General Discussion

NOOOO NOT BOXES YOU MONSTER!

*Protectively curls around my old, declawed kitty*


EDIT: If the pet dies then there's a rapid increase that one of the main characters will die. So, er, writer, double monster? I don't know. Good writing, though.

Found this gem on r/nosleep.

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Have you ever seen a photo reCAPTCHA?

Instead of a checkbox, it’s a low-quality photo split into 16 square sections. It’ll say something like: “SELECT ALL SQUARES WITH STREET SIGNS,” and you have to click every square that contains a street sign.

At 11 PM on Sunday night, I got one while downloading free stock images. It was a photo of a path through the forest.

SELECT ALL SQUARES WITH PEOPLE.

Okay. That was easy enough. In the center, there was a jogging woman in pink shorts. She took up a few of the middle squares, and I clicked them all.

I pressed VERIFY.

It didn’t work.

SELECT ALL SQUARES WITH PEOPLE, the message said again. I took off my glasses, placed them on the table, and squinted at the image.

No. She wasn’t the only person.

Several feet off the trail, at the very edge of the image, I could see it. The edge of an arm clad in a black sweatshirt, with a pink thumb poking out.

I triumphantly clicked the two squares containing it. VERIFY.

The image blinked as it refreshed. Then the same text popped up, as if to taunt me: SELECT ALL SQUARES WITH PEOPLE.

I rubbed my eyes and stared at the image.

The trees cast low-resolution, blocky shadows across the path. The woman’s ponytail swung to the left, mid-motion. Patches of yellow sunlight dappled the surrounding forest. I studied some of the darker shadows, far from the path; but none of them matched the silhouette of a person.

I glanced to the edge of the image.

No.

The image had changed. The arm at the edge of the photo was now further in the frame, taking up three squares instead of two. Bulky shoulders and dark jeans followed it.

And the jogger was just slightly further down the path – as if she’d just taken a step.

The touchpad was slick under my fingers. My heart pounded in my chest. Slowly, I dragged the cursor over the three squares and clicked them all.

VERIFY.

The image blinked.

SELECT ALL SQUARES WITH PEOPLE.

I leapt back from the computer.

The image was different again. The man was further in the frame, taking up five squares. His hand was stretched out towards the jogger, just inches from her shoulder.

And the jogger…

She was turned towards him, eyes wide. Mouth open in a silent scream.

Click, click, click. I furiously clicked all the squares. VERIFY.

Loading…

SELECT ALL SQUARES WITH PEOPLE.

The man’s face was finally in frame.

The hood of his sweatshirt was pulled tightly over his head. A translucent Halloween mask poked out from underneath, pressed against his features.

His hand was latched onto her arm.

She was screaming.

Click, click, click.

VERIFY.

The image disappeared.

I’d passed the reCAPTCHA.

***

I reported what I’d seen to the police. At first they thought I was crazy, but as I gave a detailed description of the images, they frantically took notes and asked me questions.

The woman matched the description of a local woman, Kaylee Johnson. She went missing a week ago, during an afternoon jog on the wooded Lakewood Trail.

She was never found.

---

pinglist:
@Lexiffer @BraveEguana @RoseofRomania @TheLastDelta @Eurydise @AStarsSupernova @PopatoPips @BaconCat @ArcticEira @Requacy

Wait, I wish not to come off as rude, but I was wondering how many parts of the Penpal story are there?

Very spooky story today though, mate :)

@Eurydise
There are three more parts, so six total. It's just so good I plan on spreading it out a bit!

Oh my StarClan, the ending to part 3! As a crazy cat lady, I'm really hoping that Boxes gets a happy ending!

i think reading that gave me a headache, and now i feel really gross. that's a sign the story was effective, and I'm glad i signed up for that pinglist.

Another part to Penpal! This one is titled Maps!

Also, if anyone is interested, I started my Spooktacular Raffle where I'm raffling off some Halloween gaolers, plague doctor masks, and trick-or-treat bags! It's going to be a lot of fun, so check it out if you're interested! Anyway, on with the spoops~

---

There was a comment in the last post that made me remember an event from my childhood that I always took as odd but never considered it to be related to any of these stories. I know now that it is. It's funny how memories work. The details might all be present in your mind, though scattered and disarrayed, and then a single thought can stitch them back together almost instantly. I never thought of these events much because I was focused on the wrong details. I went back to my mom's house and went through my old childhood school work looking for something that I think is important. I couldn't find it, but I'll keep looking. Again, sorry for the length.

Most old cities and the neighborhoods in them weren't planned with the thought that the population would begin to grow exponentially and it would have to be accommodated. The layout of the roads is generally originally in response to geographical restrictions and the necessity of connecting points of economic importance. Once the connecting roads are established, new businesses and roads are positioned strategically along the existing skeleton, and eventually the paths carved into the earth are immortalized in asphalt, leaving room only for minor modifications, additions, and alterations, but never a dramatic change.

My childhood neighborhood must have been old, then. If straight lines move "as the crow flies", then my neighborhood must have been built based on the travels of a snake. The first houses built must have been placed around the lake and gradually the inhabitable area increased as new extensions were built off the original path, but these new extensions all ended abruptly at one point or another—there was only one entrance/exit for the entire neighborhood. Many of these extensions were limited by a tributary which both fed and drank from the lake and passed right by what I came to call (and have called in these stories) "the ditch". Many of the original homes had enormous yards, but some of those original plots had been divided, leaving properties with smaller and smaller boundaries. An aerial view of my neighborhood would give one the impression that an enormous squid had once died in the woods and some adventuring entrepreneur found the corpse and paved roads over its tentacles, only to withdraw his involvement and leave time, greed, and desperation to divide up the land among prospective home-owners like an embarrassing attempt at the Golden Ratio.

From my porch you could see the old houses that surrounded the lake, but the house of Mrs. Maggie was my favorite. She was, as best as I can remember, around eighty years old, but despite that she was one of the friendliest people I had ever met. She had a head of loose-set, white curls and always wore light dresses with floral patterns. She would talk to me and Josh from her back porch when we were swimming in the lake, and she would always invite us in for snacks. She said that she was lonely because her husband Tom was always away on business, but Josh and I would always decline her invitation because, as nice as Mrs. Maggie was, there was still something a bit odd about her.

