I Explored An Abandoned White Supremacist Camp | CreepCast

25:43I want to take a moment to thank today's sponsor, Brunt Workwear. Because Brunt Workboots are some of the most comfortable work boots you'll wear. And that's because Brunt uses comfort and durability in a single shoe. With Brunt, there's no painful break-in period, and they have options for every type of work. From waterproof, to soft toe, to safety toe, to lace up, to pull on, you name it. Right away, you can feel the comfort of the boot out of the box. And they're supportive enough to get you through a long workday. Not that I'm horribly familiar with those, as you can tell. This is the job of a child.

26:16But when I am on my feet, I'm glad I have someone in my corner. I got the Omen waterproof boots from Brunt, and I'm very satisfied with my choice. And right now, in celebrating America's 250th birthday, Brunt is rolling out a special collection of limited edition gear, as a tribute to all the men and women blue-collar workers that helped build America for generations. So right now, you can stop overpaying for workwear that doesn't last, and for a limited time, our listeners can get$10 off by going to bruntworkwear.com slash creepcast. That's right, 10 bucks off. Just head to bruntworkwear.com slash creepcast and then use code creepcast at checkout to get in on top tier gear at an incredible price.

26:54Plus, with a risk-free trial, there's no reason not to give them a shot. And after you order, if you could let them know that we sent you, we'd really appreciate it. Thank you to Brunt for sponsoring the show. Their link will be in the description, and we are now back to the episode. On the day, I set off alone and hiked for three straight hours before I finally spotted him moving between the trees. Pale skin, shaved head. Covered in bruises. Abner was a gaunt figure, panning and running desperately through the undergrowth. Sounds dumb to say, but he looked like a deer. I swear it. Not in shape, but in spirit.

27:28The way he moved around, looking so scared and alert. Dead and I had a few shared interests, but deer hunting was one of them, and I knew the look, plain as day, made it easy to pull the trigger. The pneumatic woomph of the air rifle was satisfying. Not as satisfying as the sound of the pellet striking him in the temple certainly not as satisfying as watching him practically tumble head over heels go rolling down the side of the mount i was grinning when i crested the top and looked down panning and laughing all half mad filled with the kind of righteous anger that i'm loath to admit must have inherited from my father god when i finally saw him when i saw the broken entangle of legs and arms made me think of a spider that's been stepped on.

28:11It was all bundled up, his violent descent down the hill stopped by the gnarled roots of a fallen tree. His face was streaked with blood and reminded me strangely of Jesus and his crown of thorns, and his eyes, his open eyes. Abner was looking at the sky too, just like Jesus with those chipped and painted irises. After that came the panic. I don't remember much else. Got shot in the temple. He fell down a hill, probably broke his neck and his arms and shit. If you're shot with a pellet gun, if it pierces the skull it could kill you. In the temple, my god. I mean, yeah. That was a rough paragraph.

28:48Like, kid falling down the hill, the arms twisted up and that thing looking to the sky like Jesus, the crown of thorns with blood like, man. Brutal. They found me half collapsed a mile out from the camp. feverish with an infection that was racing from my eye to my brain. I'd soiled myself. In my hysterical state, I'd told them about Abner. Terrible confession. Checked up on my story and found it to be true. Three weeks later, I woke up in hospital recovering from surgery to remove the infected eye. Dad was beside me and spoke in a tone that resembled pride. When he saw me looking nervously towards the door, he smiled and patted my shoulder.

29:26Don't worry, we look after our own. What a good dad. I didn't really think much of you when you was my boy, but now that you killed a kid. Now that you're head shaved and you're a white supremacist, I think I can look at you without throwing up. Yeah, now that you got an SS tattoo on your arm and you killed a child, come home, boy. Meat grinder is effective. I'll give them that. It took me a long time to realize that the people who ran that camp had plenty to lose, too, if my story got out. But the way they treated me, they acted like they were doing me a favor. saving me from an unfair and unjust world that would have persecuted me just for protecting myself.

30:05I never bought into it. Not really. I don't know. I like to think I didn't do a great deal to actually help them. But whether I want to admit it or not, I became part of the machine. I was in videos. I was in brochures. I had tattoos that remain even to this day as blotchy scars across my chest and back. There are photos of me as a teenager that make me feel physically sick when I look at them. gangly 19 year old with an ss tattoo poking out from beneath the collar these marks cost me educational and job opportunities and that pushed me further into the machine i went to rallies when they told me to gave speeches when they told me to through bottles when they told me to eventually they didn't have to keep telling me what to do i was angry so angry all the time like a cancer of the mind do you know what ended it what finally pulled me out.

31:01I was sent to jail for drunken disorderly behavior when I was 21, and a young trans woman who was sharing the cell with me and six others looked my way. You're a pretty man. And instinctively touched the scar on my face, the hollow socket that I never covered because I thought it made me look intimidating. She only smiled. It was so gentle. Like, she knew the fear I'd felt when Abner had held me down. She made a kind gesture to a man with a swatstick tattooed on his neck. She didn't have to. Didn't have to show kindness to a man who wanted her dead. And then the thought came to me clear as day.

31:37I don't think she deserves to die. After that, everything unraveled. For the last 20 years, my life had been dedicated to deprogramming people who got sucked up into the same machine I had. I've been on the news, interviewed for documentaries, lectured at every Ivy League university in the country. the charity I run has become my life's work and every step of the way I've received letters from people calling me a traitor they'll say anything if they think it'll keep me quiet but I just ignore them all I think um this is an interesting person from the story is very rough very brutal in a lot of parts but that note of a piece of kindness changing their mind um the guy who was there's a movie made about him he's played by sam rockwell uh what about the big kkk leader who became like a civil rights leader he had a i forget his specifics was a similar story where someone showed him kindness and he changed i think with a lot of people like this some people get mad at stories like this at the implication that uh people who are that hateful people are that dangerous and angry can be turned by just kindness when in most cases it's like no they need to be dealt with in much more extreme ways.

32:52But there are, you know, random cases of people just like a switch flips one day, recognizing their place. So, no, it's an interesting thing to frame like this brutal horror story around, you know? Yeah. Well, I mean, the horror is, I don't think that we've gotten to the crux of what has happened yet, but I mean, everything is, it's just so extremely, everything that's happening, you said it's brutal so far. it's all very just true. I mean, like, the amount of people, especially growing up, I mean, you probably relate to this in a way of growing up in, like, a more predominantly white southern area.

33:26What do you mean by that? A more predominantly white area, you have tons of people who all of this racism shit is based completely in fear. All of these people are afraid. They're afraid for the future. They're afraid for themselves. And they're afraid of anything that's, like, different. And I think it causes all this hatred and evilness to fucking build up and rile up. But all these people, it's pretty much just generations of people telling them that. And it's a cult-like mentality. And then, I mean, I've met a lot of people that have never interacted with, or not that I've met a lot of people, but I've known a lot of people that have never made that connection to actually talk with anybody else that's outside of this comfort zone.

