick what is this 2011

I decided to give him my number instead, and he texted me the address immediately, followed by the address to his house, where I would have to drop off the package.

I would immediately assume I was going to be kidnapped or murdered.

Murdered, of course, almost quite instantaneously.

I'd be like, no, sir.

Yeah.

But I'd keep the 700.

I'd say, no, but thank you.

That's what I'd say.

Thank you.

You get some every time.

Thank you, Daddy.

Is what I would say, just like that.

I feel like this is how you approached women before.

This just feels fitting.

I called women daddy.

Thank you, Daddy.

That too.

That too, as well.

But mostly the like, you have $700.

That's going to be a package.

Blue flower pot.

Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

The classic blue flower pot fit.

Yeah.

I grabbed my car keys and wallet and got in my car, putting the address into Google Maps.

Got it.

On my way.

My phone buzzed as I backed out of the driveway.

I'm serious.

Lock the door both times.

Please.

I thought that was a little excessive, but I promised him that I would.

The house looked abandoned.

It had a broken chain link fence around it, with a small door that was hanging onto dear life.

Stuck out like a sore thumb, surrounded by houses that were a lot nicer than this one in comparison.

You haven't jacked shit.

I looked up to see a man standing in the open doorway of the house.

He took up almost the entire space, his head skimming the top of the doorframe.

He was huge, in height and muscles.

His entire torso was covered in tattoos.

Uh, yeah, I guess, I replied, not moving from my spot on the sidewalk.

Stay right there.

I did.

Actually, I don't think I would have moved if he had asked me to.

I looked around and realized that there was no one else on the street.

I was a 21-year-old woman alone in the street.

I gripped my car keys.

A few minutes later, the man came back out carrying a cardboard box.

It was about the size of a shoebox, but stained and damp on some of the corners.

Can you open your car?

I opened the trunk, not wanting that inside of my car seats, and he set it in.

Alright, there you go.

Thanks.

I walked around to the driver's side of the car and opened the door.

Oh, and one more thing.

I looked at him.

Watch out.

I didn't reply.

I blasted my music as I drove to Jack's house, hoping it would drown out my anxiety.

It didn't.

I parked my car in the stone driveway and stayed inside the car, admiring the house.

It was a huge house, with stone pillars on the front porch and the greenest grass I had ever seen in my life.

I turned the car off and got out.

Grabbed the package, walked to the front door, getting the key from where he said it would be.

I opened the door and stepped in, closing it behind me.

I thought about what he had said, about locking the door when I got inside.

I thought that was a little overboard, but as I stared at the closed door, something made me reach out and lock it.

I walked inside, my feet cushioned by the thick maroon carpet, and admired the inside of the house.

All the furniture was wooden and looked incredibly expensive.

I would probably finish school a dozen times with the money that it took to furnish this place.

I set the package down on the coffee table and as I walked back to the door, I heard a phone ringing from somewhere inside the house.

I froze.

In my pocket, my phone buzzed.

I took it out to look.

Don't answer any calls that aren't from Marvin.

Put my phone back and followed the sound of the phone, poking my head into a different room before I found it in an office.

I walked over to the the desk and looked at the caller ID.

Incoming call from Jack.

That was odd.

I grabbed my phone to look at the message again.

I was starting to get a little bit creeped out and decided I wouldn't answer, just to be safe.

I left the house, remembering to lock the door as I left.

Okay, so

he has her go to this place to pick up the package, deliver it to the house, lock the door both times.

But then she hears a phone ringing from elsewhere in the house and at the same time she gets the text don't answer answer calls that aren't from Marvin.

Do you think this is something supernatural?

Do you think this is like some crime ring she's found herself connected to?

It's got to be some kind of crime ring.

Here's the thing, too.

He specifically went on Tinder and is looking for a woman to do this thing, right?

Yeah.

That feels targeted.

So it just feels like he's looking for someone who

wouldn't appear threatening.

She hasn't looked in the box yet either, which assuming off of the stains in the corners, corners.

I mean, it's trying to be, I think, blood or some kind of gunk.

I'm wondering if there's something in the house that is,

like, it almost was like a feeding ritual or something.

Drop the thing off, leave, make sure, and lock both the doors because when the thing comes out, if the doors aren't locked properly, it could get out.

It's kind of where my mind goes from it.

But it's just the

her being, like going specifically on Tinder, looking for a woman, which is presumably, you know, in the age, in the age range he wants, probably like the look he wants.

That motive is still unclear to me.

If we're not looking at this as a no-sleep story, it's just logistically, I would expect this to be drugs.

Like, if I was the girl and it's like, oh, this rich guy wants me to drive to the bad part of town to leave something at his house, I would expect it to be like heroin.

See, I would think it is, if it's not the R/slash-no-sleep thing, I would think that it's like hiding

like a body part.

Just with the, without how she described the bottom of the box so far, I would think, oh, it's, I, I feel like I'm covering up a crime in that way.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Like you're

doing, I'm the middleman for something.

Yeah.

Same vibe though, even if it's drugs, like, yeah, like a middleman into some kind of thing where obviously someone doesn't want to be seen.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

You need someone who can't, shouldn't be tied back to you for the job.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I've done a few more favors for Jack since then.

I drove a bmw to a random park in another city only to get out and drive a different car back to jack's house he had me meet one of his employees at lunch who then gave me a briefcase to deliver to the first house i'd gone to and told me he would know if i looked inside several occasions he asked me to drive down to the same house and stay with the guy whose name was julio for a certain amount of time in total i've made around thirty five hundred dollars Damn.

Most recently, Jack asked me to stay in his house overnight.

I woke up to a text message from him.

I need you to just spend the night at my house.

I just got to say, by the way, this is the kind of ride or die every man needs.

Just gets a text like, hey, take this car to the city.

Don't ask questions.

Get the other one.

Or here, drop this briefcase off somewhere.

Don't look at it.

I like the mode of like a 21-year-old girl, 20-year-old girl who's like, I'm getting paid more than any other job I've ever had.

Like it's, it's like very believable.

What you'd be like, well, yeah, I don't know.

Maybe I just drive a car here.

And you really don't maybe like, you're not trying to like pry too too much because you don't want to ruin a good thing.

Right, right.

Yeah.

It's like,

you know, I'm making money.

I need this money.

So I'm not going to ask a lot of questions.

And I like also, I feel most of these stories would have the character be like, well, I have to look what's in it.

Or I thought locking the door was stupid.

So I didn't do that.

But no, she's like, this is good money.

I'm going to continue to make it.

I think it's also more believable that you don't look.

Like in these situations that seem really odd, it's like, there's some like psychological test where it's like people in grocery stores tend to not steal something because they feel like they're being watched or something the idea of like well this is a trap i'm being trapped like it's too good for me to just take or whatever so i've i it when i was thinking about it it's like the idea of wanting to but you're like oh i bet you this is such a weird predicament that i feel like oh the person has cameras on me or something so i'm just gonna set it down and leave you know like why rock why rock the boat if you don't have to Yeah, yeah, I mean, like, just if you have a good thing going, you have a good thing going.

Yeah.

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Back to the episode.

I hadn't ever seen him in person, but I had talked to him on the phone a few times.

He proceeded to tell me he would pay me $1,000 to spend the night at his house, provided that I followed a few rules.

I drove to his house that evening.

Driveway was empty, and it normally was, but the porch light was on.

Walked up, unlocked the door, went inside, then locked it again.

Everything in the house looked the same.

Jack had told me over the phone that he would leave the list of rules on the dining room table.

Set all my stuff down in the living room.

My bags looked like garbage compared to the fancy furniture in there.

Wandered into the kitchen and then to the dining room.

Sure enough, there was a piece of paper on the wooden table held down by an empty glass.

Lock the door when you come in.

Only answer calls from Marvin.

Don't turn on any faucets between 9 p.m.

and 11 p.m.

Don't open the door for anyone, no matter who they say they are, after 10 p.m.

If the door to the closet at the end of the hall is open, sleep in the library.

If closed, sleep in any of the bedrooms.

The gardener comes at midnight.

If he starts knocking on the windows, hide.

Ooh, fuck.

Turn the TV.

That was kind of creepy, huh?

Yeah, if he starts knocking on the windows, hide.

Yeah.

Yeah, what the fuck?

I'd be like, huh?

Yeah, it's also like, the gardener comes at midnight.

It's like, I don't think that's a gardener.

I don't think that's a standard issue.

Turn the TV on and let it play on static through the night.

Do not forget this.

Help yourself to anything in the fridge.

I'll pay you in the morning.

Good night.

I made sure to follow all the rules.

To be honest, I was regretting my decision.

But, seeing as I was already here and I was getting paid, I decided to stay anyway.

I figured as long as I followed all the rules, I'd be perfectly fine.

Still, it felt a little odd.

What was this?

Haunted house?

Nevertheless, I lounged around the house for a few hours as I was planning on going to sleep around 9 since that's the time that all the weird shit would begin to happen.

At 8.50 I brushed my teeth using the faucet for the last time before 9, checked the closet in the hallway and upon seeing that it was open I moved my stuff into the library and got ready to sleep on the couch.

I locked doors just in case, laid on the couch scrolling through my phone, and I got any more messages from Jack and I started to think of scenarios and reasons as to why he had such strict peculiar sets of rules in this house.

I dozed off at some point because at exactly 10.16 p.m.

I was woken up by the doorbell ringing.

About to get up to check but then remembered the rule.

Don't open the door for anyone, no matter who they say they are, after 10 p.m.

I stayed on the couch trying not to move, paranoid that they would hear even the slightest sound.

It's the police.

Open up.

Didn't move.

Hello?

It's the police.

Open up or we're coming in.

I still didn't move, but I could hear my heartbeat in my ears.

There was a silence for a while after that.

Then the doorbell rang again.

Hey, it's Jack.

Let me in.

Sounded like Jack.

Still, I didn't get up.

He would have a key, wouldn't he?

Why would he need me to let him in?

This continued for almost a full hour.

Different people would ring the doorbell, announce themselves, and then disappear when I didn't respond.

That would be so fucking anxiety-inducing.

Could you imagine that?

Oh my god,

just sitting there, and it's like, hey, it's me.

Open up.

Especially if it goes through different, like, like, women, children, all kinds of stuff.

It's, it, ugh.

That idea of it going on for an hour is so long, too.

I mean, because you know that

would be fucked.

What's actually standing there is like a giant

in my head.

Yeah, who knows?

Who knows

cannibal creature you've ever seen, like a giant when-to-go beast.

And it's just like, hey, it's me, Jack.