Every now and then when we would swim away she would say, "Chris and John, you're welcome here anytime!" And we could hear her still yelling that when we were walking back into my house.

Mrs. Maggie, like many of the older home-owners, had a sprinkler system that was on a timer, though at some point over the years her timer must have broken because the sprinklers would come on at various points during the day and often even at night all year. While it never got cold enough to snow very much, several times each winter I would go outside in the morning to see Mrs. Maggie's yard transformed into a surreal arctic paradise by the frozen water. Every other yard stood sterilized and dry by the biting frost of the winter's cold, but right there in the middle of the bleak reminder of the savagery of the season was an oasis of beautiful ice hanging like stalactites from every branch of every tree and every leaf of every bush. As the sun rose, it reflected off and each piece of ice splintered the sun into a rainbow that would only be viewed briefly before it blinded you. Even as a child I was struck by how beautiful it was, and often Josh and I would go over there to walk on the iced grass and have sword fights with the icicles.

I once asked my mom why she left it on like that. My mom seemed to search for the explanation before she said:

"Well, Sweetie, Mrs. Maggie is sick a lot, and sometimes when she gets really sick, she gets confused. That's why she messes up yours and Josh's names sometimes. She doesn't mean to, but sometimes she just can't remember. She lives in that big house all by herself so it's ok if you talk to her when you swim in the lake, but when she invites you in you should keep saying 'no'. Be polite; her feelings won't get hurt."

"But she'll be less lonely when her husband comes home though, right? How long will he be away on business? It seems like he's always away."

My mom seemed to struggle and I could see that she had become very upset. Finally she answered:

"Honey... Tom's not going to come home. Tom's in heaven. He died years and years ago, but Mrs. Maggie doesn't remember. She gets confused and forgets, but Tom's not ever coming home. If someone moved back in with her she might even think it was Tom, but he's gone, Sweetie."

I would have only been around five or six when she told me that, and while I didn't understand it completely, I was still profoundly sad for Mrs. Maggie.

I know now that Mrs. Maggie had Alzheimer's. She and her husband Tom had had two sons: Chris and John. The two had worked out payment plans with the utility companies and paid for Mrs. Maggie's water and electricity, but they would never visit her. I don't know if something happened between them, or if it was the illness, or if they just lived too far away, but they never came around. I have no idea what they looked like, but there were times when Mrs. Maggie must have thought Josh and I looked like they did when they were children. Or maybe she saw what some part of her mind so desperately wanted her to see; ignoring the images transmitted down her optic nerve and just for a little while showing her what used to be. I realize only now how lonely she must have been.

During the summer after Kindergarten, before the events of "Balloons", Josh and I had taken to exploring the woods near my house, as well as the tributary of the lake. We knew that the woods between our houses were connected, and we thought it would be neat if the lake near my house was somehow connected to the creek around his, so we resolved ourselves to find out.

We were going to make maps.

The plan was to make two separate maps and then combine them. We would make one map exploring the area around the creek near his house, and make another following the outflow from my lake. Originally, we were going to make one map, but we realized that wasn't possible since I had started drawing the map of my area so huge that the route from his house wouldn't have been to scale. We kept the map from the lake at my house and the map from the creek at his house, and we would add to each when we stayed the night with each other.

For the first couple weeks it went really well. We would walk through the woods along the water and pause every couple minutes to add to the map, and it seemed like the two maps would come together any day. We had no equipment needed for the job—not even a compass—but we tried to make due. We had the idea to impale the earth with a stick when we had reached the end of a venture so that if we came upon the stick from the other direction the next weekend, we would know we had joined the maps. We might have been the world's worst cartographers. Eventually, however, the woods became too thick near the water coming from the lake and we were unable to proceed further. We lost interest in the whole project for a bit, and reduced our explorations significantly—though not completely—when we started selling snow cones.

After I showed my mom all the pictures I had taken home from school and she took away my snow cone machine, our interest in the maps revitalized. We had to come up with another plan. Although I didn't understand why, my mom had placed what I considered to be extremely severe restrictions on what I could do and where I could go, and I had to check in frequently if I went outside to play with Josh. This meant that we couldn't stay in the woods for hours and continue to look for a new path. We thought that we could just swim when we got to the cutoff in the woods, but that clearly wouldn't work since the map would get wet. We tried going faster when we were coming from Josh's house, but we eventually ran into the same problem. Then we had a brilliant idea.

We'd build a raft.

Due to the construction in the neighborhood, there was a large amount of scrap building material that the company would set in the ditch to keep it out of the road and offsite since they no longer needed it for building. We originally conceived of a formidable ship complete with a mast and an anchor, but this quickly diminished into something more manageable. We set aside the wood and took several large pieces of Styrofoam that were backed with foam board and tied them together with rope and kite string.

We launched our vessel a little down water from Mrs. Maggie and waved a farewell to her as she motioned us to come back her way. But there was no stopping us.

The raft worked very well, and while we both behaved and spoke as if the functionality of the raft was a given, I know at least I was a little surprised. We each had a fairly long tree branch to use as a paddle, but we found it was easier to simply push against the land under the water than actually use them as intended. When the water became too deep we'd simply lie on our stomachs and use our hands to paddle the water, which still worked—albeit less well. The first time we had to resort to that method of propulsion, I remember thinking that from far above it must have looked like a colossally fat man with tiny arms was out for a swim.

It actually took us several trips to get the raft to the impassable patch of woods that marked the farthest we had made it. After we had come up with the idea of marking the ground with the stick, we had taken to running through the woods until we got to the stick and then, as carefully and precisely as we knew how, charting our course. This meant that the impasse was actually quite a bit away, so to sail from around my house all the way to the blockade in the woods was taking longer than expected. We'd sail for a bit and then dock the raft, and then next time we'd run through the woods to the raft and go a little farther.

We continued this well into first grade. Josh and I were assigned to different groups that year, so, since we didn't really see one another during the school day, our parents were more willing to let us hang out all weekend each week. What's more, Josh's dad had taken on a lengthy construction job that required him to work over the weekends, and his mother was on-call, so this meant that Josh would stay at my house most every weekend for weeks on end.

We should have been making excellent progress, but when we finally made it to the impasse and had the opportunity to explore past it we couldn't find a place to dock the raft. The woods were simply too thick, and the water had eroded the land to the point that there was nearly a two-foot rise of earth over the tributary which exposed the twisting and damp roots of the trees above. We'd have to turn back every time and leave the raft at the same thick of trees that prompted us to build it in the first place. Even worse, winter had arrived, so we couldn't justify leaving the house in our swimsuits; we were getting nowhere—we always had to come home before we could gain much ground.

