GLITCHES
An Original Listener Terror by Elle Peterson, age 9

January was cold, as usual, but (as usual too) fortunately all the snow was gone. So that meant that Samuel Kroff could go play.
The remains of last night’s soft rain were disappearing, like Sam’s disappointment that he couldn’t go to his big sister, Ruth’s birthday party; she was eighteen, and she was going to a
bar. Leaves lay scattered on the ground, and as Sam swayed down the sidewalk, brushing leaves out of the way with his stained, muddy sneakers, he realized he did not have a care in the world.
Once crossing the street to the park, Sam surveyed the park like a battlefield.
In front of him; the big park, including the monkey bars and three big slides. To his side; the dangerously close basketball pavement area. To his other side, the huge hill they called Mount Tesky. No one knew why.
Hopping onto the swingset to his left, Sam started to pump when a familiar voice called behind him:
“S-S-S-Sam!!”
Whipping around with a smile on his face, Sam beckoned for his friend, Emily Palmer, a thin, unhealthily pale girl with dark almost-black brown hair swishing down around her like a long curtain, concealing her kind, green eyes.
Emily was born with the Delsignhausen (Del-sine-hau-sen) Disorder, which caused difficulty in breathing and caused her to stumble with words, and, as her family called it, glitch.
Running up to Sam, Emily smiled and asked politely, “W-What a-are you d-d-d-doing he-here?”
“Playing,” answered Sam happily. “Wanna play tag?”
“L-Last on-one to the top of th-the pl-play-playg-playground is it!!” cried Emily, racing to the top of the playground. Sam let her win.
Over the next hour, they played and played and played until their limbs hurt and ached from the cold. Sitting down on the benches, Emily and Sam gasped for air, as they laughed about the game.
“I w-was t-t-too fast f-f-fo-for yo-you!” Emily giggled.
“No!! I was too fast for you!!” Sam laughed.
“Hey, Sam! Emily!” a voice called suddenly. It was Harrison and Holly, the two twins that were always with their friend, Natelie, a boy who was always the most popular kid in everything, even though he had a girl’s name. The three were Emily and Sam’s best friends.
“Hey! Come join us!” Sam yelled. Parking their bikes, Harrison, Holly and Natelie came strutting over.
“Urgh, did you even bother to brush your hair, Emily?” Holly scoffed, but she smiled at Emily and Emily glared back, although her mouth looked just about to smile and her eyes twinkled.
Together, they played a fun game of tag until evening set in.
Everyone stopped at the benches and took long slurps of water as they sat down for a break.
“Hey, did you ever hear about that TikTok sensation about the mythical creature, The Sound? It’s said to visit this park all the time in January. There have been videos of sightings, but I bet it’s just photoshop,” Harrison said with a shudder. “Although it looked terrifying. And what’s more, the person who posted it was named Unknown Evergreen, and then a week later, they posted a video of them hunting it, and then . . . the video stopped right as the poster was about to see it…and on the news, it said Lailey Evergreen died in a freak accident. Someone, or something had killed her right in this park. I don’t think we should be here at night, or, at least, not after dark.”
“Oh, Harrison, don’t spoil the night,” Holly frowned at him while applying yet even more red lipstick, making her lips look like a thousand needles had just punctured it and blood had stained her lips. She stared at the mirror, twisting it so she could see everyone, until she bit her lip.
“Where’s Emily?”
Sam, who was arguing about hockey with Natelie, and in the middle of saying, “No, if you score on the Oilers, I will kill you . . .”, stopped and looked around. Emily was nowhere to be seen. The park was deserted.
“I bet she probably went to go get a drink, or the bathroom,” Harrison suggested.
“She lives half an hour away. She would have told us,” Sam said concerned.
“Come on, let’s go to the top of Mount Tesky and look,” Natelie set off, followed by Sam and the twins.
After the agonizingly long and anxious walk up the steep hill, everyone reached the top and sat down, blocking the sun with their hands and scanning the playground, trees beyond, and everywhere else. Emily was gone.
Suddenly, Natelie broke the silence.
“Look! It’s Emily!!”
Emily, standing right in front of the large moon beginning to rise, was silhouetted by the strong white light. Her black form against it was hauntingly alarming, and she was clearly agitated. She was twitching all over. Her arms slapped against her sides, and she looked about ready to fall over her legs were shaking so hard.
“Emily, are you okay?!” Sam called out urgently to her. No response.
Suddenly, stepping out of the circle of moonlight, Emily disappeared into the darkness.
“Guys? This is getting scary,” Holly whispered in a small, frightened voice. It echoed around creepily.