You know me, right?

Let me.

There's just something so threatening about somebody who is just like

somebody just lying straight to your face.

Hey, it's Jack, open up.

And it's clearly something pretending to be other people is so it's just so threatening.

There's it's such a simple way, but it's such a good way to elicit fear.

What about that video I just sent you?

Let me see.

What if it was that one man, one jar?

What is this?

Oh, yeah.

That's so fucking stupid.

I hate that this works so good for the story.

Like the integene flipping between all these, like, oh, it's me, your mom.

You know me, right?

Or it's like, oh, it's me.

It's me, Goku.

It's me,

and then immediately back to like, It's me, Paul from the fifth grade.

Remember, we're friends.

Oops.

So it's turned into my entire family, an anime character, and a boy I knew in fifth grade.

What is this creature outside my door?

The hey, it's me, Goku, and then knocking.

It's so creepy.

It's yeah, there's a menace into it.

Like, let me in.

Also, Goku

fucking widened the door for him.

He looks huge.

I don't know why that got me the most.

I was like, Jesus Christ.

Oh, gosh.

Okay.

Yeah, so that's happening out front.

The switching between voices is great.

I love that in any story.

Any mimic creature in like a horror tale is awesome.

I like it.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Very uncanny.

Just odd.

Yeah.

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And gay, let's get back to that story, Chubbies.

I was finally able to fall asleep, and the gardener never came.

When I woke up the next morning, I heard someone in the kitchen.

I got up slowly and unlocked the door as quietly as possible.

Taking my phone with me, walking across the living room and into the kitchen.

I stopped at the entrance and peered in.

It was Jack.

He was standing in front of the stove, stirring something as the coffee machine brewed coffee on the counter behind me.

Hey, good morning, he said when he saw me.

Hi,

I replied, nervous.

I hadn't seen him in person before, but he looked exactly like his pictures online.

Scrambled eggs?

He asked, motioning to the pan with a wooden spoon.

Yeah, thanks.

Walking over to take the plate from him.

I ate my breakfast and drank some coffee in silence.

So, how was it?

It was okay.

Nothing super freaky happened.

Cool.

He's such a jerk.

To force her through that.

Great.

There was an awkwardness in the room.

I think I'm gonna go now.

I have class.

I didn't, but I really wanted to get out of there.

Oh, no.

Yeah, sure.

I'll take you some other time.

Grabbed my stuff and he walked me to my car.

I could see him standing in the driveway, staring at me as I left.

When I got home, I unpacked all my stuff and noticed that I still had the list with me.

Sat on my bed and read it again.

Felt my body tense up as I realized that I had forgotten something.

Turn the TV on and let it play on static through the night.

Do not forget this.

Turn the TV on and let it play on static through the night.

Do not forget this.

Do not forget this.

Stared at the words on the page until they lost meaning.

Beside me, my phone buzzed, snapping me back to reality.

It was a $1,000 payment.

I looked at my phone and then back at the list.

Maybe it wasn't an important step.

As I was thinking this over, text from Jack came.

I'm not in town right now.

I should be back next week.

So you're free from running any more errands for me until then.

Just sit the payment.

Go do something fun.

Uh-oh.

I stared at the message and read it again.

And again, once more for good measure.

I'm not in town right now.

I thought back to this morning and how Jack was in the house, how he gave me breakfast.

I'm not in town right now.

Within minutes, a new text came in this time from a number that I didn't recognize.

Did you forget to do something?

The text was followed by a picture of jack who whoever this version of jack was standing in front of the tv didn't respond next came another picture this one was of the outside of my house it was followed by another text watch out

oh and that's the ending that's fun that's fun that's good yeah it's a fun little like gut punch i see why it did so well because The title works great at getting people to click on it.

It's like, oh, what could this story be about?

And it's short.

It delivers on its themes.

It also, like, the mention of like all the rules.

And then we hear if the gardener comes, taps on the window and, you know, don't answer it or hide from the windows.

It's like, yeah, that's creepy.

But then the gardener never came.

So we don't even get to see what the gardener was, what that looks like.

It kind of leaves the mystery in your mind.

And it leaves the mystery at the end of what this mimic of Jack was.

Probably the same creature that was outside trying to get in the night before.

But because she forgot to turn off TV, like it was able to get inside maybe.

and now it's tracking her.

It's just and like maybe this jack figure she was talking to was like part of some occult group that was like that's aware of these creatures.

Like, there's so many different places you could take it in your mind, but from what the story gives us, it's so minimalist and it works well on everything it sets out to do.

I understand why it's so highly rated, it was really good.

I feel like the uncanny valley is a

internet's favorite form of horror.

Yes, of course, absolutely.

I think that being able to deliver on something like this is

just it's so simple and fun.

And I think that just the idea of doing these minimal weird tasks and just having these like, once again,

uncanny valley kind of things.

And I got to ask,

when

I was talking to you a little bit about this before we recorded, was the idea of rules and lists.

That feels like such a popular.

Like, why do you think that's so popular in these stories?

Have you noticed that?

Like, I was telling you so many of the stories are just like, I worked at this station.

There were five rules.

Or I worked at this place.

Or I, you know, I lived here.

We had one rule.

What do you think rules, like, obviously besides the taboo or whatever, or, you know, rules being broken or following things?

And it's like maybe an easier archetype to write around where it's like, okay, well, you had these rules and you didn't do X.

Therefore, this is going to happen.

Besides that, what do you think makes it so compelling for viewers?

Because they always seem to be a part of the most, I would say, like sought after stories too.

Like even left-right game had that kind of thing.

We have to do this.

These sets of things, you know, structure that gives it to it.

Why do you think that's so popular?

I think it's because it establishes, especially for short stories, it establishes these clear parameters of like.

This has to be followed

or else.

And it gives us two things.

It's like, okay, for one, why does this have to be followed?

Why does this keep the thing we're talking about at bay?

And also, what is the or else?

What could happen?

So it gives you two options.

Immediately hearing that you step into a place and there's a list of like supernatural rules, it gives you already enough tools to start to piece together lore in your mind to be like, what are these creatures, you know, and

whatever I think they are, why does this set of rules hold them back?

Why is this enough to beat them?

So it's just an easy way, I think, to flesh out a story or at least let people flesh it out in their own minds very quickly.

Like, for example, if Hunter, I was like, hey, hey, Hunter, when you get into your car the next time today, be sure to like turn it on, turn it back off, turn it back on.

It's like, okay, why?

Like, what did I do to the car?

And also, why does that stop whatever was done to the car?

Yeah, I think it says,

is it a lie in the first place?

Is it just a superstition to make you go somewhere else?

Like,

it creates so many questions with just a basic

questions, I think.

I think tension and anticipation as well of like,

it's almost like being at your friend's house and you're too loud at night or like you drop something and you're like waiting for one of the parents to like yell at you, like, go to bed or something.

It's just, it's a simple way of really establishing a set of parameters and like a world, like rules of the world that when broken, it's going like some shit's going to stir.

And I think it just lets you kind of be, once again, a bit ambiguous or it lets you kind of like really ramp into like maybe more interesting concepts without having to like justify shit.

It's just like, well, you broke the rule.

Therefore, this is happening now.

Yeah, yeah.

This thing happened.

Uh-oh.

You know, it's a, what's the one for Mandela Catalog?

You shouldn't have done that, Mark.

Yeah.

You shouldn't have done that.

Uh-oh.

Bad decision.

Uh-oh.

Sorry, Mark.

Uh-oh.

Okay, well, let's move into the next one here, which is every month a parade was.

That was pretty good.

I also kept it together.

I was about to start laughing, but I kept it together at the end when she was looking at the piece of paper.

And it's like, I'd done something bad.

And she's repeating the lines.

Just in my head, it's like there was a knock at the door.

I look over, and Goku.

Hey, what's up, Slucker?

Hey, it's me, Goku.

I'm gonna take you out of the Nimbus Cloud.

It's me, Goku.

Come on.

Yeah, well, I just kept that.

It's funny you said that too, because I just kept hearing that.

The knocking.

I gotta find the dragon balls.

Just the thought.

Like, you're four feet from the doors, you can see him clearly.

And he's just like making eye contact.

Like,

it's me, Goku.

It's me, Goku.

I'd love to see an edit of that.

Instead of him saying it's Goku, after that, it's him like doing the power-up sounds, like,

and he's behind the door, but then there's still the knocking in there.

So he's like,

Like that kind of thing.

The power energy, it's all muffled through the other side of the door, but still, there's the just the nice knock.

I love the idea of like normal people coming to this podcast because they're like, oh, they're covering horror stories, and I'm really into literature.

I'll listen.

And then it's like,

hey, it's me, Goku.

Yeah.

All right.

Anyway, are we ready to move into our next story for this author?

Yeah, we are.

So, like I said, the second

story we're reading from Gabby is every month a parade would pass through my hometown, but we were never allowed to look at it, which I want to say, I was talking with a friend the other day just about like

even

like Halloween parades and stuff.

And he was like, you know, oh, in my town, there's like a nice parade.

And I was telling him.

I was like, oh, I really wish that we, because when I was younger, there used to be way more parades or like, you know, you'd go into your town and do more communal things.

But it seems so weird now doesn't it like if you told someone younger that they'd probably be like why the would i go do that that sounds lame

like it like i yeah stories

some versions yeah

yeah i'm sure not you know not all-encompassing but i would say i would say a majority but stories like this makes you think like just as like an older person that you know, like just seeing this parade or whatever, and then seeing this title, like you were never allowed to look at it, it almost feels like you have like a repressed memory or something.

Or you're like, oh shit, did I even look at it?

Like, I love, I love a title like this.

It's just, there's, there's something that hits so close to home that I think with this, with just like the title.

Yeah, it works.

Like, um,

well, you know, this is actually kind of similar to like the whole thing you were asking with rules, where it's like in the title alone, uh, where it says, but we were never allowed to look at it.

It's like, okay, why, what is the parade that I can't look at it?

Why does not looking at it stop whatever it is or keeps it from affecting me?

Um, so it creates a lot of questions with with one point, which I think is one of the reasons the whole rule idea is so

why so many people latch on to it in like online games.

Yeah, I mean, there's probably a sense, there's probably like justification that there's probably rules and everything, but it was more so like, man, there was just so many stories I was looking at where it's like, yeah,

a very typical one was like, I worked at X Place.

I was given like, and they had weird rules.

It was just that kind of vibe.

There were so many.

But yeah, I don't know.

I just find it kind of interesting.

It also seemed all the stories were written around the same time to where that might have just been like a popular archetype at the time, too.