On a Saturday, around 7 PM, Josh and I were playing when one of my mom's coworkers knocked on our door. Her name was Samantha, and I remember her well now because I would propose to her a couple of years later when I was visiting my mom at work. My mom said that she had to go to work to fix a problem that had arisen and that she'd back in about two hours. Her car was being repaired, so she'd have to ride with Samantha, but I gathered that the problem was Samantha's fault and discussing it in the car was why it would only take two hours. She said that under no circumstances were we to leave the house or open the door for anyone, and she was in the middle of explaining that she would call every hour when she got there to check in, but she ended that statement prematurely when she remembered that our phone had been turned off for delinquent payments – this was why Samantha had just come by unannounced. She looked me dead in the eye as she was closing the door and said "Stay put."

This was our chance.

We watched her drive down the serpentine road toward the exit, and as soon as the car rounded the last visible bend we ran back to my room. I dumped my backpack out while Josh grabbed the map.

"Hey, do you have a flashlight?" Josh chimed.

"No, but we'll be back way before dark."

"I was thinking just in case, we should have one."

"My mom has one, but I don't know where she keeps it... Wait!"

I ran into my closet and pulled a box down from the top shelf.

"You have a flashlight in there?" Josh asked.

"Not exactly..."

I opened the box and revealed three Roman candles that I had taken from the pile that my mother had amassed for the fourth of July that past summer; along with a lighter that I had managed to take from her some months before, this would ensure that we at least had some light if we needed it. This was a little bit before I had been given an opportunity to be afraid of the woods at night, so it wasn't fear that motivated our search for a light source—only practicality. We threw it all in the backpack and bolted out the backdoor, making sure to close it so Boxes wouldn't get out. We had one hour and fifty minutes.

We ran through the woods as fast as we could and made it to the raft in about fifteen minutes. We had our bathing suits on under our clothes, so we stripped off our shirts and shorts and left them in two separate piles about four feet from the edge of the water. We untied the raft from the tree, grabbed our branch-paddles, and cast off.

We tried to move rapidly to reach a point beyond the contents of our ever-expanding map, as we didn't have time to waste seeing old sights. We knew that we were slower in the raft than on land, and that we would be in the raft for quite a while after the cutoff since the woods were too thick to walk through and there wasn't a place to dock; this meant that we'd have to ride the raft back to the original docking site even if we found a new place to dock it further ahead.

After we passed the last charted part of our map, the water began to get really deep and eventually we could no longer touch the bottom with our tree branches, so we lay on our stomachs and paddled with our hands. It was getting darker and, as a result, it was becoming harder to distinguish the trees from one another, and we were both becoming slightly unnerved. In the interest of making good time we were paddling fast with our arms, but this caused a lot of noise as our hands repeatedly confronted and then broke through the water's surface tension. During these periods we could both hear the crunching of dead leaves and the snapping of fallen sticks in the woods to our right. As we would slow our pace and quiet our actions, the rustling in the woods would cease, and we began to wonder if it was really ever there at all. We didn't know what kinds of animals resided this far into the woods, but we did know that we didn't wish to find out.

As Josh amended the map that I was illuminating with the lighter we were suddenly confronted with the fact that the sounds were not imagined. Rapidly and rhythmically we heard:

Crunch.
Snap.
Crunch.

It seemed to be moving slightly away from us, pushing through the woods just beyond our map. It had become too dark to see. We had misjudged how long the sun would linger.

Nervously, I called out.

"Hello?"

There was a brief moment of breathless tension as we lay static in the water. This silence was suddenly broken by laughter.

"Hello?" Josh cackled.

"So what?"

"Hello, Mr. Monster-in-the-woods. I know you're sneaking around but maybe you'll answer to my 'hello'? Hellooooooo!"

I realized how stupid it was. Whatever animal it was, it wouldn't respond. I hadn't even realized I'd said it until afterwards, but if anything was actually there I obviously wouldn't get a reply.

Josh continued, "Helloooooo," in a high falsetto.

"Helloooo," I countered with as deep a baritone as I could manage.

"'Ello there, mate!"

"Hel-lo. Beep boop."

"HhheeeEEELLLLOOOoooo."

We continued mocking each other, and were in the process of turning the raft around to head back when we heard:

"Hello."

It was whispered and forced as if it were powered by the last breath in a pair of deflating lungs, but it didn't sound sickly. It had come from the spot just off the map, which now sat behind us since we had turned the raft around. I slowly shifted on the raft and faced the direction of the sound as I fumbled with the Roman candle. I wanted to see.

"What're you doing?!" Josh hissed.

But I had already lit it. As the sparking fuse sunk into the wrapper I held it toward the sky. I had never actually shot one of these myself and thought to just use it like a flair in the movies. A glowing, green orb rocketed out toward the stars and then quickly extinguished. I lowered my arm more toward the horizon; I could remember that there were several colors, but I couldn't remember how many times one of these fired before being depleted. A second ball of red light burst out and fizzled above the trees, but I still saw nothing.

"Let's just go, man!" Josh pressed, as he turned to face the direction back home and began paddling desperately.

"Just one more..."

Lowering my arm directly at the woods in front of me, another red ball of fire was launched from the tube. It traveled straight ahead until it collided with a tree, briefly exploding the light in a much greater diameter.

Still nothing.

I dropped the firework in the water and watched as one more struggling fireball burst free only to quickly die, suffocated by the water. As we began paddling in the direction toward my house we heard a loud and unconcealed rustling in the woods. The breaking of branches and the trampling of fallen leaves overpowered the sound of our splashing.

It was running.

In our panic we jostled the raft too violently and I felt one of the ropes under my chest loosen.

"Josh, be careful!"

But it was too late. Our raft was breaking. Before too long it had completely fallen apart. We each held on to a separate piece of Styrofoam, but the pieces weren't big enough to keep us completely afloat, and our legs dangled beneath us in the winter water.

"Josh! Quick!" I yelled as I pointed at the water right next to him.

He scrambled, but it was too cold to move quickly and we both watched as the map floated away.

"I'm c-c-cold, m-man," Josh shuddered, dejectedly. "Let'sss get out of the w-water."

