This episode is supported by s axes american horror stories, the twisted anthology series from ryan murphy returns. Each stand alone, episode contains a new nightmare, delving into whore myths, legends and lower, don't miss ethics is american horror stories for episode hulu eighteen event now streaming only on hulu. This episode was produced with audio affects enforced around sound for the experience? We kindly recommend you listen with headphones high listeners, I'm Michael David textile and I have a story. I want to tell you a story of a seasonal caretaker whose watch is turned on him, so gather around.

and listen close unspoiled peace and serenity. That's what the job description from the kentucky state park service had said. It sounded beautiful, but most lies. Do I applied for a position as well Your caretaker for Caskey mountain state resort park more out of desperation and passion. I had a decent digg is a welder for mining implement company, but with many minds snapping closed. I was one of the first laid off desirable work in eastern kentucky is few and far between you take what you can get caretaker work. It's

park paid well, and so I was a bit confused why the spot hadn't been filled. Caskey mountain closed on the first day of november and opened the following march: hark superintendent. Hired me only ten days before the shutdown by training was rushed, to put it mildly. The winter storms whenever bad enough to close down the roads, but the distance to the closest town and its remote location made the choice. temporarily shudder, the resort, their best financial option, paying the cooks, clerks housekeepers and make staff would cause them to operate at a loss with so many rooms left, unoccupied jimmy hoppers. The head of maintenance gave me the dime tour when I arrived I would be given a simple to room cabin during my five months day throughout the winter. I was too rotating checks on all of the cottages large room and maintenance buildings everything but mile

urging had been, went, arrived and shut down for the season by june, was to patrol for any unexpected damage or signs of trespassers falling Freeze and teenagers Jimmy told me would be my largest struggle over the winter tower oaks lying seven mile drive from the resort to the main road. He told me to expect one or two to fall across the entrance. While I was there There was a key on my loop to the main maintenance shop, where I could use a chainsaw and pick up to drag it out of the road for the opening season. Crew to clean up before operations resumed from the closest town would be a concern he had said the locals. The resort would be shuddered four months most painted no mind but presented itself like a challenge to the teenagers down the mountain

the rural area was an ocean of options for high schoolers to vanish into a field. Swill cheap beer from solar cops around a roaring bonfire in the spring and summer during the winter breaking into the empty cottages on Caskey mountain was the next best thing. If you spot any kid shaken up in the cottages, given the boot Jimmy said as he did me a laminated list of phone numbers if they wildly, Call the sheriff first, these closer, but we won't send anyone. I kind of an asshole called the state police. Next It'll take him near an hour to get here, though, a sheriff that respond and state trooper an hour away, wasn't exactly comforting, but I needed the work I shook him his hand and waved them as his battered pickup truck hold over the hill. toward the main road. My five

solitude began, and not bob and my stomach, the cold winter wind howled through the trees ass. I turned to walk back into my cabin every morning, felt like being from groundhog. Bear the clock. Radio would blast out a warbling country song and I would slinked to the closet to toss on my work, clothes and a thick jacket after a few cups of coffee and a microwave able, oatmeal cup I would have outside and slide into the white maintenance struck parked outside each cottage to be checked once a week for broken windows and then

watch for signs of intruders. There were twenty one in total, so I settled on doing three a day: I'd scan the roads for fallen or sagging trees and make notes on my clipboard of where I may have to return later in the week for clean up afterward, I would walk through the main lodge checking all the doors. It left a lot time to sit idly in my cabin, I left the television on most of the time. Thankfully, the resort left the cable running through the winter wifi was available, but spotty provided by a cut rate satellite service by kindle sat beside the careworn kleiner, and I had carefully loaded it with what I hoped was a winters worth of reading. It didn't take long to get lonely, though Jimmy told me I could leave for brief periods if I needed to, but it seemed like more of a pain in the ass than it was worth. The nearest

Slade run was forty miles away factory. The winding two lane roads and having to watch for dear and the tree line. The trip were taken an hour or more. All of my food was provided and stored in the lodge. which hadn't even left me with an excuse to go grocery shopping on day, four wrapped in my thickest clothes, I started walking the trails after work. The scenery was breathtaking. Although the trees were stripped of leaves, the acres of oak maple and evergreen pines were gorgeous a waterfall fed by a large creek tumbled off a rock ledge into a flowing river. The sun was beginning to set, and I watched it. Dip below.

