Let it Be

Read part one here

“Hey Pat check this out!” Kyle exclaimed.
We had just gotten back to Kyle’s house, and he was already checking his live stream. Somehow, I’d let him talk me into streaming our little adventure, though by now I’ve come to know it as a personal quest. It turned out we had gotten a lot of engagement, and his numbers had boosted tremendously. True crime really is the wave it seems. From the footage he was able to get, I’m sure his subs are going crazy. We are both exhausted from the last couple weeks of activity, but no grievous injuries to speak of physically. Mentally, scars have been reopened and will take time to heal. But that can’t begin while the wounds are still fresh, and answers yet elude us.

Last time I left off, there was a noise outside my house that caught my attention. I was immediately sent back into panic mode, but it turned out it was just a raccoon dumping over my trash can. A somewhat annoying end to my nightmarish evening you could say. Kyle and I had made some plans that night, but since I had sprained my ankle, we thought that going back to Iglehart the following week would be a bad idea, especially if running for our lives was going to be probable. Instead, I formulated a different plan for us to implement for the time being. I wasn’t sure if the police would believe me or not, but even if they did whatever information they may gather was unlikely to find its way to me. While trying to infiltrate the den of the damned sounded insane, my ultimate goal since that fateful night was to investigate for myself the indoor pool. See what I could find, clues about my friend’s disappearance. After my flight from those things, I was almost certain that whatever happened to Bailey involved them. So instead of doing anything else, I started doing some research.

First, I wanted to investigate why the indoor pool, otherwise called a natatorium thanks to my research, had closed. Although a popular place in its heyday, twelve years ago they began having problems with keeping the pH levels within range. People had been reporting feeling itchy and having what sounded like chemical burns after swimming. After an inspection by the water department, it was deemed unsafe to use. Public pools are managed by the city, and most often routine maintenance is not kept up with. Apparently, its not worth the money to upkeep. Sure enough when I looked deeper, nationwide this is common practice of using until it can’t be used anymore, then demolition. Of course it seemed like my city was super broke, as the building still sits there twelve years later and never got demolished. There was also an environmental aspect that caused the shutdown. It turned out that the pH levels were extremely low in the water when the inspection happened. This can cause some of the symptoms that had been reported. This highly acidic water run off was affecting local wildlife and slowly destroying part of the ecosystem of the North Woods. Where this area was, I don’t know, because when I had gone on that fateful walk weeks ago, I didn’t see anything like that at the culvert drain. That led me to believe there was more than one drain system in place. There seemed to be some kind of connection between those deformed things and the acidic water, but I was unable to find any real evidence of that. Still, I kept the information in the back of my head as I continued my research.

I then began a deep dive on disappearances in the area. Over the past twelve years, there had been over two hundred missing persons cases. It was a staggering amount, and I once again questioned the police department. I actually decided to call and talk to a detective about the alarming missing persons numbers, inquiring about my friend as a ruse. They had the gall to say that there were no active missing persons cases at this time. As if because they decided they were done looking, the case was now “solved”. After I hung up, I became jaded and more disillusioned with the world than I had already been. I committed myself to unraveling this mystery myself, with the help of Kyle of course. Speaking of Kyle, he was making his own headway.

Kyle went to the park one early morning and set up a few trail cams. One was pointed towards the natatorium, one nestled underneath the wooden deck deep in the preserve that overlooks the forest, and a third one pointing towards the culvert where I had first seen the things. In this way, he had been able to somewhat monitor the area when he had time to go over the footage. He had finally spotted them on cam and continued to see them come and go, especially at the culvert. Interestingly, the camera setup under the deck captured a lot more movement than we imagined. My original hypothesis was that they lived in the natatorium. But what we discovered was that most of the movement we’d seen they would be walking in the opposite direction. Remember last time, when there was a path to the left or the right at this juncture? I had gone left, leading towards the drain off. Whatever was going on down the right pathway was still a mystery. Still, we had the general idea that the natatorium wasn’t necessarily where they lived. It might just be some kind of waypoint. After observing their activity for the past week, we thought we should come up with a temporary name for them, to keep things simpler. We went with lurkers.

