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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Everblack_Deathmask on 2026-05-27 23:35:39+00:00.

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My friends and I experienced one of the most horrifying things on a road trip we went on nearly ten years ago.

We were just trying to go and see The Black Dahlia Murder. They are our favorite band, and they still mean a lot to us. Hell, we all became good friends because of going to those shows in the first place. Had I not had that group of dudes with me, I wouldn’t be here typing all this out to begin with. There would be no witnesses.

This is what I remember from that night.

My buddies and I were all carpooling together to go and see The Black Dahlia Murder during their Nightbringers tour back in 2017. The line-up was so stacked that it was insane. The Black Dahlia Murder, Suffocation, Decrepit Birth, and a bunch of others we loved were all on the same bill. A night full of death metal and zero responsibilities was way too good to pass up on.

Everybody secured their tickets the second they went on sale and took time off work. We weren’t missing that show for anything in the world.

The trip itself started out harmless enough. Looking back, it felt like every other road trip we had ever gone on together.

“Everblack is still their best album man, I don’t care what anyone says.” Ryan stated, wiping the leftover Taco Bell crumbs off his Frozen Soul shirt.

Brandon looked legitimately heated. “No, Nightbringers is their best by a country mile and it’s not even close.”

“That album JUST came out.” I shook my head disapprovingly. “That’s recency bias talking. Besides, you’re both wrong anyway. Nocturnal is the greatest album this genre has ever seen.”

Our debate was being heavily scrutinized by a set of wild, brown eyes in the rearview mirror.

“Y’all need to go touch some grass. You’ve been going ‘round and ‘round about this same topic for the last hour.”

“Pull over and I’ll happily oblige Brian.” Ryan snickered, earning a laugh from the whole group.

Brian smiled. “Don’t tempt me.”

We pulled into a gas station off the interstate that our GPS had directed us to go to.

“Dude, are you serious?” Brandon groaned. “This is the fifth time we’ve stopped on this trip. We’re going to miss the show at this rate.”

Brian pulled up to one of the gas pumps illuminated by the bright lights above. “We’ve still got plenty of time. But keep complaining. I’ll make sure we stop a sixth time.”

“You’re such an asshole.” Ryan joked, already unfastening his seatbelt.

“What? I gotta piss like a race-horse.” Brian parked the car and turned in his seat to look at all of us. “Any of you ladies care to join me?”

I raised my hand like a student getting ready to answer a question. “I’ll go.”

Brian opened the car door and began stretching in an exaggerated manner. “Perfect! Let’s go, Lucas!”

“I can’t wait to get my paws on a Dr. Pepper,” I admitted with a smile. “I’ve been fiending for one.”

Brian either didn’t hear me or didn’t care to respond. His focus was on Brandon. “It’s your turn to fill up the tank Brandon!”

“I filled it up last time!” Brandon called out, but Brian ignored him, and both of us walked toward the gas station.

I surveyed our surroundings, and the first thing that stood out was how deserted it was. For seven o’clock in the evening the place was dead. There was only one other car besides ours parked in the lot, a beat-up Chevy truck whose better days were very clearly behind them.

Had a tumbleweed rolled through the parking lot, the place would have looked like your stereotypical abandoned building in the middle of nowhere.

“Where the hell did we stop?” I asked, holding the door open for Brian to walk through. “There’s like nobody here.”

Brian pulled his phone out of his pocket and inspected it. “Some place called Brindlewood. I don’t fucking know.”

“I’ve never heard of it.”

“If we didn’t stop here I could have gone the whole rest of my life not knowing about this place.”

I nodded and made my way to the soda fountain while Brian walked to the counter nearby. With a styrofoam cup in hand, I pressed the Dr. Pepper button and watched the soda nozzle gush the soda I had been craving.

Out of my peripheral, I watched Brian wave his hand to get the cashier’s attention.

“Hey man,” he rapped his knuckles on the counter. “Where are your bathrooms?”

I didn’t hear a response which only peeved Brian and his pea-sized bladder. “Good talk. Guess I’ll go fuck myself.”

I had to stifle a laugh at the sight of him stomping around the gas station until he found the men’s restroom door and disappeared out of sight. When I went up to the counter, I still had a smile on my face.

“Sorry about my friend,” I apologized and fished my wallet from my pocket. “How much do I owe you?”