Rising. I did just that every day, until mid december, I daily hike was nearly over when I heard a rifle shot followed by a gut wrenching scream thunder as the shrill cry echoed through the mountains. I scanned the area around me for the source but realized was coming from the direction of my cabin I turned and ran down the flask trail. Your piercing leading members of pain swam into my views as I put forward when the trail head and turned toward the cabin. I could see a body on the ground. There was

expanding the lot around it fumbling through my pockets. I tried to find my cell phone to call for help only to realize that I had left it on my bedside table, as I neared my cabin. My view of the body had finally come into focus in the failing light of day it was a deer blood poured from a hole in it's side collecting in a puddle around it's belly. Thing's legs kicked weakly at the gravel on the drive. Hot bursts of breath drifted into the dusk sky as it thrashed with the last of it's energy. The final labour runt sounded and the deer fell still. the old beside it. Looking for something I can no longer remember behind me a sudden, scrambled and foliage sound, scaring me and making me one for my cabin door. Someone had been, tree line by only twenty feet back. It didn't occur to me until I had

the door and drawn the shades that whoever it was had likely shot. The dear that sad stiffening in the cold moonlight, some one in the middle of the kentucky wilderness someone with a gun Jimmy had been right about the sheriff I had called. As soon as I locked the cabin door that night and reported the gunshot and dead dear the man on the other end of the phone laughed quietly probably some poor hillbilly, who missed hunting season in november. He assured me I told him how they had run away without their kill and he laughed again what may in his right mind would try to collect and illegally killed dear in the sight of a state employee. He asked it seemed like a fair enough point. Maybe it had been a late season hunter or some power

stricken man trying to put a little food on the table, it didn't make me feel any more relaxed My mind tried to rationalize the icy fear flowing from my body, before, I could say another word: the sheriff, he had already hung up. I sat in the cabin for the remainder of the night eyes glued to the door, clutching a pistol I'd stowed away in one of my duffel bag. Technically, it wasn't legal have it on state property, but I was certainly glad I decided to skirt that my afternoon hikes came to an end after that I stuck strictly to my daily security checks and headed directly to my cabin afterward. While I had previously cooked most of my meals in the large and eight in the dining room, I started bringing a few days worth of food back to my cabin and cooking it. On top of the old wood burning stove, It was a monday morning and my wrote

checks, flipped from cottages nineteen to twenty one back to cottages, one two: three. Throughout the winter, the worst thing I encountered during my checks, then a broken window cottage, seventeen, a brain had blown in during enduring gusty night and lodged itself in the lower paid. in a piece of plywood from the maintenance shop cut it to size and covered the window. The maintenance crew would take care of it. On arrival, I put the maintenance truck and park in front of cottage one and started up the path. My mind wandered between thoughts of what book. I would read that night and what I may cook when I noticed the mud on the wooden steps leading toward the door. My heart skipped a beat Oh ringing sound in my ears. I might have tracked them out on the steps, but I was usually careful to scrape them off on the welcome met at the base. If I had to go inside

sliding my hand into my jacket. I wrapped my fingers around the handle of my revolver. When I reached the top of the steps, I slowly turned the door now the latch clicked and the door. Even if I hadn't been there in a week, but I always double check to make sure the doors were locked before I left chills danced over my bodies. I pushed the door open and called out shaky greeting silence and the thick smell of decay rolled over me as I walked into the white cottage fetid smell was overwhelming, and I pulled a handkerchief from my backpack, get and help it to my nose. I slipped the gun from inside my jacket and level did unsteadily in front of me as my eyes scanned the room. It was dishevelled all of them.

rivers from the queen sized bed were pushed onto the floor. Empty beer cans were carelessly scattered across the hardwood flies buzzed around a strange greasy pile by the stove. As I neared the identified pile, I pushed at it with my boot wet for matted, with blood slapped disgustingly against the floor and a pile of small blood. Streaked bones scattered nearby. The pelts looked like they had come from a raccoon, shredded and maggot covered as if discarded, by a wild dog stomach. Turning, I scanned the ransacked cottage again, a piece of paper sat alone on the small table near the window. I walked toward it and picked it up. My breathing became labored and panicked, as I read the sloppy,

and writing monday, cottage one two, three tuesday cottage for five six wednesday cottage, seven, eight, nine thorstein cottage ten, eleven twelve friday cutters, thirteen fourteen fifteen saturday, sixteen seventeen eighteen sunday, nineteen, twenty twenty one was my damn patrol scare. Let the cottages written in a childish, miss spells I ran from the cabin and jumped attire It's kicked up dirt and gravel as like fish held onto the road heading for the state police post near slate. A state trooper followed me back to the resort and performed check of the cottage one by one. We both went to all of the other buildings on the property, but fell, no signs of an intruder, while the

or wasn't as dismissive as the sheriff had been. He told me there was little they could do break. There were common, especially among the tina yours. He had never seen any of them leave anything as disturbing as the pile of animal parts. He said littered beer cans had teenage partners written all over them before he left. He told me. The state patrol would do thereby to send someone to the area once or twice a week to check in I nodded, but the sense of unease sank deeper into my bones. I made a call to the superintendent resort and told him. I was going to stay in the cheap hotel down in slate run for a few days, but he remained me my contract made clear. I was to remain on the grounds. I made a brief protest, but he only

responded by telling me there were plenty of people in the area that wanted a job. I resigned myself to working through my fear. Thankfully, the superintendent had allowed me to travel home for christmas day. In the meantime, a trooper would patrol the resort. While I was gone, intrusive thoughts crept through my head. The entire visit stay home, just don't go back and quit find a new job. I didn't have the commons and to listen to any of them. There were no other jobs without making a move. A move would require money that I didn't have the by had, would give me the money to make the move. It was a vicious and inescapable cycle, so I went back to Caskey mountain and resumed my duties