Yeah, I mean, it was, I mean, we see that this one, the Sugar Daddy one, was top rated on No Sleep.

So a lot of writers probably just went and was like, okay, Rolls got it.

That's what

I got in the story.

We're going to do this.

Yeah.

Yeah, exactly.

It's a good chance.

All right.

So.

I've lived in Arizona for the past 15 years of my life, but I had a very different life before that.

I used to live in a small town in the middle of nowhere.

I couldn't even tell you what side of the country it's on or if it even is in the United States.

I think you could tell that.

Oh, I lived in Arizona?

What are you talking about?

I couldn't even tell you what side of the country it's on or even to the United States.

I mean, I understand what they're saying.

Before Arizona.

Before Arizona.

Oh, okay.

I had a very different life.

Yeah, it was like, I could tell you if he was in the United States.

Like, okay, well.

Yeah, they're just

Illinois.

Where am I?

is this Saudi Arabia I can't tell or it looks the same

it was a small forest town with dense trees in all directions but where exactly this particular forest is well your guess is as good as mine the only thing I know for certain is the name of the town point pine i lived in point pine for the first 10 years of my life before we moved summer after my 10th birthday Once we left, my parents never spoke of it again.

In fact, they acted as if it never even existed.

And to them, I guess it didn't.

I don't really blame them either.

Man, I keep mushmouthing today because I had, as before we started recording, I had a milkshake and it just like completely froze my lips.

So anytime I have to say like two consonants back to back, it's rough.

Yeah, I mean, big

fat lips like that would be hard to throw around if you can't feel them.

That felt oddly.

No, I'm just saying that if you had giant fat fucking lips like you do, and they get all numbed up and frozen, yeah, it'd probably be like two, it'd be like a bunch of down pillows being thrown around.

Talking about me throwing my lips around feels very suggestive.

I'm just saying, and I'm not even saying it, but I'm just saying that if you had large fat, I mean, like, like your lips could be considered morbidly obese.

You know, my wife loves these lips, actually.

Big fan.

Big fan.

You could ask her.

Well,

I feel kind of inappropriate to me, but I'm not going to.

I'm not going to.

Oh, so now I'm the one being in pro.

Now I'm the one being inappropriate.

We haven't addressed that drawing you made of me on the show yet, that you decided to do a piece about me.

And it was,

the lips are so big, not only do they take up my entire torso, but they lay over my shoes and are like, they hang out to the sides like drapery.

I thought you would have liked it.

Okay.

I was at a waffle house and a guy walked up to me and said, said, is this you?

And held up that picture.

It's true.

Did you say yes?

Or did you say that?

I said, I said, I don't.

You know what you probably said?

I said, I don't know what that picture.

You probably said this.

You probably said, oh, and you're like, sorry, I just drink a milkshake.

But whipshow

talk.

It's probably what you said.

I said, I don't know who that is.

I don't know what you're talking about, but whoever drew that picture, someone should probably call his local FBI hotline and should probably report him for certain threats he has made towards certain people, especially political figures.

Um, I also just realized that I think something should be done about it, but I don't know if that is.

I loved how childish your sentence was, too.

And you're just like, I couldn't believe it.

I drank, I drank a milkshake, and now it's like my mouths are all lived up, and it's all weird and numb.

I can't,

every time I say back continents, I can't even do it.

It's weird because I drank a big old milkshake.

Drink a big old.

I like to think that you were like a 1950s diner

doing a little doo-wop in the parking lot.

It was a sonic.

All right, so it's basically the new age version of that.

Oh my God.

When my Twitter account got stolen, when I fell for that scam a little bit ago, and the video of me started going around, everyone was like, not him.

Lips aren't big enough.

It's true.

It is.

I will say that that was freaky.

For people that don't know, Isaiah's.

Twitter account got hacked and the guy made like a deep fake video.

Or not even a video.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that no, that was me, that was me.

That was a video I took because I thought the scam was that I was talking to Twitter's verification team and that there was an attempt to buy account, and I was dumb and fell for it.

So I made the video to like certify the account or whatever.

But then after they stole the account, they're like, hey, it's a crypto thing.

So you wait.

The video you recorded was you

promoting a crypto.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

Let me back up.

Let me me back up.

Yeah, because you you you have okay.

Yeah, please tell me.

Okay, so I get a phone call

where someone claims to be with like Twitter or X's or whatever, sport and safety team, and then they send me V emails to verify like the the case is opened or whatever that are from twitter.com.

It's like support slash twitter.com.

And I look up the URL and it's like it was legit a few years ago back when X was Twitter, but now that it's rebranded, I guess people can just like spoof the email or someone's bought bought the domain or something like that for twitter.com or whatever.

So it all came from like twitter.com.

And they already had information like phone number, account, email tides, stuff like that.

And they sent like a portal to like verify login through.

So I go through, everything looks like X, and they're like, we need to verify identity.

And when I signed up for the blue check mark, they did the thing where it's like, oh, a picture of yourself.

And like, I've got my account back from other websites before where you have to send a video of yourself.

And they're like, yeah, I was on the phone with this supposed tech guy who's like yeah just send a video of yourself with your name date and then uh this code and the code was dollar sign w-e-n and yes in hindsight in hindsight i should have realized what that meant i thought it was like a code it's like a symbol and then three letters

part of the account name Oh my god.

I should have known.

I should have known.

But I did it for like the Twitter guy.

And then as soon as he has that, I've already entered the password.

I get locked out of everything at once.

And then they log in.

They log in, change all of my stuff, and then post that video.

Oh, my God.

That is so funny.

It was not funny for me at all.

And my wife.

My wife, who was not with me, because she was feeling bad.

And my family was in for the holidays.

So I was doing this between hanging out with them.

We were out.

We went on another tour of New Orleans, which I know you're fond of.

We go out on another tour.

And while I'm on the tour, all this happens.

So my wife, who wasn't with me, saw the video and was like, well, surely he wasn't stupid enough to fall for this.

So she says it was AI and a fake.

Even though I assumed that's what everyone assumed, because how could I be that stupid?

It's not even that, Isaiah.

It's not even that.

It's like...

It's like your emotion.

You look like a fucking robot.

Like the lighting is all weird.

You're like in this

prison cell, and you're just like, Huh, so this is Isaiah,

uh, Isaiah Nichols.

What it's like, the way that this because I was, because I was, I thought I was a baby

killing everybody.

I was like, oh, yeah, you got a hex and AI video,

whatever.

And I remember being like, man, they even got like the kind of like grainy,

like dark room.

Like, he's like, just in a weird room.

To think that you, to think that you look like a fucking Guantanamo Bay

hostage and you were like in your room with a notepad and wrote that crypto coin down is so fucking funny.

Oh my God.

My favorite thing too later was the follow-up when I was like, oh damn, because people are like, wait, he's doing that, he's promoting this, whatever.

And everybody I saw was being like, no, he got hacked or whatever.

And then I go to Instagram and that's whenever I see your story, you have your shades on, you're outside.

You're like, okay, so here's pretty much what's going on.

You're like walking outside and you recorded yourself with these sunglasses on.

So pretty much I got hacked and it was a whole weird thing.

So sorry about that.

Sorry about that, you guys.

I was under a lot of duress.

Thank you.

Think that you were getting off like a fucking alligator bayou tour.

Whatever itself.

Ah, cheese.

You know what?

Cheese and crackers.

That is just unfortunate.

All right.

We better go on this ghost tour.

You know what's crazy?

You know what's crazy?

It was literally an alligator bayou tour.

There was a gator next to me, and it was a boat tour.

Like down

to it.

I was under a lot of duress.

What do you want?

My shades were on.

What do you want me to do?

Oh, gosh.

No, I was standing in my room.

I thought it was a verification.

So I'm just like i'm just low energy i have the phone i just show my face and i show the paper and stuff and i'm like okay is this good and i was on the phone with the guy still and he's like okay that should do it and i'm like is that good he's like yeah that's good and then he spends 10 minutes explaining to me like what the hack was how it happened how i can provide safety and at the end i thanked him and said sorry i thought you were a scammer earlier And he's like, no, no problem.

He just said, oh, oh, yeah, no problem.

Don't worry about it.

Was he,

I talked to this guy for like 20, 25 minutes, and he was like, oh, it's no problem.

He kept being like, it's good that you're aware.

It's good that you're aware of like scammers online and you're trying to be proactive.

That is fucking crazy, man.

Yeah, it happened to a couple other guys, too.

A couple other YouTubers got hit with the same one at the same time.

There's also, there's like another scam

going around right now where it's like, it'll say, oh, YouTube sent you a private video or something.

I get those all the time.

Yeah.

I don't even know how many I've I've reported and like blocked, and they still just keep sending it from like their

YouTube email addresses.

Yeah.

Yeah, they're all like YouTube, youtube.com, and it'll be like, um,

oh, well,

it like if you click on the video, it's like a AI video of uh, the whoever, what's the CEO's name right now?

After Susan, the guy they replaced with, whoever that is, uh, it'll be his face AI'd.

And it's like, uh, you need to change your payout to this number below.

You need to send all the money from your account here.

Thank you.

God, dude.

Appreciate you.

Anyways, I forgot.

God, I totally forgot that we're even recording a fucking episode.

That is so funny.

It's so funny.

The first time we've talked about it.

Well, it happened so recently.

Anyways.

Yeah.

I'm glad.

I feel like we should just start from the fucking top or whatever.

I mean, we started talking about where were we at.

I don't really know.

I don't really blame them either.

I think, so basically what's happened so far, been in Arizona the past 15 years, where they came up before that was a small town that was basically like in the middle of nowhere and it's

a place called Point Pine.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

This all started because my lips are, oh yeah, that brings me back.

People were seeing that video of me and they were like, oh, wait, no, I think this is actually him.

And they would Photoshop a screenshot from that video, but my lips are the whole screen.

So

that's what that's what my point is.

Also, I just love your youth pastor energy about it, too.

Just like, my wife loves these lips because they're good at kissing, and she loves these kisses from these big, soft croissants on my face.

That was the big thing:

I was looking at your lips, and they looked like big, fat, fucking croissants, like giant pigs and blankets.

That's why, that's why, if you look at the image, they look like croissants.

Hello?

That youth pastor dig was a deep cut.

All right,

back to the story.

I'm done.

I don't like this bit anymore.

This has been

too personal.

I don't like this world anymore.

I don't like this direction.

These jokes have gone.

I'm going to continue.

So anyway, yeah, weird place, Point Pine.

I don't really blame them either.

