The police aren’t coming.
There is nothing illegal about a car across the road. I tried to tell them I’d been threatened, that my place had been trashed, but it’s… it’s hard to explain. Ramblings don’t come across very well over the phone, and I don’t think they took me seriously. So I’m taking some time to just sit down and put this all on paper. I’ll try to collect myself, and then I’ll call them again.
If I make it that far. I don’t know what to expect. It’s all gone, but I don’t know if that’s enough.
I know some of you have questions about what happened to CreepyCars. I’ve seen the posts, I’ve gotten the texts. I’m telling you, this is it. This is what you need to know.
Let’s start from the beginning. I visited a friend in Indiana a few years ago.
I was on my way to the supermarket when I walked past an abandoned house with a rusted-out car parked halfway up the driveway. The car just looked… savage. It was missing a door, it didn’t have a single window, and there was a very graphic word written with white spray-paint on the hood. I didn’t think much about it. It’s Indiana, you see these things every now and then.
But then someone stepped out of the house. Some Ed Gein-looking bastard, coughing up a lung.
He lived there.
Not only that, he got in the tetanus-colored rust car - and started it.
It was the creepiest shit I’d ever seen. Like watching a machine come back from the dead. So yeah, I snapped a photo of it. I could never have guessed that thing would even start, let alone roll out of the driveway.
I’m a bit of a car guy. What I saw on that Indiana driveway was a rusted-out ’61 Ford Zephyr Mark II, and seeing it like that was just tragic. So to share the pain, I uploaded it. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one with a lot of opinions.
This started a long thread. People not only responded but uploaded their own pictures. Pictures of everything from rusted classics that’d been stripped and abused, to videos of amateur frankencars. Hell, one guy just uploaded an ice cream truck abandoned in a swamp. I swear I saw an alligator trying to get in the driver’s seat. We started sharing these stories of trashed and creepy cars from all around the country, and soon, the world.
Over the course of a few weeks, we sort of split off from a larger community and started something we called ‘CreepyCars’. I was the main admin. Yeah, the one and only.
CreepyCars was not just about funny and creepy content, it was about enthusiasm. Sure, we all groaned over the various hackjobs, but it was also a sort of collective mourning. There was a genuine interest in the content uploaded. And of course, there was passion. I was called in a bunch of times to moderate discussions on Rat Rods, for example.
We had some internal jokes and themes. We had Don’t-Wrench-And-Drive custom job Fridays, New-Year-New-Car posts, all in good spirit. We had this one thing where we posted the ugliest selfies of ourselves and asked people to post what kind of car it looked like we owned. This one time, a guy found his car posted and reached out to us about how he could fix it. We raised $12,000 for the restoration.
So this is the kind of environment I put my time in. These were good, honest people. So when I saw this car, this… random-ass rust bucket cruising down the road, I wasn’t being malicious. It was just fun. Just a quick video, nothing to think of.
It was last May. Minnesota in springtime. I was dog-sitting Sally for a friend and decided to take a long walk by the river before it got too dark outside. All in all, about a 30-minute walk. Not too bad, and Sally was happy to get out for a bit.
We were just about to head back when Sally started whining. She put her tail between her legs and cuddled up next to me. I looked around but couldn’t see what’d scared her. I brought out my phone. If it was a wild animal, I wanted a photo. Worst-case scenario, I could call the police.
Then I heard this strange metallic sound.
It sounded like a rattling engine, like something had come loose. An engine belt slapping around, bearings shot to hell. It sounded like a dying vehicle. And yet, something came rolling around the corner.
The first time I saw it, I was amazed it even moved. It looked like some sort of cartoon, something forgotten back in the 70’s. Possibly a Pacer. It had this thick layer of mud spread out across the hood, covering a few forest green paint spots. There were lit candles spread out across the dashboard, which was the only light coming from the car - at all.
And in the driver’s seat was this… I don’t know how to describe it. Weirdo, I guess. He had a black motorcycle helmet with a crude face spray-painted in white. He had this faux-fur coat with a raccoon pattern and bleach white leather gloves. He was leaning back against the only seat that remained in the car. A seat that was barely anything but a rusted frame.