We approached the shore, but each time we attempted to pull ourselves up we'd hear the frantic rustling thundering toward us from the woods just above. Eventually we were too cold and weak to even try anymore.

Steadily we kicked our legs and found ourselves nearing the dock site. We toppled off the debris and tried to pull it on land, but Josh's piece slipped away and floated in the direction of the lake. We took off our swim suits and were desperate to get into dry clothes to shield us from the biting chill of the air. I slid my shorts, but there was something wrong. I turned to Josh.

"Where's my shirt, man?"

He shrugged and suggested, "Maybe it got knocked into the water and floated into the lake?"

I told Josh to go back to my house, and to say that we were playing hide and seek if my mom was home. I had to try to find my shirt.

I ran behind the houses and peered out over the water and scouted along the shoreline. It occurred to me that with any luck, maybe I could find the map too. I was moving pretty fast because I needed to get home, and was about to give up when my concentration was interrupted by a sound coming from just behind me.

"Hello."

I whipped around. It was Mrs. Maggie. I had never seen her at night before, and in this poor light, she looked exceedingly frail. The usual warmth that wrapped her manner seemed to have been snuffed out by the chill. I couldn't remember ever seeing her without a smile, and so her face looked strange.

"Hello, Mrs. Maggie."

"Oh, hi Chris!" the warmth and smile had returned to her, even if her memories had not. "I couldn't see it was you in the dark there."

Jokingly, I asked her if she was going to invite me in for a snack, but she said maybe another time; I was too busy looking for my map and the shirt to really engage her, but she sounded happy so I didn't feel bad. She said a couple other things, but I was too distracted to pay attention. I said goodnight and ran down her driveway toward my house. Behind me I could hear her walking across the frozen yard, but I didn't turn around to wave; I had to get home.

I made it home a couple minutes before my mom did, and by the time she came in Josh and I had already changed clothes and warmed up. We'd gotten away with it, even though we'd lost the map.

"Couldn't find it?"

"Nah, but I saw Mrs. Maggie. She called me Chris again. I'm telling you dude, just be glad you've never seen her at night."

We both laughed and he asked me if she invited me in for a snack, joking that the snacks must be terrible since she couldn't even give them away. I told him that she didn't and he was surprised, and now that I had time to think about it so was I. Literally, every time we had seen her she had invited us in for snacks, and here I had, albeit sarcastically, invited myself, and she said no.

As Josh talked more about Mrs. Maggie I suddenly realized that the lighter might still be in my pocket and that it would be disastrous for my mom to find. I grabbed the shorts off the floor and padded my pockets; I felt something, but it wasn't the lighter. From my back pocket I slid out a folded piece of paper and my heart leapt. "The map?" I thought, "But I watched it float away." As I unfolded the paper, my stomach turned as I tried to understand what I was seeing. Drawn on the paper inside of a large oval were two stick figures holding hands. One was much bigger than the other, but neither had faces. The paper was torn so a part of it was missing, and there was a number written near the top right corner. It was either "15" or "16". I nervously handed Josh the paper and asked him if he had put it in my pocket at some point, but he scoffed at the idea and asked why I was so upset. I pointed toward the smaller stick figure and what was written next to it.

It was my initials.

I shook it off and told Josh the rest of the conversation between Mrs. Maggie and I. I had always attributed the odd exchange to her being sick until revisiting the events in my mind all these years later. As I think about it now, the feeling of profound sadness for Mrs. Maggie returns, but it is augmented by a looming feeling of despair when I think about why she said "maybe another time." I knew what she had said, but I didn't understand what it meant that night. I didn't understand what her words had meant weeks later when I watched men in strange, orange bio-hazard suits carry what I thought were black bags full of garbage out of her house, or why the whole neighborhood smelled like death that day. I still didn't understand when they condemned the house and boarded it up a little while before we moved. But I understand now. I understand why her last words to me were so important, even if neither she nor I realized it at the time.

Mrs. Maggie had told me that night that Tom had come home, but I know now who had really moved in; just as I know now why I never saw her body brought out on a stretcher.

The bags weren't filled with garbage.

---

pinglist:
@Lexiffer @BraveEguana @RoseofRomania @TheLastDelta @Eurydise @AStarsSupernova @PopatoPips @BaconCat @ArcticEira @Requacy

SpoOky ScAry!

Heard a youtuber read this one and had to share it.

---

It started with my friend in Japan. He was a hacker, always leaving his computer on, along with AIM and MSN. When he logged out on both, I assumed his computer finally died from overload.

It was then I noticed all his posts on our favorite sites were gone. All his accounts, all his videos, all his comments.

Sorry, I’m getting ahead of myself. My name is Nathan and I’m a shut-in. Agoraphobia. I live in North Carolina and I program for a living. My sister does the shopping for me and I live in a basement. No windows. That might very well be the only thing that’s keeping me safe.

I woke up a month ago, at 3 AM and sat down at my desk, ready to work a bit but mostly chat. That’s when I noticed KaosSirida was gone. I don’t know his real name so don’t bother asking. Besides some spelling issues, he was a fairly good English speaker and I enjoyed talking to him. He also knew everything about computers, stuff I could never imagine possible.

That’s why I wasn’t worried. It was well within his expertise to hack into sites and delete his own posts. I assumed he had gotten sick of the internet. He’d been complaining about it for years.

I tried discussing his disappearance with a mutual friend. He seemed confused, like he was forgetting who Kaos was. This friend was really old. I worried about his mental health. I decided to let it go and talk about sports a bit.

By this time, three or four people had stopped logging on. Not the most unusual thing in the world. People got busy sometimes or just didn’t feel like talking. Only, their posts disappeared as well.

Now, it had been a couple of days since Kaos went missing. And I was getting fairly freaked out so I turned off the computer and watched TV for a while.

That’s when **** got scary.

One of the news anchors was gone. The other would sometimes look to the spot her partner should be and look confused for a while, only to return to speaking as usual. A local show called Three Sisters or something, was now Two Sisters. And yes, the third sister was gone. As with the news, sometimes there would be times where the third sister was important and for a moment they seemed to remember. But then they just kept acting. A cooking show just showed the studio, with no host.