I caught on pretty quickly and realized that they were trying their hardest to forget the memory of Point Pine.

Whenever kids at school asked me where I was from, I simply told them I was from a small town that they have never heard of.

I also learned early on that any questions about Point Pine would be met with punishments.

A few months after we moved to Arizona, my older sister Felicity had a school project about family history.

She did it in our life in Point Pine, wrote about some of the things she remembered from there.

Our mom found her project the day before she turned it in and burned it in the backyard.

When Felicity came home that afternoon, her parents took her up to her bedroom or heard Felicity crying out every few minutes in what I assume was pain.

Were they just beating her?

A word.

Doesn't it sound like that a little bit?

Yeah.

I said nothing, and from that moment on, neither of us mentioned Point Pine again.

Except for me, right now.

I've decided to tell you all about it.

I don't know what is causing me to remember all these things that I had liked up in the deepest parts of my brain.

Maybe it's the fact that my father died about a week ago.

Since he died, my mom's remained silent.

Hasn't said a word to anyone.

She hasn't even cried.

In fact, she ended up sending my father's remains off to God knows where.

My money in

my money in on Point Pine.

My money is on Point Pine.

Oh, that makes more sense, yeah.

My money's on Point Pine, although I'd be crazy to ask.

I've started recalling random little things about the town that, at the time, seemed like normal everyday things that we as residents were all used to.

Now, as I look back, I realize that they're not as normal as I thought back then.

One peculiar thing about Point Pine had to do with the Point Pine Bakery.

Whenever you were in there, the owner, Mr.

Terrence, always knew what you were about to order.

I remember the kids have some sort of rumor about Mr.

Terrence being a magician who could read minds.

Although, whenever you paid for your baked goods, you had to tip Mr.

Terrence with an old item of clothing you had grown out of.

What the fuck?

There's a giant box up by the register that everyone tossed old baby clothing and shoes into.

What the fuck?

I

love that.

That's cool.

That's cool.

It's like he collects memories or he collects old, old beliefs.

Like he knows the future because he holds the past or something like that.

I love this.

I love these settings, by the way, like small, like twin peaks, vibes, whatever.

Yeah, yeah, it's very

Gravity Falls, Gravity Falls vibes, or

the town from Alan Wake.

I forget the name of it right now, but yeah, like, or Twin Peaks, very twin peaks.

Yeah, I just, dude, I said that.

Oh, you did.

I couldn't.

I literally couldn't hear you, but I liked it better when I said it.

I liked it better.

That's fair.

That's fair.

That was one of the odd things.

Although you'll come to realize that it won't seem that weird in comparison to some of the other things about Point Pine.

Every year on your birthday, you had to get blood work done.

I don't think anyone really knew what the point of this was or if they were actually looking for something.

We all just knew that our birthdays would start off with a trip to the Point Pine labs.

Everyone had to be up at 8.13 a.m.

There's a system of speakers placed around the town like an amusement park or something and at 8.13 without fail the wailing alarm sound would ricochet through the neighborhoods waking everybody up.

This was followed by parents coming to to wake up their children and get them out of bed as quickly as possible, like the house was on fire or something.

Sometimes I expected it to be.

All the Point Pine schools were placed in different areas of the town.

Point Pine Elementary was towards the east, Point Pine Middle School was in the west, Point Pine High was in the dead center of town, Point Pine University was up on a small hill towards the south.

If you hadn't noticed by now, every place in town was named Point Pine Blank, Point Pine Cafe, Point Pine Mall, Point Pine Grocery, etc.

Certainly, one of the weirdest things by far that took place in Point Pine was the Point Pine Monthly Parade.

Happened every month, without fail.

It was never on the same date, and each month a student from Point Pine High was chosen to be in it.

The weird thing about this parade was that we weren't allowed to watch it go by.

Not out on the streets, not from the windows, not even on television.

That was one of the most enforced rules.

You must never, under any circumstance, look at the parade.

In fact, for the most part, we weren't even allowed outside when the parade passed through.

We always knew when the parade was about to start because it always happened the same way.

You would hear a chorus of voices, like a church choir, singing a melody.

It wasn't a familiar one that I knew.

I was only familiar with it in the sense that I heard it once a month.

It sounded like it could be from a nursery rhyme or something similar.

The voices seemed to come from everywhere, nowhere all at once.

It was like they were coming from the sky, the ground, the trees, the buildings, like everything in Point Pine was singing.

Once you heard the first note, you had five minutes to get inside a house or building that had locks on the doors.

This might come as a surprise, but in Point Pine, not many buildings contain locks.

So if you happened to be out and about on the street when the singing started, you had about three options on the places you could go.

One of the schools, the staff break room in the Point Pine bar, or the fridge in the Point Pine Pizza Shop.

Man, that's wild that there's only three different locations in town that have locks.

That feels like very intentional.

But everyone knows.

Yeah, but everyone knows where those three parts are, too.

That's why I'm wondering why they make it so easy to basically get fucked out in the open.

And also, the

parade sounds like a rapture almost.

It's like, oh, you hear the voices, like a church choir singing a melody.

It comes from the sky all at once.

Yeah, it has that.

I mean, it almost, like, I don't know why my mind immediately went to the 1970s Wickerman, like the weird pagan kind of

like like dancing, like the choir, people in the costumes and stuff like that.

But the idea of it coming from like the trees and the earth and stuff, I thought was just kind of peculiar, like just kind of interesting.

One year in the month of August, my friend Lee and I decided we were going to break the rules and not go inside when the parade passed.

Now that I think about it, I'm surprised that kids didn't do this more often, considering that, well, when you tell kids that they must absolutely never do something, they often do that exact thing.

Since we didn't know when the parade was coming, where it started, or the exact path that it took around town, we decided the smartest thing to do would be to wait in the forest near the Point Pine Library until the parade eventually came down the street.

So, we basically decided to spend about half of the month of August hanging out near or around the library.

Around the third week of the month, while we were sitting on the steps of the library talking about some random things that aren't important, we heard the music start.

Lee and I looked at each other and then took off running into the trees.

While everyone else raced to the nearest school.

We were far enough into the forest that someone on the street wouldn't see us, but stay close enough so that we were still able to see a part of the road.

This is also like you, this is what I mean about like questions or like rules do a good job at like creating world building because it's like, what were those moments like then?

Did everyone go hide in the school and the teachers lock all the doors and then just look at the kids and say, just a little longer.

The parade will be gone any moment.

Just wait.

Like, I love whenever the rules affect in a whole town, though.

Like,

it's fun whenever it's the entire community is abiding by this thing as well.

Yeah, this is, I don't know, it makes me ask so many questions about it.

It feels good.

Fun world building, for sure.

Yeah.

We waited for a while, whispering to each other and then shushing one another as we waited for the infamous parade to pass.

This year, my sister's friend Reed was chosen to work on the parade.

She's a few years older than my sister, but they were friends because Reed used to live next door to us when we were younger.

We were crouching in the bushes and leaves when we heard the chorus of voices getting louder, therefore closer.

Dude, I totally see it.

I straightened my back a little bit in my crouched position to try to see what Lee was seeing.

I was always a short kid.

Even now I'm shorter than most guys my age or any age, really.

So Lee always pretty much towered over me.

I can't see anything.

I hissed, shifting my position.

Shh.

They might hear us.

I stopped moving and instead waited for them to get closer, where they were bound to pass right in front of my line of sight.

Oh no oh crap suddenly lee dove to the ground landing in the fetal position with his head cradled in his hands what i asked looking from him to the street i saw her i saw that girl

breed i asked looking over to try to spot her lee grabbed me and slammed me down to the ground

what was that for

you don't want to look at it

I noticed that for the first time in all of the years that I had known him, Lee looked absolutely terrified.

Turned my back on the parade and sat down to look at Lee instead.

What did you see?

Those things.

They did something to her.

They're eating her, Cody.

But she doesn't even care.

Oh.

Good God.

Oh, that's so fun.

Oh, my word.

Oh, that's great.

I looked at Lee, who still had his head in his hands.

He was crying now.

Sat with my back to the parade, no longer wanting to see.

Heard the singing get louder.

Cody!

Don't, don't look!

Cody!

Cody!

Now the voice sounded like Reed.

Look at us, Cody!

I shut my eyes.

The voices went on for a few minutes longer, and at one point, Lee started wailing.

Kept my eyes shut the entire time.

After that, it moved along and continued its way through town.

Once we began to hear everyone coming out of their hiding places, I stood up and leaned down to help Lee get up.

Once he stood up, he kept his head down.

Lee, what?

What's wrong?

I could hear him sniffling.

Lee?

Finally responded as he lifted his head.

It took my eyes.

I will never forget the dark, bleeding holes in Lee's face and the cuts around his skin.

I threw up in the forest for a a good three minutes.

Before I was able to help Lee out of the forest, a few adults saw us and got our parents.

Came and got us right away.

Day after that, my family moved out of Point Pine.

I never knew what became of Lee after that day.

Minutes after we left, my parents acted like Point Pine never existed.

It was ever discussed, and I never had the nerve to ask about Lee again.

As far as I know, Lee was the only person who ever saw the parade, and he was never able to see anything else after that.

I don't know if Point Pine still exists.

I'd like to go check it out again, but even if I knew where it was or how to get there, I don't think I'd ever go back.

I have a feeling that I wouldn't exactly get a warm welcome, although I can't shake the thought that my parents were somehow still connected to the town.

And after all those years.

And that's the end.

That was cool.

That's fun.

I love the...

I love the way that Gabby's ending the stories too.

Which, the cool thing about this for audience members that first time like reading her stories, apparently there is a whole plethora of point pine stories, and she has made a thread that you can go and look at that has like all the stories attached to this town, which is pretty sick.

I mean, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

It is an eight-part story, the point pine, point pine series.

They work as individual stories, but it's cool to know that there's like an entire kind of lore, I guess, that you could like build or, you know, just if you like the existence of this town and the kind of weird things that happen in it, it's cool that there's a just like a nice backlog of stories that just fit exactly in this town.

Yeah, that

I gotta say, so far, this author is batting two for two.

Uh, both of these have been great.

Point pine, like I said, I love the

idea of

you, you have this town where like these one-off series could happen.

And the issue I always have with these continuation series, whenever we cover them, is that you need so much context to understand what's going on.

Like, that's the reason

I got so upset when we read My Job's Watching A Woman Trapped in a Room.

It's like, okay, well, I don't want to read a bunch of other stories to understand this one.

Whereas with the Point Pine, it seems like these are standalone stories that just so happen to happen, so happen to happen in the same town.

Yeah.

