The Nightmare Outside Of Orwin
From Strange Tales from the North Carolina Lowlands, copyright 2009, Ken McNeal Publishers:
Orwin, North Carolina, is a small town located just south of the state line with Virginia. The population of Orwin proper is 2,037, with another two hundred or so people living in the area around the town. Close by, the town of Roan Valley is much larger, with a population of roughly ten thousand, not counting students at the regional Roan Valley University.
Most people have never heard of Orwin, and those who have generally don’t think of it as the sort of place where the events of March 14th, 2008 could have taken place. Orwin is ‘anywhere USA’, a peaceful little slice of Americana where farm kids drive around in Ford trucks, grandma still cooks apple pie, and the biggest news story is usually related to the performance of the high school football team in state competition (where, in 2007, it made the finals). Still, that doesn’t change the horrifying reality of what happened there, and even though the scars are healing and life is slowly returning to normalcy, no amount of time will ever wash all of the blood from the field near the Olberson Homestead farm.
The story of what happened in Orwin is as complicated as it is terrifying, but most sources seem to agree that the first report of anything unusual occurring in the still-unaware community came into the Orwin Police Department late in the evening, at 7:34 P.M. Two elderly women, driving four miles outside of town on a rural back road, called in to tell the police that they had seen something strange in the forest across a grassy field. When asked to describe what they had seen, they told the officer on the phone that it was, “something large,” but indistinct because of the branches obscuring their line of sight. The police decided that the situation was probably nothing to worry about, and did not send anyone out to investigate what the elderly women had seen.
The next calls came in just before sunset, at 7:53 and 7:55. They came from a farmer, who was doing late work feeding his livestock, and from a young man coming out of the woods after a solo hiking trip, respectively. The latter described what he saw as a “black animal, moving through the trees,” by the hiking trail. Like the two elderly women, he did not offer a detailed description of the animal, but seemed to believe that it was very large, and felt horrified by what he had seen. He said, in a later interview, that he had run out of the forest, scared that the animal might follow him, or that there might be others. The farmer described a scene similar to that viewed by the elderly women, saying that he had seen something in the forest, across the field from his farm. It had apparently bothered his livestock, however, particularly the goats, which seemed terrified, and did not sleep throughout the night.
More sightings came in before nightfall, with an increasing frequency, until calls were coming in to the small town’s police station every few minutes. Some of them came from people who were absolutely terrified by what they had seen; one woman, alone in her house, said that she had heard something brush against the wall outside of her kitchen, and had gone to the window over the sink to see what looked like black, leathery skin pass by. She stayed on the line with police until her husband arrived, then went with him to a motel for the night, too scared to go back to her house.
After 8:00 o’ clock, the sun didn’t take very long to sink beneath the horizon outside of Orwin, and then, things took a disturbing turn. Whatever was in the forest seemed to get more active at night, and so did another, very human force, living inside of the town.
At 8:36, driving along a dark highway between Roan Valley and Orwin, a group of college students in an SUV saw a sight in their headlights which completely dumbfounded them. A cloister of around eight men, dressed in black robes, crossed the road in front of them, forcing them to stop. One of the men, according to all of the students, paused to look at the SUV before going on. The young man got a good look at the individual, which helped to identify him later as Gregory Santiago, a prominent banker and respected member of the community.
Behind the robed men, the college students reported seeing something else cross the road, presumably one of the animals which others had been encountering. They described it as being, “larger than an elephant”, with six legs, and pitch black skin. They stated that, although they could not see far above the tops of its legs, they believed the animal to be at least forty feet tall, with pointed spines or possibly tentacles sticking out of its back, and pointing up toward the sky. They did not describe the animal as having eyes, but they stated that it did have ‘faces’ covering its flanks. Five in all, one of which had a large mouth, opened in a permanent scream.
The students drove into town, arrived at 8:53, after two other people had independently reported sightings of similar animals in the fields around Orwin. None of the other reports which came in that night were as detailed as the students’ account, however, nor were any of them quite as baffling or horrifying in light of later events.
It was at 11:47 that the occurrences in Orwin ceased to be simply strange, and turned into something much worse. Eight and a half miles outside of Orwin, Janet and Neal Olberson, along with their six year old daughter Natasha, experienced a nightmare which none of us can ever really imagine. A group of invaders broke into their home, shattering the window in their living room, and shot Neal Olberson dead. These murderous intruders were later discovered to be the same eight men who the Roan Valley University students had seen crossing the road, and were found to be members of a cult, called the Sacred Arm of Cal U’hunlat.
