Nightmare Fuel #24: I'm Not Supposed To Be Here
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Welcome to another edition of Nightmare Fuel, Cleaves and Peepers. I'm Dan Cummins, and today I'll be sharing another original short story of the fictional horror variety. This, as you can probably tell by the title, will not be a continuation of the Storm series, but I will return with at least another three episodes for that series down the road at some point. Thanks for all the positive feedback on that series, by the way. I know it wasn't for all of you, but I also know a lot of you loved it, that those were your favorite Nightmare Fuel episodes, and that makes me really happy.

In between writing the most recent storm chapter and this story, Lindsay, the kids, Kyler Monroe, and myself were all in a car accident. We had a bad patch of black ice. We're all okay. But for a few moments, it sure looked like it was going to be really, really bad. The truck was essentially totaled, but we were unscathed. I was driving. And once it was all over, I felt the most grateful I have ever felt to be alive, for my family to also be alive, but also...

I have felt moments since the crash like we shouldn't have all been able to walk away unharmed. It doesn't feel real sometimes. Lindsay's had the same feelings. We've had conversations, as crazy as this might sound, where we're like, did we actually die in that crash? Has every moment since been some sort of strange dream, some alternate life in some other dimension? It's the strangest sensation.

and something I've never felt before, at least not while sober and not under the influence of psychedelics. And it is what inspired this story. Highly recommend noise cancellation headphones as always for the ultimate experience. Hope you enjoy this new nightmare. Time now for the tale of I'm not supposed to be here. Max Warren's story isn't an easy one to understand. I'm still trying to make sense of it myself. I don't know if I ever will.

But I'd like to, because it haunts me. And if you read this, I can't see how it won't haunt you as well. Let me begin by sharing not my thoughts on everything that happened, but his. I think stories, especially ones as strange and disturbing as this one, are best told by those who've lived them. The following are three of Max's journal entries, dating back to shortly after this mess began. January 13th, 2024. I have to get this all down on paper. I have to get this all down on paper.

I need to be able to look at it, dissect it, reflect upon it, and make sure my mind is sound. Am I seeing all of this clearly? What have I been thinking about doing? I have to get it right. I have to. We shouldn't be here. We should have all died that day. And now I've begun to think that some of us really, truly did die that day. I've struggled in the aftermath to understand what's real and what's not.

For days I wondered, did we all slip into some other part of the multiverse? Are we all dead in our original timeline, but alive in this other one? I couldn't stop thinking, where are we? Am I dreaming? Dreaming a dream that won't end? But then, initially based largely on a strong sense of, I guess, intuition about it all, I began to realize that perhaps while I'm alive, I certainly feel very much alive, that my family, my real family...

They did die in that crash. And if they did, then who are these people pretending to be my family? But am I absolutely sure that they're imposters? This is something I can't get wrong. I have to be certain. I feel so jumbled up inside. Not sleeping well hasn't been helping. I'm so foggy. My mind, the reality of my life. I just, I don't know. Something so strange has been happening. Something that would be hard for anyone to process, right? Especially because of the man. The man with no face.

Is he real? Can I really trust him? I wish I could go back. Everything changed in just a few short seconds. Before the accident, life felt so much firmer, steady, real. One moment we were listening to the radio. Sleep on the Floor by the Lumineers was playing. Loved that song. We've been listening to a lot of Lumineers after seeing them in concert this past summer. We saw them two summers ago as well. So fun. Bailey especially loves them. Or

Or rather, she loved them. It's getting harder and harder not to think of her and her sister and mom in the past tense. Bailey was in the backseat of the F-150 with her mom and my wife, Greta. Her sister, Bella, was sitting up front with me. She'd switched places with her mom an hour or so back when she'd started to get motion sickness thanks to too many miles of a constantly winding road as we drove up and over the pass. We were headed to a ski resort for a few days for a winter's break vacation.

It was snowing, but I thought the road, ironically considering what was about to happen, wasn't as bad as I'd feared it would be. I do remember second guessing myself for not putting sandbags in the bed of the truck though, especially since I don't have studded snow tires. But I haven't driven with studded tires in over a decade, and I haven't thrown sandbags in the back in what, four, five years? And I've been fine. We never slipped once, coming up over the pass either, not even the slightest bit.

We were driving a long, straight stretch of road around 1 o'clock when it happened. We'd just finished eating some burgers we'd grabbed for lunch at a local drive-thru. Just a few minutes earlier, the sun had come out for the first time all day. For the first time in several days, actually. The temperature, according to the truck's thermometer, had reached just above freezing, the warmest it had been since we left home. And the roads were looking good and clear. The roads were clear, except for that one overpass. Watch for ice on bridge.

How many times have I seen that sign along the freeway somewhere? Thousands. So many times while never having problems that they've begun to seem overly cautious and unnecessary. I'd never hit any ice on any bridge or overpass. Not once. They become the signs that cried wolf. Same with the constant warnings from my mother. How many times has she told me to keep an eye out for black ice? Hundreds easily, but I'd never really hit a dangerous patch of it. Not until that day.

I've driven on bad winter roads through freezing rain, ice and snow for most of my life. And I've driven a truck in those conditions for most of my life as well. I've lost control of the back end of the truck a whole bunch of times. I've started to fishtail or slide to one side of the road or the other, but I've always been able to easily correct and drive my way out of it. It's not rocket science. Don't panic. Do not hit the brakes. Just take your foot off the gas and steer into the slide.

And that's exactly what I've done all the dozens of times before. And it's always worked out just fine. Until this time. I was probably driving too fast. Maybe 70. And the patch of ice I hit was so slick and so big. And the freeway suddenly seemed narrow. I was humming along with that Lumineers song. Bella was leaning her head up against a pillow she'd positioned against her window. She'd just fallen asleep. Bailey was laughing in the back with Greta. They were both looking at a meme or something on Bailey's phone. Everything was wonderful.

Life felt pretty damn perfect. But then a moment later, we were sliding. The ice was so incredibly slick to slide so smooth that at first, only I realized we'd lost control of the truck and that we were no longer speeding towards a relaxing winter's vacation, but instead dangerously careening towards the center concrete divider, towards a thin row of concrete blocks separating us from the parade of big trucks and semis driving 70 miles an hour or more straight towards us.

The first second or so, I still thought I could steer out of it. That it would be nothing more than a moment of spiking my heart rate, clenching my ass cheeks, and remembering to slow the fuck down. But then it became clear that there was no avoiding what was going to be a nasty accident. That the best case scenario would be to hit that traffic divider at an angle as close to parallel as possible. Something not severe enough to smash the front end all to hell or send the truck rolling. That's when I screamed, hang on!

And then just as Bella woke up, confused to my right, we hit the concrete. I didn't hear the airbag above my window deploy over the noise of the rear driver's side tire touching the divider first. Turned out to be a really good decision to have had my truck leveled and the tires offset a few years back. They protruded just enough to be the first point of contact in this situation instead of the cab.

When that rear tire hit, it almost instantaneously whipped the truck around into the front driver's side tire. As that was happening, the airbag above the window to my left punched me in the ear. I cried out, at least I think I cried out. And now we were spinning. We were sliding fast across both lanes towards the guardrail on the other side and the steep bank below it as I desperately cranked the steering wheel in the opposite direction as before, thinking I could maybe still control what had obviously quickly become uncontrollable.

I remember feeling so worried that we were going to tip over the top of the guardrail somehow, and then roll down the hill into the trees and rocks below, the ground steadily flattening the cab. I was so worried we were all going to die, that I was going to be the one who killed my family. And then we hit it. Hard. But we didn't bust through or roll over it. It gave a little, but ultimately it held.

More airbags went off on the passenger side. The girls were definitely screaming now if they weren't already. I could hear the crunch of metal as the passenger side of the truck bed was bent in. I expected to be showered with broken glass from one or more of the windows shattering, but they somehow held as we now continued spinning back out into traffic. And then, finally, we were still. It was over. At least, the active part of the crash was over. Just as abruptly as it had begun, it was done.

For a moment, I just sat there, completely stunned and in shock. Then I heard Greta yell from the back, Is everyone okay? Yeah. I said after a brief pause, sounding every bit as dazed as I felt. I was okay, but I felt like I shouldn't be. When I looked down, I was dumbfounded that there was no blood, that I felt no pain, that I didn't have any broken bones, that I didn't have as I rotated my head around any whiplash. I heard the girls both say that they were all right as well.

"'Baby, are you okay?' I barked and asked Greta as the reality of the crash being over and done with was just beginning to sink in. "'Yeah, baby, I'm all right,' she said, sounding surprised as well. But then with new notes of alarm and panic in her voice, she yelled, "'Everyone get out of the truck now! I smell something burning!'

I suddenly smelled it too, and then I saw it. Smoke was in the cab. Something was burning. And now I worried about the truck exploding. I imagined all of us being engulfed in flames. And then that was all followed by realizing that fire was far from our only current danger. Wait, I yelled. Make sure there are no cars coming before you step out.

I'd completely forgotten for a few seconds that we were still on the freeway. Someone could be racing towards us at 70 or more miles an hour. Someone who could easily hit that same patch of ice and lose control. Thanks to all the airbags obstructing my view, I didn't even know what lane we were in.

Would one of the girls step out and be immediately mowed down by a semi, crushed and mangled into blood and bones before my eyes? Transform from one of the three people who matter most in the world to me into just another bit of roadkill gore, lifeless and growing cold upon the asphalt. I was so afraid. I've never felt that much fear. But we all managed to scramble out and run over to the guardrail safely. No one was hit. No one was hurt at all.

There wasn't even any fire. It must have just been the smell of the airbags and hot metal from the rear axle that had dragged across the asphalt after the wheel had broken off. The axle's broken tip was red with heat, but it was all over. Or so I thought at the time.