34:04And it's created this extremely toxic mentality that if you've never breached out and actually talked to these people, you just assume that they're all the things that your parents or the people around you, all your friends, all the people that are around you say they are. and I think you get into that trap. So sometimes I do believe that an act of kindness can open your eyes of like, oh shit, I don't think that that's as ridiculous as, you know, I think as some people think. But I do think that like at the end of the day, it's complete mental delusion and it's like a complete poison of the mind.

34:35And a lot of times too, people, you're just so far gone, you know, but yeah, so far, I mean, it's just been a thing where it's, it's makes, it makes total sense, especially people being like repressed. You made to feel like you're basically a fucking animal and that the only way to actually be a human being is to follow this exact way, line of thinking and everything else is stupid. Of course, you're going to have people that are put into those positions and, and everything. It's, it's a, it's a horrible, horrible, real thing that happens all the fucking time. I think, so growing up, I'd never really saw that much like prejudice and stuff like that.

35:10I think mostly just because all my friends, like people we knew growing up were all church related. That's like where everyone came from. And, you know, racism, all that's pretty far moved from Christian teachings and things like that, at least legitimate ones. We'd always have missionaries from around the world come in and talk all the time. So I didn't see a lot of it, but until I got to like high school and met people kind of outside my immediate purview, or I remember like we would have like bus ministries where we'd go to areas and we would help people out and meet more of the community then.

35:44Yeah, which I, well, just to interject, I do feel like that's a rare thing. I think especially in a religious aspect, I think a lot of people are even more judgmental in things, especially when it comes down to a thing that's so strictly like my worldview has to be this way. Because I would say, I would argue that a lot of the churches that I went to and things that even pushed me away from the church and stuff like that was the limited minds that came from it and the things of just being like, well, if you don't agree with me, you're fucking wrong, and I hate you. So I think that, like, not to say, once again, that's not everybody.

36:16I'm not saying that's you, but I do think that, like, people have probably had, and I think that's another reason why a lot of people get pushed away from those things, too, is because it's not always welcoming. It's just where you are, and I think it's just around who you surround yourself with. And I do think, naturally, I think human beings are just extremely fucking nasty, I think. you know it would um i think because i i'm i certainly know what you mean you know i talk to people all the time and there were like i say that like i never interacted with it i would see it i would hear stories about it and stuff like that i'm just saying like my friends and people i was around just wasn't something we we were grown and we were raised in the opposite of that to reject that and things like that um but that sure it was around is in other communities and stuff like that.

37:02Um, you know, all Christianity is at the end of the day is Jesus loves us all so much. He died for us. And some people will take that to a sense of betterment, sense of entitlement with things and let it run rampant. Um, but when I did see it, cause you're going back talking about, you know, predominantly, but like way more wide areas and stuff like that. the only time you would I would normally see it was in people who felt they were slighted by something. Right. Either like, you know, their life like, you know, low that, you know, they weren't making the money they wanted to or there was something they couldn't get or like they lost their job or something like that.

37:43For me, for my family, people in my family was people being like, oh, X person took work from me. Yes. Like that kind of thing. It would be just legitimately that, and then that would be forever. Yes. Yeah, it would be this, that I was slighted by this reason, or I can't get a job because of this person, or I'm not making money because these people are taking our jobs and stuff like that. And it was always like, it was always stuff like that. And it would be because that was the thing you could blame it on that you didn't have to confront, right? It was a thing out there, this nebulous target that is the reason for the things that are wrong in my life.

38:20not something I can change not not a complex series of things that happened or someone doing me wrong that's the problem so that's what the issue is it always just be from a point of fear to a sense but also like determination to find a thing that's wrong other than you know yeah well I mean just lost sick in the head people well that's yeah there's also a lot of that of course yeah I want to take a moment to thank today's sponsor Warby Parker buying glasses shouldn't be complicated, but so often it is. It's often hard to tell if the glasses are going to fit your face or if you're even being charged a fair price.

38:58Thankfully, Warby Parker is here to help. Nothing comes close to Warby Parker's quality, price, customer service, and selection. They have 300 retail stores across the United States stocked with durable and stylish eyewear, and one quick trip to their website can tell you how easy they've made the glasses buying process. Their virtual try-on feature lets you try before you buy right from your phone. You can try on tons of frames on your face in real time and get the option that suits you. And Warby Parker has a ton of options. You can get your lenses in prescription, non-prescription, progressive, and even readers.

39:32So you can ditch your old unreliable glasses and get a stylish new pair from Warby Parker. Their prescription glasses start at just$95 allowing you to look stylish at an affordable price. And plus, Warby Parker is covered by most major eye insurance plans. And they've distributed over 20 million pairs of glasses through their Buy a Pair, Give a Pair program. So you can get some for yourself and also be helping out those in need. Warby Parker gets you quality and better looking eyewear at a fraction of the going price. If you're looking to get in on Warby Parker, then now's the perfect time. That's because right now, if you buy one pair of glasses, you will get 20 % off any additional pair when you head to the link in the description at warbyparker.com slash creepcast.

40:13That's right, 20 % off any additional prescription pairs. Again, when you get a pair at warbyparker.com slash creepcast, that's w-a-r-b-y parker.com slash creepcast at the link in the description. Thank you to Warby Parker for sponsoring the show. Their link will be in the description, and we are now back to the episode. Only one set of letters came close to rattling me. I always threw them away with the rest, but they had a habit of getting stuck in my thoughts for days afterwards. They were mean-spirited things that turned up in the strangest places. Found them in my fridge, in my shoes, in gym lockers.

40:48I saw them as nothing more than attempts to scare or bully me into silence. Most of them were simple. Few lines here and there. Hurt when you shot me. I confided in you. Something else found me in those woods. Oof. That's kind of interesting. Interesting. I thought he was also dead. Yeah, well, I think that was the implication. Oh, so you're saying that, so these are like letters, quote unquote, from the grave pretty much. Yes. This is either someone pretending to be the kid he shot to mess with him because he is like an anti, yeah, like a reformed, like white supremacist, or he did live and the members of his group wanted him to think he was dead.

41:35hit, like hit, swept under the rug, but what does that even mean? Yeah, yeah. So he could be alive, but I think someone's probably trying to pretend to be him. Or there's a supernatural element. I don't know. I figured they were sad attempts at intimidation, but if whoever was making them had any real guts, they would have reported the crime for what it was. But that was as likely to incriminate them as it would me. Then, a few months ago, one of the letters turned up in my car and it shook me to my core. Reading the words within, felt like I was out in those woods again. My heart racing and my stomach churning as I looked down at Abner's corpse.

