Creepy America, Collection 2

By Noah Hoffmann

A series of horror short-stories, "Creepy America" recounts the webshow of the same name. Filmed, edited, and published by friends Zoey and Liam, the two traveled from state to state trying to find the truth behind the strange happenings, local hauntings, and urban legends all across the continental United State. Told years later from the perspective of Liam, these tales describe the events that transpired on the show, from the evolving friendship of the two co-hosts to the vast conspiracy uncovered piece by piece as more and more secrets are uncovered.

This collection includes episodes six to ten, starting with the dangerous encounter with the Virginian Bunny Man and ending with the disturbing revelations from the Louisiana Monolith

Contains the following previously published stories:
Episode 6: Myths and Legends
Episode 7: Alone
Episode 8: The Red Eyed Man
Episode 9: On the Side of the Angels
Episode 10: Monolith

• Language: English
• Publisher: Noah Hoffmann
• Release date: Feb 2, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463181157

Noah Hoffmann

A mild-mannered truck driver by day, I spend my nights writing mostly at an attempt to convince the last few shreds of sanity I have not to jump ship with the rest. When I'm not doing that, you can usually find me playing tabletop rpgs, raiding the "50 cents" section of bookstores, and generally committing similar acts to solidify my reputation as a "huge nerd." Otherwise, my time is spent caring for my loving and intelligent-deficit dog Slade and yelling at you for cutting me off in traffic.

Book preview

Creepy America:

Collection 2

Episodes 6-10

By Liam Foster  Noah Hoffmann

Published by Noah Hoffmann and distributed by Smashwords.

Copywrite 2020 by Noah Hoffmann

Thank you for downloading this ebook. You are welcome to share it with your friends. This book may be reproduced, copied and distributed for non-commercial purposes, provided the book remains in its complete original form. If you enjoyed this book, please consider visiting nhcorner.com for more stories in this series as well as other series of short stories. And thank you for reading!

Other series by Noah Hoffmann:

The Adventures of Solaire

 fantasy adventure filled with magic, steampunk, and pirates

Table of Contents

Episode 6: Myths and Legends

Episode 7: Alone

Episode 8: The Red Eyed Man

Episode 9: On the Side of the Angels

Episode 10: Monolith

Creepy America

Episode 6

Myths & Legends

Clifton, Virginia

I had a roommate in college, Jonas something-or-other, who tried to get me interested in Dungeons and Dragons. The idea was that you’d make up a character with all these different abilities and stats and whatnot and someone running the game would tell you what was happening and you were supposed to tell them what you wanted to do. Then you’d use some dice and the numbers on paper to figure out if you were successful.

I never really got into it, it was just too strange, but one of the things that was interesting to me was the stats. They were numbers to determine your characteristics, things like Strength, Dexterity, and so on, and there was one for Intelligence and one for Wisdom. Intelligence was supposed to be your regular smarts, like math and history, but Wisdom was your street-smarts, your gut, and it let  you do things like notice things in the background and tell if someone was lying.

I liked that, and I feel like it describes the difference between me and Zoey. Zoey wasn’t the smartest; whenever she didn’t understand something, she came to me, and that happened often. But she was wise. It was Zoey who could tell when someone was lying, when something was out of place, and when things weren’t right. If there was something spooky going on, she picked up on it way faster than I did, and to this day I believe that’s why some people can walk through haunted locations and feel nothing while others see shadows and hear screams. Some people are just better attuned.

If that truly is the mechanism behind sensitivity to the supernatural, then Zoey was certainly much wiser than I. Virginia alone proved that.

We entered Clifton sometime in the afternoon. The town was small, smaller than Hurricane, even. The actual downtown area had less than fifteen buildings in it, and as I pulled off to the side of the road, Zoey stretched in her seat.

Goodie, lunch time. I could use a break. she said.

I shook my head. Nope. This is the next place we’re setting up.

Why? she asked, looking at the small cluster that was Main street. This place barely has anyone in it.

No idea. But it’s on the itinerary.

She frowned and opened the glove box to retrieve the stack of papers we had our roadmap notes on. After flipping through them, she withdrew a paper and read Clifton, WV, Creepy America location. Home to the ‘bunny man’ bridge. She put it back in the stack. Well, that explains that.

I groaned. So you’re telling me that we just spent all that time just to drive somewhere that we know has nothing?

I think I’m telling you it’s time for a lunch break. She opened her car door and climbed out.