We hugged each other on the side of the road. I rapidly scanned the girls and my wife's bodies for any signs of injury, injuries I would ultimately be responsible for. But there was no blood, no scratches. I looked into everyone's eyes and no one's pupils seemed dilated. No one's eyes looked glossy and distant. Greta and Bailey were crying, but how could they not be? I'd almost be worried if they weren't, but they were okay. We were all okay, or at least that's the lie I told myself after the accident."

But after a few minutes, our survival, our unblemished state, some of the immediate moments following hitting the ice, it all began to feel very untrue. The truck was totaled. It had taken an incredible amount of damage. Too much damage, I started to realize, for anyone to realistically have crawled out of it unscathed. I kept walking up and down the side of the freeway, from the patch of ice to where the truck ended up, trying to understand exactly how it all happened.

trying to process how it could have been avoided and also how it wasn't so, so much worse. Nothing added up and a sinking sick feeling in my stomach began to grow. The rest of that day is a blur. Actually, everything following the crash up until now has been a blur. Some EMT showed up. Maybe they were with the fire department. I can't remember. I can vaguely picture their faces, but not what they were wearing. I don't remember how they got there or what their names are.

They checked us for any signs of injury, had us sign waivers acknowledging we'd been asked if we were okay and that we had declined medical treatment and decided that we didn't need to be taken to a hospital and examined. And then they left. But I have no memory of them driving away. One moment they were there, and then they weren't. Some state troopers showed up. I don't remember them driving up to us either. They lit flares. They placed them along the road to divert traffic into the passing lane.

And they used some special fortified front bumper on one of their SUVs to push the wreckage of the truck into the right-hand lane. But I couldn't tell you any of their names or give a physical description of them. One of them took my statement about the accident. I don't even remember what I said. I don't remember what he said. I just have this indistinct recollection of speaking to him.

"'A tow truck showed up at some point "'and was able to get what was left of my Ford off of the road "'and drive us to a junkyard, "'where I was able to reserve a rental car "'and get an Uber that drove me to go pick it up. "'But who drove that Uber? "'Not a clue. "'I couldn't even tell you if they were a man or a woman. "'Then I drove a big black SUV, an Expedition maybe, "'back to the junkyard where Greta and the girls were. "'And we gathered everything we could from the wreckage, "'transferred it to the rental, and I drove us home. "'I think.'"

I don't remember most of the details of the drive back, but we made it home. I'm here. That was almost two weeks ago now. And ever since, life has continued to feel more and more off, wrong, false. For starters, why haven't I had to go back into work? I haven't been fired. At least I don't think I've been fired. But if I still have a job, why haven't they needed me to come back in? My boss has been really supportive, I think. Memories of talking to him since the accident feel like recollections from dreams.

Did he really tell me to take all the time I needed before coming back in? Time for what? We're fine. I mean, I'm not fine. I don't think any of us are fine. But how would he know that? It's all so very confusing. I probably wouldn't be if I could just get a decent night's sleep. But every night since the crash, I've sat up, startled in bed, after waking up from the strangest nightmare, and then I can't fall back asleep. It's the same dream every time. It picks up just before the accident.

I'm driving along the freeway, just as I've described. We're listening to Sleep on the Floor by the Lumineers. Bella is asleep in the passenger seat. Bailey and Greta are laughing in the back. I'm humming along with a song. And then I see him. The man with no face. A tall, thin man dressed in a black suit that reminds me of a mortician or of a funeral home director. He's standing directly on the freeway, just on the other side of the divider.

His skin is alabaster white, more like the color of snow than like any pigment you've ever seen on an actual living, breathing person. His entire head is perfectly white, nothing but smooth, hairless skin. He's bald, and he doesn't have eyes, a nose, or a mouth, only slight indentations where eyes and a mouth should be, or maybe where they used to be. And in my dream, he's either the reason I wreck, or, and this is what I'm now coming to believe,

He's there because he knows we're going to wreck. He's some messenger of death, and he's come to transport us to wherever people go when they die, like the Grim Reaper. I'm distracted when I hit the ice. When I start to slide, I'm still thinking about him. Who is he? What is he? What does he want with me? Why is he standing on the freeway? And of course, what happened to his face? And then unlike how I remember us wrecking in the dream, the accident is much, much worse.

I hit the center divider almost head on. The front end gets smashed. The hood crumples up and the windshield shatters. All the front airbags go off. At this point, we're terrified and screaming, but we're otherwise unharmed. Unharmed until we start to roll.

We roll right into the guardrail and hit it cab first with tremendous force, bouncing off and sliding, skidding along on our side now, back out into both lanes. The cab on the passenger side has been crushed and smashed in, the metal pushed down into Bella's and Greta's heads. I feel someone's blood spray onto me. I'm not sure whose it is, but Bella's screaming, and Greta's now eerily silent. Bailey groans from behind me, and I smell smoke.