I didn’t even think about it; I recorded it going past me down the street. The driver was looking at me all the way. That large helmet slowly turned to face me every inch of the way.
I should’ve listened to Sally. She was pulling on the leash, trying to get away. Whining, barking, throwing herself against the leash. She knew this was bad.
Really bad.
But I just stood there, mouth open like a fish out of water. I had no idea what I was looking at.
Last thing I saw as it rounded the corner was the license plate.
“H0TR0D”
I could hear it going down the street five minutes after it passed me. When Sally finally calmed down, I carried her back home. I had a video to upload.
The thing went viral.
It spread from our little community to pretty much everything. 56k upvotes on reddit in a couple of hours. People were reacting to it, adding music to it, making memes out of it. “H0TR0D” was all I heard about for a week straight. I saw at least a dozen “they see me rollin’” clips, all by different people. That was all fun and games, but I got this awful feeling in the pit of my stomach. When my buddy came to pick up Sally, she leapt into his arms, shivering. To her, none of this was fun.
This was horror.
Even two weeks after seeing the H0TR0D, it was still fresh on my mind. The driver had been staring at me, like they knew who I was. Like they were there for me. And then that awful noise, like an engine trying to kill itself. It sounded like it was already broken, but it just kept rolling past me nonetheless. I couldn’t make heads or tails of it. By all accounts, that car should be stalling on the side of the road. And yet, it didn’t.
That night, as I laid awake thinking about it, I could hear something in my kitchen. Half-asleep, I checked it out.
My oven was on. Highest setting. There was an electric hum rising and sinking as the temperature breathed. And as the temperature rose, there was a rhythmic thunking sound that just kept getting louder. I hurried to turn it off; only to realize that it was already off.
I burned my hands pulling out the oven, and I had to crawl over the countertop to pull the plug. For about ten minutes afterwards I just stood there mouthing “what the fuck” over and over.
It wasn’t until I headed back to bed that I noticed the automated porch light was on. Something had moved outside.
Since then, things got worse.
First it was just small things. Clock radio going off in the middle of the night, interference on my phone, losing Bluetooth signal on my headphones. Small stuff. But over time, I started noticing other things. Lights flickering rhythmically in the supermarket. Light posts fading in and out on the street. Car alarms going off, but warping themselves to go faster and slower, like a dying fire alarm. But the worst part came one day when I was driving home a few weeks ago.
I’d been at a restaurant with a friend in the next town over. I took the freeway back home when my radio stopped working. By now I was getting frustrated. Electronics just kept freaking out on me, and I had no idea why. That, and there was always that sense of threat looming in the air. There was always a sort of rhythmic pulse, like the hum of an engine, somewhere around me.
I was just about to turn the radio off and on again when my engine stalled. Not just sputtered out, it just stopped. One big ‘chunk’ sound, then nothing. I slowly drifted to the side of the road. Turning the key didn’t do a thing.
I was just sitting there, my head resting on the steering wheel. You can’t live out here without a car, and everything just seemed to work against me.
I snapped out of it by the honk of a horn.
It was this water-damaged car noise, combining a bright choking yell with a gargle.
At first I didn’t even register it. It sounded so strange that I thought I’d imagined it. It wasn’t until I heard it a second time that I looked up.
Parked right next to me, door-to-door, was none other than the H0TR0D.
Motorcycle helmet driver and all. He was parked so close that I couldn’t open my door. I just stared at the black helmet. It felt like that child-like spray-painted smiley face was not just a painting, but actually grinning at me. Like it was widening every time I blinked.
The driver held up a white leather glove and pointed down. He wanted me to roll down the window.
“Not gonna happen” I mouthed back, shaking my head.
Why was I scared? Why did I want to run?
Almost as an answer to my question, the window started rolling down on its’ own.
Yeah, no. No way. I wasn’t having that. I crawled over to the passenger seat and opened the door; only to have it slammed shut. An outside force held the door shut, and the locks clicked. They kept clicking, over and over, in the same forced rhythm as the engine on the H0TR0D. This awful thunk noise, over and over, like someone beating a dead motor back to life.