I am a rational man and I was quick to rationalize everything. The news anchor wasn’t used to working alone while her partner was sick and the show with the sisters was part of a plot, I wouldn’t know, I didn’t watch it. The cooking show was harder to explain. Perhaps they left the camera running while they had to leave for some reason, and the network guys didn’t notice.

I had calmed myself and decided to watch something else. I got a TV guide my sister had gotten me and flipped through it. That’s when I noticed the freakiest thing yet. The Two Stooges. I stared blankly at the name, squished between an old britcom and one of those shows about how good the fifties were.

It was soon to start so I flipped over to the channel. Sure enough, the title screen said The Two Stooges. Surely, this was some joke or a rip off.

But no. It started as I remembered it. Only with a stooge less.

I freaked out and turned off the TV.

So here I am. It’s been a month and around a hundred people are missing that I know of. My sister is gone as well. I’m posting this in every site I can, hopefully reaching as many people as I can.

If you can notice the people missing as well, my name is Nate Creek and I live in a small town in North Carolina, please PM me as soon as possible.

---

"Hey Bob. Bob, help me out here.”

The man stared at the computer screen, furrowing his eyebrows.

“What do you want, Jim?”

Bob walked over to him, a bored look on his face.

“One of the AIs has a glitch.”

“How so?”

“I deleted several other AIs and an entertainment pack so I could install the new versions but this AI didn’t delete its memories and is panicking.

"I thought it was the lack of a support AI because I deleted the sister file as well, but the memory logs show it started much sooner. He’s been at his computer for hours.”

“What’s he doing? Working? Creative writing?”

“Autobiographical-diary, it says. I thought we didn’t install that module on this one.”

“It’s probably a glitch of some sort. Just delete it and do a clean install with the others.”

Jim sighed.

“I kinda liked this one.”

“It’s just a program, Jim. It’s not like it’s sentient.”

Jim watched the visual representation of Nate_Creek_5 type furiously.

“I guess you’re right, Bob.”

Jim right clicked the AI and chose delete.

---

pinglist:
@Lexiffer @BraveEguana @RoseofRomania @TheLastDelta @Eurydise @AStarsSupernova @PopatoPips @BaconCat @ArcticEira @Requacy

Oooohhh!

Here's another part of Penpal, this one titled Screens. Just one more part after this one!

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I've intentionally withheld some details from a lot of my stories. I've let my hopes concerning the way things might influence my evaluation of the way they actually are. I don’t think there’s any point to that anymore.

At the end of the summer between Kindergarten and first grade I caught the stomach flu. This has all of the components of the regular flu; however, with the stomach flu, you throw up in a bucket and not the toilet because you are sitting on it—the sickness gets purged from both ends. This lasted for about ten days, but just before it had passed the sickness was granted an extension in the form of pink eye. My eyelids were so fused together by the dried mucus generated during the night that the first day I awoke with the infection I thought I had gone blind. When I started first grade, I had a kink in my neck from ten days of bed-rest and two swollen, bloodshot eyes. Josh was in another Group and didn't have my lunch, so in a cafeteria bursting with two-hundred kids, I still had a table to myself.

I started keeping spare food in my backpack that I would take into the bathroom to eat after lunch since my school meals were usually confiscated by older kids who knew I wouldn't stand up to them since no one would stand with me. This dynamic persisted even after my condition cleared up since no one wants to be friends with the kid who gets bullied, lest they have some of that aggression directed toward themselves. The only reason this stopped was due to the actions of a kid named Alex.

Alex was in the third grade and was bigger than most of the other kids in any grade. Around the third week of school, he started sitting with me at lunch, and this put an immediate end to the shortage of my food supply. He was nice enough, but he seemed kind of slow; we never really talked at length except for when I finally decided to ask why he had been sitting with me.

He had a crush on Josh's sister, Veronica.

Veronica was in fourth grade and was probably the prettiest girl in the school. Even as a six-year-old who fully endorsed the notion that girls were disgusting, I still knew how pretty Veronica was. When she was in third grade, Josh told me, two boys had actually gotten into a physical fight which erupted out of an argument concerning the significance of the messages she had written in their yearbooks. One of the boys eventually hit the other in the forehead with the corner of the yearbook and the wound required stitches to close. While not one of those two boys, Alex wanted her to like him and confessed that he knew Josh and I were best friends; I gathered that he had hoped that I would convey his ostensibly philanthropic deed to Veronica and that she would presumably be so moved by his selflessness that she'd take an interest in him. If I told her he would continue to sit with me for as long as I needed him to.

Because this was during the time when Josh mostly stayed at my house building the raft and navigating tributary with me, I didn't have the chance to bring it up to Veronica because I simply didn't see her. I told Josh about it and he made fun of Alex, but said that he would tell his sister since I wanted him to. I doubted that he would. Josh was annoyed that people seemed to be so taken with his sister. I remember him calling her an ugly crow. I never said anything to Josh, but I remember wanting to say, even then, that she was pretty and would one day be beautiful.

I was right.

When I was fifteen, I was seeing a movie at a place my friends and I had come to call the Dirt Theatre. It was probably nice at some point, but time and neglect had weathered the place severely. This theatre had movable tables and chairs on a level floor, so when the theatre was full, there were very few places you could sit and see the whole screen. The theatre was still open, I imagine, for three reasons:

it was cheap to see a movie there
they showed a different cult movie twice a month at midnight; and
they sold beer to underage kids during the midnight showings.
I went for the first two, and that night they were showing Scanners by David Cronenberg for $1.00.

My friends and I were sitting in the very back. I wanted to sit closer to the front for a better view, but Ryan had driven us so I relented. A couple minutes before the movie started, a group of girls walked in. They were all pretty attractive, but whatever beauty they might have had was eclipsed by the girl with the dirty blonde hair, even though I had only caught a glimpse of her profile. As she turned to move her seat, I caught a full view of her face which gave me the feeling of butterflies in my stomach—it was Veronica.

I hadn't seen her in a long time. Josh and I saw progressively less of one another after we snuck out to my old house that night when we were ten, and usually when I'd visit him she'd be out with friends. While everyone stared at the screen, I stared at Veronica—only looking away when the feeling that I was being a creep overcame me, but that feeling would quickly subside and my eyes would return to her. She really was beautiful, just like I had thought she'd be when I was a kid. When the credits started to roll my friends got up and left; there was only one exit and they didn't want to be trapped waiting for the crowd to clear. I lingered in hopes of catching Veronica's attention. As she and her friends walked by I took a chance.