I don't bother calling out and asking if everyone is okay because I know they're not. This is bad. This is really, really bad. I unbuckle my seatbelt and start to crawl out. I'm bloody, scratched, and bruised up, but somehow relatively unharmed. But now I see flames towards the back of what's left of the bed of the truck. As I finish snaking myself out of the driver's side window, Bailey screams, Dad! Dad, help me! I can't get out!

Hurry, Daddy, please! The man with no face...

He's walked over to our wreckage. He's standing behind what's left of the tailgate, every bit as expressionless as before. Again, I wonder who he is, what he is, what he wants with me. As the flames build and grow higher and race towards the cab, towards my wife and daughters. And then like a coward, I pull away from Bella, my terrified daughter, who had grabbed my arms, my little girl, who's always looked to me for protection. And I quickly back away as she stares at me with so much hurt and fear and betrayal in her eyes.

The truck explodes and bursts into flames. I expected that to have killed them all, but it didn't. Greta was dead. I think she had died when we hit the guardrail. But my girls, they're both somehow still alive, just enough to howl in agony and futilely twist and shake and try to escape from the fire that engulfs them. Their screams fade as the smoke chokes them, as the fire melts and warps and destroys them. And then I look at him one more time, the man with no face.

He waits, I now assume, for the souls of my family to depart with. His job is almost done. That is when I wake up screaming. Some dream, right? What if... What if it's not a dream? What if it's not just some nightmare? What if that dream is actually what really happened? That's what I'm starting to believe. I know, I know, it sounds crazy, right? But if you knew how I felt, what I've been seeing since the accident, then you'd understand.

I thought about how we wrecked so, so many times running the sequence of events through my mind over and over and over. And there's simply no way that we could have all walked away without injuries, not even bruising. Come on. It feels impossible because it is impossible. And why are my memories of what happened afterwards so incomplete? Because they're not memories. They're fake. Something really strange is going on.

I've talked to my brother on the phone about a little of what I'm sharing here and to a few of my friends and some of the guys I work with. It's hard to tell what they really think about it all. Mostly they sound like they feel pity for me or worried about me. They talk about how sorry they feel, how they can't imagine what I must be going through. What the fuck do they think I'm going through?

From their perspective, what I went through must look miraculous. I should be overjoyed, grateful. I should be appreciating life more than ever. All we lost was the truck, something that can be replaced. I'm not injured. Greta and the girls are fine. They must think I'm almost unfathomably ungrateful. Or I guess that I'm in shock over what could have been. How weak is that? I don't know what they think. But it's clear they don't understand what's really happening. How could they? How could anyone? Unless they began to experience what I've been experiencing.

When I first talked to Greta and the girls in the days following the accident, all they would say is that we had gotten so, so lucky.

But then after a few days, when I kept bringing it up, when I continued to talk about how unnatural it was for none of us to be hurt, when I started speculating about things like the multiverse, glitches in the matrix, once I'd started looking into occult explanations and mentioned things like doppelgangers and mimics and demonic entities warping your sense of what's real, when I asked them if they remembered seeing that strange man at the site of the crash, the man with no face, they started to get really frustrated with me. Not just frustrated, angry, worried, cruel,

Today, Greta essentially threw down an ultimatum after I asked her again if she had seen the man with no face, at least in her dreams. She told me if I didn't stop talking about him and the possibility that some or all of us might have actually died in the wreck, if I brought any of it up to either of the girls again, she was going to take Bella and Bailey out of the house and go stay with her mom. She said she couldn't take it anymore, that none of them could, that I was starting to scare them. Scare them? Me? Me?

By asking questions. By feeling like there's more to what happened than we might remember. How is that scary? It's not. This is good. This is helpful. Writing all of this out. Seeing it. Rereading it. I understand now. My intuition is right. Greta's reaction, especially as I reflect on it, has made me realize with certainty exactly what the man with no face has been trying to tell me. Over the past few days, I've begun to see him outside of my dreams.

He started to show up around the house, always and only revealing his presence when I'm around my wife or daughters, typically standing behind them, pointing at them, telling me that his work isn't finished. That's what he's been trying to say. Don't you see? Do you understand what I'm saying? He is some type of Grim Reaper, some messenger, a guide from beyond, some emissary of death. And he's trying to tell me that, that Greta and the girls, that they're not who they appear to be.

My family died that day and he, he, he took their souls to the other side or at least he tried to, but I don't know. Something got in the way, some, some mistake and I have to help fix it. They're not really here. They're not my family. That's why they don't feel right anymore. They're mimics, monsters, something demonic.

Yeah, yeah, that feels right. There's something demonic and they're keeping my babies, my wife, my love from moving on. He's trying to help me free them. So now I know what I need to do and I need to do it tonight. Before we find out what Max does, time for our mid-show sponsor break. If you don't want to hear these ads anymore, please become a Robert or Annabelle on the Scared to Death Patreon and get these nightmare fuel stories and all other Scared to Death episodes ad-free and more.