At this point, my ankle had nearly healed; another week and it would be good to run on again. We used this week to finish a few tasks and most importantly ask ourselves some tough questions. Our plan was to enter the park early in the morning, before sunrise. We would try banging on the natatorium just before the sun came up and see if we roused any lurkers who may be within. If we deemed the coast clear enough, we would then try and enter the building via the culvert drain. When we got inside? Look for any clues. Straightforward yes, but we were forgetting a key component. What if we encountered the lurkers? We would try and fight them off and escape, but we weren’t sure we could bring ourselves to kill one, unless we had no other option. Sure, the lurkers are nightmarish and have most likely killed in the past. Did that make us judge, jury, and executioner? We didn’t think so. For this reason, instead of knives or buying a gun, we wanted weapons that could put something down without killing it. Baseball bats are a bit unwieldly, so one handed batons seemed ideal. We agreed to each buy a baton from the local army surplus store. We each packed full backpacks of gear useful in various situations. Flashlights, portable phone batteries, extra clothing, food, water, bandages etc. I even grabbed my old walkie talkies in case we had to split up. A general escape plan was also discussed. Kyle thought that it would be a good idea to both of us bring our cars, just in case the worst happened and only one of us got out. I started to voice that we would be ok, then remembered my harrowing experience and agreed. The day before our trip, we met up at his house. He was really wanting to stream this whole thing and was preparing his viewers for what was to come the following morning. Honestly, I welcomed it in a way, as no one would believe us on just our word and some grainy camera footage. At least this way, the story would get out somehow or another. He bid his viewers goodnight, and we checked our packs one final time before we laid down for the evening. It was only ten PM, but we were to be waking up around 4 AM the following morning. I lay awake, anxious for what awaited us the next day. It was a struggle, but finally I felt myself drift off to sleep.

The blaring alarm clock woke me from my fitful slumber. I went to brew a couple cups of coffee for Kyle and me, then went to wake him up. While he was making sure all his recording equipment was setup properly, we went over our plan again then got dressed. He followed behind in his car, and we arrived at Iglehart Park around 4:45 AM. Surprisingly, even alarmedly, there was another vehicle parked there. Looking around the vicinity, it was clear that whoever was here was not on the courts. They were most likely a jogger or hiker. We agreed to proceed according to plan but keep an eye out for the jogger and warn them off if need be. We had parked as close to the natatorium as possible, so before we unloaded our gear we walked up to the building. I watched at the front while Kyle went around to the side, where there was more metal to create a louder sound to reverberate within. As he started banging, my mind went back to that night, when I heard the creatures within. After ten minutes of off and on banging, we were satisfied that no one was inside. At least, no one that showed themselves. Then we grabbed our packs and started towards the entrance of the trails.

We made our way somewhat leisurely, taking our time and reliving memories; Kyle for the first time in years, me for the second time in the last month. We talked about all the good and bad times we had out here in our teens. I think this was more for Kyle’s audience than anything else, but it felt good to keep our minds off the inevitable. As we were nearing the trail that would lead us to the wooden deck overlook, I told Kyle we should do a full circuit, just to be sure there were no lurkers about. I also wanted to lay eyes on whoever else was here, to make sure that they were safe. So, we took the split in the trail that led to the exit at the top of the hill near the basketball courts. From here, we could see the whole front of the park without being seen ourselves. We noticed that the car from before was gone, so we decided to take a short break to eat and drink, as well as mentally prepare. We then headed off deep into the preserve.

When we made it to the observation platform, it was only 5:30 AM. It was still dark out, with the sun just starting to filter through the trees. I felt confident that we would have plenty of daylight to do what we needed, yet there was a slight tickle in the back of my mind. We should not think ourselves safe at any point while we were here. We stood there, overlooking the forest until we had enough light to show where the path lay. I warned Kyle of the treacherous slope that we would need to navigate, but it was once again dry today, so we made it down to the base of the path without too much trouble. At the bottom, we stopped at the fork in the trail. Our plan was to infiltrate the pool building via the culvert; so far, we’d seen no signs of the lurkers, not even on the trail cams that Kyle had set up. He brought out an extra trail cam, and we walked a little further on the right trail. I looked around the bend and saw nothing in the distance. We walked maybe another one hundred yards until we settled on a new home for the camera. He nestled into a decrepit log on the side of the path, pointing farther down. Hopefully this would allow us to see if anyone was coming our way while we investigated.