"Hey, Veronica."

She turned toward me looking a little startled.

"Yeah?"

I got out of my seat and stepped a little into the light coming in through the open door.

"It's me. Josh's old friend from way back... How... How've you been?”

"Oh my god! HEY! It’s been so long!" she motioned to her friends that she'd be out in a second.

"Yeah, a few years at least! Not since the last time I stayed over with Josh. How is he, anyway?"

"Oh, that's right. I remember all you guys' games. Do you still play Ninja Turtles with your friends?”

She laughed a little and I blushed.

"No. I'm not a kid anymore... Me and my friends play X-men now." I was really hoping she'd laugh.

She did. "Haha! You're cute. Do you come to these movies every time?"

I was still reeling from what she said.

Does she really think I'm cute? Did she just mean I was funny? Does she think I'm attractive?

I suddenly realized that she had asked me a question, and my mind grasped for what it was.

"YEAH!" I said much too loudly. "Yeah, I try to anyway... what about you?"

"I come every now and then. My boyfriend didn't like these movies but we just broke up so I plan on coming from now on."

I was trying to be casual, but failed. "Oh, well that's cool... not that you guys broke up! I just meant that you'd be able to come more often."

She laughed again.

I tried to recover, "So are you coming the week after next? They're supposed to show Day of the Dead. It's really cool."

"Yeah, I'll be here."

She smiled, and I was about to suggest that maybe we could sit together when she quickly closed the space between us and hugged me.

"It was really good to see you," she said with her arms around me.

I was trying to think of what to say when I realized the biggest problem was that I had forgotten how to talk. Luckily Ryan, who I could hear approaching from the hallway, came in and spoke for me.

"Dude. You know the movie's over right? Let's get outtu— OHHH YEAAHHH."

Veronica let go and said that she'd see me next time. She was played out of the room by the music Ryan was making with his mouth. I was furious, but it dissipated as soon as I heard Veronica laughing in the lobby.

Day of the Dead couldn't come soon enough. Ryan's family was going out of town so he wouldn't be able to drive us, and the other friends I was with that night didn't have cars. A couple of days before the movie I asked my mom if she could take me. She responded almost immediately by denying my request, but I persisted and she picked up on the desperation in my voice. She asked why I wanted to go so badly since I had seen the movie before and I hesitated before saying that I was hoping to see a girl there. She smiled and asked playfully if she knew the girl and I reluctantly told her it was Veronica. The smile disappeared from her face and she coldly said "No."

I decided that I would call Veronica to see if she could pick me up. I had no idea if she still lived at home, but it was worth a try. But then I realized that Josh might answer. I hadn't talked to him in almost three years, and if he answered I obviously couldn't ask to talk to his sister. I felt guilty for calling to speak with Veronica and not Josh, but I dismissed that feeling quickly; Josh hadn't called me in years either. I picked up the phone and dialed the number that was still embedded in my muscle memory from having dialed it so often all those years ago.

It rang several times before someone picked up. It wasn't Josh. I felt a mixture of both relief and disappointment—I realized in that second that I really missed Josh. I would call after this weekend and talk to him, but this was my only chance to see if Veronica could or would take me so I asked for her.

The person told me I had dialed the wrong number.

I repeated the number back to her, and she confirmed. She said they must have changed their number and I agreed. I apologized for the disturbance and hung up. I was suddenly intensely sad because now I couldn't contact Josh even if I wanted to; I felt terrible for having been afraid that he might answer the phone. He had been my very best friend. I realized that the only way I could be put back in touch with him would be through Veronica, so now, not that I needed one, I had another reason to see her.

I told my mom the day before the movie that I was no longer concerned with going, but was hoping she could drop me off at my friend Chris' house. She relented and dropped me off that Saturday a couple of hours before the movie. My plan was to walk from his house to the theatre since he only lived about a half-mile away. They went to church early on Sundays so his parents would go to sleep early Saturday night, and Chris was fine with not coming with me since he had planned on chatting with this girl he met online. He said that the walk back to his house would be even lonelier after she laughed in my face when I tried to kiss her.

I left his house at 11:15.

I tried to pace myself so I'd get there just a little before the movie. I was going by myself and so I didn't want to just hang around there waiting. On the way to the theatre I figured that if Veronica showed up at all it would be too lucky for us to arrive at the same time, so I debated whether I should wait outside or just go in. Both had their pros and cons. As I was grappling with these concerns I noticed that the steady stream of streaking car lights that had been overtaking me had been replaced by a single, constant spotlight that refused to pass. The road wasn't illuminated by streetlights, so I was walking in the grass with the road about two feet to my left; I stepped a little more to my right and craned my neck over my left shoulder to see what was behind me.

A car had stopped about ten feet behind me.

All I could see were the violently bright headlights that were cutting through the otherwise stygian surroundings. I thought that it might be one of Chris' parents; maybe they had come to check in on us and seen that I was gone. It wouldn't have taken much pressing for Chris to confess. I took one step toward the car, and it broke its pause and started driving toward me at a slow pace. It passed me and I saw that it wasn't Chris' parents' car, or any car that I recognized for that matter. I tried to see the driver, but it was too dark, and my pupils had shrunk when faced with the blinding lights from the car just moments before. They adjusted enough so that I could see a tremendous crack in the back window of the car as it drove away.

I didn't think much of the whole affair; some people find it fun to scare other people—I'd often hide around corners and jump out at my mom, after all.

I timed it right and got there about ten minutes before the movie. I had decided to wait outside until around 11:57, since that would give me time to find her inside if she was already seated. As I was considering the possibility that she might not show, I saw her.

She was alone, and she was beautiful.

I waved to her and walked to close the distance. She smiled and asked if my friends were already inside. I said that they weren't and realized that this must seem like I was trying to make this a date. She didn't seem bothered by that, nor was she bothered when I handed her the ticket I had already bought. She looked at me quizzically, and I said, "Don't worry, I'm rich." She laughed and we went inside.

I bought us one popcorn and two drinks and spent most of the movie debating whether or not I should time reaching my hand into the popcorn bag when she reached in so they would touch. She seemed to enjoy the movie and before I knew it, it was over. We didn't linger in the theatre, and because this was a midnight show we couldn't loiter in the lobby, so we walked outside.