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"'I stayed up about an hour after Greta had gone to bed last night "'to make sure she was asleep. "'The girls had already both gone to the rooms for the night. "'Girls! "'I don't know exactly what these demons are, but they're not my girls. "'Greta's not Greta, but I guess it's still easiest to refer to them "'by the names of the people whose bodies they've stolen. "'It's remarkable how well they mimic them. "'I sat down on Greta's side of the bed "'and just stared at her for a while "'once my eyes had finished adjusting to the dim light of her alarm clock. "'This new sick thing sleeps on her side.'

with a pillow in between her knees, just like the real Greta used to. She still has that cute little snore that always used to make me smile. So delicate and faint, she's even put in the retainer Greta keeps on her nightstand. And she's sleeping in Greta's favorite pajamas. She's mimicked my dead wife so well for nearly two weeks, she almost tricked me into believing that she was my wife. And maybe she would have convinced me if he hadn't have come to visit, to guide me, to help me. He visited me again last night.

I didn't hear him walk into the room, but when I looked over, there he was, standing in the doorway. He was wearing his black mortician suit, always the same suit. Black suit, jacket, black vest, plain white dress shirt, thin black tie with a silver tie bar, silver and onyx cufflinks, thin black dress socks, black leather oxfords with those wax cotton laces.

His surreal, timeless image is burned into my brain forever. I can see him now in my mind's eye as if he were standing in front of me at this very moment. While he is incapable of expression, he is perfectly able to convey emotions and thoughts if you just look and listen. And as he raised his left arm and pointed at the imposter masquerading as my wife, his non-verbal words were accusatory. "'Imposter! Liar! Demon!'

He keeps urging me to do what I realize must be done. I looked at him and I nodded. I took the big pillow I was holding in my lap and I was just about to place it over Greta's face and push it down hard while I quickly straddled her chest and pinned her arms to her sides with my knees. I've thought of all the ways I could do it and I can't think of a way that would be quieter and cleaner. I was ready to smother her and then repeat what I'd done to both Bailey and Bella's mimics.

I didn't feel sad thinking about this morbid task. I wasn't scared that I'd feel regret or remorse when it was over. If anything, I mostly felt anger. Anger and eagerness. I was looking forward to destroying the things that had invaded my house. That had made a mockery of the three people I loved more than anyone and everyone else. No, I didn't feel sorrow. But I did also feel fear. I worried that if these creatures or entities could so perfectly imitate my wife and daughter's...

Maybe they could also overpower me. Still, I knew I had to try. So I slowly reached out with the pillow, outstretching my arms over what looked so much like my Greta's beautiful face. Mom? Dad? It was Bailey. She'd startled me so completely I can't believe I didn't cry out. I quickly tossed the pillow I held towards my side of the bed where it belonged.

"'Bailey?' Greta answered groggily, rolling over onto her back. "'Ah, Max! What are you doing?' Greta cried out when she realized I was sitting on the edge of her side of the bed in the darkness. "'Dad? What's going on?' Bailey hollered accusingly as she flipped on the lights. "'What? I was just checking on you,' I said to Greta. "'Were you, Dad?' Bailey glared, folding her arms across her chest. "'Or were you making sure she was real?'

Greta scrambled off the bed and mumbled, what the actual fuck, Max? As she passed by me and walked over to Bailey and gave her a big, reassuring hug while she asked, what's wrong, honey? I expected to see the man with no face standing behind them both, but he was gone. And so was my opportunity to finish things, to be able to start to grieve, to truly have the accident finally be over and done with. Bailey had had a nightmare, or at least that's the lie the Bailey thing said.

When I asked her if she'd seen the man with no face in her dream, she got mad. So did Greta. And then Greta went to sleep with Bailey for the rest of the night in her room. If I had needed any more confirmation that they were monsters, that was it. They didn't want to talk about the man with no face because they fear him. And they fear him because they know he is coming for them. That he will take them back to whatever hell they've come from. I was already convinced they were evil. But then before they left the room...

If I would have needed any further reassurances, I would have gotten it when I saw their eyes turn black. They both looked at me. No, they both glared at me as all the white left their eyes. Demons. Whatever is presenting themselves as my wife and daughters is so clearly demonic. If you don't believe me, you would. If you could just see what I've seen. I have to kill them later today or tonight. No matter what happens, I can't put it off any longer. They have to die. It has to end.

January 15th, 2024. Yesterday didn't bring the relief I'd hoped for. I was wrong about one very important aspect of the crash. But now, after sleeping on it all one last time, at least I finally know, I think, what I have to do to make everything right.

I'm not really writing any of this down for me anymore. That no longer really matters. I don't need to clear my head or work anything else out. The only reason I'm writing this down this morning is so that whoever reads it, they'll have the chance to understand why I did what I did. There's so much more to this world than so many of us understand or are willing to admit.