We made our way back along the trail, towards the drainage system. We started seeing all the trash on the ground from before, and after a few minutes, I found the shirt with Bailey’s name on it. Showing it to Kyle, he seemed a world away. I think the reality of it finally had set in for him. In unison, we turned our attention towards the culvert. It was time. We made our way carefully down the rocky riprap and paused just before entering. Kyle had all three camera feeds opened on his phone at this point, and I had brought out my flashlight. I patted my hip where my baton was, just to be sure it was there. We then entered the culvert.

Not even ten feet in, we were hit by a wave of sulfur. It smelled so rancid, but I had heard that highly acidic water could smell like this. I guess the water department was right to shut this place down. We plodded on, all the while suffering through the smell and Kyle’s near constant gagging. The tension was palpable. I had my light shining in front the whole time, while Kyle had his facing the end of the drain from whence we came. We had been walking at a steady pace for about fifteen minutes when Kyle motioned for me to stop. He showed me his phone, and we saw the camera facing the pool building had detected some movement. On the edge of the feed, we clearly saw something walk briefly into the frame before disappearing again. Panic started setting in for me immediately, but I quickly suppressed it. We came here for a reason, and the quicker we made it to the natatorium, the quicker we could figure out our next step. Reckless as it was, Kyle agreed that we were too close to turn back. It could have been the wind blowing some debris, but I knew better. We proceeded on, albeit at a much faster pace. Barely five minutes later, it seemed the drain bent upwards sharply. We had been walking at a steady incline this whole time, very gradual but perceptible. We shined our lights upward and saw a grate. Along the wall of the drain, an aluminum ladder led the way up. We proceeded cautiously, with me leading the way. As I jarred the grate from its resting spot, I heard a noise I hadn’t been anticipating despite this entire journey wracking my body and mind with fear.

Someone was screaming.

I hurriedly dogged the grate back and almost fell on top of Kyle as we scurried down. Yet before we could do anything else, I heard what appeared to be the sighs of relief. I paused a moment, then went back up the ladder, Kyle giving me that “what the fuck?” stare. The screaming began again as soon as I lifted the grate, mixed with bouts of sobbing with a hinge of hysteria. I quickly pulled myself out and was now on the bottom of one of the old Olympic pools. I shined my light around, hoping to locate the noise while Kyle pulled himself up. Doing my best to remain calm despite the bloodcurdling screams, I slowly looked for a ladder or some steps to get out of the pool. Kyle found some to our right, so we cautiously made our way up, shining our lights around all the while. It was near pitch black in here even during daylight, as big as this building was with no electricity and just a few small windows. Basically, we couldn’t see shit. I located what seemed to be the source of the sound though and worked our way towards one of the employee offices, I think. Just outside the door, it turned into more of a whimper.

“Hello?” I called out. “We aren’t one of those things. Are you okay?”
“H-hello? Help me!” the woman replied.

She had been bound in the corner of the room to something that had been bolted into the ground. As dark as it was, I couldn’t tell what. As I got out my pocket knife to cut the rope, she started screaming hysterically again, and as she did, I looked up towards Kyle who was shining his light for me to see. Behind him was a silhouette. Humanoid. Gangly.

Wretched.

Kyle was too slow to react, the lurker had bum rushed him into the concrete wall headfirst. My attention focused on his immobile form sprawled onto the linoleum floor, unconscious. The lurker then turned towards me, but before the sick fucker could even form a smile, I cracked him right in his forehead with my baton. It went limp, and I slammed the door shut, rushing to check on Kyle and the woman. I finished cutting her free first, then had her help me with Kyle. Checking his wound, he was bleeding from the impact to the wall, but it wasn’t gushing or anything. While he was out, I asked the woman how she got here. Her name was Emily. She was scared out of her wits about these monsters who seemed to have abducted her while she was jogging. I remembered the car was gone before we went to infiltrate the natatorium, and she admitted the lurkers took her keys. So, things were getting more and more dicey; it seems the lurkers could drive. Maybe that’s how they’ve been getting away with this shit for so long. There must be someplace nearby, at least within walking distance, that they were dumping the vehicles.

