Lights Out

Creepy

This episode of Creepy presents a collection of three distinct horror stories ranging from psychological dread to dystopian satire. The first

Key takeaways

• In 'Lights Out,' the protagonist deals with intense guilt regarding the death of his dog, Lexi, which was performed by a vet named Elliot.
• The shadow creature in the first story mimics the protagonist's movements with a slight, unsettling delay.

Main topics

• Creepypastas
• Urban Legends

Notable quotes

When the lights go out, so does the surety of my surroundings.

Conclusion

The episode provides a diverse anthology of horror that blends persona

Transcript preview

Speaker 4 (0:00) I'm John Grylls from Creepy, and I listen to the Be Afraid Podcast Network. Now, this Speaker 3 (0:12) is Creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous, chilling, and disturbing creepypastas and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened or are simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. Speaker 4 (0:47) Hey everyone. Looks like there were some more five-year-and-more Patreon members that I still owe some added thanks to, so please join me in thanking I'm dead and still listening, Miguel Alvarado, Kimberly Cooper, Darling, and Dan DeLeon. To see how you can support the show and get rewarded for it, please check out the donation tiers at patreon.com slash creepypod. First up, a grieving man mourning the death of his beloved dog discovers that something monstrous is stalking him through the darkness, forcing him to confront more than just its presence. From writer Ridge Joloff, Creepy Presents, Lights Out. When the lights go out, so does the surety of my surroundings. I assume that I'm still in my living room, but for a moment there's no way to know for sure. I focus on my other senses. The air smells like my living room. The faint smell of urine still lingers. I've gotten used to that smell. Tomorrow it'll be gone. With both hands, I reach out into the darkness. That feels like my curtain. And my wall. I'm reminded of something I once heard from a documentary about deep sea creatures. It's estimated that a third of the animals on Earth have never seen sunlight. The fish and crustaceans at the bottom of the ocean live their entire lives in the dark. They don't stop swimming just because they can't see. So I start to walk. After two steps, my shin slams into the coffee table. Right where it bit me, or burned me, or whatever it did. I'm unnerved by the sound of my own gasp as it bounces off walls that could be sheetrock or limestone. Speaker 4 (2:37) My hand reaches into my pocket to take out my phone and turn on the flashlight, to prove to myself that this is still my house and not some hollow cave. But I stop myself. No light whatsoever. I can't even risk using the screen. I shuffle forward blindly, thinking that I'm probably walking through urine. Then I remember. Speaker 4 (3:03) After a couple of minutes, my eyes adjust to the darkness. I walk into the kitchen. Out of habit, I reach over and flip the switch on the wall. My eyes squint at the sudden brightness on my retinas. My fingers are still stuck to the plate of the light switch, but in my hysteria, I can't seem to get them to swipe down and turn it off. A faint buzzing noise has entered the room. It could be the vibration of the bulbs overhead, or it could be the surreal flutter of that wicked creature as it moves between realms. I look down. There it is, spread thin across the linoleum, the shape of me, imitating my frozen posture. For a moment as I watch it, it only exists as my shadow, a dark, flat, indistinct version of myself, and I wonder if my mind made the whole thing up. But then, just as the pain in my legs surges, the head swivels to face me, the palms rest on the floor and press the body up. And now it stands in front of me. A faceless, silent silhouette. It lunges at me. My hands slide down, catching the switch just before the figure reaches me. Safe darkness is here again. I'm left alone to catch my breath as my eyes readjust and the framework of the kitchen slowly forms around me. Alone. Actually, for the first time in 17 years. I sit on the floor, my back leaning against the cabinets. Speaker 4 (4:48) I remember a Boy Scouts camping trip from when I was 12 years old. Our sculpt master led us on a hike through the forest in the middle of the night with no flashlights. In the beginning, I walked gingerly, tripping over roots, stretching my arms out in front of me to feel for branches. But by the end of the walk, I could see every loose twig on the ground. It takes almost an hour for the human eye to achieve night vision. I wait until I can see details of the room that were previously invisible. The grout between the tiles. The buttons on the microwave. By the time I stand up, I have a plan. The first thing I do is go into the garage, open the circuit box, and turn off the main breaker. Now I can be sure I won't turn the lights on again. Then I walk through the living room, down the hall, through the bedroom, and into the bathroom. I fill the bathtub with blankets and pillows. I go back to the kitchen. I grab a few bottles of water from the fridge and a box of protein bars from the pantry and bring them into the bathroom. Back to the kitchen one more time for aluminum foil. To the living room closet for two rolls of duct tape. Back to the bathroom. Close the door. I tape the cracks above and below the door, then add a few layers all around the frame for good measure. There's a small window in the corner above the bathtub. I cover it with several coats of foil and duct tape. I kick off my shoes and drop into my makeshift bathtub bed and hit the back of my head on the nozzle on the way down. Pain radiates from my skull, and I remember the strength of that mystical hand as it yanked on my hair. I gently run my fingers over the back of my head and find a tender, swollen bump. All I have to do is wait. Speaker 4 (6:40) I reach for my pocket again, wanting to check the time but decide against it. I close my eyes, and the darkness gets darker. My shin still smarts from the otherworldly wound eating away at my skin. I savor the pain. Most of me is glad this is happening. It feels like justice. Why should I get to be happy when my best friend is dead, especially since I was the one who made the call? Speaker 4 (7:16) When I shift my weight, my back pocket lets out a high-pitched squeal. I reach back and pull out a crinkly piece of plush. My fingers trace the outlines of two pointed ears, then a snout, then a soft, flat midsection with four bubbles in a row, like oversized shirt buttons. I squeeze one and it squeaks again. This is Fred the Fox. He was Lexi's favorite toy. Right now, Fred the Fox is wondering where his friend is gone, wondering where she is too. Speaker 4 (7:55) I know where her body is. In