creepypasta's

willow creek

A yellow padded envelope with no return address arrived in Paul's mailbox four days after he sent the private message. Inside was the game disc in a paper sleeve. On the disc, crudely written in ink, was: Willow Creek: beta v. 1.0.

"Ah, so this Chameleon guy is in charge of beta testing. That makes a little more sense," Paul mumbled to himself. His mouth then broadened into a partial smile. "Well, he didn't have to be so cryptic about it."

A young boy came running into the kitchen where Paul stood looking over the rest of the day's mail.

"Who you talkin' to, dad?" the boy asked.

"Oh, no one, Scotty. Just myself." He shuffled through the bills and junk mail.

Scotty was ten years old, an above average student, but a typical boy all around. He loved playing the seemingly endless stream of video games that his father was constantly bringing home. They had partnered up for many adventures on most of the multiplayer games (unless Paul deemed the game to be too mature for Scotty), and even when games were single player, Scotty loved to watch as his father solved all the puzzles and defeated the toughest bosses. Paul knew that Scotty's mother would probably not approve of all of the games that they'd played together, but she hadn't had a say in the matter for nearly a year now.

"We got a new game," Paul announced to his son, holding the disc out toward Scotty.

Scotty took it from him. "It looks fake," he said.

"Well, it's a beta test. We'll be among the first players."

Scotty's eyes lit up. "Cool! Can we play it tonight?"

"Sure, if we have time. You make sure you get all your homework done first though. Okay?"

Scotty hung his head as he placed the game disc on the kitchen table. "Alright," he replied in a resigned voice, remembering how much homework awaited him that evening.

It was getting late when Scotty finally finished his school work and came barreling into the living room, begging his father to play the new game.

"It's already 9:30, bud. You need to be getting to bed soon."

"Can we at least start it?"

Paul hesitated for a moment. "Okay. But you're not staying up past ten."

Scotty's excitement boiled over as he grabbed the game disc and booted up the console. He handed his father the first player controller. After a brief title screen, there were three level options listed from top to bottom. The only option that was active was "Level One". The remaining two levels were grayed-out. In the background, behind the text, was the still image of a closed door depicted from inside a dark room with light radiating from the gaps at its edges.

"What's this about?" Scotty asked.

"I don't know exactly. But it's supposed to be scary so I may be sending you to bed if it gets too bad."

Scotty groaned. Paul confirmed the selection of level one and sat back as the game loaded. "It looks like it's only one player so you'll just have to watch me play for a while."

"That's okay."

After a few seconds of load time, a cut scene appeared. Paul and his son watched the animated footage – a first-person perspective as the protagonist entered a door with a frosted glass window into an antiquated office environment. On the window, decaled in thick black lettering, was "Detective Charleston". Somber ambient music droned in the background. The scene reminded Paul of the way many of the classic film noirs he'd seen over the years had begun. Right away he realized that this would be more of a puzzle solving game. An intellectual's game.