And the one we just read, by the way, is the first one in the series.

So if you want to read the other seven parts, well, you've already heard the intro now, so you can continue from there.

But that's great.

I'd be down depending on how people like these to do the point pine series.

That would be pretty sick.

That was fun.

I enjoyed that.

I like the idea, too, of like just the little details in that story of the parade happens once a month, because it has to be a sacrifice or a sacrificial offering to also a parade when I think it's just a monster that's in the street.

That's like singing and bellowing.

It might be like a manifestation or maybe like a conjoined thing that's like kind of crawling through the streets, but then it's like acting as a parade but it seems like an entity that's moving through the town and kind of like making a display of the sacrifice once at least said they're eating her but she doesn't care it's like she's in a trance almost being consumed by whatever they are the song even the song makes it seem like maybe that's the trance you know like that like it's like a spell or something like that but i love the idea of uh which i could be totally wrong in misreading it but i love the idea of like oh yeah when you were a kid there was a parade that happened every month but really it's like oh no it's not a parade it's like a fucking abhorrent thing crawling through the streets, like making a making a spectacle of its of its sacrifice.

You know, I think that that's like such a sick idea.

They have to give up something to whatever the, I mean, it seems like the idea with point pines, but there's a bunch of different entities in it, but there's some entity where something has to be sacrificed, and they have to sacrifice up, you know, they're young to give it, give into it.

But at the end, whenever that voice is speaking to our main character,

he says that it's using Reed's voice now.

So it's like, are they like assimilating her into itself?

Like, again, when you leave the door open like that, it lets people ask questions and they think about the story a lot longer than they read it.

Yeah.

I think that's impressive.

Which, you know, it leaves me at a place where I would love to just hear the next couple months of like, yeah, you know, I had to know.

Like, I was so

this obsessive curiosity that keeps dwelling, which, you know, I think.

They always say leave people wanting more, but these older stories, as we've said before in the past, they're just so like drive-by, you know, like here it is, boom, we're done, and move off.

These, some of these stories, it'd be so sick to just see how they get flushed out a bit, you know.

And, you know, we found it as well that if you have flushed out too much, it loses its mystique and its, you know, its mystery.

But still, that was just a lot of fun.

Like, I was at a spot where I was like, oh, my God, yes, please, more.

And then it just kind of, and then it kind of, you know, just slowly fades out.

into being done.

But I, yeah, I had a lot of fun with that one.

I just love that idea of the parade monster.

I think that's, that's just really cool.

But luckily, we are on our last one, which is also a sick name of a story, which is there's a man who follows me around and narrates my life.

And he started to stay, and he started to say some unsettling things.

So I love the,

I love already the same way with the weird favors, the sugar daddy, that kind of stuff, the evasive feeling of...

like somebody being around you and just constantly just like i mean like a plague or like a fucking virus or something hanging around, being like, could you imagine being like, if it goes the way that I'm thinking of being like, he put up his, he put up his jacket and walked over.

Like, you're having somebody narrate your entire life, like, it would drive you insane.

Yeah, it's kind of like how I am with you.

You're kind of like the thing that follows me around and torments my life.

It's true.

Or I'm a guy on Twitter who's like, hey, by the way,

write down this crypto thing.

Okay.

It wasn't even at Twitter.

He wasn't even at Twitter.

He just said he was.

You thought so with the email.

I thought he was.

I thought he was talking about Mr.

Musk himself, for all I knew.

Isaiah, I'm hitting you all personally to help you with this.

Is he Swedish?

He has such a weird accent.

I can never do it.

He's just kidding.

I am become meme.

Wait away.

I am become meme.

That is like the cringiest, one of the lamest fucking things we've heard.

I am become meme.

He looks forward and he's like wait away

remember when he started a government agency called doge he says he says uh uh put a much

put a bunch i become him put a bunch

you're so cool

wow this is great i i love the everything app

i do too I especially love how when all the emails for the old one got stolen, they use those to push a craft.

Whatever entity, by the way, that's in this story would fucking hate having to narrate my life, man.

He masturbates.

He continues to masturbate.

He's masturbating again.

He took a shit.

He masturbates while he shits.

He's masturbating.

He's masturbating.

It smells in here.

I'm like, that's not narrating.

That's your own thing.

He's like, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

He masturbates.

Like you're just holding eye contact with him.

Yeah, exactly.

He puts on his socks, he masturbates

before you're even out of the bed.

That's rough, dude.

Yeah, exactly.

Straight from the gun.

Yeah, exactly.

And then he says, he gets out of bed.

Sigh.

Another day here.

He does hot yoga.

He masturbates.

All right.

Anyway, he drives to work.

He calls Isaiah.

He masturbates.

Ew, ah, doubt.

Cut that out right now.

They say enough stuff already on the subreddit.

We don't need to encourage that.

Okay, I'm going to read the story now.

He's always been here.

Although, I actually don't know if he's a he.

And though I wouldn't want to assume anything, the voice is definitely a male's voice.

I've never seen his face.

Always the back of him.

He wears a black trench coat with a popped collar so that all I can really see is the very top of his head and part of his black boots.

I can't communicate with him, and I figured this out a few years back.

He just stands a few feet away from me at all times, his back to me, narrating my entire life.

No one else can see him.

I figured this out a few years back as well, or can they hear him?

Fine day usually starts off the same.

Always wake up to the same sentence.

Natalie wakes up and rolls over in her bed.

Every single day he says that, because that is what I do.

It's all very mundane.

My life is not that interesting after all.

Sort of learned to live with it, and I can almost tune him out now.

I've never really told anyone else about him because I know that no one would believe me.

So I really don't have much of a choice other than learning to deal with it and tuning him out when I really need to.

About a week ago, I was cooking dinner, mashed potatoes, and black bean tacos, tuning him out as normal.

As I was chopping up some cilantro for my tacos, however, he said something that caught my attention.

Natalia is innocently chopping cilantro without any knowledge that she is in grave danger.

Fuck that, dude.

I'd be like, excuse me?

Oh, what?

I like to think that every time she looks up at him, too, like, what?

He kind of hides.

He's like, that kind of goes behind a corner and he's just like looking at her.

Well, it says that he's always a few feet away, but with the back facing him or facing her.

So does that mean when she tries to get closer, he just like takes a step away at the same time?

Like if she starts running after him, will he start running?

Natalia.

Or does he just float?

I like the thing that he runs.

It's like you hear like his like his like duck footsteps slapping on the ground.

Falling after her.

Natalia can make it jiggle.

Wouldn't it be terrifying if like you got into your house and you shut the door behind him and then a few minutes later you hear the door fly open and him sprinting over to you?

Yeah, he's sprinting backwards

because you never see his face.

So he's running.

Yeah, turn around so I can run towards you.

Now that's

bro, that's a horrifying idea.

Think about something running like full sprint speed but backwards so i can just see the back of its head getting closer that's an awful visual i froze the knife in the middle of my small pile of cilantro and looked over at him he was standing on the other side of the kitchen island facing my dinner table what i asked knowing that he wasn't going to reply at this point i think i'd be more freaked out about him replying than him not He said nothing for a few minutes, so I finished chopping, wiping the pieces of cilantro that got stuck to the blade with my finger cutting it in the process

i walked around and turned on the faucet rinsing the knife in my finger natalia cut herself and her blood oozed out pleasing the one who watches nope

no no no no no what do you mean please i don't yeah i don't i

this is this is already i'm like you know what shame on you What do you want her to do?

Fuck, I mean, what can you do?

Fucking nothing, right?

Well, you said shame on you, implying that she needs to do something.

No, no, no, I'm saying shame on you, the guy who's saying that, like, pleasing the one who watches.

I see what you're saying.

Yeah, that, well, I mean, like, it's, it's some entity, like some supernatural entity that follows you around, and now it's saying it likes it when you bleed and that you're in grave danger.

Like, uh, excuse me?

You getting hurt makes me chortle.

I turned the faucet off and turned around.

He had it moved, but I was sure that I heard him correctly.

Walked over to the window on the wall to my left and pulled on the cord, shutting the blinds as I became paranoid.

Managed to eat my dinner and do the dishes without any other weird comments and got ready for bed.

I got sleepier, I reached over and turned off the lamp by my bed, rolling over onto my left side and closing my eyes.

I'd be pissed, man.

I'd be like, we've been doing this fucking game for years, and this is the kind of bullshit you want to pull.

It's like, okay, all right, we've been good to each other.

You know, I let you stay in my home.

Yeah, well, what the fuck is this?

You've been in my house for this long, and you're really going to just start pulling the shit now.

It's overreacts.

Yeah, exactly.

I think he just keeps saying chortling.

She begins to chortle.

She's like, I'm not laughing.

She chortles.

Chortles more than anyone ever chortles.

It's funny to imagine

that,

like, he's communicating like a dad who doesn't know how to work through feelings.

Like, she's yelling.

And he's just like, Natalie is upset.

Natalia is mad at me.

Natalia is mad at me.

Natalia is mad at me.

I love to chortle.

Yeah, you are almost exactly.

You're not quite there, but you're really close to the voice you did for Mr.

Widemouth.

It's very same note, very similar.

There you go.

Yeah.

That's it.

I opened my eyes, sitting up and looking over at his silhouette, slightly lit by the moonlight.

Wait a few minutes, but he said nothing else, and I eventually fell asleep.

I woke up the next morning as my alarm went off.

Natalia wakes up and rolls over in bed.

One day closer to her inevitable death.

Wouldn't it be messed up if he just started doing that?

Like, she's not actually about to die or in any danger, but he just starts doing that to make her feel like.

I mean, it kind of fucking sounds like it.

Really?

Out of all the years you've been doing this, and now you're just like, haha, just kidding.

But am I?

Technically, not really.

Is it real?

I don't know.

I guess you'll have to find out.

You'll have to find out today when you're in your car.

No big deal.

I'm sure it's fine.

I'm sure you can go start it.

It won't blow up.

Trust me.

Yeah, there's definitely not a pipe bomb underneath your seat.

Don't even look.

And it starts up just fine.

He's like, I told you to trust me.

Well, I tell you, you're perfectly safe, I swear.

I got up, walking into the bathroom, and slamming the door shut, annoyed and a little bit scared.

He had been narrating my entire life and had never said anything creepy or out of the ordinary.

So, what was going on now?

I opened the faucet and began splashing water onto my face.

Natalia washes her face, but she doesn't seem to realize that it is much easier for someone to attack when her eyes are closed.

That's so fucked up.

She's completely fine in there, but just says stuff like that.

He's like, I have a trident.

