Creepy America, Episode 14: Perfect Strangers

By Noah Hoffmann

"There's an America you never knew existed..."

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 States. 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 revealed.

In this episode, the pair find themselves trapped in a rest stop with a group of strangers, forced to combat not only the thing stalking them from outside, but also their own growing fear and paranoia.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Noah Hoffmann
• Release date: Jul 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005155568

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: Episode 14

Perfect Strangers

By 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 14

Creepy America

Episode 14

Perfect Strangers

Fort Worth, Florida

People have never been my strong suit. It was Zoey’s, that’s for sure; she could waltz into a room full of strangers and be completely at ease. When she talked, she always knew just what to say and, more importantly, how to say it. But me? I stumble over my words. I’m never quite certain how my remarks will come across. And as for reading people, forget about it. I have a hard enough time picking up what people think are obvious, much less gaining insight from their body language. I’ve gotten better at it over time, interviewing people regularly for four years will do that to you, but in the end I have to admit that I still suffer from the exact same weakness I’ve always had: people are not my strong suit.

But part of me wonders if I’m really that abnormal. Sometimes I can’t help but question if anyone, Zoey included, really has any ability at all to understand the people around us. Sometimes I think that, similar to the fake reality Archangel uses to hide the real one, we all live in a social Veneer, each of us expecting each other to behave a certain way and subtly preparing the other side to act that role with our words and gestures. We interact with these ‘fake’ others constructed in our heads, instead of the real people underneath, and those who are ‘good with people’ are simply ones that are able to determine their role quickly, or perhaps slip into it more eagerly.

That might just be my cynicism coloring my view of things. Heaven knows I have enough of it nowadays. And believe it or not, I would love to be wrong. I would love to be wrong about so many things. But thinking back on the events of ‘Perfect Strangers’… I’m just not sure I am.

Zoey squinted at the numbers on the paper in front of her, then asked Liam, how the hell does any of this make sense to you?

We were driving across the panhandle of Florida. In an effort to stretch out the ever-decreasing budget, we decided to call the state ‘good’ after visiting Fort Worth, instead of driving into the heart of the state like we had originally planned, and were now in the process of cutting straight up and back West, hoping to get somewhere near the Pacific before the money got even tighter.

I looked over from behind the wheel. Zoey had my hand-written budget ledger in her lap, reading, frowning, and occasionally turning the book sideways and upside-down as if that would help her understand the math there. She’d insisted on going through it in order to help me rebalance the money and up to this point, she’d been fairly quiet despite being obviously baffled. Too proud to admit defeat, I guess. But now it sounded like she was getting close to surrender.

It’s a simple model, I replied. The first column is projected costs, the second is allotted money, the third actual costs…

You have a whole three pages in here for just fuel! she interrupted. She flipped to a marked section and