At this point we had Kyle sitting on the ground leaned up against the wall. He started to awaken when we heard pounding on the other side of the door, alongside growling. I didn’t have much worry that they’d get through; this was a steel door, bolted from our side. The problem was there was no other way out from this room. Kyle was a bit woozy still but quickly regaining his faculties. Emily had calmed down somewhat as well. Meanwhile, I was listening, trying to tell how many of those lurkers were banging on the door. The not so distance sounds of thunder were distracting, but we all agreed it sounded like two or three just outside the door. Kyle and I knew that we had seen movement on the trail cam halfway through the drainpipe, so there could be more of them on the way. The situation would quickly deteriorate for us if that were the case, so we needed to act quickly. Kyle had Emily stand to the side of the door, hidden behind it when it opens inward. We flung it open and found ourselves face to face with nightmare incarnate. This was Kyles first proper look at the things close up, and the adrenaline-fueled scream he emitted sent chills down my spine. We swung with our clubs at a frantic pace, throwing kicks as well; anything to knock them out of our way. The one I had cracked moments ago was stirring again, but between Kyle and I and our weapons, we incapacitated them all within a few minutes. We put them into the room we just left, then barricaded the door to prevent them from escaping quickly.

We had to act fast, so the three of us began searching for another escape. According to my research from the last couple weeks, there should be at least one more drain that we could take to the outside. Frantic, we realized it was far too dark to find another exit, so we started to make our way to the Olympic pool drain we lumbered through to get here. The idea wasn’t thrilling, but what other choice did we have? Just as we made the decision, Kyle yelled that something was coming up from the drain. Before we could react, I was tackled to the floor by one of them who must have been inside the building this whole time. It’s hands around my throat in a death grip; I could see the hatred on the things face. Like my very existence was anathema. From the corner of my eye, I saw Emily go down hard to the floor, thrown by one of the lurkers who came up from the drain. I heard Kyle struggling further behind me with one or more, while a second lurker came and pinned down my legs. Struggling for any kind of leverage, I squirmed all I could to escape the chokehold it had on me. I felt myself slipping into darkness, my vision starting to get fuzzy around the edges. I couldn’t kick the thing off my legs, nor could I muster the upper body strength to roll away from the other one. Luckily, Kyle must have seen I was in a bad spot, for he gave one of them a big boot to the face, which allowed me to kick the other one off me. Both immediately sprang back up and tackled me again, this time both lurkers and I flew backward into one of the small pools, probably a good ten feet drop to the bottom. Not good.

Except we didn’t hit the bottom. We landed on a pile of something hard, but I didn’t have time to figure out what. It was survival mode here. Emily helped pull me back out, while Kyle swung indiscriminately at the lurkers. Easy targets as they were now in the pool, as they got close Kyle knocked one out with his club, while Emily had found a cinder block which she proceeded to drop onto the head of the other. They both seemed to be out cold. We took this opportunity to again search for the drain. But as we were shining the lights, I skimmed over the kid pool I was just in. My line of sight immediately jerked back towards it, and I saw with mounting horror that the pool was filled almost to the brim with bones. Human bones.

At that moment, something shattered in my mind. All those years, wondering what had happened to Bailey. Finding the torn shirt. Encountering the lurkers, in all their malignance. In the end, his remains were likely in this pit. All three of us were dumbstruck for several minutes before Emily shook us out of our trance. We needed to get the fuck out of here. Since the last couple we dealt with, we didn’t see or hear any more of the lurkers coming. Kyle had checked the cams again, and there hadn’t been any additional movement. This was definitely the time to leave. We didn’t spare any more time to investigate the building; instead, we located the drain and began making our escape. Emily was still terrified, so Kyle led the way this time, me following at the rear with her between us. We moved as fast as we could through the drain, hoping to God that the way would be clear. As we neared the exit, Kyle noted how dark it looked outside. As we exited the culvert, we realized that it had been raining for at least a good hour. We immediately led Emily to the base of the path at the bottom of that sharp decline at the wooden overlook. We all tried multiple times to get up the incline, but the ground was too muddy to get a good footing. I cursed out loud that we didn’t bring any rope or climbing gear. We had to find another way.