Maybe these entries will help with not just an understanding of what happened to me and my family, but it'll help others going through something similar. Something no one around them could understand. At least if they read this or hear about what I've written, they'll know they're not alone. After dinner yesterday, the Bella thing went to a basketball game, and the Bailey thing went out with some friends. While Greta was doing dishes, I went to use the bathroom, and he appeared. The man with no face. He was standing behind me in the mirror.

telling me, silently, that it was time. He opened the door without even touching it. He led me down into the hall, and then downstairs where I could still hear the Greta thing in the kitchen. It finally lashed out about the previous night. "'What the actual fuck was that about last night, Max? Why were you really sitting on my side of the bed? That was so creepy. You're starting to really scare us.' As she spoke, the man with no face walked over towards her. He stood behind her, and this time, when he pointed at her, he revealed her true form.'

Her neck suddenly appeared broken, like the real Gretis. Her head lay on her shoulder, tilted harshly over to her left side. Her skull was fractured and blood was caked across half of her face. More blood had also spilt down and covered her neck, shoulder, most of her torso and one of her legs. And her skin, her skin was all burnt. Burnt so bad she looked like a Barbie doll someone had tossed into a fire hot enough to partially melt it. Her hair had all been burnt off. Some of her skull was showing.

Her features were partially dissolved, all blurred and charred. But her eyes, her eyes were crisp, sharp and solid black. And her voice, it was powerful and demonic. Well, the demon roared. Aren't you going to answer me? She taunted. I smiled. Oh, I had an answer for her, all right. A final answer that would start to set things right. I said nothing as I walked silently towards her.

She pretended to be afraid. She started to back away, still staring at me with her black, lifeless, monstrous eyes. Max! Max! What are you doing? The cunning demon cried out. I continued to stay quiet as she backed up into the counter in front of the sink. I grabbed the biggest blade in the knife block. Max! Max! Stop! Please! You're scaring me! The demon, the trickster, screamed. Well, I wasn't falling for it.

How dare you defile my wife's memory, demon! I roared, and I started to stab and slash. I don't remember where the knife landed first. Only that one moment it was screaming and begging. After it had flickered back into looking like my wife, it appeared before the crash, beautiful and whole. And the next? It was silent, its throat cut with a deep gash, its face mutilated from numerous slices, blood pouring from wounds in its shoulders and chest. It was dead.

I thought I'd feel like I wanted to throw up. I thought maybe I'd burst into tears and wail and second-guess myself once it was all over and done with, but I didn't. I mostly only felt relief. One demon down, two more to go. When I turned away from her remains, from the demon's tricks, the man with no face stood before me, and he nodded. He approved, and I felt so proud, so grateful to have pleased him, to have done my part to make things right, to fix things.

And then he faded away. But I knew he'd be back soon. He'd be back when Bailey and Bella came home. I didn't even bother moving the demon's body from the floor. Honestly, I expected it to just disappear, to dematerialize. Since it wasn't really Greta. It wasn't really real. That hasn't happened quite yet, but I imagine it will very soon. After I did what I did, I took a shower, washed up, and put on a fresh set of clothes. I ate some lunch.

I worried a bit that the Greta thing would reanimate and come for me since I wasn't actually looking at a fully human corpse. But the body remained still and lifeless on the floor, and I waited. The Bella thing came home first. The game was over. The Bailey thing had texted that she was going to a movie. Before I ever heard her call, I knew she was nearby because the man with no face appeared again. He stood just inside the entryway, staring at me without eyes as I sat on the couch.

This time, instead of a knife, I decided to use a big, roughly two feet long piece of metal pipe I'd found in the garage. Something left over from some plumbing work we had done a few years back, maybe. I laid it next to me, to my left, on the couch, so it would be just out of view of Bella when she walked in the front door. When the Bella demon came in, he revealed her true form to me, just like he'd done with the Greta imposter. Her skull was crushed and badly misshapen, her

Her head looked like someone had put it inside a powerful vice grip and compressed and flattened it to about half of its original size. And like the Greta thing before her, she was badly, badly burnt. Her clothes, her favorite shirt, the Nirvana Nevermind album cover graphic tee she wore the day she died in the crash. What was left of it was black and ashy. It had melted into her seared and cracked skin.

Despite how badly damaged her head was, she had the same eyes as the greater thing, perfectly formed and unblemished. A deep, midnight dark. And her voice, like the others, was again demonic. "Where's Mom?" she asked me, without even bothering to say hello or ask how I was doing. I didn't respond. What would have been the point? She walked right past the man with no face. She didn't see him. She couldn't see him. He only reveals himself to me. I watched him point at her and nod. It was time.

As she set her backpack down on top of the wooden shoe storage bench, I stood up and grabbed the pipe. Dad? Dad, what are you doing? The Bella thing asked, feigning fear. Sending you back to hell, I roared as I leapt forward and swung the pipe with everything I could at its head. Its head that had just returned to looking like Bella's did back when she was so full of life and beauty before the accident. Back when she was still my daughter. It threw up its arms and blocked my first blow, but I felt one of the bones in its forearm shatter. Shoo!

Cried out, faking pain, trying to manipulate me into taking pity on it and letting it live. Or I guess letting it continue to mock my daughter's actual life. Dad, why? Stop! The demon screamed. Its cries only made me angry. Why? Why had it done this? Why was it tormenting me? Why did it have to use my sweet little girl? I swung again, and again, and again.

I think maybe she blocked the next one or two blows, but after that I started to connect with her skull. Bam! Bam! Bam! With her face! And by the time I was done, her head looked worse than it had after the accident. There was almost nothing left of it. Then I turned to find the man with no face. And again, he nodded his approval before he left. Two down. One more to go. At least that's what I thought in those moments. I dragged what was left of the Bella Demon and tossed it next to what was left of the Greta thing.

and then knowing I still had almost an hour before Bailey would be home in time for her curfew, I cleaned up most of the blood around where I'd struck her down, and then took another shower and changed my clothes again. I liked using the pipe more than the knife, so I washed it up. Then instead of waiting on the couch, this time I hid on the stairs that led up to the girls' bedrooms, only about ten feet from the front door, but out of sight of anyone until they walked in past the shoe rack.

Once again, the man with no face appeared shortly before Bailey got home, giving me plenty of time to be good and ready. And once again, he pointed and nodded, reassuring me that I was on the correct path. And one final time, I did what was necessary.

The Bailey thing never even saw me swing, but I saw her. The real her. I saw her for a brief moment, looking like she had when my Bailey had died. I saw her burnt flesh. I saw her crushed and mangled legs. I saw her as she looked at my dreams. I didn't need to see her black demon eyes. I could feel them. I think I killed that thing with the first blow. I felt and heard its skull cave in. I saw its brains. It dropped to the floor and I hit it several more times. BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM!

Then, then I was done. Or at least that I thought I was done. I looked to the man with no face and he nodded again. But then, to my surprise, he didn't disappear. It wasn't over. Instead, he pointed at me. I asked him what he meant. What more needed to be done? The demons that had masqueraded as my children, as my wife, they no longer walked the earth. Wasn't the score settled? But he just kept pointing at me. And then it hit me.

The reality of what happened hit me so hard I felt dizzy. I could hardly breathe. I fell down to my knees. I had also died in the crash. Or, oh my God, oh my God, I hope this is not true. I don't think this is true. I hope that when you read this, you know that my wife and daughters did die in that wreck and that I didn't murder them. But if you do find their bodies in my house, it's because they didn't die in the crash.

Just only I did. Whoever I was, a loving husband and father, that person, that person's gone, and my girls, oh my god, they were right to be scared of me. What have I done? No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, that can't be. It's me. I have to be me. But why can't I remember so many things? Why am I so confused? Why does my life feel so soft or so fuzzy? I want my mind to stop racing. I'm so tired. I'm so, so very tired.

Why have I only been... Why have only I been seeing the man with no face? Why have I ever thought I could trust him? What is he really? Why have I only seen the dark demonic eyes of my wife and daughter transformed into mangled, dead-looking bodies? Maybe because I'm not supposed to be here. Maybe because my existence is wrong and mistake. Was I supposed to die in that wreck? Do I need to wreck again to balance the scales to make things right? I don't... I don't fucking know! But at least...

That was Max Warren's last journal entry. Disturbing, right? The rantings of a madman. At least, that's how it appears at first.

Shortly after he wrote it, maybe immediately after he wrote it, Max got into his wife's car and he drove back towards the site of the initial crash. He lost control of the vehicle before noon on the 15th, just about a mile on the other side of the mountain pass closest to his home, roughly 90 miles from where he had wrecked his truck two weeks earlier. They estimate he was driving close to 100 miles an hour downhill through a snowstorm. He slid off the road and the car tumbled down a steep, rocky canyon, ended up on a bank of the river below.

It was completely crushed. Max was almost certainly dead before it exploded. His wife and daughter's bodies were never found in his house. They were never found because they had already died two weeks previously in the initial crash. Max was the sole survivor of that wreck. The details of that crash are almost identical to the crash Max described seeing over and over again in his nightmares. They hit that center divider head on. They rolled and slid into the guardrail.

The truck caught on fire with Max's already dead wife and his trapped daughters inside. According to the accident report, he did watch his girls die. I can't imagine what that would do to someone. The crash wasn't his fault. He wasn't sighted. Several vehicles crashed in that same area that same day during perfect conditions for black ice. But in the days that followed, Max continued to insist that it was his fault.

Shortly after the funeral, a funeral during which he wore the exact same outfit he describes the man with no face wearing in his entries, he began to talk about this faceless entity. He concerned his friends, co-workers, and family to the point that his mom and brother ended up deciding just hours too late, sadly, to have him involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility. So is that all that happened? Did a combination of guilt and grief cause Max to lose his mind and take his own life?