42:13I was hard as a rock when I cut you. Oh, gosh. That's all there was on the page, but that's all I needed to see because I never told anyone what I felt pressing down on my torso when Abner cut me. Oh, jeez. Oh, my gosh. He never mentioned it in his letter either. The only people on this entire planet who knew that he had an erection was him and me. Three days later, I got another letter. This one was inside the pillow on my bed. God knows how it got in there, but by this point, I felt as if my grip on reality was weakening. I hadn't been into work for weeks. I hadn't seen any friends or family.

42:51When I read the final letter, I think I already knew what it wanted long before I read the words, Eden Waits. Interesting. that's like a really fun catalyst of getting the character back to go back and see what's up yeah it's like almost like a person that knows your deepest secret and somebody who's like torturing you with it is giving you physical letters that now it's it's you're it's impossible to run away from it has to be this person so now it's like now it makes you think that almost that our main character is going to go back and finish the job kill him yeah i would assume so or whoever's doing that go back and snuff them out too potentially it could be it could also be like um because he talks about he still has that anger that rage even though it's not directed them like he still feels that hatred and maybe carries it out on whoever this person is and stuff so who knows the side of eden's gates downtrodden and collapsing beneath the weight of heavy woodland air made the breath catching my throat in the 30 years since i'd last seen it the forest had encroached on the abandoned grounds.

43:49Now the rotting cabins and algae-slicked decks were hidden in shadows. In places, the buildings seemed to grow out of the woodland, their floors collapsing into the undergrowth as gnarled roots explored and reclaimed the foundations. Doors left ajar offered glimpses of rooms crowded with ferns as tall as me, their dripping fawns hiding faded posters with words like Great Replacement and Skull Shapes Explained, barely visible in the dark. My feet navigated a lone floor that had half buried the long forgotten remnants of camp life, including old VHS tapes of revisionist documentaries and rucksacks full of moldering clothes.

44:26In one cabin, there was even a flag still pinned by one corner to the wall. It looked like it had been used to put out a fire. Pressing deeper, I found a cabin with a half-charred timber frame. Dozens of jagged logs, planks, and even a few rusted iron beams had been jammed between the door and the wooden deck. Try as I might, I couldn't budge them, and the windows were thick with mud and filth. I never saw what lay inside, but I did note the gaping hole in the roof along with splintered planks jutted outwards. Stranger still, when I went down by the lake, I found two pickup trucks parked up beneath the canopy.

45:03Both had festered in the dank forest air, rubber on the tires flaking and frail. and one the airbag had deployed but there was no sign of damage to the exterior and the other the door had been left open and embedded in the passenger seat dash it's a single human tooth so so far how long has it been between when he was last there and now because this this almost makes you think that the fucking spirit of that kid came back and wreaked havoc on the fucking camp it could be could also be like the camp was found out at some point everyone had to like well see i was like okay well maybe it's that someone came up and they, like, fucking firebombed the place.

45:40But, I don't know, the tooth in the dashboard makes it seem like, oh, someone was, like, bashed their fucking head into it. Well, the combination of the airbag makes me think that it was a wreck. Oh, I guess they didn't say it. I just thought they were both parked. Found, stranger, parked up beneath the canopy. Both had festered. I thought it was, he hit them so fucking hard. Oh, the airbag went off. I see what you're saying. That's right. That's what I thought. Someone got light. I see what you're saying. Yeah, probably. Probably since we're not right. So maybe it was the kid. maybe it was the ghost of the kid or something like that going through there.

46:11I didn't linger long in the camp, which I have to say, by the way, this has got to be one of the most unique setups, like premises we've seen to a horror story like this. I think I would say unique. Definitely. I think that like the, uh, it's very hard. It's very hard making a character where it's like, by the way, I'm a disgruntled youth who got turned into a white supremacist and that's your man. That's your protagonist. I think it's hard to dance that line while making them somebody where you're like, oh, I'm kind of curious to hear what they're about. Yeah. I want to hear what they have to say.

46:42I mean, obviously, there's the note of like they are reformed now. But even the description earlier on, there was, I think, a successful, sympathetic may not be the right word, an attempt to make you understand why someone so desperate became violent in this situation, how they were indoctrinated into it and stuff like that. I was going to say, since they are reformed, as it said, it must have been some amount of time between. Yeah, well, it says he's on news stations and he's doing interviews and stuff like that. His charity, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, so it's had to be years and years. It had to be years, yeah.

47:17So now after 20 years, he's getting these notes that's from Abner? Yes. That's, yeah, I mean, that's pretty fucking crazy. Well, so he said he was 14 when he went. Yeah, he was 14 when he went, so now he's like 34. Yeah. Yeah. So it's been a while. Oh, so earlier when I saw, sorry, I misread there earlier. Earlier I was like, oh, maybe he's going there to snuff him out. He's probably going there to be like, well, one, what a crazy mystery. But then also if this guy did survive, I should probably fucking talk to him. Or if someone knows. True. Yeah. If Abner lived then and told someone and they know, I need to figure this out.

47:51Before it comes out that he, who is a famous public figure now for being a reformed white supremacist, it's like, hey, do you know this guy killed a kid? Well, that's what I'm wondering is, that's what I'm wondering is, your all's take so far on is it a selfish reason he's going back there to like clear his name or is it something where it's selfless that's i guess that's what i'm curious with so far what you've heard i think more than anything it's searching curiosity yeah because so far if it's if it is this route where it's like well i'm a big figure now i've been reformed but people don't know my dark secret that to me that's like immediately selfish like that's not like that it's not like a thing of I should go back and I need to like explain myself or I need to like let people know or help them.

48:34Well that's kind of what I was inferring to when I pointed out how the story keeps saying like I have my dad's anger. I still got a means. Well yeah it's like making excuses in that kind of way. Yeah yeah yeah. Okay. Alright. I didn't linger long in the camp. Cruiser examination in my old cabin revealed nothing that caught my attention. Once I realized there were no real answers for me there I set out for the woods. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't afraid as I took my first steps into the trees. but I couldn't have told you why only the feeling of eyes on my back I also want to point out not to keep derailing but Christian Wallace is such an expert at giving you just enough detail in moments to make the scene grisly and like work like the kid falling down the hill and then Abner and all that and also knowing when to skirt on detail to keep the pace moving yeah I was going to say I found that even with like even just some of the explicit like boner talk and all that stuff.

49:27I feel like that could have gone extremely gratuitous, but... It kept it right where it needed to be to still be shocking but not delve into it too much. Yeah, revealing in the best way. Yeah, he paces his stories very well. I think I kept at it because I wanted something bad to happen. I'd skirted justice for quite a long time. Sure, most nights I'd told myself I'd probably just imagine the whole thing, but so what? If I hadn't shot him, I would have. Could have. Does it make that big a difference? I had it in me to kill, and my sins were so great that I don't think the distinction between what had or had not happened in those woods even mattered anymore.

