Latest / Shallow Nights: Scary Bedtime Stories / Escaping the Grasp of the Wild Ones - Scary Paranormal Story

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Escaping the Grasp of the Wild Ones - Scary Paranormal Story · Shallow Nights: Scary Bedtime Stories

• 0:17
  Officially I'm fired now, but then again I spent the last 24
• 0:21
  hours or something driving around with my manager, so that
• 0:25
  really doesn't matter all that much.
• 0:28
  Dale drove all day and night. When we finally pulled over at a
• 0:31
  rest stop, he told me to stay in the truck and went outside to
• 0:35
  get himself some coffee. I did as he told me.
• 0:38
  My seat had gotten all soft and weary, but my butt hurt from not
• 0:42
  having stood upright for so long.
• 0:45
  I almost felt like the car was absorbing me.
• 0:47
  I leaned over to take a look into the rearview mirror.
• 0:50
  My hair was matted and my eyes bloodshot.
• 0:53
  Ever since we had fled from the park, I hadn't been able to
• 0:56
  shake that feeling of my reflection not being my own.
• 1:00
  Don't get me wrong, it's no one else's, it just isn't mine.
• 1:05
  It feels like I've distanced myself from it, and Dale had
• 1:09
  told me not to look into the mirror as much.
• 1:11
  He had said it wasn't dangerous, but that it would do nothing but
• 1:14
  drive me crazy. Still, I couldn't stop sneaking
• 1:18
  quick glances at it every time. I was scared to find something
• 1:21
  new, something that might have changed about the way I look,
• 1:25
  but there was nothing there yet. I wondered if that was a good or
• 1:29
  a bad thing. Dale returned a little later
• 1:32
  with a large cup of coffee for himself and a cupcake for me.
• 1:36
  He handed it to me and squeezed my shoulder awkwardly, trying to
• 1:39
  comfort me. Figured you could use some
• 1:42
  carbs. He said softly.
• 1:44
  I always eat when I'm sad. Not good for my body, but it
• 1:48
  helps temporarily when I get crumbs on the seat.
• 1:51
  I muttered warily. I don't care, make as big as a
• 1:55
  mess. You like crumbs aren't vomits.
• 1:57
  So. His voice trailed off.
• 2:00
  It's fine, it's what I'm saying. He took a sip of his coffee.
• 2:05
  I carefully unwrapped the cupcake and took a good chunk
• 2:08
  out of it. It was soft and sweet.
• 2:10
  There was pink strawberry cream inside and white chocolate on
• 2:14
  top. The two sugary flavors mixed on
• 2:16
  my tongue, banishing the foul taste of Warren saliva.
• 2:20
  Thank you. I whispered, but my voice broke
• 2:23
  again. I quickly took another bite of
• 2:26
  the cupcake, then another, then stuffed the whole thing into my
• 2:29
  mouth. Dale regarded me quietly from
• 2:33
  the driver's seat. The look in his eyes was
• 2:36
  unfathomable as can be, but I believe to have recognized
• 2:40
  genuine sorrow somewhere within. I think you should try to sleep
• 2:44
  a little. I can't rest like this, Dale.
• 2:47
  Please tell me what's going to happen to me, or where you're
• 2:50
  taking me, or anything at all. The blonde man let out a soft
• 2:55
  size. He leaned back in his seat.
• 2:58
  If it put your mind at ease, be my guest.
• 3:00
  But maybe I should start at the beginning.
• 3:02
  What do you think? The beginning?
• 3:05
  I repeated questioningly. Dale nodded.
• 3:08
  The very beginning. How the part came to be in the
• 3:11
  1st place. Would you like to hear that?
• 3:14
  His voice was incredibly soft and gentle.
• 3:17
  Even on his friendlier days. I had never heard him speak like
• 3:20
  that. He was talking to me like a
• 3:22
  father would to his frightened child.
• 3:24
  Yes, I breathed, curling up in my seat.
• 3:28
  Well then, think of it as a bedtime story.
• 3:32
  That's how it was taught to me. My mother and father were always
• 3:35
  very eager to prepare me for the kind of life I would be leading.
• 3:39
  Me and my siblings too, of course.
• 3:41
  They would come to our beds every night, and just before
• 3:43
  letting us go to sleep, they would tell us the story, the
• 3:47
  same one, over and over again. It burned itself into our young
• 3:51
  minds. It shaped US, made us wary of
• 3:55
  what was to come once we would become grown-ups.