My radio sparked back to life. A static burst crawled into my ear, sending a shiver across my arms.
D E L E T E I T
The sound was bright, pitch-shifted, and run through some sort of filter. Like an old 1940’s radio receiver. I couldn’t tell what kind of voice it was. It was just this bland, broken, stutter.
“I don’t… I don’t know… the video? You want the video?”
D E L E T E IT
“I can’t just… it’s already out there! Even if-if-if I delete it, it’s still-“
DELETE IT
“I can’t! I can’t, it’s still gonna be there!”
GET
IT
DONE
He didn’t even have his hands on the steering wheel as the car pulled away. I could feel him staring at me from the broken side mirror.
I just sat there, turning my car key over and over. When the engine finally woke up, it screeched, clunked, and complained. It shut itself off a few times, but it got me back home.
The entire side of my car was covered in rust, and that car never started again.
This was the first time I called the police. They didn’t have a car with that license plate registered, so they couldn’t do much to help. They didn’t understand what I was talking about. Some guy angry about me putting up a video, pulling up next to me, asking me to delete it. How could I explain the threat? How could I make them listen?
I asked the people at CreepyCars as well. They didn’t understand. It sounded like paranoia, or some sort of science fiction. Cars don’t just act on their own; they’re controlled. My window couldn’t have rolled down on its’ own. Radios don’t just say whatever they want, and doors don’t just slam shut. I was coming off as a lunatic, and people were starting to accuse me.
“You just want attention” they said. “You miss having notifications.”
From this point on, it just got a whole lot worse. I was getting calls that answered themselves all through the night. Calls demanding me to “delete it”, over and over and over. Strange engine noises going by outside at odd hours of the night. Lamps popping in their sockets. Hell, at one point my TV turned on and kept looping half-second clips from The Munsters. Didn’t stop until I pulled the plug.
It was getting harder and harder to get to work. At one point, as I was taking the bus, and the damn thing just refused to start. Twenty people stranded in a parking lot. I had to ask a work friend to take me home. 35 minutes in the wrong direction.
This was by the end of last week. I’ve called in sick since.
A few days ago, I heard the porch light explode. There were footsteps outside. He was just outside, I know it. I was ready for him to bang on the door, to peek in the windows… something. I’d grasped a hammer and hugged it like a teddy bear, begging God not to have to use it.
But the driver didn’t do a thing. Didn’t knock, ring the doorbell, or peek inside the windows. He just stood there for the better part of an hour, waiting for me to “delete it”. At one point I just yelled at him.
“Just do something! What the hell do you want from me?!”
Of course, I knew what he wanted. He wanted me to delete it. I already had! But it was out there, and there was nothing stopping it from spreading.
When he finally left, I felt tears rolling down my face. Just… relief. I’d been so tense my hands had cramped into claws. I could just barely let go of the hammer.
Look, I haven’t been out for a week. I’ve lived on literally everything in my fridge and freezer. Every leftover, every jar, all of it. The fridge shut down completely on Thursday, but by then I didn’t have much else than cornflakes and cup noodles anyway.
Last night, I decided I’d give it a go. I brought my hammer and went outside.
Immediately, I heard a rumble. A broken engine.
Then another.
Then a lot.
The H0TR0D was just the start.
Six cars and a motorcycle rolled around the corner. These broken, battered, machines. Flat tires, rusted frames, broken windows. Oil dripping from broken engine blocks. Howling engines, forcing these machine corpses to retch forward; one gasoline gulp at a time.
And the drivers.
All dressed in these black motorcycle helmets, painted with these crude faces. Angry, happy, sad, screaming… the entire emotional spectrum. Dressed in these absurd jackets. Some fur, some cracked leather. One of them had this yellow crash-dummy looking jumpsuit, one pant leg torn off at the knee. One of them was missing a shoe, revealing a dry white foot with two missing toes and black nails.