50:06Sure, what he did to me was wrong, but I excused a lifetime of screw-ups by saying I was just a kid. Difference was, I'd had time to grow and learn, while Abner had been robbed of that chance. I tried so hard to atone, but hurting him was the one thing I'd yet to face up to. Okay, so that points to a bit more of a selfless. He's coming here for penance almost in this description. I don't know. You see, even then, I was actually going to say that that was such a muddy description of... Because it felt like it was, like, leaning selfless, and that it was kind of selfish, and it was leaning... So you're thinking maybe that he's just telling himself this.

50:44I think that he doesn't know what to expect yet. I think that at the same time, it's a thing of, like, you know, I was just a kid, I've told myself this, but I've had... I think that he is ridden with guilt, but I think that he does not know what his plan is yet going there. Yeah. You know? Yeah. I was scared of what I might find, but at least I didn't have to worry about getting lost. The ground sloped upwards for a few miles before the hill broke and went down at a sharp incline. All I had to do was find the crest and follow it one direction or the other. 50-50, I'd get it right the first time, and I had an instinct that if there was anything I needed to see, it would stand out to me.

51:19I don't know how familiar you might be with the woods, by the way. If you are, you already know just how quickly the horizon fades to darkness as it's lost to the ever-growing ranks of standing, leaning, and fallen trees. It's important you understand that, though. The darkness of it. It's like daytime's a bubble that only follows you. Everything farther than 20 or so feet away is in a perpetual dusk. A little farther than that, and it's as dark as any night. When I finally reached the top of the hill and looked down, I saw a mountainside disappearing into a wooded trench where the sun made little progress.

51:55It was like finding the border between day and night. I had this strange realization that there must be places down amongst those trees where the sun might not have reached for thousands of years. I did not have to walk far along the hilltop before I found the shoe. The red of its fabric laces was too bright for those woods. It lay just a dozen or so feet down the embankment like bait in a trap. God, did I hurry to take it. Why wouldn't I? In my memories of Abner lying dead, his left leg bent backwards and reached all the way around to the top of his head like a scorpion tail. Dangling off the toe was a single shoe with red laces.

52:33Decades later, I was convinced I was looking at that very shoe. I rushed down the steep hill with great speed, my feet sinking into the soft and loaming woodland floor like I was descending a snowy bank. Each step covered three or so feet as I took these great loping strides, aided by gravity. When I slowed to grab the shoe, something beneath the leaves caught my foot and I was sent careening towards the ground. I built up speed so quickly that my descent was closer to freefall than a roll. The world became a dizzying swirl of canopy and dirt that only stopped when something hit me in the gut like a car hitting a wall.

53:09The world continued to spin around me. That was just my inner ear failing to catch up in reality. I've been stopped by a tree, and I lay half-wrapped around it like a t-shirt on a clothesline. When I tried to breathe, something inside my chest grated and hurt so bad I worried I might die. Craning my neck and looking back up the hill, I saw an incline as steep as a cliff. Climbing back up would be no more possible than flying. For some reason, during my fall, I grabbed a hold of the shoe and it was still clutched in one fist. I stuffed it in my bag and tried to take another deep breath to steady myself, but it was like someone had slid a knitting needle between my ribs.

53:51The pain was agonizing, and I could just about manage short, shallow breaths to keep my head from going light and dizzy. But it wasn't like I could stay there. All those thoughts of sins and punishment gave way to the fear that I might die in those woods. The way down would be difficult, but I could just about manage a slow crawl if I was careful. I rolled onto my stomach, got to grips with the soft earth, and then began my descent. But I was moving for only ten minutes, and I felt something strange beneath the leaves. It was another shoe. At first, I thought it must be the other one to Abner's, but the size was all wrong.

54:26It was barely as big as my hand. Better fitted one of the younger campers than a teen like Abner. Angry and hurt, I tossed it to the side and kept going. But I soon found myself pulling up a pair of moldy boxers. Then a t-shirt, a jacket, a sock, a scarf. I realized that the woodland floor was littered with scattered belongings of what must have been dozens of people. But that was just the beginning. Before long, the leaves gave way and I was crawling over a carpet of old and discarded belongings. At times, there were so many that I imagined myself emerging out of the sea and mounting a coastline made of backpacks and clothes.

55:05There were tents, nets, gun bags, sleeping bags, coolers that had been smashed open. They couldn't all have come from Eden. Had they been tossed over the top of the hill? I was hours away from the nearest road. It wasn't like someone could have driven a dump truck up to the hill and emptied it. The more I tried to think of some rational explanation, the more the scale of the discarded old camping gear frightened me. I had no choice but to carry on downwards. but it was hard to swallow the growing sense that I was stumbling headfirst into a terrible forgotten place and then I found it the uprooted tree I felt like I just locked eyes with something terrible like I'd gone to the fridge in the middle of the night and seen a face staring at me from the darkness beyond an open window I couldn't even bring myself to breathe it's gnarled and savage roots resembled a hand that clutched the darkness at the center of its naughty hollow In all my wildest imaginings, I could not have fathomed that I would find the tree exactly as I'd remembered it.

56:07A specter plucked right from the nightmares that had plagued me every single day since I'd pulled the trigger. Once when I was younger, I found an abandoned bear's dead hunting with my father. It was just a hole in the side of an embankment, its entrance littered with a scattering of small bones. The air around it stank of blood and meat after it had been shit out by an apex predator. Dad told me it was abandoned, but he still hurried me away with whispered gestures that let me know we weren't completely safe. The tree felt like that bear's den. They were both little things, but to the old instincts that lurk inside all living things, they were as big as the Grand Canyon.

56:48Enormous craters in reality condensed into tiny spaces like a black hole. I could not escape its gravity, and without thinking, I moved towards it, filled with the desperate urge to prove my nightmares wrong, to grip the smooth roots and find nothing but wooden dirt. When I reached it, I knelt on an old plastic tent like they were pews, and reached towards the hollow. I expected my fingers to sink into old mud gripped tight by long dead roots. Instead, I felt skin. It was cold and soft. I snatched my hand away in disgust and terror, stumbling backwards and crying out. And Abner came into light.

57:29Shaved head, pale eyes. The gaunt and angry frame of a teenage boy. One leg still bent agonizingly over the back of his head, an elbow where a neck should be. A mangled mess of joints and limbs that bent in ways they should not bend. the more of him that emerged the less his body made sense instead of a torso there was only bruised flesh the color of a sunset a canvas of skin stretched thin by fractured bones that moved for the sound like creaking floorboards his face was expressionless and tilted to the side as he gazed at me with pale and cloudy eyes nothing within those glassy orbs seemed to register my existence instead when he finally recognized me i think it was with some deeper stranger instinct andrew i rolled backwards and fled but a broken rib can't be magicked away with adrenaline i ran as far as i could before the magic i ran as far as i could before the pain lanced through me and i hunched over into a three-limbed crawl that quickly failed and sent me sprawling to the ground.