Of course. The first thing I'd seen as I drove in was cottage one it had been boarded up yellow crime scene tape fluttered in the cold january, breeze a stark reminder for why I left the next few weeks, while on eventful were thankfully just that no more dead, dear or cottages filled with carcasses. The day grind. Kept me occupied and steady diet of television and books filled my night. However, during the night I always felt like I could hear something moving outside, but I never lifted the blind to look. It was near the end of january, and I was just finishing my daily rounds it was later in the day than usual there turn it around. The maintenance truck had gone out and it had taken most of the morning for me to change it out.

I have decided not to start my rounds until after lunch, which made it nearly dark. Before I pulled the truck into the parking spot near my cabin, I have just cut the ignition and started toward my cabin door when the smell of smoke. Filled like there was nothing out of the ordinary at my cabin, so I turned to toward the main area of the resort in black plumes drifted over it, these from the direction of the maintenance building checking back at the track. Both fire extinguishers were secured in the cupboard I jumped in the driver's seat and fired up the engine. As I dumped open my phone and dialed nine one. One reception is spotty and while I could hear static, tinged voice crackling in my ear, I wasn't able to understand their words feeling frustrated. I hung up the phone and hoped they would dispatch a unit to check on the unanswered call

arrived at, the maintenance building smoke was already pouring from event caps I pulled in english or from the truck and headed for the door fumbling. Through my key ring, I found the maintenance key and opened the door and looked inside a stack of pallets, sat smoldering in the corner of the metal building and I cautiously walked in pulling the paint. from the time I ain't, the nozzle wind swept from side to side here, will win out of white chemicals or stand when it took a few minutes. and was nearly empty when the flames finally died down. My lungs ached, inhaling so much smoke, and I headed back outside for some fresh air leaned metal of the building and sucked in deep gasps of clean air. I pulled my phone from. Pocket and tried to call nine one one again, but the call never went through the reception bars.

the phone were overlaid with an s o s signal to show. I had no service a moment. I thought I would head back to my cabin to try and call again, but I concerned the fire might start again from some unnoticed cinder feeling exhausted I tossed the empty extinguisher into the bed of the pickup and pulled the second from the tool box before returning to the door. Most of the smoke was clearing out through the opening. As the view inside came into focus, I could see something written on the floor, with white spray paint. I see it looked so damn much like the childish handwriting. From the note in the cottage I dropped the extinguisher on the frozen grass and fault.

slamming the door shut. I fired it and turned and pulled the truck up. The drive from the maintenance to the main drag leading out as I got ready to turn right and head towards the state police post. I saw the flat of blue lights to my left, thinking, trooper had responded to the call I turned toward the stroke blue lights, the crest of the hill. Does he estate patrol car parking beside my cab, the front door stood open, interior lights flooded into the darkness outside relief washed over my body, as I pulled the truck in by the cruiser and headed towards the door as I walked inside terror flooded. My body sitting in one of my dining table chairs was the same trooper who searched the cottage with me. His eyes were blank locked onto something on the ceiling. Dark blood circled the floor below him dripping from a jagged opening in his stomach

his service weapon was clutched him his right hand, traced in his blood on the table beside him, was a final message, still watch I left Caskey mountain that night and never went back police of interviewed me more than ten times over the last year, but they have come up with nothing. No usable evidence was ever discovered at the scene and no says have been named in the slang at the trooper, I've lived on the other end of the state. All this time found new welding job and stick to the bigger cities being alone, even in my apartment scares the hell out of me now I sleep with a loaded gun in the bed with me. If I ever sleep at all, my fair best helps a little but I still feel like someone is always watching me.

I'm sitting in an interview room at the local police station running all of this down in a shaky chicken scratch. The state police are on their way here to interview me again not to discuss new evidence in the murder but to inspect new evidence. Here, when I got home from work this evening, I could smell something foul in the breeze way of my apartment. After I reached the top of the stairs, I saw a bloody pile of fur surrounded by tiny white bones. There was a message on my door written in blood, found you Full body chills is an audio chuck production this so it was written by ryan c major and read by Michael David accident.

this story was modified slightly for audio retelling, but you can find original in full on our website. So what do you think chuck? Do prove it