You're like, what?

Nothing.

I really didn't say anything.

Why would he have a trident?

I don't know.

You tell me.

Poseidon, Poseidon, God of the sea.

I don't know.

I goof around.

It's what I do.

I like to have fun.

I'm a silly man.

I chord a lot.

I'm silly.

Anyway, do you want to kill yourself today?

Yeah, why don't you put this in your mouth and jump on it?

Put this in your mouth and jump on it.

Just hop up and down.

You don't even find it.

I swear.

I'm fucking with you.

I'm fucking with you.

It's a joke.

Calm down.

It's a joke.

You're so serious.

You'd be much prettier if you smiled.

There it is.

He's like, he's like

passively misogynist.

It's like one day she just realizes she's like, yeah, actually, he was like a misogynist this whole time.

He just really amps it up.

Are you seriously wearing that today?

You should try wearing makeup.

She's like, I do.

Maybe your boss will give you that promotion if you dress better.

If you smile nicer.

Why don't...

Why are you working?

Shouldn't you try cooking?

You like that.

That stresses you out less.

Or no, he's doing it in like the third person thing so as she's getting ready for work he like he's like in the corner and he's like now natalia thinks that she will be fulfilled by continuing her day at work little does she know she would be much happier as a stay-at-home mom she's like excuse excuse me and he's got like he's got like a red pill podcast in his ear he like pulls out his bud real quick like never mind Natalia Natalia looks at baby clothes online even though her eggs are totally dry she's far too old

little does she realize she should have had this revelation 12 years ago.

Yeah, exactly.

She's like, why are you doing this?

He just like shrugs.

I like the thing, too, he just shrugs all the time.

Yeah, she asks him.

He's like, oh.

He does the Jim Halpert lip thing, and he just shrugs.

She looks over every now and then, and he just like...

He starts shaving his head, smoking cigars.

He's just becoming

just getting red-filled over time.

I rinsed the soap away from my eye area, looked at my reflection in front of me, and at his standing behind me.

Finished rinsing my face with my eyes open and managed to try it without completely covering my eyes.

The rest of my week went pretty similar.

Normal narrations for the most part with some creepy stuff sprinkled in.

He is coming for her very soon.

It is unavoidable.

Natalia must die.

At one point, it's like, get out of the car.

Like, I'm pulling over.

What are you talking to me about?

Yeah.

Stop.

every time he said something i looked around at my surroundings paranoid spent the entire week anxious and paranoid barely slept fearing that i would wake up in the middle of the night to some performing spontaneous surgery on me put a knife in my bedside drawer and pepper spray under my pillow yesterday there were more creepier things than usual natalia's days are numbered natalia has been feeling anxious as she should

The one who watches is arriving shortly.

The one who watches is very excited to kill Natalia.

There will be no escape, only death.

The thing, too, that makes it creepy is that he's just feet away.

He's so close.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I didn't, if I mean, like, if you want to, he could just turn around and kill her at any time.

Because who knows what he is?

He's some supernatural being, obviously.

There was a story I read in college during one of my literature courses.

We had a semester in short stories, and there's one short story we read that was about this couple who

it was in a world where doctors had developed a science that can predict your date of death.

So it became a thing where, like around the United States,

some people saw it as taboo.

Like Bible Belt regions were like denounced.

It said it was of the devil.

And like in more like progressive city areas, people would go get it.

And they would have parties up until then.

People became more risky up until it, stuff like that.

And the story centered around this couple who

the wife really wants to go get it.

and the husband disagrees, and then one day she gets it without telling him.

And then it's like the next five years of their life are miserable because, like, it said she was going to die in five years.

So, the next five years, every day, they're just sad, depressed.

They can never come out of it.

And then, eventually, I think the way it ends, if I remember right, is they're sitting around that night waiting for her to die, and then the clock strikes midnight, and the story ends.

So, she didn't die, or like the test was wrong, or something like that.

But it's like the anticipation of it absolutely ruined what time they did have, regardless of what happened.

And it's kind of, I don't know, this story reminded me of it because it's like she was okay with this entity living near her, but now that it's become menacing, it's adapted this tone of

like it's become dread.

It went from something that she got over to scary all again just because of what it's saying.

But for all we know, it's just it's doing it to mess with her.

It could be the agent that wants to kill her.

And there's not really a lot she can do about it.

Yeah.

No, it's like that.

It's psychological torture.

Yeah, it's like the embodiment of dread.

Like he is a manifestation of like anxiety or like impending death.

I didn't go out anywhere for fear that would somehow cause whatever was going to happen to happen sooner.

Last night I was getting ready for bed, brushing my teeth and staring at his reflection behind me in the mirror.

As I swished mouthwash around in my mouth, he spoke again.

Natalia brushes her teeth for the last time.

Tomorrow, she dies.

I spit out the mouthwash, choking on a bit that had made its way down my throat.

Coughed and wheezed.

Natalia choked on the mouthwash, feeling like she was dying.

But it's not her time yet.

Her time is tomorrow.

It's really funny to imagine that he's like a jerk about it too.

She like chokes and he's like, up, up, up.

Not yet.

Now it's not the death date.

That's tomorrow.

Don't worry.

Don't worry.

You won't die here.

You're going, it's tomorrow.

You're fine.

It's tomorrow.

Just coughing.

Stay, enjoy.

Choke as much as you want.

You're fine right now.

I managed to catch my breath and walked over to my bed, crawling in and leaving the lamps on.

Last thing I knew was to be woken up at at midnight and have to fight off a killer in the dark.

I woke up today a few hours before my alarm and got up.

I was still alive.

Nothing was out of place.

Maybe I wasn't going to die today.

Maybe it was all some sort of fluke.

I walked into the bathroom, grabbed my toothbrush, squeezed out some toothpaste to brush my teeth, and put the toothbrush in my mouth.

Looked up in the mirror at my reflection, and then I froze.

I spit into the sink and looked around the bathroom.

Stuck my head back into my bedroom and looked around there as well.

I made my way through every single room room in my house, but he was nowhere to be seen.

He was gone.

25 years following me around and narrating my life, and now suddenly, when I was supposed to die, he just disappeared.

Somehow this made me feel worse, as I realized that while the things he was saying were creepy, they were also helping me by warning me of how much time I had left.

Now I had no warning and no choice but to wait it out and see what happened.

I can't shake the feeling that I'm definitely going to die.

But how?

And by who?

Who was the one who watches?

What did that even mean?

I've spent my entire day in the kitchen, figured there are more exits here as well as weapons.

I'd probably be safer here than in another smaller room of the house.

So far, nothing has happened.

Sitting in silence, which is odd because I've never been in complete silence.

About an hour ago, all the lights began to flicker in the house.

But that only lasted a few seconds.

It's gone back to normal now.

Still don't know what to expect, but I think I'm probably safer at my house.

Well, I thought I would be until the doorbell rang.

Got up and walked over to the living room.

Walking up to the door and peering out of the peephole, it was him.

He was standing outside my porch with his back to me as usual.

I didn't move.

I didn't even breathe, so I just watched him standing there.

Still out there now, but he hasn't said a word.

Still in my kitchen, not knowing what to do.

I could hear him mumbling outside the door a few minutes ago, I finally decided to get up and listen.

2,000, 1,999.

Oh, no.

1,900.

Oh, my God.

Dude, fuck that.

Oh, that freaked me out.

Just, oh, the idea of the guy that's always been there just is back to you counting down.

Oh, my gosh.

He's still counting down, and I've now got about 20 minutes left.

I can see that it's getting darker and darker outside as he counts down.

It's not even three o'clock in the afternoon yet.

Time I look out the window, something disappears.

A house on my street, a car, a tree.

Whenever something vanishes, it's replaced with darkness.

And he keeps counting down.

Despite being my last chance at communication, I'm going to die today.

It almost seems menacing.

It almost seems like

like an angel of death or something, but the idea of death to just being that when he counts down, you're just going to be nothing is fucking horrifying.

Disappears, right?

It also seems like she's going to get attacked.

It just seems like her world is collapsing.

Like there's nowhere to go.

She'll just disappear.

Yeah.

And there's nothing.

I mean, it's like I said earlier, he's like the embodiment of the fear of death, but he's literally standing there counting next to her.

And also, there's something menacing about this guy who has followed you everywhere you've gone for 25 years and you wake up one day and he's gone.

Like,

you would feel, you would feel alone in a way that you probably don't remember feeling, you know, after all.

No,

it would be so...

The psychological horror of this is just, Jesus, so fucked.

I mean, God, like,

having him be gone, would that not absolutely have that just be riddled in your brain?

Like, you're like, well, what's wrong?

What's happening?

Why is this different?

Like, even if it's a positive change, it would never fully be positive because you'd be so freaked out.

Yeah, the inevitability of death, like I said, but also

there's this note of, what am I trying to say?

Oh, of like the unbeatableness of it.

Like, it's, it's, like, what do you do?

You can't run from it.

You can't get away.

And when it does get away, it's just standing outside now.

The world's disappearing.

It is like, it's like mortality.

It's, it's good.

I like it.

It's a, the countdown's so menacing.

That's such a fun note.

Yeah, no, I fucking, I really, such a fun little,

it was such a fun story.

God, I almost want to, you want to read one more?

I'm just, I'm kind of stoked.

They're so short and to the point.

Let's see what the fourth one is.

There's one that I wanted to wanted to do.

It was called My Family is Cursed.

A Clown Shows Up at Everyone's 10th Birthday, but No One Ever Hires One.

I thought that one sounds so sick.

Is that not fucking crazy?

It's a funny title.

Yeah, let's do it.

Yeah, let's do that one.

All right.

So we're going to tack on one more here.

And this one is, as Hunter said, My Family is Cursed.

Clown shows up at everyone's 10th birthday, but no one ever hires one.

Uh, also, this is the same author as always, she is killing it so far.

These are three great stories in a row.

My earliest memory of the clown is from my cousin Jake's 10th birthday party.

I was only five, but I distinctly remember the commotion surrounding the clown.

I remember my parents preparing me before we left the house and on the drive there.

There's going to be a clown at Jake's party, my dad said.

Just be nice.

All you have to do is be nice, my mom added i didn't understand why they were so worried my mom kept wiping her hands on her dress the entire drive to jake's house or why my dad kept taking deep breaths weren't clouds supposed to be at birthday parties when we got to jake's house there was something going on the kids were running around the backyard and jumping into the bouncy castle but the adults were standing around in silence their eyes darting back and forth across the yard while some of my aunts and uncles walked in and out of the house periodically.

It was like they were all waiting for something to happen.