58:36When I turned back, the uprooted tree was a good 50 feet away. Intro. He was looking up at me from within an old hiking shoe, a single cataract-riddled eye that searched blindly for my face. I screamed at the impossibility and launched myself into a loping crawl, but I couldn't see where I was going and stumbled headfirst into a tree. The crack of my skull was not loud, but it shot through me as a sudden overwhelming nausea. My limbs turned to jelly and I collapsed to the floor. I tried vomiting, but only a mouthful of thin acid came up, swimming briefly over my tongue before trickling down my cheek.

59:12Something in the woods found me. I opened my eyes and rolled over. Abner was there. An amoeba mass of knotted limbs with a shaved head for a nucleus. A nightmare bereft of all color. He must have been 30 feet across. The dozens of hands and feet that emerged and disappeared into his body defied easy categorization. Thumbs on thumbs and toes on toes, heels with palms and hands with long canine arches. It felt like I was trying to make sense of something you'd find fermenting in an old specimen jar, squinting through thick glass at strange and veiny protrusions. Only Abner was not contained safely behind glass, but instead floated freely above me.

59:56his knuckled limbs waving gently like a girl's hair in the pool. A hand reached out towards me, but I could not contain my tear and shrieked as it came closer. In a mad scrabble, I began to drag myself backwards in a desperate attempt to escape the reach of a hand with a fractal's worth of digits. But Abner was in no hurry, and as I pulled myself the twenty or so feet to the foot of the hill, his arm kept moving forward like wool pulled from a ball of yarn. it kept pace even as i reached the start of the slope and tried to kick my way up it but i could get no purchase and managed only to climb a few feet before falling to the ground when this brought me closer to abner's probing fingers i sobbed and thrashed even harder at the loosely packed dirt and trash of the woodland floor but that only made things worse and i only made it another foot up the hill before i fell once more back towards the ground this time abner's hand was so close I could smell him.

1:00:52Fungal growths and rotting meat, the dusty odor you ignore after opening an urn. The smell sent lightning coursing through my spine and limbs, and I was overcome by the kind of terror that blots out conscious thought. I would have crawled beneath the treads of a moving tank or slid headfirst into a wood chipper if it meant escaping this nightmare. It is so old, Andrew. Abner's voice paralyzed me. Have you ever seen educational videos on drowning? It's not splashing you're taught to look out for. People who are drowning are so close to death their nervous system nearly shuts down and they freeze in terror.

1:01:27Limbs locked, head held up high, legs straight and toes probing for the ground. Anything to avoid the rising water that's close to pouring down their open lips. Felt it flow over my toes, my feet, my ankles, my legs. A blanket of heavy black that flowed out of the spaces between the leaves and dirt below me, summoned by the dread in Abner's voice.

1:01:49Christian Wallis:It was born on the Great Lakes of America filled with blood, and its tribe worshiped what swam in those waters. If anything of its humanity remains, it is a humanity that we could never recognize. Its idea of mercy is a flint axed to the base of an infant's skull. The only love it knows is forced and screaming in the dirt of a Neolithic breathing pit. The only humor it recognizes is the shrill breathing of a crowd that watches flayed victims twitch in open air. I swear, I did not just hear his words, but I felt them. Their impact made it hard to breathe, and I felt like a man plunged into ice water.

1:02:26My gasps were short and shallow and tinged with the terrifying knowledge that I would soon die.

1:02:32Christian Wallis:Yours was the only soul I could find while swimming. Lost in the dark. A beacon of guilt. A thread that connects us. Whatever found me won't let me go. It binds us to our old things. The detritus that makes up this woodland floor is a sea of fetishes used to keep its victims in the dark. And mine, and you have mine, I can sense it. The shoe. take it out of these woods. Put it in the sun and free me. The darkness filled my throat. The last thing I remember as my consciousness faded was the realization that Abner did not look angry, but instead heartbroken and frightened. I need your help. Interesting.

1:03:18Seems almost like he has to bring it out so people can see to actually be freed or something. It's a creature that he says goes back to when the tribes worshipped the thing in the water. but it's a creature that Christian only knows hate, only knows evil, which is fitting, given the setting beforehand. But its idea of mercy is killing a child. Its idea of laughter is people screaming and stuff. It's the worst parts of humanity, right? And it's keeping him alive. It's part of the system, refuses to let it go. But if you can take this piece of him, this like... It's like a god that supports his camp with all the things they were doing, the hunt and everything else.

1:03:58Well, it's kind of like, it almost makes me think of Blood Meridian a little bit, where the concept with the judge is like, he could be at, there's a line where the kid says, I could imagine him amongst the Crusades, like wherever the bloodiest place on the earth was, that's where this thing is, right? And it's kind of like, this is a creature that thrives on hate in this area. It's going to go to the place where hate was stewed upon. so and now it has a hold of this person and the only way that you can release it is to remove the totem of that person that lets it keep because you know abner's body's long gone like long decayed carried off by animals but that shoe's still there so if a piece of him leaves the woods and he's released basically which is also fitting because our protagonist has had guilt over abner all these years and it's like here he can save him like obviously he can't make everything better free him.

1:04:48You can free him. Yeah. When I came to, I was lying in an old bed too small for me, my feet dangling over the bottom. Overhead lay the ceiling of a once familiar cabin, the place I'd once slept as a teenage camper now turned to rot and ruin. Fallen beams and a patchwork roof that let the rain strike my face in a gentle drizzle. Fear propped me up quickly, then pain nearly put me on my back again. Wincing, I lifted my damp clothing and saw a rainbow of bruises sprawling across the left side of my abdomen. Taking it slowly, I pushed myself to my feet and glanced at the crumbling ruins of what was once the Othala cabin where the boys aged 13 to 16 had bunked.

1:05:30It was raining. Great rivulets of water poured down the walls and cascaded through the open air. Outside, the sun was setting, and what little light made it into the camp's clearing was tinted pink and yellow. I limped to the nearest window and looked through an empty pane. In the fading light, the camp was a crowd of squat buildings lurking amongst the young growth of a healing forest, its pathways throttled by saplings and ferns. I took my hidden porches and walls furry with moss. My head was a mess, but I distinctly remember falling and decided I must have hit my head in the woods. Abner and the rest was just a dream, surely.

1:06:11But then, who had rescued me after the fall? It's going in hard. I thought I could see someone moving around out there. Was that them? I cried out, sat groan. Some part of me cringed at the suddenness of the sound. My instincts told me to lay low, crouch, hide, but I ignored them and cried out again, this time louder, clear. Hello? A hand grabbed my ankle. A desperate figure pulled themselves out from beneath the nearby bed and gazed upwards at me. They had no eyes or jaw, but the wounds that had been covered with smooth pink skin. Lips led to teeth, led to palate, and esophagus. Every breath seemed to leave them gagging on spittle and blood.