After killing Neal Olberson, the three cultists who broke into the home, later identified as Nathan Henson, Daniel Walker, and his brother, Norm Walker, took Janet and Natasha Olberson hostage, dragging them outside of the house and into the field behind. There, both were tied to a rocky outcrop near the forest, and surrounded by the ring of eight men. The eight cultists chanted loudly, calling out to the stars in the clear sky high above, and bellowing for their goddess to come and accept her sacrifice.
What happened next is a matter of contention and controversy. Those who tend to believe the account of Natasha Olberson, which was given two weeks later after the child went through intensive psycho-therapy, something simply unimaginable came out of the forest and took her mother. The description of the horror is different from the description of the monsters seen earlier; it was much larger and, according to Natasha, very squid-like. She claimed to be able to see the head of the creature, extending roughly one hundred twenty feet over the trees. Mouths, eyes, and tentacles covered its entire body, along with ropey strands of flash, which it used to pull itself across the Earth.
Natasha told investigators in the case that she had turned away after the monster took her mother, but that she believed it killed her. Investigators later stated that, although they could not accept her testimony on the grounds that she was likely suffering from intense psychological trauma, the basics about the event were correct. Her father and mother had both been killed by eight men, all of whom had been members of an occult group.
Before the eight men could be located and brought to trail, however, they all either vanished off the radar, or were found to have committed ritual suicide. Two are believed to have fled to Mexico following the incident, while the whereabouts of three of the others are not known. All three of the men who broke into the Olberson household are presently known to be dead. It was in their homes that relics related the cult of Cal U’hunlat were found, tying the obscure, almost unknown group to the horrible crime.
Natasha Olberson is currently in foster care, and is living in an unknown location, under the arm of the witness protection program. Other than her account and those of other witnesses from that day in March of 2008, there is almost no evidence that anything out of the ordinary occurred in Orwin. Time will pass, but the bones of Janet and Neal Olberson will always be interred in the local cemetery beneath two lonely marble markers, testaments to a nightmare which no one can imagine, but which no one can forget.
–
Credited to Dr. Malpractice.
lovecraftian.
……
Very long. Virtually no payoff. Two people got murdered by cultists with a giant monster that doesn’t seem to do anything but walk around and eat people when said group of cultists chants for it.
Boring, not very creepy. Sorry.
Good idea, but there were a few very obvious grammar mistakes that pulled me out of the story. Didn’t really scare the crap out of me, but generally good.
Boring. uncreepy. And I found the writing style somehow annoying….
…well i liked it *blushes*
Gotta agree with the second comment. No payoff to it, nothing creepy, only emotion in it is boredom.
pie is right.
Can’t pasta present a threat anymore? It was always fun to turn off the lights and stand in the dark for a second after reading some form of “shit kills you when it’s dark” pasta. Instead, now I’ve got to fear some forest-farm dwelling face monster. Or should I fear the cultists, since they’re the ones that shot the guy?
I like the lovecraftian influence. I <3 Cthulu
Haha; as soon as I read “…particularly the goats…” all that I could think was, “El Chupacabra!”
Did anyone else see the subtle cross-country college rivalry reference there? CAL U’hunlat? A very likely story.
Good prank, fellows. Give Natasha her mother back.
i was really excited about the monster, but then pft, it turned out to be a cult leader thing. should have stuck with the monster! i honestly thought it was el chupacabra.
shub-niggurath! : D
ending sucked, though.
Ehhh: could’ve had a better ending.(:
It’s culthu. Fail.
Kept building up the suspense and then….nothing. I liked the “historical” kind of feel to it and was interested to know more about the creature described. Too bad it just fizzled in the end and left me feeling bored.
can u say chutlulu… Cal U’hunlat = tentacle god????
come on the story could have been moar developed if Chutlulu was removed or futher developed…
overall 4.5 out of 5 due ot its hability to make me want moar!!!
“ropey strands of flash,” wut?
No but really, I liked it. Not thaaaaat creepy, but well-written and interesting, IMO.
I do have to kind of agree with Sama. Creepypasta doesn’t make me paranoid anymore xD
I was thinking ‘Oh god dammit it’s Dunwich Horror by HPL’ and I saw the first comment from Pie xD
Could have been better with a different ending but I disagree that it was boring. I don’t think the payoff was there but I was involved enough in the story to get a bit of the creepy pasta taste.
Agreed with Dylan, I thought this would be a Chupacabra story as well. At the beginning I was thinking “oh shit, small town.” because I live in one. But I was really bored by the end. This had a lot of potential, but no pay off, really.