“Emily, stop!! You’re scaring us!” Harrison cried; he was curled up in a small ball, resting against the grass, shivering with the cold fear Sam could tell was seeping into everyone. Then, a voice echoed around the park. The shadows seemed to move; the veil of darkness shifted.
“K-K-Koo-K-K-KooKoo.” It sounded like Emily, though even more glitchy than before, and it was as if she had died and then risen again. Her voice was gruff, and squeaky. Holly peeped with fear. Suddenly Emily appeared right in front of them. She was deathly pale; it seemed she had risen back from the dead.
Her hair was black, her eyes dark, and her form seemed to be shifting in and out of focus. Emily was glitching.
Not just her voice, but her body itself.
Shrouded with shadows and the faint neon blue and red of her glitching, Emily came closer.
“B-B-Black a-as th-the c-c-cr-crows t-that p-peck-pecked t-the b-boy-boy’s eyes out . . .”
she mumbled, coming closer, her aura even more dark than before and glowing with her glitching effects.
Suddenly, a close scream echoed through the park; Natelie had fallen to the ground, wailing with agony, he twitched on the ground until he went still. Gasping with horror, Holly turned him over and screamed; his eyes were gone, now just shadowy sockets on his face.
Starting to sprint, Sam, Holly and Harrison dashed across the field and down the hill. Holly stumbled and fell; she gasped as a deafening crack sounded; her ankle was broken.
“R-Red a-as t-the ribb-ribbons t-that y-y-you wear-wear in y-your h-hair . . .” Emily whispered hoarsely again. Sam watched in terror as ribbons appeared out of nowhere, spinning like a whirlpool, and sucked Holly up into them.
Running faster now, Harrison and Sam ducked into the bushes.
“B-Blood w-will s-ta-stain the gra-grass to-tonight.”
Suddenly, Harrison started to gasp.
“Harrison?” Sam whispered.
Starting to scream, Harrison fell to the ground and writhed upon the grass. One by one, thousands of needles burst from him. Harrison shrieked, shuddered and finally fell still.
Mouth open, Sam started to run. Emily was right behind him, swishing past the three dead bodies like a ghost, her skirt brushing the now dark, dead grass. Wherever Emily stepped, death seemed to penetrate anything within her body’s grasp.
Suddenly, Sam ran into something with an oof. Groaning in pain, Sam realized he had run into a fence bestrewed with sharp edges. Turning so his back was against the fence, he looked frantically around. Emily was nowhere to be seen.
Abruptly, though, Emily appeared out of nowhere in front of Sam, her forehead inches away from Sam’s nose. She was smaller and shorter, but the way she stared up at Sam made him feel two centimeters tall.
“Thank you for helping me live in the human world. You sustained me dear Samuel, but now, for the sake of my hunger, you must perish so that I can live on. I will miss our gleeful friendship, but humans have grown too annoying. I have been suffering for so long, surrounded by humans, their smell coming off so strong . . . How I loved the smell of your flesh, oh, so tasty . That was us…the only thing sustaining us. Now, goodbye, Samuel.”
Emily opened her mouth and let out an ear-piercing shriek that echoed around the park and revealed the most terrifying thing Sam had ever seen. Sam fell to the ground seconds later in horror as the Emily he once knew pulled off her own skin and revealed a monster with crazed eyes as big as dinner plates and black dots for pupils so small they were barely there. Its mouth was like a giant hole; inside were hundreds of shiny teeth more than two inches long.
It was like a hunchback with leathery spruce-colored skin, big bumps along its back, and huge, abnormally long arms that dragged on the ground, seemingly too heavy and large to just lay at the monster’s sides. Its legs were stubby and barely noticeable, with long feet that had blisters and scabs and fingernails that looked to be infected by literally every sickness possible in the world.
The creature screamed at Sam, baring its teeth again.
Just as the creature was about to devour Sam, a light burst between Sam and the creature.
“Hey!!” a policeman’s voice echoed around the park, silencing the creature’s howls. It bounded away into the night.
They found Sam writhing on the ground, shudders coursing down him, making him shake on the ground like a fish out of water. His eyes were round and open wide, terror taped onto his face.

***

Two months later, Samuel Kroff woke up from his coma with a scream and almost injured his mother and father by swatting at them with a terrified gasp. After he settled down, for hours the doctor tried to get Samuel to talk but he wouldn’t let out a peep. The doctors diagnosed him with TRAUMATIC SHOCK. He would never speak again.
The policeman that came across Samuel found out that there had been three other victims that night, but they were never found.
Also, another family mysteriously disappeared the day after Samuel was found. The Palmers: Angela and Johnson and their daughter, Emily, vanished.
Where they are now, is anyone’s guess.

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts