Speaker 1: Welcome to micro Terrors, scary stories for kids where it's
Speaker 1: always the spooky season, full of chills, thrills and spine
Speaker 1: tingling spooks. Micro Terrors are family friendly frights for those
Speaker 1: ages eight and up, and while our stories are for
Speaker 1: younger years, we are still talking about things that go
Speaker 1: bump in the night, and some children may not be
Speaker 1: able to handle what others can. Parental consent is recommended
Speaker 1: now for tonights micro Terror.
Speaker 2: Sludge by Scott Donnelly. The first week of summer had
Speaker 2: flown by in my hometown of Duncan. I wouldn't say
Speaker 2: I was bored per se, but well, yeah, I was bored.
Speaker 2: A lot of my friends went on vacation to beaches
Speaker 2: or the mountains. Some of them said it was too
Speaker 2: hot to go outside and play catch or ride our bikes.
Speaker 2: I scoured the internet for something to do. The Duncan
Speaker 2: Mall had just shut down a couple of months ago,
Speaker 2: so aimlessly wandering its holes was out of the question
Speaker 2: unless we slipped in unnoticed to experience its currently dilapidated
Speaker 2: creep factor. The public pool was always too crowded and
Speaker 2: mostly consumed by kids much younger than us, yelling and
Speaker 2: screaming and turning the water yellow. So gross, and plus
Speaker 2: the chlorine they used was overpowered and could disintegrate a
Speaker 2: beetle who thought a lazy dip in the pool was
Speaker 2: a good idea. Then I found something, the Duncan Swimming Hole.
Speaker 2: I'd never heard of it before. It was listed on
Speaker 2: a Remember These Old Places in Duncan website. There was
Speaker 2: a picture of it which literally just looked like a
Speaker 2: hole in the ground filled with muddy water. The picture
Speaker 2: must have been taken decades ago, and when I saw
Speaker 2: the years mentioned by some of the people in the comments,
Speaker 2: I can tell this wasn't modern day attraction. Most of
Speaker 2: the comments mentioned the eighties or early nineties as the
Speaker 2: swimming hole's heyday. It was an isolated hangout for kids,
Speaker 2: located behind the Duncan Quarry in a small wooded region.
Speaker 2: Surely it was still there. The only way to know
Speaker 2: for sure was to hop on my bike, brave the
Speaker 2: heat that my friends feared so much, and check it
Speaker 2: out for myself. And that's exactly what I did. I
Speaker 2: rode through town, past the public pool and to where
Speaker 2: Duncan Quarry was. It wasn't in use anymore. Actually, nothing
Speaker 2: on this side of Duncan was used much anymore. There
Speaker 2: were numerous vacant and boarded up buildings, an empty quarry,
Speaker 2: and natural overgrowth almost everywhere. I drove around the quarry,
Speaker 2: close to the wire fence that was supposed to keep
Speaker 2: people out, and spotted the small section of woods that
Speaker 2: I was looking for. I stopped my bike and lay
Speaker 2: it in the grass before I stepped through the bushy
Speaker 2: edge of the wooded area. There were no paths or trails,
Speaker 2: just rough, leafy and bushy terrain to conquer. A few
Speaker 2: minutes into the conquering, I came to a clearing. There
Speaker 2: it was the Duncan Swimming Hole. It was just as
Speaker 2: the picture made it look, giving me the impression that
Speaker 2: the image online could have just as easily been taken
Speaker 2: today instead of decades earlier. I looked around. It was
Speaker 2: very isolated. It was kind of peaceful. We had to
Speaker 2: take advantage of it for the summer, rediscover it for
Speaker 2: a new generation, and make it the place to be
Speaker 2: once again. That night, I called my two best friends,
Speaker 2: Leah and Zach. They both loved to swim, so I
Speaker 2: figured it would be an easy sell to get them
Speaker 2: to come to the swimming hole with me. Leah jumped
Speaker 2: at the chance and took only a couple of minutes
Speaker 2: of convincing and the promise that I'd bring sandwiches for
Speaker 2: Zach to agree. We had a plan. The next day
Speaker 2: at noon the three of us wouldn't meet at the
Speaker 2: Duncan swimming Hole and finally begin our summer. Leah and
Speaker 2: Zach were blown away by the location. I can't believe
Speaker 2: I've never heard of this place, Leah said, Yeah, how
Speaker 2: come I've never heard of My parents mentioned it before,
Speaker 2: Zach added, I shrugged.
Speaker 1: Who knows.
Speaker 2: Maybe they never came here, or maybe they made a
Speaker 2: pact to keep it a secret to make their summers
Speaker 2: at the swimming hole that much more special. Zach tore
Speaker 2: his shirt off and stood there in his oversized swim trunks.
Speaker 2: Secret or no secret. I caught DIBs on being the
Speaker 2: first one in the hole. Zach then sprinted through the
Speaker 2: dirt and leaves that covered the ground and cannon balled
Speaker 2: into the swimming hole. The water splashed high and wide,
Speaker 2: soaking Leah and I and the hot mugginess concealed in
Speaker 2: the woods. The water felt great, even if it was
Speaker 2: a little muddy, Leah and I laughed and followed suit,
Speaker 2: cannon balling into the swimming hole along with Zach. We laughed,
Speaker 2: splashed each other, and created a strong whirlpool for nearly
Speaker 2: thirty minutes before any of us began to get tired.
Speaker 2: But when that swimming fatigue inevitably hit, it hit hard.
Speaker 2: We all remained in the water, but sidled up along
Speaker 2: the rounded edge of the swimming hole to catch our
Speaker 2: breaths and fully take in the scenery. Birds chirped, bugs
Speaker 2: buzzed by, and a clear sky through the canopy hit
Speaker 2: us with the right amount of light. Yeah, I'm hungry,
Speaker 2: Zach said about those sandwiches, I laughed, they're in the
Speaker 2: picnic basket. I pointed off toward the thick base of
Speaker 2: one of the trees. Our clothes and bikes were piled up,
Speaker 2: along with an old woven picnic basket I found buried
Speaker 2: in my garage. It was filled with sandwiches, chips, fruit,
Speaker 2: and bottled water. Zach tried to crawl out of the
Speaker 2: swimming hole, but Leah and I laughed at his attempt.
Speaker 2: The muddy edges made it difficult to get out. He
Speaker 2: kept slipping back in his hands, unable to find good
Speaker 2: placement to pull himself out. Yes, stop laughing, Zach said,
Speaker 2: becoming more and more frustrated as he tried to climb
Speaker 2: out with no luck. Eventually we did stop laughing. It
Speaker 2: wasn't funny anymore. Zach was struggling, teetering on the line
Speaker 2: of panic. It hitt be that hard, I said, turning
Speaker 2: around and trying to climb out myself. But he was
Speaker 2: that hard. The mud was too slippery. Leah tried too,
Speaker 2: with the same results. We all started to panic in
Speaker 2: our own ways. Leah whimpered, my breathing picked up, and
Speaker 2: Zach began to shout for help. No one's gonna hear you,
Speaker 2: I told him. There's no one around. Someone's got to
Speaker 2: help us. Zach shouted, someone help. We're stuck just in
Speaker 2: a ransid moldy odor blew through the trees and surrounded us.
Speaker 2: Made all three of us want a gag and stopped
Speaker 2: us from trying to get out. Yeah, it gross, Leah said,
Speaker 2: what on earth is that smell? I covered my nose.
Speaker 2: It was unlike anything I'd ever smelled before. It reminded
Speaker 2: me of a hot sewage or something. Wait, Lea suddenly said,
Speaker 2: someone's there. She pointed off into the woods. Zach and
Speaker 2: I looked. Someone was there, standing still in the trees.
Speaker 2: It was hard to make them out. They appeared to
Speaker 2: be wearing dark clothing and even a matching mask. Perhaps
Speaker 2: help us, Zach called out to the mysterious loiterer. We
Speaker 2: can't get out. Something caught my eye off to the left.
Speaker 2: It was a second person, identical to the one Leah
Speaker 2: had spotted. Look, I said to my friends. They glanced
Speaker 2: and saw the second one as well. Behind the second person,
Speaker 2: a third and fourth one appeared. They all stood as
Speaker 2: still as statues and just watched us. Are they really
Speaker 2: not going to help? Leah quietly said. I spun around
Speaker 2: and checked the woods behind us. There were more of them,
Speaker 2: all concealed in the brush, all at once, every single
Speaker 2: one of them activated something on their faces that resembled
Speaker 2: bright yellow lights. Leah gasped and Zach froze up in fear.
Speaker 2: His fingers stug as deep as they could be into
Speaker 2: the muddy edge of the swimming hole. Without warning, all
Speaker 2: of the mysterious figures began to slowly advance toward us
Speaker 2: on all sides. Lea's gasps and whimpers turned into pandic
Speaker 2: to shrieks. Zach frantically tried to pull himself out of
Speaker 2: the swimming hole with as much energy as he could.
Speaker 2: I froze watching the horde of strange figures close in.
Speaker 2: As they got closer, I thought I was seeing things.
Speaker 2: They no longer looked like people at all, and their
Speaker 2: dark clothing and matching masks, well, they didn't look like
Speaker 2: clothing or masks anymore. It was their bodies. They all
Speaker 2: appeared to be covered from head to toe in a
Speaker 2: dripping muddy substance. Either that or that's what they were
Speaker 2: made of. Their muddy, sludgy composition flowed downward on their
Speaker 2: bodies like a hypnotizing cascading ripple effect. Yellow eyes burned
Speaker 2: through the thick substance on their faces, emitting a droning
Speaker 2: hum or buzzing noise. By now, Leah and Zach had
Speaker 2: also noticed their appearance. They began to scream, as did I.