But my question went unanswered as I fished a five dollar bill out of my wallet. When I went to present the money to him, I noticed that the cashier was standing in the exact same place that he had when Brian and I had walked in.

“How much?”

Once again, no answer. His eyes were wide-open, bloodshot, and staring off into the distance. It was like the guy was in a completely different universe. Was he tripping balls in the middle of a shift he had mentally checked out of halfway through? That was a possibility. But dealing with not-so-sober people was out of my wheelhouse.

“Hey, you okay?” I waved my hand like Brian had earlier to get his attention. The guy didn’t even blink. It was like he was in a catatonic state.

“What’s going on?”

I nearly jumped out of my skin. “Brian, you fucking dick. Don’t sneak up on me.”

“I didn’t. I just walked over here.” He placed some candy on the counter and gestured to me. “Put it on his tab.”

The cashier’s eye began twitching, signaling some sign of life, but not enough to make me feel comfortable again.

“Dude, I think we should call someone.”

“Why?” Brian shrugged. “This guy is probably enjoying the best trip of his life. Who are we to interrupt that?”

I ignored Brian about halfway through his sentence to study the movement within the cashier’s forearms. Something was writhing and swaying underneath.

“Hey,” Brian’s eyes drooped down to read the cashier’s nametag. “Chase. Can you ring me and my friend out so we can be on our way? We got places to be.”

The shapes in Chase’s arms moved sinuously. It was a disturbing visual made even more disturbing by the fact that pearlescent outlines fidgeted behind the irises of his eyes.

“Let’s get out of—”

I never got to finish my suggestion as Chase suddenly gripped the counter tightly, his breath alternating between wheezes and growls. The veins and squirming silhouettes bulged under his skin. His body wracked violently with spasms. I dropped my soda on the floor, the Styrofoam cup spilling soda all over mine and Brian’s shoes. We stared in horror at Chase’s bizarre behavior.

The color in Brian’s face had left. “What do we do?”

I couldn’t pull my eyes away from the vast number of protrusions underneath his skin. “Call the fucking police man!”

Brian pulled out his phone and began dialing but cursed at the realization that he had no cell service. “We’re fucked dude!”

A moment later, Chase collapsed to a heap on the floor. Everything went silent.

“Oh my God.” Brian gripped his hair in distress. “Is he dead?!”

“He’s not dead.“ I shot Brian a look. “Let me check on him.”

I inched closer toward the counter to peer over it, and what I saw made my stomach churn. Lying on the floor was Chase. His limbs were splayed as if the bones within his body had been forgotten. His eyes were rolled back, revealing white, zombified membrane staring back at me. Foam spilled out of the mouth of his seizing body. It looked like something straight out of a Cannibal Corpse album cover, and I had to suppress the urge to vomit at the sight.

“Dude, is he okay or what?” Brian’s voice called out from behind me.

“I…I don’t know. But he needs to get to a hospital.”

The ding of the doorbell alerted us to another presence entering the gas station.

I recognized Ryan’s voice immediately. “Guys, what’s the hold up?”

“Yeah man,” Brandon added. “We need to leave now if we’re planning on getting to the show on time.”

Before I could reply to either of them, tendrils crept up from the depths of Chase’s throat and pulled his lips apart like dental instruments. His cheeks expanded and stretched as something began emerging from the depths of his body, splitting the flesh like it were a mere cocoon.

“Jesus…”

Chase didn’t even look like he was breathing anymore. His chest wasn’t rising or falling anymore…it was pulsing. Bones and cartilage compressed like debris in a compactor. Whatever it was continued its push up from the inside of Chase’s body.

“What? What do you see?” Brian asked from the beef jerky aisle.

Chase’s jaw clamped shut, not from pain, but from pressure. Something nacreous pressed beneath the thinning skin of his throat. His body was splitting at the seams at an uncontrollable rate.

“Lucas! Brian! C’mon!” Ryan shouted impatiently.

And then—Chase’s head exploded. Brain matter and chunks of skull splattered against my clothes. Blood dripped from every visible surface as an elongated shape consisting of pure muscle emerged from what remained of Chase.

It was a worm.

That was the only word my brain could find for it. It was far larger than I originally thought. Segments of pale flesh dragged behind it in slick coils, each section flexing independently beneath translucent skin.

Before I could even process what I w...

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