1:06:57This was not Abner, but like him they were pale with a shaved head. Coiling, I moved from the window and let some of the fading sunlight enter the cabin. And where the light had hit the poor wretched skin, their flesh simply ceased to exist like a shadow. it must have hurt because they cried out in pain and snatched their hand away and i realized that with fingers so small they couldn't have been older than 13. that must be the the boxers they found out there yeah i think it's going to be we're going to see a collection of like all the kids that had been murdered a bunch have died there yeah they were treated but i soon discovered escape wouldn't be so easy and the mere moments that had passed the camp had already fallen further into darkness and there were more figures moving in the shadows limping drooling crying sobbing naked mutilated boys with scraggly matted hair and starved figures dozens of them hauling themselves out of the dark and stumbling blindly a few had arms outstretched looking for something in particular but most shuffled heads down turned none of them were whole missing arms fingers god and one even had a hole going right through his chest.

1:08:06All of them were in pain. With every second that passed, the camp came alive and surrounded me with a waking nightmare. When two of the figures bumped into each other, their nature immediately changed. The sad whimpering of two lost souls was replaced with guttural rage as both erupted into violence. I've been in my fair share of fights, and I've never seen anything like that. Fist fights are rarely mortal affairs. You want to kill someone, you stab or shoot them. You don't try to clobber them to death with the ball of your palm. You don't use bitten nails to fishhook a hole right through their cheek.

1:08:42You don't tear their jugular with your few remaining teeth. It didn't happen just once, either. Each time two or more of those figures bumped into each other, the violence appeared like a switch getting flaked. But the worst part was that once the fight was over and the loser had stopped thrashing violently on the ground, they would both just get back up. Injuries dripping black fluid, but quickly sealing with new skin. I saw one boy smash another's head in with a rock, and when his victim sat upright, he had nothing left of his skull above the nose. His teeth chattered briefly, and then he stood up and kept walking.

1:09:19My only hope was the light. Each time one of those things stood in the sun, they disappeared. It was as if they were made of shadow, only able to exist as long as they were not exposed to direct light. It was a risk, but I had to hope it wasn't just the sun they feared. I had a flashlight in my pocket, and I grabbed it, but as soon as my hand made contact, something outside squealed like a stuck pig. The instant I heard it, it was like being plunged into cold water. The atmosphere in the bunk and camp outside immediately changed, and I turned to see that the army of dark figures now stared at me.

1:09:55Panicked and afraid, I fumbled briefly before turning on the light and pivoted just in time to catch something leaping at me from beneath the dark. They faded to nothing in the light, but then something else in the periphery moved, and when I turned towards them, the previous attacker returned to existence. I was forced to flick the light desperately from one to the other just to keep the two at bay. Terrified, I tried to calm myself and think of some way to escape, but there was no time. From behind, there came the sound of tinking glass and hands so cold they left freezer burn on my skin dragged me through the open window i screamed but did not let the flashlight go as i was thrown to the floor i saw nightmarish mobs around me they laughed and sneered as a knee pushed me into the sodden mud i felt it then same fear i had decades before the eyes staring down at me this was a familiar violence then there came another nails-on-chalkboard shriek, the kind of gut-wrenching wail that had to belong to a monster.

1:11:00My attackers reacted like sullen schoolboys, clenched teeth and flared nostrils suddenly replaced with downturned eyes and sniffling noses. I parted reluctantly, and I saw it. Him crawled towards me, a small figure, lithe, no more than five feet tall, dense muscle in a pot a belly, a mane of hair that nearly touched the ground. He was the color of oil, no detail except a silhouette, a figure made of shadow. He grunted and sniffed the air like a dog. He smelled of copper and violence. His presence was as heavy as dark matter. I swear, the only other things like him were swirling around super colliders in Switzerland.

1:11:43When he touched me i saw the world the real world under which ours is only a painted image an ocean with no bottom an ecosystem with no ceiling only ever growing predators some large enough to engulf stars i learned some of his memories he learned some of mine i felt the vague imprint of wisdom earned over a hundred thousand years foul sorcery that might make a kind of twisted sense to a modern scientist, but for me to try and grasp any of it, even some of it, made me feel like I was at risk of dislocating something in my mind. Some joint or hinge that, once loose, can never be popped back into place.

1:12:24I shied away from it, and when I opened my eyes, that monster's hand was touching the place where my eye used to be. I was smiling. A vile sight, rich with cruelty and malice. the grin of a murderer dying peacefully in old age. A smile spoke to me. It told me that the modern world had been of no interest to this forgotten creature, or so it had thought. But as it scraped Abner's mind of every memory he had, it learned of Eden and found echoes of the world it had once been fond of. It had been so long since it had so many people to play with. Then I noticed something I hadn't before. The thing only had one eye I knew what Abner had done to me And it knew what I had done to Abner Wren widened And a hand made out of darkness Between atoms Clamped around my head What do you think this is the I think this is the entity The visual representation though What do you think this is like The manifestation of Well it talks about being 5 foot tall With the big Like has a pot belly and stuff like that But imagine it being like the embodiment of like wrath, perhaps, or greed or something like that.

1:13:39Potbelly as in like it's always full of these things or something. Yeah, full of, because it says that, right? Stuffed belly or something like that. I imagine it being like, have you ever seen like old demonic depictions, like really old ones? Yeah, like the medieval ones. Yeah, where it's, I mean, some of them will look animalistic. Yeah, some of them would look animalistic, but other times it would just look like a guy. Almost like how we would describe a dwarf or something like that running around, cause mischief. It almost sounds like one of those. Like I can imagine this is the embodiment of wrath.

1:14:12Interesting. Because it shows him like the true world and that is a world of nothing but predators. Things so big you couldn't possibly imagine. It's kill or be killed, so you better kill. Once again, the same kind of mentality that the camp was instilling. Yes, exactly. exactly it's like this is that ancient base like primordial emotion that over millennia has transferred into a white supremacist camp that teaches kids to fight right like this this was this was the apple in the garden of eden which haha eden the apple in the garden of eden that led to all the sin we know today sure this is the apple for anger effectively when i awoke it was in my car morning had broken my chest was painted with dappled light i wasted no time in trying to remember what was or wasn't real i had somehow traveled halfway down the trail a good two days hike and was back near the road escape was in sight and i took it i drove so fast i nearly came off the dirt road on more than one occasion kept going barreling down the mountain until some part of me remembered the broken rib at some point the pneumonia got the better of me I must have passed out and the car rolled to a stop Park ranger who found me said I had a hell of a fever And it put me in the hospital for the next few weeks I spent my time rambling at doctors about a darkness so heavy It could drown the sun like an ocean drowns a candle It's been about a year since then Not a day has gone by I haven't thought about Abner Or the thing that holds him captive That smile Sometimes I still see it leering at me from the dark spaces beneath the tablecloth at a busy restaurant dumpster in an alley one time a homeless man asked for change and a single eye stared out at me from his open mouth it's taunting me took abner's shoe and it intends to keep him it thinks it knows me well enough that i won't go back to help him and the others that mountain of trash at the foot of the hill how long has it been up there collecting hikers and campers anyone unlucky enough to stumble into the dark places of appalachia where the sun has not shown for millennia i know why it let me go for abner to have come so close to escape for him to know that he nearly got out and spent eternity wondering if i might one day return that would amuse it that's why it let me go.