• 4:00
  Sometime during the late 1800s, my family's ancestors decided to
• 4:04
  settle down on a patch of land they hailed from, well,
• 4:09
  basically everywhere. Some of them came from Texas,
• 4:12
  others from further up north, but they all gathered to mend
• 4:16
  their bond as distant relatives because they wanted to make
• 4:19
  money. That might have not been the
• 4:21
  most honorable goal, but at the time, none of them were wealthy,
• 4:25
  not by any stretch of the word. They figured that maybe if they
• 4:30
  would all join forces, they could build up something.
• 4:33
  A brand, perhaps. I'm not sure what it was they
• 4:36
  had in mind exactly. Either way, it took this
• 4:39
  scattered bunch nearly a full year to get together again, but
• 4:42
  once they were all reunited, they got on their journey.
• 4:46
  They settled down on a really large clearing in the middle of
• 4:49
  a forest. They began by building a single
• 4:51
  large cottage for them to live in.
• 4:54
  At first, everything was fine, things were looking up for them.
• 4:58
  However, they soon came up with the idea to turn their land into
• 5:02
  a fairground, since there were many townships in close
• 5:04
  proximity to the woods. So they started chopping down
• 5:08
  trees. That's when the nightmare began.
• 5:11
  The settlers had thought that the woods were not populated and
• 5:15
  that they didn't belong to anybody.
• 5:17
  On the paper they didn't, but the truth looked a bit
• 5:20
  different. It started with Faith, a
• 5:23
  younger, at the time pregnant woman who had been travelling
• 5:26
  with her husband who was part of the clan, suffering A
• 5:29
  miscarriage. When the first tree fell, she
• 5:32
  went into labor. It was way, way too early.
• 5:35
  She was bound to her bed for two entire days, screaming and
• 5:39
  crying in agony while the men outside continued to clear the
• 5:42
  forest. Her child never lived to see the
• 5:45
  light of day. Of course, my ancestors didn't
• 5:49
  immediately draw the connection. How could they have?
• 5:53
  They merrily continue to cut down the trees.
• 5:56
  Just one week after Faith's miscarriage, Lawrence, the six
• 5:59
  year old son of one of the couples, vanished from his
• 6:02
  bedroom without a trace. The next child to disappear was
• 6:05
  a girl called Millie. And that's when the family began
• 6:08
  to catch on. See, Millie was just 5 when she
• 6:12
  disappeared, but she had an older half brother in his early
• 6:15
  30s. His name was Colt, and you
• 6:18
  should probably know that he had a cleft lip.
• 6:20
  Now, Colt wasn't the type to sit on his ass while his little
• 6:23
  sister could have been taking God knows where.
• 6:27
  He was one of those who hailed from Texas and he was your
• 6:29
  typical cowboy. He did care a whole lot about
• 6:32
  manners and etiquette and all that shit.
• 6:34
  He was a true gentleman. Swearing he would not leave
• 6:37
  Millie hanging, he set out to look for the family.
• 6:41
  Told him it was useless, after all, they had already searched
• 6:45
  the whole woods in the neighboring towns when Lawrence
• 6:47
  had gone missing. But Cole wouldn't listen.
• 6:50
  He went for the woods, and he was out there for days.
• 6:53
  Just when he was about to give up, he found a hole.
• 6:57
  There was a hole in the ground right next to an old fallen
• 7:00
  tree. And on the remains of that tree
• 7:02
  sat a man dressed in nothing but rags.
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  The man was holding a child, a little girl who seemed to be
• 7:09
  fast asleep. Colt immediately recognized her,
• 7:13
  it was Millie. He pulled out his revolver and
• 7:16
  aimed at the man, and he screamed at him to let her go,
• 7:19
  but the man just smiled at him and asked him what his name was.
• 7:23
  For some reason, this question struck Coltus off.
• 7:27
  He decided not to answer. He approached the man on the
• 7:30
  fallen tree, warning him once again that if he wouldn't hand
• 7:33
  over the girl, he would shoot him.
• 7:35
  The stranger, however, remained unfazed, grinning with black
• 7:39
  teeth for the next bit. You need to know that Colt was a
• 7:44
  bit of a Craftsman. He was a firearm fanatic, and
• 7:47
  due to not always having the money to buy ammunition, yes,
• 7:50
  they were that poor, he would sometimes try to make his own.
• 7:54
  These handmade bullets would hardly ever fly far, they were
• 7:57
  pretty much useless, but Colt insisted that they were better
• 8:01
  than nothing. He made the from iron, you know.
• 8:04
  I heard he melted old nails and stuff, but whatever.
• 8:08
  At the time there were five bullets in his revolver, 2
• 8:11
  normal ones that were made of lead and three made of his
• 8:14
  handmade iron ones. The man on the fallen tree laid
• 8:18
  Millie down on the ground, she was unconscious, didn't even
• 8:21
  know what was going on around her.