I just dropped my hammer. They were a goddamn gang, there was nothing I could do. I ran back inside, slammed the door, and picked up my phone. Of course, it didn’t work.
“Open the door.”
It was a different voice. Brighter, spoken by one of the drivers. A woman, trying her best to sound as kind and patient as she could; but there was something there. A threat, just beneath the surface, trying to break through.
“Open the door, please.”
I didn’t. I couldn’t. My body wasn’t responding, I was just slowly inching back; as if being quiet enough would make them go away. I found myself holding my breath, looking for a place to hide.
“You’re going to open the door now.”
There was a gargling sound. Someone spitting up water, splashing against the door. Seconds later, I could see the door handle rusting in a matter of seconds, as the whole mechanism fell apart.
It took the door being battered down for me finally snap out of it. The Crash Dummy driver was closing his visor back up, but I caught a glimpse of a sickly pale face with a tint of algae green lips. Long yellow teeth sunk into black gums. Then the visor was back down, showing a sad spray-painted smiley face.
Crash Dummy stepped aside, and a small woman stepped in. She had this oversized motorcycle helmet with a cartoonish painted grin on it. She had this plastic silvery disco jacket and snow boots. If it weren’t for all my lights being broken, she’d sparkle.
“Should’ve opened the fucking door, dig it?”
I just ran. I locked myself in the bathroom as they went to town on my furniture. I heard smashing, cutting, sawing. Some power tools, barely functioning. Little battery-powered machines coming back on to destroy. I just crawled into my bathtub in the dark, pulling down the shower curtains as I stumbled back. I tried forcing air into my lungs, but I just couldn’t stop panting. This is what Sally had felt like, that first night when she saw the H0TR0D. I’m sure of it.
“Another door? Really?”
She cackled. This awful, bird-like sound. I could hear something in her lungs rattle.
“You’re a fucking idiot.”
I heard a visor open. A retching gargle, and a metallic fizzle. Something loud, splintering the bathroom door by the handle. A small hand gently letting the light in. Careful steps coming towards me as I heard glass shatter in the other room.
“Why didn’t you delete it?” she asked. “We asked you nicely.”
“I… you can’t…”
I saw the silhouette of the oversized helmet through the shower curtain. She wasn’t moving. Not even breathing.
“I deleted the video. The others, they… they copied it, and-“
“Video?” she scoffed. “What fucking video?”
I just froze. What the hell were they talking about? If not the video, then…
“I d-don’t… what do you want?”
“You stole our name. That’s our name.”
“What? What are you-“
She pulled the shower curtain off me and grabbed me by the throat. She had this cramp-like strength, like she didn’t know how to hold back. I just started coughing, feeling these little bone-dagger fingers dig into my windpipe.
“Wicked little slug bugs, you think you got the creepy cars? You think you’re it?”
I could almost see her eyes through the visor. I looked, closely, but there was nothing there. Just darkness.
“We have creepy cars. You have minutes to live.”
I tried to say it. I tried it, over and over. To say I didn’t know, that I didn’t… I didn’t understand. I begged, I cried, I pushed, and kicked. This impossibly thin little arm, barely anything but bone and sinew, holding me back.
Somehow, she heard me. She listened.
She dropped a phone in my lap. An older iPhone, cold and wet to the touch. It had this mutated blue sunflower-looking thing as a background image. It was already logged in on my accounts. All of them.
She watched me delete it. All of it. CreepyCars disappeared overnight from every single platform. Confirmed, confirmed, confirmed. “Are you sure?” the phone kept asking, and I shakily accepted all of it.
When it was all said and done, she just took her phone back and left.
My place is trashed. Even without a front door, I don’t know if I can go out there. I’ve just sat here for the better part of a day. My computer started working a few hours ago, and I just… I had to say something.
There is a rusty car in the field outside, and I’m starting to question if it’s one of them. There’s no one there. Maybe it’s just a warning, or maybe it has always been there. I don’t know. I’m questioning everything.
I’m not going out there anytime soon. Maybe it is over. Maybe it has just started.
They left a black motorcycle helmet for me.