a plastic bag. Curled up on the shelf of the refrigerator. She hasn't even been cremated yet. But where's my Lexi? Where's the essence of her? I want to die just so I can find out. The last time I saw her was when I gently placed her in the trunk of Elliot's car. Elliot's a childhood friend who I recently reconnected with after more than ten years. He also happens to be a vet. He offered to euthanize my best friend at cost. I opened my front door and he stepped inside and before I knew it I was distracting Lexi with chocolate chips while he jammed a needle into her back. The sedative worked quicker than he said it would. I turned my head for a moment and when I looked back she had dropped onto her belly. I held her for the second injection and the third and the fourth. Speaker 4 (9:07) Elliot kept saying that it would just take one more, that all dogs are different, that she would stop breathing at any moment, that she wasn't in any pain, that she was asleep. But it felt like she knew exactly what she was fighting against. And if her vision was good enough, I think she would have looked me right in my eye. The rise and fall of her little belly persisting through five shots. And her muscles and heart were quite strong. Speaker 4 (9:41) Suddenly it seemed premature and all I could think was, what have I done? I looked at Elliot and thought, what have you allowed me to do? Why was her life in my hands when you're the one with the doctorate? Then she went still and his hand was on my shoulder and he was telling me that she was gone and her tongue, that little tongue that you could never manage to keep in her mouth, was turning blue. And I wondered if she would have wanted one more day. One more walk. Was this what was best for her? Or did I just kill her because I was sick of cleaning up piss every morning? And then I cried. I cried harder than I have in 17 years and 8 months. I cried like every tear was a token that she would take with her into the afterlife. Like my tears were airline points redeemable on a flight through the cosmos. Speaker 4 (10:59) You deserve to sit first class, Lex. I hated myself for sending her away. I haven't said these words out loud, because usually I would say them to Lexi. Anyone else would immediately try to console me. They would say that Lexi was blind and senile and that I should forgive myself. She wasn't herself anymore, they would say. But that would be easy for them to say. They weren't the ones who decided to stick her with that needle. I was. As she fell asleep on my lap, it was me who Lexi thought didn't want her anymore. Besides, she sure looked like herself today. She looked like herself when we went for a walk this morning, and she raised her tiny head every time the wind blew, letting the soft air sift through her scraggly brown beard when I held her tiny, still form this afternoon. Speaker 4 (12:11) She still looked like my dog, as small and soft as a child-stuffed animal, with the left ear that bent at its midpoint. That ear will always remind me of the photo of baby Lexi taken days after we brought her home. At the time, both ears bent like that. One of them would eventually lift into a point as she grew into an adult, and her little bent ear would be the only characteristic that she would bring with her on a puppyhood. Speaker 4 (12:45) If it weren't for that ear, you would never guess that the puppy in that picture was the same dog that died today. That photo was posted from a desktop computer because I was in middle school and wasn't allowed to have Facebook on my phone. Now, on Lexi's last day, I have a 401k and I can't eat a slice of pizza without getting heartburn. She has been with me every day for most of my life. Eating when I eat, sleeping when I sleep. Speaker 4 (13:20) It only makes sense that I would die when she dies. Elliot stayed with me for a while, then stood up and asked if I wanted to be the one to carry her out. I stood in the driveway, my cheeks stinging with tears, and watched him take her for her last car ride. When I came back in, the sun had almost fully set and the house was dark. I walked to Lexi's empty bed, picked up Fred the Fox, and put him in my back pocket. Speaker 4 (13:57) I flipped light switches as I moved throughout the house. First the hallway, then the bedroom. The place seemed too silent without the sound of Lexi's nails sliding over the floor. Wherever I went, she'd always follow closely on my heels, chasing my shadow. Now, without her, the place was unbearably empty. But something else was following me. It felt like the anticipatory tension you get when you suddenly feel a presence behind you. A breath on the back of your neck that makes your hair stand up. Except that when I turned around and saw nothing but empty space, the feeling remained. As if the presence was so close behind me that it could turn when I turned, and step when I stepped, and always stay on my back and out of my sight. I figured it was just Lexi. Either my mind was stuck on the memory of her, or her soul was haunting me. I sat at the end of the bed and bent over to take off my shoes. As I sat up, a strange feeling came over me. Something about the space around me was wrong. I felt like I'd been dropped into a virtual reality that was a near-identical rendering of my house, but not quite an exact duplicate, like there were one too many atoms of oxygen in the fabricated atmosphere. Looking to my left, I saw my shadow. It sat, perfectly mimicking my posture. But it was doing just that. Mimicking. Speaker 4 (15:47) It wasn't just my shape cast over the mattress. It was a creature. A creature with its own breath and its own thoughts. And the creature was doing its best to hide from me. I found the source of the strange feeling that had overcome me a moment earlier. I bent over to remove my shoes, and the silhouette had bent over with me. And when I'd straightened, it had been just an instant late in following. My eyes must have lingered on my shadow for a few seconds too long, because it quickly realized that it had been made. The nose, the dark triangle that jutted out from the head exactly as mine did, began to turn, then disappeared as the thing looked at me. Of course, I couldn't see it looking at me. Judged solely by the shape of the head, it could have just as easily turned away from me. But somehow I knew that it was looking at me. And it knew that I knew, and that shared knowledge was as good as eye contact. The head fell back and the jaw unlatched as if the thing was screaming, but the room remained silent. The dark shape rocked back and forth as if trying to build the momentum to stand. As it did, it began to flicker, disappearing for a microsecond and then reanimating at a position slightly more erect. Speaker 4 (17:20) It flickered in and out over the mattress as I watched. My breath caught my stomach, and