Part of me wanted to get back on the road and keep going, but I exited the car with her and crossed the street to a pub-style restaurant. Halfway across the road, though, she stopped.

I paused and looked at her. You okay?

Yeah, just… weird cold spot. She shivered.

I raised an eyebrow at her, but said nothing and continued into the pub, a large place made out of dark wood. Despite my desire to get back on the road, I couldn’t help but feel my mouth water as the scent of deep fryers and seared meats hit my nose. A sign said Seat Yourself, so we took a table near the bar.

At the bar was a man, disheveled and distraught, with red eyes and the shiny trail marks of tears running from the corners of his eyes . He brought the bottle in his hand up to his mouth, swayed and then barked Anofer!

A different man behind the bar shook his head. You’ve had enough Tom.

"You can’t tell me wha’s  enough, not wif’ my daughter in the ground and nobody worryin’ ‘bout the killer."

You know that’s not true. The police…

The police are blind fools! he yelled. "I to ld ‘em who it was. I told ‘em it was the Bunny Man! I saw ‘im, axe an’ all, an’ now Janice is dead an ’ everyone thinks I’m crazy, or did it, an’... an’..." he broke down sobbing and the man behind the bar took him by the shoulder and escorted him out.

Zoey and I exchanged looks.

So… she began.

I shook my head. No. We are not staying here.

C’mon Liam, why not?

Because it’s just going to be a waste of our time. Like the dogman was.

The dogman was different.

How?

There’s just… I don’t know. Call it a hunch.

I raised an eyebrow. A hunch?

Yeah. She waited for me to respond, then sighed. Alright, alright, I know it’s not a lot to go on. But we’re already here, and we already budgeted the time and money to stay here for a bit. So why not?

I thought about it for a bit, then shrugged. Alright, I suppose we can stay a bit longer than just lunch.

We couldn’t talk to Tom; when we tracked his house down and asked to interview him, a woman I presumed to be his wife cussed us out then slammed the door in our face. But after asking some of the locals, we learned that Janice was in high school, and, well… you know how high schoolers are.

I’m going to skip most of the interviews, because they simply weren’t very helpful. Too few of the details were corroborated, and too many people spent time talking about irrelevant issues and potential theories. The more kids we talked to, the more obvious it was that we were hearing rumors and not facts.

We did hear some things repeated often enough to seem true. Janice’s body was found out in the woods. The murder weapon was an axe. Janice’s father, Tom, had gone looking for her after she hadn’t come home for several hours after school, and it was him who found the body. He also saw a figure nearby, a tall, bearded man in a bunny suit, standing a ways away with a bloody axe, who disappeared when he looked away for a split second.

And everyone knew who that was: the bunny man.

Which is where things disintegrated into speculation again. The bunny man was a lunatic, he was a prisoner, he was a ghost and he was a hobo who lived out in the woods. It was the typical contradictions you would find among any local legend. Even more problematic, there were some people who thought the bunny man wasn’t real, or at least, Tom’s story wasn’t, and there was a more sinister motive behind it.

There was also a smattering of stuff online. Apparently, there was a weirdo who had threatened some people with an axe while wearing a bunny suit, but that was about it. The main version of the legend, that he escaped an insane asylum into the woods and was never caught, had been thoroughly disproven by a local historian. Beyond that, there was only hear-say.

Well, I said as the high-schooler who had been eager to share in his theory that Janice’s former boyfriend was somehow involved scurried off to parts unknown, that was a bust.

She frowned at me. What do you mean?

I mean there’s nothing here. Just a children’s campfire tale and an unfortunate dead girl stuck to it. I started to pack up the camera we had been using back into its carrying case.

And that means what, exactly? That Tom just made up the story about the axe man in a bunny suit? There’s a lot saner ways to deflect guilt.

Well I never said he was sane.

I started to lift the bag off the ground, but Zoey grabbed my arm, forcing me to look at her.

Can’t we stay here for a bit longer? she pleaded. Please, Liam?

I sighed. You still have a hunch, don’t you?

...yeah.

Alright, but just until tomorrow morning. Once nothing happens, we pack up and leave.

When we made it back to where the R.V. was still parked, there was a small crowd of people gathered at one end of Main Street, blocking the road, backs turned to us to stare at whatever it was that held their attention. Zoey and I traded glances at each other, then moved to join them.

Alright everyone, I’m going to need you to back up a bit a