• 8:24
  He slowly started to walk towards him.
• 8:27
  Colt began to shoot at him. He fired two shots at him, both
• 8:30
  hitting him in the stomach. He stopped for a few seconds,
• 8:33
  appearing to be in pain, but to Colt's shock and astonishment,
• 8:38
  he just straightened up again and continued coming closer.
• 8:41
  The wounds were the bullets had sunken into his flesh and
• 8:44
  vanished, so Colt fired the remaining three shots in his
• 8:48
  revolver. The stranger was just close
• 8:50
  enough for the iron bullets to find their target.
• 8:53
  He shot him right in the chest three times, but this time the
• 8:56
  stranger let out a cry of agony and fell to the ground.
• 8:59
  Colt grabbed his sister and ran back home while her kidnapper
• 9:03
  was still rising on the ground. That same night, as soon as the
• 9:07
  sun had set, a group of the strangest creatures emerged from
• 9:10
  the tree line. They surrounded the cottage and
• 9:14
  waited for the family to come out.
• 9:16
  Colt had told them all about what had happened when he had
• 9:18
  brought back Millie and they had prepared themselves for battle.
• 9:22
  But when they came outside, only the man with the black teeth
• 9:26
  stepped forward, the one who held the little girl.
• 9:30
  Even though there were three bullet holes in his chest.
• 9:33
  He stood upright, and when he spoke, black drool came dripping
• 9:37
  from his mouth, and in the sharpest of voices, he offered
• 9:40
  Colt a deal. We started taking your young
• 9:43
  ones when you began to destroy our home.
• 9:46
  You told him. But we will return to you.
• 9:49
  We will even help you with your endeavor to reshape our land.
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  However, we will do so under the one condition that you treat our
• 9:56
  every wish as your command. Of course, Colt was less than
• 10:00
  happy with this suggestion, especially since it was so vague
• 10:04
  it could mean anything. Still, he struck A bargain with
• 10:07
  a black teethed man, but only after they had worked out a
• 10:10
  certain set of stakes. You may have already guessed
• 10:13
  most of them. The creatures would help the
• 10:16
  family to gain money. They promised that they would
• 10:19
  personally see to their success, no matter the changes to the
• 10:23
  woods this would require. There would only be 3 of the
• 10:27
  creatures to stay on the surface.
• 10:29
  The rest of them would move underground into a certain realm
• 10:32
  that appeared to be accessible by the hole in the ground where
• 10:35
  Colt had found the black teethed one.
• 10:38
  These three would provide the humans with each of their names,
• 10:42
  granting them a certain power over them.
• 10:44
  However, they would demand sacrifices of unspecified
• 10:47
  nature, which the humans would be bound to provide, but they
• 10:51
  also assured them that they would use the sacrifices for the
• 10:54
  refinement of the fairground. Those were the basics, but there
• 10:59
  was one last oath Colt made them take.
• 11:03
  He had noticed that during their consultation, the creatures had
• 11:06
  kept trying to screw them over by using very vague phrases and
• 11:10
  careful wording. He figured that since it was so
• 11:13
  dangerous to talk to them, it would be better if they couldn't
• 11:16
  talk at all. He forbade them from speaking,
• 11:20
  only the ones who would stay on top, though.
• 11:22
  Of course, the Black Teethed 1 introduced himself as Warren and
• 11:28
  the other two that would stay on the surface as Mulberry and
• 11:31
  Moth. Nowadays, you know Mulberry is
• 11:34
  the Sugar Plum Fairy and Moth is the Mime.
• 11:38
  My folks probably noticed that they had made quite a crappy
• 11:41
  mistake right away, because right after the contract was
• 11:44
  sealed, Warren snapped Colt's neck and took on his form.
• 11:48
  The only thing he couldn't replicate were his white teeth
• 11:51
  and normal saliva, but I guess he didn't really need to since
• 11:55
  he, well, I guess you know what he uses it for.
• 11:59
  The three holes in his chest from the iron bullets stayed as
• 12:02
  well. Dale ended the report with a
• 12:06
  soft sigh, and I stared at him incredulously.
• 12:09
  That all sounded like a fairy tale.
• 12:11
  I remarked. Well, that's what we've been
• 12:14
  told. Maybe it happened like this,
• 12:16
  maybe it didn't, but the important thing is that with the
• 12:18
  creature's help, the clearing was turned into a fairground.
• 12:22
  When the time came, it was changed into an amusement park,
• 12:26
  the one you now know. Every single thing in the park
• 12:29
  was built by them. Sure, we were able to make
• 12:32
  additions and renovations to it, but it was them we laid the
• 12:35
  foundation. Don't ask how they did it.
• 12:38
  I never quite understood it myself.