We decided our only option was to follow the path to the right, the one we had placed the front of the last camera towards. While we were all still on high alert, some semblance of ease finally came over us. Emily asked why we were there at the pool building, seemingly prepared for a fight. I told her about my walk a few weeks ago, and my encounters. How we came back looking for clarity on our missing friend. We had wanted to call the cops, I said, but they had proven unreliable over the years. She mentioned that she had heard about a lot of disappearances in the area, but that she never thought she could become a victim. Well, we were in this together. We would get out of here together. As we walked along the barely visible trail, I was noting our progress on my phone’s GPS. If we continued like this, we would be going deeper and deeper into the North Woods. We needed to find a more gradual incline to get ourselves onto the same ground level as the nature trails of the preserve. All around us, though, was untamed forest. As we rounded each bend in the path, Kyle would go on ahead and scout. He was also talking with his stream audience, and I believe this was a coping mechanism for him. God knows we’d been through hell already, and it was barely even lunch time. After thirty minutes of walking, we saw a split in the path. According to the GPS, the path straight ahead was going to lead us even further away from civilization, so we took the one winding to the right. In a sense, this was the correct direction back towards the preserve. I had a feeling of dread come upon me though, as I remembered those lurkers we left back at the natatorium. Surely, they would be giving chase anytime. Just then, it seemed the rain started coming down even heavier, droplets exploding into growing puddles around us. We now had the benefit of lower visibility, but we also wouldn’t be able to hear them surprise us. We walked at a brisk pace down the path, and, after over an hour, we found an exit.

Well, it was an exit of sorts. We were now out of the woods and looking at an open field in front of us. Farther back, we could see many vehicles parked, forming lines stretching into the distance. We had found the lurker junkyard. Emily confirmed this when she spotted her own car among them. Farther back, we spotted a dirt road leading to who knows where. We decided to take a risk. Crouching down, we snuck our way up to the only building on the premises. Emily burst inside when she saw an older man with some grey to his hair sitting at the counter watching tv. Before I could stop her, she was in hysterics trying to explain to the man that we needed the police out here as soon as possible. He had the look of genuine concern, but his movements were making me feel nervous. As he nodded along with Emily, I saw his hand reaching for something under the counter. Before I knew it, he had pulled out a gun, leveled directly at me. Emily and I were frozen.

“I can’t let you leave. YOU should have never come back.” The last part being directed at me.
“What the fuck is going on out here?” I replied
“You don’t need to worry about that. The…creatures and I have a mutual understanding. They bring me material possessions and valuables they find, and I stay quiet. They get to…hunt in peace.”
“But what are they?” I asked, almost pleading.
“I don’t know. Cannibals for sure. The deformities though? I have no idea. It doesn’t really matter now though doe—”

Kyle had snuck up behind the old bastard and clubbed him in the back of the head, knocking him out. After what I had just heard, I truly considered killing the man right then, but logic took back over. We rifled his pockets and came up with some keys. Quickly deducing that the old Ford parked near the building was his, we all climbed in and tore out towards that dirt road in the back. After twenty minutes, we came to a large bush blocking the path, but instead we just drove straight through and ended on a gravel road. I checked my phone, and we were about ten miles away from the entrance to Iglehart Park. After a few turns down unremarkable gravel and dirt roads we were on the road that the park entrance sits on. I told Emily to drop us off at our cars, then take the truck to the police station. She agreed and as she dropped us off, she started crying again and hugging us both. We weren’t yet sure if we wanted the cops to know anything of our involvement, so I asked that Emily just not name us. She assured me she would keep it secret and instead reveal the rest of the horrifying experience to the police. After we parted ways, Kyle and I met back up at his house.

Chain smoking all the way there, I felt myself slowly relax and began to ruminate on the day’s discoveries. Bailey was most likely dead and his remains in the pool building. There was a community of deformed cannibals living in the North Woods. At least one person who was not a part of this community has been helping them do evil things to innocent people. I went there today to find answers, and it seemed I had. But I still had more questions. After arriving at Kyles, we went over everything that had happened, taking turns swigging a bottle of pineapple rum. Kyle began checking his stream and interacting with the chat, assuring them that none of this had been a skit. I wish it was all a skit, but either way his audience was absolutely eating it up.

I started to wonder if it was a good idea sending Emily off by herself to the police station. I know she was scared out of her mind, and having someone there with her while she tried to explain the whole ordeal would have been better. I made the decision then to go to the station the next day and corroborate the story. They absolutely HAD to check that building. As I was reflecting on what to do next though, Kyle snapped me out of it. He showed me the trail cam live feed of the culvert. A lurker was just standing there staring into the camera. It made a gesture, and when I realized what it was, I was rattled to my very core. Only two other people in the world knew my secret handshake, and one of them was dead.

Or so I thought.

Credit: Jason Griggs

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Please note the author of this Creepypasta does NOT give permission for it to be reproduced in any other form of media