This feels very uh, it

like how every 27 years, or however long I think it's 27 years.

Well, I was gonna say, I mean,

the it thing makes sense, jeeberscreebers, but it immediately made me think of Tommy Taffy.

Oh, yeah, yeah, this is Tommy Taffy.

You're right, that's the perfect one-to-one draw, or at least just that kind of you know, and you know, just that world of creepy things shows up at X time.

I'm Tommy Taffy, yeah, yeah, not the drug's gonna happen here,

Everything's fine.

We should really read the rest of Tommy Taffy.

I think that's a good thing.

There's more to it.

Yeah, there's two more parts.

We read half of it.

Oh, wow.

I didn't know.

Yeah.

Hey, kids.

Hey!

That's all I have to do.

Watch out, watch out, watch out.

That's all it is.

Hello!

That's all that.

That's all of it.

There it is.

As I jumped at the bouncy castle along with the rest of my cousins, I noticed a movement in the bushes near the gate that led into the backyard.

Here it comes.

I continued to bounce, trying to get higher each time in order to get a better look at whatever was there.

Finally, I saw the clown appear from behind the bushes and watched as he unlatched the gate.

Here we go.

I stopped bouncing and tried to maintain my balance as I watched the clown step into the yard, close the gate behind himself, pushed my fingers through the mesh in the bouncy castle, and pressed my face against it, staring at the clown as he scanned the backyard until his eyes eyes landed on me.

He stared at me for a few seconds, and I stared back, not really knowing what to do.

Nobody else seemed to have noticed him yet.

My cousins continued bouncing around behind me.

He was short, he wore a curly, rainbow-colored wig.

His face was white, and it seemed like his skin was naturally that pale.

Didn't look like pain at all.

His lips were normal-sized, but bright red.

He had a giant, round, red nose.

His eyes were dark, so dark that I couldn't distinguish the pupil from from the iris.

He had two black lines that started above the black eyebrows and ran down his eyelids to the top of his cheeks, which appeared to be inflated with something.

They were round and protruding, with a pink blush on them.

His skin was smooth, like porcelain.

He wore yellow polka dot pants that were held up by red suspenders, and a white shirt with giant red buttons down the front.

red ruffles around the neck, chest, and sleeves.

He wore shiny red clown shoes and he carried a gift bag in one hand.

I don't know how long I stood there watching him, but suddenly I was being pulled out of the bouncy house by my mom.

She dragged me to the table and set me down in a chair in between herself and my dad.

I continued to watch the clown as he approached my cousin Lisa and pulled out a pink balloon from a pocket in his pants.

He blew up the balloon and then twisted it into a dog, handing it to her.

She took the balloon dog from the clown and ran to her mom, my Aunt Chelsea, who grabbed Lisa roughly and dragged her away from the clown.

There was an impalpable amount of tension from the remainder of of Jake's birthday party.

Our parents wouldn't let us stray too far away, and the clown stayed the entire time, wandering around the yard and handing out balloon animals or honking his nose for the children.

Yeah, you are completely right about this being a Tommy Taffy thing.

Feels just like it.

When it came time to open presents, we watched as Jake unwrapped countless video games and action figures, along with a few clothing items.

Once he finished opening the last gift from the family member, the clown walked up to Jake and handed him the gift bag he had been carrying around the entire party.

Watched as Jake's mom tried to stop the clown from handing Jake the gift while my uncle held her back.

What?

It's just funny to be like, no!

No!

The uncle hold her back, and then Jake's like, oh, cool, present.

You fucking run, kid.

Run!

God!

What the fuck?

I mean, like, I mean, 10, they should know something's up.

Look at their shooting sub level of like, what's your problem?

10 years old, is your mom like no

and your uncle's like holding her back whatever and he's like all right cool thank you for the gift

fucking idiot what the

that would be you as a kid oh my god

i'm like uh that's what i was super hugly thank you Your mom's crying and you're like, what's your problem?

Exactly.

Bob, would you shut the fuck up?

I'm eating candy and burgers.

Jesus.

What the fuck's your problem?

Jesus Christ.

We all watched as Jake thanked the clown and opened the gift bag, taking out handfuls of tissue paper until he reached in and pulled out the gift.

It's a book.

I saw his mom's sigh in relief.

Jake turned the book over in his hands, looking at it.

It was a small, hard cut.

I just laughing if the bomb was, if the book was like a bomb.

Yeah,

just blew his face.

Just kills everyone in the party.

Like, oh, thank you for the boom.

It was a small, hardcover book with a glossy dust jacket that had a drawing of a beach on it.

Jake thanked the clown and walked away from him, through the gate, and away from the house.

Once he was gone, Jake's dad snatched the book from him.

I asked him about it later, but he told me his parents throwed it out.

Saw the clown a few times after that.

At every cousin's 10th birthday party, he would show up in the same outfit every time and give them a hardcover picture book that their parents would get rid of.

Yeah, this, I like the idea if it's like a family curse.

Like maybe generations back, one of them made a deal or something, and now this entity shows up at every party and they have to just let it happen or else the god.

Again, it's one of those rule things.

The consequences of getting rid of it are worse than putting up with it, whatever that means.

When I was 10, the same thing happened.

And although I begged my parents to let me see the book, they declined.

The night at my birthday party, I snuck out of my room and saw my dad go up into the attic with my book.

Tried to find it a few times after that day, but he had hidden it well.

It was nowhere to be seen.

I once asked my parents why any of us had birthday parties, if they were so afraid of the clown, but they told me that the clown would show up anyway.

He always knew.

I didn't see the clown for a couple of years.

All my cousins had passed the age of 10, and none of them were old enough to have their own children yet.

When I turned 20, my parents died in a car accident, accident and I inherited their house.

By that time, I'd forgotten all about the clown in the book and didn't care to read it or figure out why they had taken it away.

And then, about 12 years later, my daughter Wendy had her 10th birthday party.

My wife knew about the clown and we had already seen it appear once before at Jake's twins' birthday party.

We had prepared Wendy and had given her the same warnings my parents had given me, be nice to the clown.

About 30 minutes into the party, the clown jumped over the backyard fence and wandered over to the table where Wendy and her cousins were getting makeovers.

I stopped myself from running over and stopping him.

He looked exactly as I remembered him.

Not a single thing had changed, not even his outfit.

I watched as he caught my niece Alice's eye, pulled out a blue balloon from his pocket.

He blew the balloon up, pulled out another blue one, and then used them both to form a hat, which he gently placed on her head.

I watched as she thanked him, and he clapped his hands together and then continued to walk around my backyard.

Nobody ever tried to stop him, because we had always been warned not to.

We were never specifically told what would happen if we tried, but we knew it was bad.

None of us wanted to find out what it would be.

When it was time to open presents, I continued to eye the gift bag in the clown's hand.

Once Wendy was done with opening the gifts given to her by family members, the clown approached her and handed her the bag.

She took it gently, slowly opened it, digging around the tissue paper until she pulled out the book.

Thank you, she said, smiling at the clown.

He took a bow then walked away, jumping back over the fence.

I let out a sigh of relief once he was gone, and I approached Wendy, taking the book from her.

She didn't seem to mind that it was being taken.

She seemed glad.

I decided to hide it up in the attic, just as my parents had done with me.

But as I stared at it in my hands, curiosity was beginning to set in.

It was the same as all the other books I had seen.

Hardcover with a glossy dust jacket that contained a drawing on the front, but no title.

This one had a drawing of a girl that resembled Wendy, standing in front of a birthday cake and about to blow out the candles.

She had the same curly brown hair and green eyes as Wendy.

I opened the book and noticed an inscription on the inside of the cover that said, Happy tenth birthday, Wendy!

The first page was blank, but the next page is where the story started.

There was a drawing of the girl on the cover, wearing a party hat and holding a pile of gifts.

Under that, it read, Today is Wendy's tenth.

How happy is she?

She got every gift she wants, even things she doesn't need.

Turn the page as I continue to read the story that depicted various drawings of a girl that resembled my daughter.

She did various birthday party activities.

Wendy laughs along with friends, and all the guests are filled with glee.

Whitney tries to sneak a peek at every gift that she receives.

There were drawings of Wendy with family and friends, everyone smiling and hugging Wendy.

And then, from beyond the backyard fence, comes the best guest of them all.

A fuddy, fuddy cloud, here to have a ball.

On the man, I'm so hooked in right now.

On that page was a drawing of the clown as it jumped over the fence, grinning.

This cloud loves the party, and it loves its 10th birthdays too.

He will never miss a chance to show up where he's due.

The next drawing was of the clown in the center of the page, surrounded by black.

But this birthday's

I'm looking around the room.

I'm getting a little freaked out.

I turned the page to see a drawing of the clown running around the party, chasing guests who appear to be frightened.

They've been drawn with their mouths open and wide-eyed as they ran away from the clown.

The clown runs around the yard and pulls something from his pocket.

Not a balloon, not a magic handkerchief, but something big and sharp and shiny.

The next page has a drawing of a gleaming butcher knife dripping with blood.

A lot of guests must die, but don't worry.

Wendy will be fined.

The next four pages contain various drawings of the clown slaughtering people at the birthday party.

Some had their necks sliced open, some were stabbed, some lost body parts.

The clown had his fun.

His job has been done.

Happy 10th birthday to Wendy.

He will see you at the next one.

The last drawing was of the clown jumping back over the fence, leaving a pile of dead bodies behind him.

I shut the book as a chill ran down my spine.

I realized why our parents ever showed us the books, especially if they were all this creepy.

I wonder why the clown would even give us these books.

I decided to do as my parents had done and get rid of the book at the end of the party.

As I tossed the book on top of the fridge, I heard the first scream.

I ran to the door and threw it open just in time to see everyone running away from the clown.

He was back and he stood right by the fence with a butcher knife in his hands.

On the ground next to him was my cousin Paola's child, Trevor, face down in the grass.

I scanned the backyard looking for Wendy, but she was nowhere to be seen.

All the guests ran across the yard, trying to get as far away from the clown as possible.

I watched as Jake tossed his children over the fence and into his neighbor's yard, followed by his husband and then himself.

I looked for my wife and I spotted her running towards me into the house.

Where's Wendy?

I asked, grabbing her arm.

She jumped the fence a while ago.

She's fine.

We need to hide.

She dragged me inside with her as the screams continued.

A few more family members made it inside and we hid in the kitchen in the living room.

After a while, the screams died out and I slowly got up, opening the door and peering out into the backyard.

He's gone, I said as I threw open the door and walked outside.

There were a total of 10 dead people.