I think he probably did lose his mind, almost certainly. But I don't think that's all that happened here. My name is Reggie Myers, and I'm a paranormal investigator. I've been investigating strange supernatural claims for over two decades. Max's mother, Natasha, hired me to look into his death. She's a very spiritual woman. And while the rest of Max's family feels certain that he mentally unraveled due solely to the enormous pain over what he endured, she thought there was more to it. And now so do I.

I finally managed to corner one of his neighbors about six months ago, Audra Patterson. She lives directly behind the Warrens' former home, and when she looks out her back windows, or when she stands in her backyard, she can see directly inside of their old house. I called Audra and left several voicemails, but she wouldn't call me back. When I kept calling and she finally answered, she said she had nothing to say about Max's behavior following the crash that took the lives of his wife and children. But she sounded scared, like she was hiding something. So I started following her.

and I was finally able to corner her in the grocery store. I strongly suspected that she was hiding something, and I was right. At first, she told me to leave her alone, that she was going to call the police if I didn't stop harassing her, but when I told her how much pain Max's mother was still in, when I told her how she knew something else had gone on with her son, something paranormal, how she needed closure, Audra let her guard down, and she told me she'd talk. We walked across the parking lot to a coffee shop, and there, she told me that after Greta and the girls had died...

She still saw them. She saw them several times at home with Max, talking to him, sometimes seeming to argue with him. She said she hadn't told anyone because she wasn't actually very close with the family. She was still new to the neighborhood, introverted, and wasn't especially close with any of her neighbors. Also, she'd been out of town on a vacation of her own when Greta, Bailey, and Bella had died. And she was still out of town when they'd had their funerals. So when she came back, when she saw them through the windows, she didn't know she was looking at ghosts.

She thought they were alive and well. She only found out thanks to one of my voicemails, and it scared the shit out of her. Interestingly, she said she never saw the man with no face. Not once. And I believe her. That's a sight I imagine you would never forget. Receiving confirmation from Audra that something paranormal was in fact at play in Max's final days led me to keep researching the entity that kept visiting him. How does that thing fit into all of this?

Max was clearly being haunted by the ghosts of his wife and children. Did that cause him to lose his mind? And in his madness, did he invent this strange man without a face to help him complete some narrative that helped explain to him why he had lived and they hadn't? Was the man with no face a man Max dressed like at his wife and daughter's funeral, born entirely out of survivor's guilt? Or was Max truly supposed to have died with his family in that first crash? Did the universe, in fact, make a mistake? Is the man some sort of grim reaper, as Max suspected?

I've done a lot of digging into this entity over the past six or so months, and just in the last few weeks, I've finally managed to track down three people who also claim to have seen this same thing. A young woman from Manchester, England, who nearly drowned when she was a teenager in the Howden Reservoir. She says she saw him standing on the bank right before she lost consciousness. She died. She was dead for over two minutes before CPR brought her back.

A young man from Savannah, Georgia, who went into cardiac arrest in a house fire before being brought back to life by EMTs, also claims to have seen this thing, looking almost exactly as Max described, standing in the flames after his heart stopped but before he lost consciousness. And an elderly woman from just north of Sydney, Australia, saw the same man with no face standing above the body of her husband just before she lost consciousness due to the carbon monoxide leak in their home that took her husband's life.

She too died, was dead for several minutes, but was brought back. So how does Max fit into this? Did his heart stop beating for a minute or two during the first wreck before anyone arrived? Was the man with no face so certain that Max was going to die that he made a mistake and revealed himself a bit prematurely?

This is the conclusion that I've come to. Max was supposed to die in that first crash. Whether or not he died for a bit and then came back or never died at all, he was supposed to die, but something glitched. And that's why, unlike the other three people who claim they also saw this same man with no face, that's why this man kept appearing before him to right some wrong, to restore some sense of order and balance.

Perhaps those other three people came as close as you can come to dying without actually cheating death. Maybe that's why they saw the man, but he never came back for them. And maybe something incredibly rare happened during that first crash, where Max truly cheated death, where he temporarily and almost impossibly avoided what was supposed to have been a sealed fate. And the universe, God, whatever you choose to call it, it decided that simply would not do.

And the man with no face was sent back to right the wrong. So I guess if I'm right, if you ever see the man with no face yourself, try to enjoy what little time you likely have left. And that's it for this edition of Nightmare Fuel. Second of 2025. Hopefully it made sense. It was supposed to be a little confusing to represent how confused I've felt in moments. Today's tale of I'm not supposed to be here.

was written by me, Dan Cummins. I am very glad I'm still here. And scored by Logan Keith. If you enjoyed this story, check out the rest of the Bad Magic Productions catalog. Time Suck every Monday at noon Pacific time with little short sucks on some Fridays. And these Nightmare Fuel episodes some Fridays as well. And new episodes of the now long-running Paranormal Podcast, Scared to Death, every Tuesday at midnight Pacific time. Please go to badmagicproductions.com for all your bad magic needs, including show-related merch. And stay...

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