Speaker 2: Within seconds, the horde of muddy creatures from the woods
Speaker 2: had surrounded the swimming hole, tramping us and gawking down
Speaker 2: as we pas and thrashed about in the water. Zach hollered,
Speaker 2: aliens are invading aliens. I thought, could that be what
Speaker 2: we were looking at? Some sort of species from another world?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Then, one of the creatures bent down and stuck their
Speaker 2: hand in the water. I watched as mud slid off
Speaker 2: its arm and into the swimming hole. As it mixed in,
Speaker 2: it began to turn the water brown and thick Leah,
Speaker 2: Zach and I quickly found ourselves in a pool of
Speaker 2: brown sludge. The water we had first jumped into ceased
Speaker 2: to exist. We all tried desperately to grab on to
Speaker 2: one another for safety for comfort. As we huddled together,
Speaker 2: the buzzing noise that their eyes emitted grew louder and louder,
Speaker 2: like a million bugs, all buzzing at the same time. Then,
Speaker 2: without warning, the buzzing stopped. The woods fell silent, and
Speaker 2: the three of us all eased off one another. The
Speaker 2: mud monsters were gone. Nothing surrounded the swimming bole, and
Speaker 2: the sludge we were stuck in began to change in consistency,
Speaker 2: thinning out and turning back into water. We all swam
Speaker 2: for the edges again, and with a mix of fear
Speaker 2: and determination in our attempt this time, we were all
Speaker 2: able to claw our way out of the swimming hole.
Speaker 2: That night, I hopped onto my computer and went back
Speaker 2: to the website that I initially found the swimming hole on.
Speaker 2: I scrolled down and read more of the comments. They
Speaker 2: went from Oh yeah, I remember that place too. We
Speaker 2: stopped going there after the water became too muddy. There
Speaker 2: was another comment that indicated the area was blocked off
Speaker 2: by police at one time, while an additional commenter clarified
Speaker 2: that it wasn't the police, but rather a government agency.
Speaker 2: The computer screen started giving me a headache. I turned
Speaker 2: it off and lay in bed. My head felt like
Speaker 2: it was swimming, like my brains had turned to mush
Speaker 2: and were just sloshing back and forth in my skull.
Speaker 2: I pulled the blankets up over me as chills began
Speaker 2: to ravage my body. I was shivering. Every muscle in
Speaker 2: my body cramped up at the same time. Then a
Speaker 2: tickle in my nose triggered a sneeze. Brown sludge shot
Speaker 2: out from my mouth and nostrils and splattered the wall
Speaker 2: on the other side of the room. I watched as
Speaker 2: it slowly oozed down the wall and puddled on the floor.
Speaker 2: I'd have to clean it up before my parents saw it.
Speaker 2: I couldn't have them finding out what happened to us
Speaker 2: at the swimming hole. I couldn't have them finding out
Speaker 2: my brain was now sludge, or that sludge was running
Speaker 2: through my veins and beating from my heart. I couldn't
Speaker 2: have them finding out that their precious little child had
Speaker 2: now been recruited by an alien species from the stars
Speaker 2: to systematically take over every single region of Planet Earth.
Speaker 2: They'd be gone tomorrow anyhow. Consumed by a surprise sludgy attack,
Speaker 2: I reached out and turned off my bedside lamp, my
Speaker 2: goofy touch, leaving sloppy prints all over it. My eyes
Speaker 2: droned loudly and glowed yellow, keeping the room bright even
Speaker 2: in the darkness. They rolled over my body, squelching beneath
Speaker 2: the sheets. Planet Earth didn't know what it was in
Speaker 2: for big news micro Terrorist fans. The first ever micro
Speaker 2: Terror's short film, The Dire More Phantom, inspired by the
Speaker 2: twenty twenty three micro Terror's original story Bump in the Night,
Speaker 2: is now available to stream over in the fan club.
Speaker 2: If you're not a member, now's the perfect time to join.
Speaker 2: From now through August first, twenty twenty six, you can
Speaker 2: use the promo code sci Fi Summer when you sign
Speaker 2: up to get fifty percent off your first month of
Speaker 2: the Terrified Tier That's sci Fi Summer. Head on over
Speaker 2: to micro terrors dot com and sign up. Thank you
Speaker 2: all for being such dedicated micro Terrors listeners. We'll see
Speaker 2: you next week when an interstellar creature pays a visit
Speaker 2: to a suburban neighborhood, unless it decides to take a
Speaker 2: dip in that swimming hole first, at which point it
Speaker 2: probably won't arrive.
Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to micro Terrors. Join us each
Speaker 1: Saturday for another scary story. For more fun, visit our
Speaker 1: website at microterrors dot com, where you can get the
Speaker 1: latest micro Terrors news, read fun facts about each story,
Speaker 1: sign up for our monthly newsletter, and even send in
Speaker 1: your own scary story for us to tell. Plus, you
Speaker 1: can become one of the Terrified by joining the fan
Speaker 1: club at microterrors dot com. You enjoy excus exclusive perps
Speaker 1: like reading stories a week early, receiving complimentary books, and
Speaker 1: communicating directly with micro Terrors writer and creator Scott Donnelly.
Speaker 1: You can also follow us on Facebook and Instagram using
Speaker 1: the handle at microterrs. I hope you'll join us again
Speaker 1: soon for Microterrors scary stories for kids,