And a few minutes after the cops arrived, so did Jake, his family, and Wendy.

I ran to her as I saw her coming up the driveway, picking her up into my arms.

I'm so glad you're okay.

I kept her by my side for the rest of the night as we answered questions.

I didn't tell the police that I knew the clown, as they would never believe my story about the curse.

Instead, we all told them we had no idea who the clown was and that we hadn't hired anyone.

Hours later, everyone was finally gone.

Wendy had gone to bed, and I went downstairs and helped my wife clean up some of the mess.

Once we were done, I grabbed the book from the top of the fridge and handed it to her.

What's this?

It's what he gave her, Rose.

Read it.

I waited for her to finish reading the book.

When she was done, she tossed it onto the counter.

What the fuck?

Did he plan all that?

Is this supposed to be some stupid joke?

I shrugged.

Did did this happen to everyone else?

I don't know.

Our parents never let us read the books.

This is so fucked up, David.

Stood in silence as Rose grabbed the book again, giving it a disgusted look.

I'm gonna go look for something.

I made my way to the attic entrance in the hall and pulled down the ladder.

Slowly made my way up, each step creaking as I stood on it.

When I reached the top, I flipped a switch and the lights turned on, illuminating the attic enough for me to see.

I dug through countless boxes and moved old decor and furniture around until I found it.

A book that had been given to me on my 10th birthday.

It had hidden under the cushion of an old chair.

I pulled it out and looked at the drawings of the house, with a single light on in one of the windows.

I opened the book and found a similar engraving on the inside cover that read, Happy 10th, David.

Turned the pages and began to read the story, ignoring the pictures.

Today is David's tenth birthday.

What a good one it will be.

David eats pizza.

His favorite topic is cheese.

He has a water blue fight with his cousin Eric, and they take cover in the trees.

Everything is fun, and soon it will be great.

Here comes the clown.

He's never late.

David's birthday was a blast, and his gifts were also fun.

But don't be sad that it's over.

The fun has just begun.

Years go by, and the clown sees David again.

It's now his daughter's 10th birthday, and today the fun will end.

A lot of guests had fun, and for others, this day was their last.

But David's family's alive.

Thank the clown for that.

And now it's time for bed.

Time to get some sleep.

Don't forget to check on Wendy.

She hasn't made a peep.

Bro,

That's it.

Oh, man.

The final drawing in the book showed an empty bed in a dark room with a window that was wide open.

I stared at it for a second before it hit me.

I tossed the book aside as I got a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach.

Something was wrong.

Wendy!

What's going on?

I didn't reply as I hurried down the ladder and ran down the hall into Wendy's bedroom.

Throwing the door open, flipped the light on, looked around the room, but it was too late.

She was gone.

Her bed was empty, and her window was wide open.

Ah,

that is such a good ending.

I'll tell you right now, I was like, I don't know, like killer clown with a knife, blah, blah, blah.

That little last bit there at the end totally fucking killed it.

Yeah, it did it well.

I kind of figured as they were explaining everything that the whole part about

the book, because it says this doesn't happen often.

And then it goes to like the clown's murder spree.

So the book only comes true if you look at it.

If you don't look at it like all the parents did, it doesn't happen.

It's the beckoning.

It's like literally a seance.

The book is a seance that when you read it, it like it is something that when you flip through the pages, it like is basically creating a seance for you and gives the clown like or whatever fucking entity this clown is the like ability to come back and like take people's lives.

Also, the reason why that the adults are just like, just throw it away.

Just never even look at it ever.

You know,

such a fun way of going about it you know i because at first i was like you know i really like the setup i like the whole idea of this book and i was like it would it be more effective if literally it was just like the person the kid that it was like if you read it the kid gets taken like you don't know what happens to him yeah but It is fun that it's like this killing spree thing.

But see, I think that the ending, it really is where it's just like, wait, what the fuck?

And you go down and it's gone.

And to the pictures that are accompanied by it, it's so creepy.

Like, I love the idea too that it's like, you know, it opens and the book is already formed.

Like, it's like by you touching it and even opening it, it's already done.

Like,

the seal is broken.

It's also so ministering, because I know it's supernatural, but it's so wild to think that at David, when he was 10, at his 10th birthday party, he got a book.

And then in that book was the detail of his daughter when she's 10, how she'll be kidnapped by the clown.

That's such a cool touch.

Do you think that it's that, or do you think that, because I read it like this, that I think that the books are empty, and whoever opens said book, it's like that whatever seal is broken.

That's how the book manifests its story.

I mean, that's what I think.

It could certainly be that way.

It's like the vessel for it.

Yeah.

Or the clowns, like some entity that knows when the book will be open.

So it's pretty open there either way.

If it is that foreshadowing or it just knows that he's like, oh, it's not going to open up yet.

It's almost like this predestination thing that's also pretty fucked up.

I think that for a killer clown story, honestly, banged.

That was fucking sick.

That's one of the better killer clown stories I've ever read.

This author goes stupid heart in the paint by the way also just have been awesome we had the same thing with last episode with the spelunking kind of torturous uh

you know the the the torturous spelunking claustrophobic nightmare where it's just that nice short and sweet these were all just this like just like a nice

like palatable story that's just like a fun quick read like i would love to see a compilation of these stories in a book like almost like scary stories to tell in the dark like it has that kind of thing where it's you could like sit down and read it to your friends and you get freaked out like oh read another one oh no well wait you know it's just it has that kind of digestibility that i think is really really fun

yeah this author does great um i'm just scrolling through the rest of their stuff there's so many titles like some of these titles how would you like to die today the boy in the paperbag mask The elevator at work took me to a floor that doesn't exist.

Like all of these sounds so good.

And also, like I said, the point Pine, there is an entire series about Point Pine.

There's got to be a Point Pine that reads.

We should check out.

We should do a Point Pine read through.

We got to get a Point Pine read-through.

Listen to some of these titles from the Point Pine series.

The Day the Angel Came.

There's a New Guy in Town and We Don't Like Him.

The thing in the giant bear costume won't stop handing out popcorn.

That's so good.

I love it.

Oh, wait, because wait, listen to this one.

Listen to this one.

Due to recent violent events, pumpkins are no longer allowed in Point Pine.

That's awesome.

I love it because I think that Gabby uses

the title, like the scheming of these R slash no sleep things to really like make it something very enticing.

Like it uses the format in a really great fucking way.

And I think that it goes to show that people are connecting with it with the amount of like...

you know, upvotes she gets and the kind of like fan base she appears to have.

I think it's just fucking awesome.

So I will say that if you enjoyed the stories today as much as we did, please go support E-A-P-A-T-B-P.

That's the username for Gabby on Reddit.

You can look at her entire body of work there.

It's fucking awesome.

There's so many.

This is just such a fun read, man.

I had a great time this episode.

One month ago, Gabby has a story called If You Meet Me, Please Kill Me.

Like, these titles are great.

Every one of them makes me want to see what the rest of the story is about.

This is, yeah, I understand why,

like, they're considered no sleep royalty, while their they're stuffed as well.

Because so far, we've read four.

And normally, when we read through a bunch of authors' stuff, there's like, oh, that one wasn't that great.

That one wasn't that great.

All four of those short stories were awesome.

Yeah, and

it just goes to show that once, here's the thing, too, when doing the creative process of writing and stuff, you're going to write some things where things just like, eh, just don't line up or people don't resonate with it.

That doesn't necessarily, you know, it's not like that doesn't give it any value.

It's just impressive seeing a writer here where the stories that we read, which granted, they were the top voted ones or the most upvoted ones basically but the amount and and with how consistent she's been with posting it's just cool to see somebody that's still active still being creative because we do read a lot of stuff where somebody was just like somebody's phase where they're like i just wanted to write

the one here yeah so it's it's cool to see somebody that's still proactive and writing and still has this like creative itch to get out there and make shit because it's draining man it's hard and then two if things don't kind of like line up for you it's very easy to like you know let the wind out of your sails and just kind of be like fuck it, never mind.

I'm just not going to.

So, to see somebody who is so motivated in writing, I just think is really cool.

And I definitely want to give that shout out.

Please go support these and read them, give them up votes, comment on them, engage with them, show your buddies.

That's the best way to support these people.

What was your favorite of the ones we read today?

Oh man, I don't know.

I mean, ending-wise, I really enjoyed the clown one.

The clown, uh, that one was really great.

Um, you know,

I like the premise of the narrator one a lot.

I like the premise a lot.

I think if I had to say which one I like the most, I think every month the parade.

And I think that's just because the concept of that monster is a lot of fun.

I enjoyed the world that Point Pine was setting me up to do.

But even just like the little bits, that was the thing, though, with all of these.

I feel like the ending really, in every single one of these, the ending really...

It had a nice, strong fucking punch at the end, which was good.

Even There's a man who follows me around, like the counting at the end, I was fucking fantastic.

Even though conceptually, I feel like the idea of there's a man who follows me around, I think that one was the most frightening of just an idea of a man that's like just around you at all times,

kind of narrating your life, and then he kind of slowly starts to predict your death, or he's like an angel of death.

It's just really cool.

But I will say, I think I liked all of them in their own respects.

Like, I don't think anyone, I don't think any one of them overshadowed any, any of the others.

Like, they all felt very on par with quality.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think they, think they banked.

Yeah, that was good.

All those stories were great.

Yeah, support the author.

Gabby deserves it.

Those were awesome.

Please keep writing stuff.

I need more.

Thank you.

Also, the point pine,

I don't know if the series is done because there's eight parts and the last one was five years ago.

So the series may be completed now.

Who knows?

Yeah, anything we have links

for Gabby in the description, please shout it out.

Yeah, and just to reiterate again, just because I don't know if there's a way we're supposed to be saying it, but the username is capital capital E lowercase A capital P capital A lowercase T B P.

So please do go check them out.

Be sure to show them some love.

And I think that it's just

a lot of fun.

It's just cool seeing once again, I love whenever we find readers that are writers that are

still active and still making stuff.

It's just really exciting.

So and also just wanted to say real quick, thank you so much for if you've listened to this on Spotify at a podcast.

Be sure to give us a nice rating there.

It really does help us out.

And until next time, everyone, stay creeped and stay creative.

Keep writing.

We love it.

Also, once again, like I said, the top of the episode, thank you so much.

You guys are the best fucking fan base any podcasters could ever ask for.

We appreciate you, and uh, we'll see you in the next one.

We will see you guys in the next one.

And if a random clown shows up at a kid's 10th birthday party and gives you a book, don't read it unless you really don't like that kid.

Bye.