1:16:42I thought that I might risk my own neck to help the boy who cut out my eye. Couldn't fathom such a thing. Thinks that I'll scurry away like a rabbit freed from a trap. It's wrong. I suspect I won't have it so easy next time. That thing is smart. Smart enough to have been born mortal, but still live half a million years later. Smart like evolution, like nature. The kind of thing that could be hard for a human to reckon with and I think there's a good chance I'll lose the next confrontation. Lose it badly. But I'm no slouch either. I've fought my share of hatred and I've got my own plans for how to help the people stuck in Eden.

1:17:25A truck with a generator, floodlights, glow sticks, quad bikes so expensive it could damn near drive up Everest, homemade napalm, enough to burn a mountain to the ground. When I go back, I'm bringing the light with me. End of the story. I like that ending. I think that's fun. It feels like a story that's all in, it feels like a person that is trying to come to terms with like, I guess, bringing the light to their evil past. Or like basically like. Literally burning out what was there. Yeah. Yeah. I think that it comes down to the fact of like, is he going to be able to convince himself to actually reveal to people the truth of what happened?

1:18:00Yeah. Is what I'm wondering if it feels. What do you think? i think it's like um he was in this like the darkness the hatred and stuff like that metaphorically and then he rose out of it because of this evil action uh and then he went to shine a light on it right and now that location is physically grown up and dark and covered and now at the end of the story he will once again shine a light on it and by light he means fire and you know leds um i i like the um i like the idea that these like all the campers effectively become souls. It feels very Alan Wake to me. Like people who get possessed by these things mumbling around in the darkness, just becoming these violent echoes of what they were.

1:18:42And there's this thing just feeding on it that uses it for energy. And at the end of the story, he's resolved that he's going to go back and whatever happens to him, he has to at least try. I don't know. I like it. I like it a lot. It's a very hopeful story. I'm surprised though there's still a part of it at the end where I'm like, he's talking about going, you know what, and I will go back there and do whatever. It's just a lot of empty promises at the moment. I don't know, like, well, you haven't told anyone yet the thing that you did, you know? About killing him? Yeah. Maybe that's part of the implication that he has to own up to it out here before he can own up to it in there.

1:19:23Is this ending in empty promises is what I'm asking. As in you think he won't do it? I don't even think that, like, the whole thing, I think he could fail to do it. A five-foot fucking pot-billed goblin or whatever being up there. I don't know if I believe any of that's actually there as much as it being a thing that's like these manifestations of revisiting the demons of your past and stuff like that. Well, I think it's certainly representative of that. I just think it's a thing of it feels odd that he's woken up, is in this spot, and now instead of, I guess, unloading and unburying that thing and getting help to reveal those things, it's a thing of, you know what, I will go there by myself and I will conquer it.

1:20:01But it's just a thing. It's like the same thing when you hear a guy being like, you know what, no more drinking from here on out. Yeah. Or whatever. Versus addressing, which I could be misreading it, but it was just one thing that I was like, eh. There's a bunch of stuff where it's like, he talks about the hatred he inherited from his father and still being angry and stuff like that. 100%. And then it's like, if I'm at this point, like, well, now I'm atoning for it. So maybe you are right in that he needs to confront something more base, something deeper that he's not acknowledging. I think so.

1:20:36Yeah. I hear all this stuff about there's napalm and all that shit. I'm like, do you think that shit's going to fuck? I mean, if that's the case, if napalm and all that stuff can do anything, I mean, I would just fucking punt that five-foot-tall. Well, it sounds like he talks about one of them, like they would come near him and he would shine a light and they'd disappear. I mean, it's the brief thing. So hypothetically, if you made a truck look like a spaceship with the lights coming off of it, you'd be relatively safe. oh I don't think he would kill it that's why I mean like he could try and fail he could get killed when he goes up there sure but to him that may be preferable than going the rest of his life seeing Abner's face everywhere he goes yeah I mean the whole idea too of like literally bringing things to light yeah take my shoe and bring it to me it just bring the evidence and show people where I'm at well that's what I think he would go back to do I think he would go back to get the shoe I think that's what maybe not necessarily to kill this creature no no I mean I understand that's what it's insinuating i'm just saying that like the the key thing though that has never brought it he's never brought his own story to light besides the besides the story that fabricates it to where now he has like a charity and you know i'll look at me i'm a reformed person look at me but he still hasn't revealed the darkest part of his past whatever it's just the is the interesting part to me in that manifestation of going back and having those things actually manifest into like actual creatures that are like you know he's all curled up and he's like has toes upon toes and fingers all that kind of stuff yeah i i just wonder uh how much of this ending is actually a positive versus it being a thing where it's like living in denial still i mean i can see it especially with it's like um you know he he feels good about himself for everything he did outside i mean as as you should you know exposing you know coming from what you were uh but then that little that little tick of the letters showing up being like hey remember this hey remember this like, it's like everything's great, but in the back of his mind, there's this one thing that he can't recover from.

1:22:28I read the letters after digesting it a bit. I feel like I read the letters as like the thoughts that pop up into your head or something. It becomes things when you could be going your whole life and all of a sudden you think about something that you're like, fuck. You know, like a thing that you kind of, maybe a regret you have or something that just kind of simultaneously pops up and it's manifesting as like a letter in that regard. I will say, too, I mean, first off, I like the story. I do think that I preferred the element when it was grounded. I like when stories take this element of making, like, literal manifestations of monsters from trauma and all that.

1:23:03I mean, like, visually, very, very fun. But I will say, I thought this was going to go more of like a pen pal or like a borosk. I almost wanted it to be like more of a real world kind of thing as well. I mean, that's just a subjective thought. But I'm just saying, like, I was curious to see how the white supremacist camp came back to be you know were they still going there because immediately my mind went to like green room and stuff and the kind of horrors that like that whole adventure was as well if you haven't seen that movie it's awesome it's about like a skinhead bar that these punks play at but it just literally subjective it doesn't there's no critique to that thought I'm just saying that like it would have been I was curious to see if it would take that more realistic approach versus leaning into a thing where you go back and now there's like manifestations of you know your past manifested.