The parking lot of the theatre was big because it connected with a mall that had gone out of business. Not wanting the night to be over just yet, I continued the conversation while casually walking toward the old mall. As we were about to round the corner and leave the theatre out of sight, I looked back and saw that her car wasn't the only one left in the parking lot.

The other one had a large crack in the back window.

My immediate uneasiness turned to understanding.

That makes a lot of sense. The driver of that car works here and must have figured I was on my way to the movie.

Injecting real horror into the life of a horror fan seemed like an obvious move.

We walked around the mall and talked about the movie. I told her that I thought Day of the Dead was better than Dawn of the Dead, but she refused to agree. I told her of when I called her old number and about my dilemma about who would answer the phone. She didn't find it as funny as I now did, but she took my phone and put her number in it. She commented that it might be the worst cell phone she'd ever seen. Her evaluation wasn't rescinded when I told her I couldn't even receive pictures on it. I called her so she'd have my number and she programmed it in.

She told me that she was graduating, but she hadn't done well in school so far that year so she wasn't sure if she'd even get into college. I told her to attach a picture of herself to the application and they'd pay her to go there just so they could look at her. She didn't laugh at that one and I thought she might be offended—she might have thought I was implying that she couldn't get in based on her intelligence. I nervously glanced at her and she was just smiling and even in this poor light I could see that she was blushing. I wanted to hold her hand but I didn't.

As we walked down the final side of the mall back toward the theatre, I asked her about Josh. She told me she didn't want to talk about it. I asked her if he was at least doing alright and she just said "I don't know." I figured Josh must have taken a wrong turn somewhere and started getting into trouble. I felt bad. I felt guilty.

As we approached the parking lot I noticed that the car with the cracked back window was gone and that her car was now the only one in the parking lot. She asked me if I needed a ride, and even though I really didn't, I said that I'd appreciate it. I had drunk my whole soda during the movie and all the walking was putting pressure on my bladder. I knew that I could wait until I was back at Chris', but I had decided that I was going to try to kiss her when she dropped me off, and I didn't want this biological nagging to rush me out of the car. This would be my first kiss.

I could think of no ruse to conceal what I needed to do. The theatre had long closed so I only had one option. I told her that I was going to go behind the theatre to **** but that I'd be back in "two shakes". It was obvious that I thought it was hilarious and she seemed to laugh more at how funny I found it than at how funny it clearly was.

On the way toward the theatre I stopped and turned toward her. I asked her if Josh had ever told her that kid named Alex had done something nice for me. She paused to think for a moment and said that he had; she enquired as to why I had asked, but I said it was nothing. Josh really was a good friend.

When I went to go behind the theatre I realized that there was a chain-link fence extending off and running parallel to the walls of the building. Where I stood she could still see me, and the fence seemed to stretch on endlessly, so I thought I’d just hop it, duck out of sight, and return as quickly as I could. It may have been too much of an effort, but I thought it polite. I climbed the fence and walked just a little ways until I was out of sight and urinated.

For a moment the only sounds were the crickets in the grass behind me and the collision of liquid and cement. These sounds were overpowered by a noise that I can still hear when it is quiet and there are no other noises to distract my ears.

In the distance I heard a faint screeching which quickly subsided only to be replaced with a cascade of thundering vibrations. I realized quickly enough what it was.

It was a car.

The growling of the engine got louder. And then I thought.

No. Not louder. Closer.

As soon as I realized this I started back toward the fence, but before I could get very far at all I hear a brief, truncated scream, and the roar of the engine terminated in a deafening thud. I started running, but after only two or three steps I was tripped by a loose piece of stone and fell hard and fast onto the concrete—my head striking the corner of a chair as I fell. I was dazed for maybe thirty seconds, but the renewed rumbling of the engine drew my senses back and my equilibrium was restored by adrenaline. I redoubled my efforts. I was worried that whoever had crashed the car might harass Veronica. As I was climbing over the fence I saw that there was still only one car in the parking lot. I didn't see any evidence of a crash. I thought that I might have misjudged its direction or proximity. As I ran toward Veronica's car and as my orientation changed, I saw what the car had hit. My legs stopped working almost completely.

It was Veronica.

Her car was sitting between us and as I closed the distance and walked around it she came fully into view.

Her body was twisted and crumpled like a discarded figure meant to represent a catalog of things the human body cannot do. I could see the bone of her right shin cutting through her jeans, and her left arm was wrapped so hard around the back of her neck that her hand fell on her right breast. Her head was craned back and her mouth hung widely open toward the sky. There was so much blood. As I looked at her I actually found it hard to discern whether she was laying on her back or her stomach, and this optical illusion made me feel sick. When you are confronted with something in the world that simply doesn't belong, your mind tries to convince itself that it is dreaming, and to that end it provides you with that distinct sense of all things moving slowly as if through sap. In that moment I honestly felt that I would wake up any minute.

But I didn't wake up.

I fumbled with my phone to call for help but I had no signal. I could see Veronica's phone sticking out of what I thought was her front right pocket. I had no choice. Trembling, I reached for her phone and as I slid it out she moved and gasped for air so violently that it seemed as if she were trying to breathe in the whole world.

This startled me so much that I staggered back and fell onto the asphalt with her phone my hand. She was trying to adjust her body to get it into its natural position, but with every spasm and jerk I could hear the cracking and grinding of her bones. Without thinking, I scrambled over to her and put my face over hers and just said:

"Veronica, don't move. Don't move, OK? Just stay still. Don't move. Veronica, please just don't move."

I kept saying it but the words started to fall apart as tears came streaming down my face. I opened her phone. It still worked. It was still on the screen where she had saved my number and when I saw that, I felt my heart break a little. I called 911 and waited with her, telling her that she would be ok, and feeling guilty for lying to her every time I said it.

When the sound of sirens tore through the air she seemed to become more alert. She had remained conscious since I found her, but now more of the light was coming back into her eyes. Her brain was still protecting her from pain, though it looked as if it was finally allowing her to become aware that something was terribly wrong with her. Her eyes rolled over to mine and her lips moved. She was struggling, but I heard her.

"Hhh... he... P... pi... picture. M... my picture... he took it."

I didn't understand what she meant, so I said the only thing I could. "I'm so sorry, Veronica."