• 12:42
  Either way, the creatures lost their names and ability to
• 12:44
  speak. But while we gained wealth, we
• 12:47
  also lost our privilege of freedom.
• 12:49
  We have to give them what they want, no matter what it is.
• 12:53
  If we don't, they'll pause to swallow audibly.
• 12:57
  They will not only tear down the park, but probably come for our
• 13:00
  young ones again. I held my breath and Dale
• 13:05
  continued. Warren, Mulberry, and Moth were
• 13:09
  tasked with staying on the surface to enforce the contract.
• 13:12
  But let's be honest here, Warren is the only one who takes it
• 13:16
  serious. He chose every single one of the
• 13:18
  sacrifices. Mulberry gained a certain
• 13:21
  passion for dancing, so she just does that all day.
• 13:25
  And Moth never cared much about anything.
• 13:27
  He's more like an animal, I think.
• 13:30
  Are they fairies? I asked.
• 13:34
  That's the thing, we don't know. We believe them to be, but
• 13:38
  they're not exactly the ones you'll find in literature.
• 13:41
  They enjoyed mischief and follow certain rules.
• 13:44
  They even react negatively to most of the same materials.
• 13:47
  Plus, they're able to change shapes.
• 13:50
  See, Millie died of some illness in her teen years, and Mulberry
• 13:54
  took on her outward appearance. I'm not sure how they do it.
• 13:58
  Maybe they can only change into people who are dead.
• 14:01
  But there are obvious inconsistencies that set them
• 14:03
  apart from the traditional fairy folk.
• 14:06
  My folks and I, we call them the wild ones.
• 14:10
  The wild ones? I repeated.
• 14:13
  Yeah, that includes those who live underground.
• 14:17
  My head was spinning. I still like quite a lot of
• 14:20
  questions, but before I could say anything, Dale went on.
• 14:24
  We need to focus on Warren though.
• 14:26
  He's the parks guardian, the enforcer of the contract.
• 14:29
  I won't go so far as to say that he's upper management, but he he
• 14:34
  communicates with the ones underground.
• 14:36
  They discuss who or what it is that they want, but in the end,
• 14:40
  he's the one who will make me do it.
• 14:43
  Fun fact, the ones underground, they weren't forbidden from
• 14:46
  speaking and sometimes when they want me to, I can hear them.
• 14:51
  I hate when they do that. Warren is also the one who
• 14:55
  designs the Halloween tasks. I mean square dancing and his
• 14:59
  handler humiliating himself. He uses them to mess with us a
• 15:02
  little and most importantly he's the one who is trying to turn
• 15:06
  you into a non actor. I'm sorry if my account just now
• 15:09
  sounded like a jumbled mess. You don't even need to care
• 15:12
  about the contract anymore. I've breached it.
• 15:16
  I I denied Warren his sacrifice. I wasn't sure if I actually
• 15:23
  wanted to know the answer to the question burning on my tongue,
• 15:26
  but I asked anyways. Why me?
• 15:29
  How did he, When did he decide? Dale bit his lower lip.
• 15:35
  He let me know he wanted you last Halloween, but if I'm being
• 15:38
  honest, you were doomed the moment you walked your happy ass
• 15:41
  into the park for the first time.
• 15:44
  It was just the same with Nathan.
• 15:46
  Even though I think he simply had me do that one because he's
• 15:49
  never liked me all that much. I still remember it like it was
• 15:52
  yesterday. He came into my office that one
• 15:55
  morning. There was a framed photo of
• 15:57
  Nathan and me standing on my desk.
• 15:59
  And he took it and looked at it for a little while.
• 16:02
  I was like, what's going on? What do you want?
• 16:05
  And he just, he just pointed at him in the photo on grind.
• 16:10
  He took the one thing that made me happy, like truly happy that
• 16:16
  day. So what now?
• 16:20
  Do we kill him? Dale chuckled.
• 16:23
  I'm totally on board with your enthusiasm, but I don't know
• 16:26
  how. That's why I'm taking you to
• 16:28
  meet my family. Perhaps we can come up with
• 16:31
  something together. We need to get ourselves out of
• 16:33
  this mess somehow. The contract's done for.
• 16:37
  That means Warren might, you know.
• 16:40
  I just hate to imagine anything happening to them.
• 16:43
  I still had quite a lot of questions, but I felt like I had
• 16:47
  heard enough for the day. I curled up in my seat and shut
• 16:50
  my eyes. I don't know how exactly I
• 16:52
  managed to fall asleep with the truck driving, but somehow I
• 16:56
  did. It's kind of strange.
• 16:59
  I haven't really done anything all day, but I feel terribly
• 17:03
  exhausted.