What is it with all these fail pastas? Seriously give us something with a mindfuck ending. These are just lame and ill keep saying it until we get some good pasta as a payoff.
I kinda liked it. :p
I find it hard to believe that a forty-foot-tall monster was able to just suddenly vanish without a trace.
Obvious fail is obvious.
“A group of invaders broke into their home, shattering the window in their living room, and shot Neal Olberson dead. These murderous intruders were later discovered to be the same eight men who the Roan Valley University students had seen crossing the road, and were found to be members of a cult, called the Sacred Arm of Cal U’hunlat.”
Suspense fail. Read some HP Lovecraft to find how to maintain tension by /not/ giving information to the reader - especially ahead of time.
It started well. The pastas recently seem to be good ideas, but badly written and executed. Like someone had a great idea, started, then said ’screw it, let’s just tack on an ending.’ Could have been better.
I don’t think that the author really intended for the Lovecraftian influence in this to be hidden, or anything. In the forums, it specifically mentions that Cal U’hunlat is supposed to be Shub Niggurath (the monsters in Lovecraft’s stories usually have a lot of different names).
Generally a decent pasta, but I wasn’t impressed when the cult members came into the picture. I think it would be creepier if the monster[s] were the only threat in this story.
it felt as though it neede more
It was ok, especially cuz I live at ground level
In a forest
But overall, it could’ve had a lot of stuff done better
Some grammar mistakes were made bu if people bitch about it, they’re idiots
You must build more ziggurats!
That was crap.
I thought it was gonna be a bigfoot type monster or something. I could only think that when it brushed against the house that if the creature was as big as an elephant, I’m pretty sure it would have left some evidence or something.
>Before the eight men could be located and brought to trail
>brought to trail
>trail
And where would I find such a trail?
I actually liked this one. The journalist style of narration fits it well, and does its job.
just wish it was proofread a bit more.
This was actually more boring than sitting around and not doing anything, or counting how many hairs I have on my eyebrow. Wasn’t creepy at all, took absolutely no thought to come to the ending you created, and it was God awful long to boot. People don’t want to read giant stories on this website, they want something that makes them think and creeps the fuck out of them. So get back to the fucking drawing board, quit being such a lamo faggot, and write something good for once.
Lots and lots of buildup, with very little payoff. There should have been way more that happened after the Olbersons.
He who waits behind the wall…
ZALGO~
I liked the style- kind of like a newspaper article. And I loved it until the creature or whatever was actually described- I think it would have been creepier to leave it obscure and unknown. I got bored.
You must construct additional Pylons. And read more Lovecraft.
Has anyone else noticed the name of the Doctor to do this report?
Ironic =D
the begining of the story seemed very unrealted to the end.
and it was quite boring to read, honestly.
is awesome okay?????????
@bricks, cthulhu does not “fail” as you say. for the great cthulhu, this “failing” is a myth.
This isn’t creepypasta. It’s creepy hamburger or spring rolls or something. It’s definitely very well written and evocative with a lot of good creepy ideas, but it doesn’t have the build-up, it doesn’t have the sting at the end, and it’s too detailed, too clean, everything is wrapped up at the end. This would make an excellent opening for an X-Files episode, but it just doesn’t feel like a pasta.
multiple legs? Tentacles all over its body? sounds like one of the creatures in the movie ‘the mist’, specifically the one they passed while driving across America, a creature that was also shown to be really tall, must be several hundred feet tall. but overall, it’s a good reading material.
I found this to be a very good story. It kinda creeped me out b/c my name is Natasha. And i find it to be rather queer that the people that say you could have improved your grammer, make many grammer mistakes in their comments.
~Yuffie~
Use the Cthulhu Mythos properly next time. Lovecraft is rolling in his grave.
Sama - personally I always want LESS pastas with tangible threats and more pastas with indistinct mysterious weirdness. MUCH scarier. Almost anything can kill you. You can die in a car crash or accidentally falling on cutlery. That doesn’t make cars and sporks scary. What’s scary is something that simply doesn’t make sense or isn’t of this earth. It doesn’t even have to be dangerous at all.
This was probably the worst pasta i ever layed my eyes on, i got half way through then i decided to get a life.
Well-written, I like the Lovecraftian influence but like #2 said, it doesn’t pay off in the end.
Trying too hard to be lovecraftian.
The buildup lead us to believe there was a night of horror and madness in store for the town as a whole. It indicated that no one would believe it could happen. However, there were only 2 fatalities, and one was completely ordinary. I think this is why people consider the ending fail.