I rode with her in the ambulance where she finally lost consciousness. I waited in the room that they had reserved for her. I still had her phone so I put it with her purse and I called my mom from the hospital phone. It was about 4 AM. I told her that I was fine, but that Veronica was not. She cursed at me and said she'd be right there, but I told her I wasn't leaving until Veronica was out of surgery. She said she'd come anyway.

My mom and I didn't speak that much. I told her I was sorry for lying, and she said that we'd talk about that later. I think that had we talked more in that room—if I had just told her about Boxes or the night with the raft; if she had just told me more of what she knew—I think that things would have changed. But we sat there in silence. She told me that she loved me and that I could call her whenever I wanted her to come get me.

As my mom was leaving, Veronica's parents rushed in. Her dad and my mom exchanged a few words that appeared to be quite serious while Veronica's mother talked to the person at the desk. Her mother was a nurse, but didn't work at this hospital. I'm sure that she had tried to get Veronica transferred, but her condition was prohibitive. While we waited, the police came in and talked to each of us—I told them what happened, they made some notes, and then they left. She came out of surgery and ninety percent of her body was covered in a thick, white cast. Her right arm was free, but the rest of her was bound like a cocoon. She was still under, but I remembered how I felt when I had my cast before Kindergarten. I asked a nurse for a marker, but I couldn't think of anything to write. I slept in a chair in the corner, and went home the next day.

I came back every afternoon for several days. At some point they had moved another patient into her room and set up a screen around Veronica's bed to act as a partition. She didn't seem to be feeling better, but she made more moments of lucidity. But even during these periods we wouldn't really talk. Her jaw had been broken by the car, so the doctors had wired it shut. I sat with her for a while, but there was nothing much I could say. I got up and walked over to her. I kissed her on the forehead and she whispered through her clenched teeth:

"Josh..."

This surprised me a little, but I looked at her and said, "Has he not come to see you?"

"No..."

I found myself really irritated. "Even if Josh had been getting into trouble, he should still come see his sister," I thought.

I was about to express this when she said, "No... Josh... he ran away... I should've told you."

I felt my blood turn to ice.

"When? When did this happen?"

"When he was thirteen."

"Did... did he leave a note or something?"

"On his pillow..."

She started crying and I followed her, but I think now we were crying for different reasons even if I didn't realize it. At this point there were a lot of things I still didn't remember about my childhood, and there were a lot of connections I hadn't yet made. I told her I had to go but that she could text me any time.

I got a text from her the next day telling me not to come back. I asked why and she said she didn't want me to see her like that again. I agreed begrudgingly. We texted each other every day, though I kept this from my mom because I knew that she didn't like me talking to Veronica. Usually her texts were fairly short, and mostly only in response to more lengthy texts that I would send her. I tried calling her only once, I was sure she was screening her calls, but hoped I could hear her voice; she picked up but didn't say anything—I could hear how labored her breathing was. About a week after she told me not to come see her anymore she sent me a text that simply read:

"I love you."

I was filled with so many different emotions, but I responded by expressing the most prevalent one. I replied:

"I love you, too."

She said that she wanted to be with me, and that she couldn't wait until she could see me again. She told me that she had been released and was convalescing at her house. These exchanges carried on for several weeks, but every time I asked to come see her, she would say "soon". I kept insisting and the following week she said that she thought she might be able to make it to the next midnight movie. I couldn't believe it, but she insisted that she would try. I got a text from her the afternoon of the movie saying:

"See you tonight."

I got Ryan to drive me since Chris' parents had found out what had happened and said I wasn't welcome at their house anymore. I explained to Ryan that she might be in bad shape, but that I really cared about her so to give us some space. He accepted that and we headed down there.

Veronica didn't show.

I had saved a seat for her right next to me near the exit so she could get in and out easily, but ten minutes into the movie a man slid into the chair. I whispered, "Excuse me, this seat is taken," but he didn't respond at all; he just stared ahead at the screen. I remember wanting to move because there was something wrong with the way he was breathing. I forfeited because I realized that she wasn't coming.

I texted her the next day asking if she was alright and I enquired as to why she didn't show the previous night. She responded with what would turn out to be the last message I’d receive from her. She simply said:

"See you again. Soon."

She was delirious, and I was worried about her. I sent her several replies reminding her about the movie and saying it was no big deal but she just stopped replying. I grew increasingly upset over the next several days. I couldn't reach her at her home because I didn't know that number, and I wasn't even sure where they lived. My mood became increasingly depressed, and my mother, who had been really nice as of late, asked me if I was OK. I told her that I hadn't heard from Veronica in days, and I felt all the warmth leave her disposition.

"What do you mean?"

"She was supposed to meet me at the movies yesterday. I know it's only been like three weeks since she got hit, but she said she would try to come, and after that she just stopped talking to me altogether. She must hate me."

She looked confused, and I could read on her face that she was trying to tell if my mind had simply broken. When she saw that it hadn't, her eyes began to water and she pulled me toward her, embracing me. She was beginning to sob, but it seemed too intense a reaction to my problem, and I had no reason to think that she particularly cared for Veronica. She drew in a shuttering breath and then said something that still makes nauseous, even now. She said:

"Veronica's dead, sweetheart. Oh God, I thought you knew. She died on the last day you visited her. Oh baby, she died weeks ago."

She had completely broken down, but I knew it wasn't because of Veronica. I broke the embrace and staggered backwards. My mind was swimming. This wasn't possible. I had just exchanged messages with her yesterday. I could only think to ask one question, and it was probably the most trivial I could ask.

"Then why was her phone still on?"

She continued sobbing. She didn't answer.

I exploded, "WHY DID IT TAKE THEM SO LONG TO SHUT OFF HER GODDAMNED PHONE?!"

Her crying broke enough to mutter, "The pictures..."

I would come to find out that her parents thought that her phone had been lost in the accident, despite the fact that I had put it in her purse the night she was brought to the hospital. When they retrieved her belongings the phone was not among them. They intended to contact the phone company at the end of the billing cycle to deactivate the line, but they received a call informing them of a massive impending charge for hundreds of pictures that had been sent from her phone. Pictures. Pictures that were all sent to my phone. Pictures that I never got because my phone couldn't receive them. They learned that they were all sent after the night she died. They deactivated the phone immediately.

I tried not to think about the contents of those pictures. But I remember wondering for some reason whether I would have been in any of them.

My mouth went dry and I felt the painful sting of despair as I thought of the last message I received from her phone...

See you again. Soon.

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