1:23:54Well it's kind of what it is with the ghost walking around everywhere. Oh I mean no it is. I'm saying that I wish it wasn't Oh I see what you're saying. But once again subjective. I don't know I thought the monster was kind of cool. They're cool I'm just saying that. I was really drawn in at the beginning with the development of the character and all that. Yeah the supernatural note does kind of come it's not comparable to the beginning where it's just like all the white supremacists of stuff and you could have kept it more grounded but i also kind of like the idea that there's a creature that thrives on hate that's in the mountains and it's ancient and it gathers up people i guess it could have been you know what would have been a way to introduce it earlier i think is if the camp counselors or something like that had like he just mentions a weird religion or something like that i don't i don't i'm always weird i'm i i never know about that because i can never tell if it takes away from the white supremacy angle right it almost not that it gives an excuse to the white supremacy, but in a way it feels like it's like, well, that's why.

1:24:50Well, it kind of makes it, if you were to do that, then it's kind of like, okay, are we still on Earth? Are we in some other weird supernatural timeline where wanky stuff's going on? I know what you mean by it can lessen the shot of the white supremacist stuff. You set up a white supremacist camp, we're in a fucking camp. The idea of people coming back, the visuals of it being dead campers, people that have been like torn away other dead people that like were just the deers and those hunts and stuff like that manifesting. And now they're like having to live forever. And this thing is a interesting visual for the memory of something or like how these things linger after the fact.

1:25:32But I do think as a setup for like a white supremacist camp, something more grounded, like I said, like a green room thing. I was just curious, is there something you could have stacked on top of that that you like you take the white supremacy angle and then you, how do you keep elevating it to the point where it's like you don't shy away from it you fucking go hog wild with it you know which however that is once again these are open statements that don't mean anything but i'm just mean like you have an amazing set piece that's like i'm bought in i'm bought in the opening was the strongest part of the story in my opinion yeah i mean a guy being like hey i'm sending my son the scare straight program by the way i'm a fucking like nazi yeah and i'm sending my kid to a deal and i'm bought in on that idea i want to be like how you keep elevating that there's this other movie did we watch this nick there's this movie i watched called marshmallow with the camp spoiler for anyone hasn't seen it but it's basically a camp where it's like oh we're talking about the super the superstition thing that or like a campfire story at a camp right and this camp is haunted but it turns out they like they elevate the uh the campfire story being like oh it's actually the camp like doing tests on kids oh or whatever it's just kind of an interesting thing where it's like you expect it to go into the supernatural realm of like a ghost story or like a Jason Voorhees thing, but it ends up being something a little more grounded, even though it is still fantastical.

1:26:51In my opinion, I was like really, when I was bought in, I was like, holy fuck, I'm really curious to see where they go. And when it went this direction where it was like, hey, I went and I visited the literal manifestations of my past. I was like, eh. I understand that. But at the same time, had a great time with it. Yeah, great time. Incredibly well written as always. My reaction to is just from a standpoint of had a great time, just was excited for it to maybe veer a different way. But once again, Christian Wallace, really interesting creating characters in an environment that is so kind of dicey and tricky.

1:27:21Yeah. So a lot of props. Yeah, he does a lot of those that are going to sound like these tumultuous situations and stuff like that. Also, Christian, your first story you post to Tales from the Creep being the, or Tales from the Creeps being the wise-to-primosis one. is it's definitely his most i would say hot title like that would say like his like the one where you're like holy shit what yeah uh well it's pretty fun this was also his first story back in a while because he hadn't written in like nearly a year sick yeah i didn't know that was i thought this was one that was just like oh they just didn't want it so it's just been on the back burner that's two months ago oh okay well i mean that's cool yeah because he's i mean obviously he has a ton of stories um and then there's one from a year ago called i inherited an old creationist museum to my horse.

1:28:07Some of the displays were genuine. That's a funny title. My horse. Some of them were genuine. He posted nine months ago and then he was like, Hey, I'm writing an update. And then he posted that story to no sleep got taken down. They posted details from the creeps. I see. And a bunch of people seem into it. So yeah, it was, uh, that was him coming back from a hiatus. That's cool though. I mean, I think if anything, I'm glad that hopefully whatever inspired him to get back on the horse and keep writing. It's awesome. And once again, I mean, I love the premise. I think it's sick, and I think that it's awesome that it's on Tales from the Creep, so I appreciate it.

1:28:43Regardless of, in all of his stories, like, I saw some people at the Dear One who would say stuff like, yeah, I wasn't crazy about the concept, but man, he writes well. He's a phenomenal writer. Fantastic writer, so I think we can certify this even if the topic, like, people aren't crazy about our direction. As far as writing goes, another Christian Wallace banger. I think the topic is fine. I just think it's just a funny headline like whenever we whenever you told him whenever I was told about the story today I was like what you know like I explored an abandoned white supremacist camp my first thing was why I thought it was going to be a guy walking through like an empty KKK tent or something I'm like that's the power of like something it's such a captivating title like I was just like why would you want to do that you know so uh I don't know I had a lot of fun with it and it was uh a lot of I could tell too because I feel like just really engaged.

1:29:33A lot of fun. Just kind of just a fun story to talk about while reading. You know, we don't always get that. So it's fun that we kind of could go and actually discuss some shit during it. So that was a lot of fun. So, well, that's our story and we're sticking to it. Thanks, Christian Wallace. We appreciate you. If you listen to this show on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or any of the audio platforms or whatever you're fucking listening, I don't know. Give us a good rating there, please. That'd be great. Also, patrons, thank you so much for supporting this channel and all the stuff that we do. And if you're interested in some more content or just even, you know, just to help the channel out, consider signing up.

1:30:10It does help us out a lot. You have to say, stay creeped. Oh, and until next time, guys, don't be racist. Don't go to racist camps. Racism bad. A round of applause for racism being bad.

1:30:33Oh, you're tapping. Okay, I was like, he's not. My co-host not applauding there was concerned. See, I don't need to applaud because that's just understood, and I don't need to point that out by anything. Well, I still, you know, what's also understood. That's just understood. Hey, medium rare steak tastes tasty, and fucking racism sucks giant cocks and balls. See, both of those things are once again understood to me, so I don't need to point that out. I think it is interesting how my co-host needs to keep pointing out how not racist he is. I just love saying it. And let me say for the record that I do not think Christian Wallace wrote a racist story, unlike how my co-host addressed it at the beginning of this story.

1:31:08At the beginning. And multiple times throughout. Not throughout, but at the beginning, I will say at the beginning, I did say I had a little goof, a little gaffe. The first Thursday, I didn't know what was going on.

1:31:32Thank you.

1:32:11I was driven to work with a change, so files just dengan PDF and videos like this material