It’s like a cheap knockoff of Lovecraft’s Dunwich Horror with none of the writing skill.
Dirjel hit the nail right on the head. For all the talk of “unspeakable horror” the payoff is virtually nonexistent. What’s more (and this may simply be due to the fact that im not particularly fond of lovecraft’s style) the vague descriptions of the monsters left too much to the imagination without managing to achieve the creepiness that such vague descriptions are supposed to achieve in the first place. Another disappointment.
tl;dr
wannabe cult of cthulhu
not bad, but you need to edit your work, or if you’ve not got the eye for grammar get a family member or friend to edit it for you before submitting it.
2 dead people and a giant black octopus… well it was worth my time!
It kind of creeped me out because i’ve heard of a story like this, but it was a different town and the ending was different. More people had been killed.
I think it was written beautifully! I loved it..
Keep more stories coming, Dr Malpractice!!
OH MY GOD, IT’S WALKING AROUND AND STUFF.
No payoff, I was expecting a better ending.
boring pasta was boring
THEN WHO WAS YOG SOTHOTH!?
Eh, it was sorta interesting, could’ve been more engaging though.
Is dat sum shoggoths?
“Cal U’hunlat”
You can’t have a bad Lovecraftian knockoff without a made-up apostrophe’d word.
pasta was quite bland
Obvious sorry kinda lame. There was one thing: at first i thot: giant fucking elchupa!?? Lol
Do more research. According to the sunset tables, northern North Carolina experienced sundown on March 14, 2008 at 7:11 PM, not “The next calls came in just before sunset, at 7:53 and 7:55″ or “After 8:00 o’ clock, the sun didn’t take very long to sink beneath the horizon”.
Had a seriously hard time picturing the monster. Kept picturing that big ass alien thing from Cloverfield XD
Cloverfield is a great film and I pictured the monster like that.I didn’t like this story because it wasn’t believing I mean c’mon monsters are for kids
@sama
>”Shit kills you when it’s dark”
A grue?
lovecraftian always a plus…story was tedious and really had no point…
@ Penis ( hehe)
yeah i agree i was just thinking that!
Sounded fine, but a little like they were trying too hard to put a Lovecraftian spin on it (Which isn’t a bad thing, if you were going for that you did an excellent job.)
Had a good start but just when it seamed to get going.. welll it sucked.
Ph’nglui mglw’nafh C’thulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn!!!!
Ia Shub-niggurath!
Look at that, someone read “The Dunwich Horror”.
I agree with Candlejack, read more HPL and constr
The only reason i gived it a 4/10 is because stories where the mother dies creep me out, I love my mom alot and thinking of her dying like this…
or at all.
away from that, though…. WHO WAS MONSTER?
wait, this was a horror story?
also, cthulhu
Am I really going to be the only one who is going to say it?
Good story until you told how tall the monster was. I found myself chuckling and remembering the times that I had to wait for the rabbits to cross the road and taking forever. -looks up at giant monster- -jeopardy music-
But seriously…the creepiness died at that. Severely unrealistic. Giant creature is giant and thus would be seen for a long while after it brushed against the womans house. Such a creature does not have super speed on its side i am guessing.
What do I know….who is cthulhu?
Oh, I ever so enjoyed the bit about farmer’s kids riding around in Ford trucks. That was hysterical.
Everybody here expects some kind of skeleton popping out of closet bullshit. Im glad that I am able to enjoy stories that give you that subtle mysterious but slightly creepy vibe.
It felt like it ended just when things were actually getting started. We finally see the big ugly behind all this… then everything ends, without the “little” guys doing anything more ominous than wandering around a bit.
BOR-RING. i don’t even know why I’m even COMMENTING on it!?! guys stop waisting my time.
Not very creepy, but all in all its an alright pasta. Well written at least.
Here’s how you write Lovecraft:
1. Introduce the story with how reluctant you are to reveal the info but for whatever reason you’re telling it
2. Weird shit happens, everyone is totally mystified
3. In your case, huge footprints are found, a barn is crushed
4. At the very end you reveal that some retired sea captain, inbred hillbilly, or hyper-sensitive artist (Lovecraft loves those) actually saw Shub-Niggurath errr I mean Cal U’hunlat Lord of Apostrophes.
You get points for trying to make it Lovecraftian, he’s one of my favorite authors.
not very good it cud have been more creepy . srry
cthuluhu is cliche.
BUT THEN WHO WAS SQUID
BUT WHO WAS COLLEGE STUDENTS?
BUT WHO WAS SHUB-NIGGURATH?!?