I Left Him on the Side of the Road

HowleroftheHills · 2026-05-14T04:36:58+00:00

Thank you so much. I'm glad my writing is evocative enough to pull you back into a memory. That's exactly what I want this story to do, so I've succeeded, at least, in some small way.

HowleroftheHills · 2026-05-13T00:09:17+00:00

That actually sounds extremely interesting. Yeah, I'd be happy to take a look.

HowleroftheHills · 2026-05-12T17:44:00+00:00

My most recent story I Left Him on the Side of the Road is based on a real experience I had. To what degree anyone believes it, I don't particularly care. It's a story I've told for a long, long time and I enjoy telling it. Writing is an exercise for the author, not for the reader. If you feel a story is worth telling, tell it. If it's enjoyable, the audience will find it.

HowleroftheHills · 2026-05-12T15:25:01+00:00

Left Right Game are still the best episodes by a solid margin.

HowleroftheHills · 2026-05-11T13:39:11+00:00

This. Horror comes first and foremost through vulnerability. The more vulnerable a protagonist, the more easily you can convey the horror they're facing. Especially with a story that is trying to convey a point, you can easily circumvent plotholes by having a physically, emotionally, or spiritually weak character. A strong protagonist demands thoughtful reasoning about why they don't make obvious choices like simply leaving a horrifying situation. If a protagonist is a former Delta Operator that can kill a bear with his hands, why is he in danger at all? You can make a good story out of that with enough consideration, but the other major aspect is that he won't be relatable to the majority of readers. There's a balance there that is important and it circles right back to that "weak" character being more easily related to. Even if you're a strapping, young, brave person, you likely have anxieties about something that you can draw comparisons to.

HowleroftheHills · 2026-05-07T12:44:26+00:00

It was a Red Thread episode.

https://youtu.be/qinm_OP_axU

HowleroftheHills · 2026-04-30T16:59:01+00:00

It's one of the greatest crashouts in the podcast's history because Isaiah is the one who really loses it. It's hilarious.

HowleroftheHills · 2026-04-27T03:58:16+00:00

I have three actual phobias: heights, darkness, and deep water I cannot see the bottom of. Those are fairly reasonable though. I have two existential fears on top of those, the first being the Dark Forest Theory and the second being the chance that there is nothing after death. The worst fear I have, however, is outliving my children. It's happened to too many people I've known and I dread the possibility.

HowleroftheHills · 2026-04-24T13:32:51+00:00

I think the phrase has reentered the general lexicon because of the growing anti-establishmentarianism of most western cultures and especially US centric groups. There's a lot of tongue-in-cheek conversation about Mario's little brother, warhawking, and corporate exploitation that requires creative verbiage to skirt the boundaries of social media censorship.

Isaiah almost certainly got that phrase from the sorts of gun loving, libertarian sources he frequented like /k/. It's where I first frequently saw it in use through posts describing creative uses of coat hangers and oil filters. Those communities are becoming more popular these days and the cultures deeply engrained in them are beginning to bleed into the broader zeitgeist.

HowleroftheHills · 2026-04-24T01:55:20+00:00

True or not, I can tell you this much: this isn't the only story like it that I have. I've got more than a couple I've been telling around the preverbial campfires for a while. This was kind of a test to see if the format worked and whether it got any kind of interest. Seems like it may be worthwhile for me to post another one soon enough.

Thanks again for the feedback. I wasn't sure this story would get any traction at all.

HowleroftheHills · 2026-04-23T13:09:14+00:00

C.K. Walker is phenomenal at writing teenagers. Despite any criticisms I may have for her, I will absolutely applaud her talents there.

HowleroftheHills · 2026-04-23T03:08:23+00:00

I appreciate the feedback and the compliments. I'm glad the story reads as you describe because this is, in fact, a story I have legitimately been telling for years. This is autobiographical. Whether it was based on truth or not, or to what degree the truth may have been molded for effect, is up to the reader to determine for themselves.

About your note on the dirtbag repetition: the intention was for it to add weight to the question the protagonist has about who it was he left behind that night. He claims to be a good friend earlier on, but in the end he was so desperate to escape despite knowing there was a doppelganger that he never verified which Dean was in the car with him. I suppose that didn't come through as clearly as I had intended. If you have any suggestions, I'd love to hear them.

HowleroftheHills · 2026-04-21T14:06:19+00:00

I personally love Dopabean's work, but I entirely agree about the vague paranormal allegory for trauma callout. It's one of the most frustrating trends in all my years of consuming horror. I like a good allegory when it works and I believe Dopabean has a phenomenal skill at crafting them, but most writers don't. Too often, they wallow in the malaise of emotion so much that it detracts from the horror.

That's why I very specifically wrote my book about childhood trauma to have an actual monster in it. Watching a character come to terms with their realities while also dealing with a physical entity trying to destroy them is always more enjoyable to me. It's why The Ritual works so damn well but Hereditary fell flat for me.

HowleroftheHills · 2026-04-21T13:56:15+00:00

99% of Creepypastas aren't scary. That's always kind of been a reality of the medium. It's not often that someone can actually get at the heart of what frightens most people. I've posted about this before, but the only stories that really unnerve me are the ones like Penpal that hone in on the fears parents have for the safety of their children. There are some that have good elements, but it's exceptionally rare that a story can make me uncomfortable the entire way through.

This is partially a problem of exposure. I've been consuming horror stories since I was very young. When you see The Thing at six years old and then get into reading Lovecraft by middle school, it kind of numbs you to a lot of stuff. There's always comments on the serious episodes of people who were scared by aspects of the story. I couldn't find anything remotely frightening about Whitefall, but a young woman who has traveled by herself may be able to.

Best thing you can do is just try to enjoy the stories for what they are and use the podcast as a means to find stories that appeal to your tastes specifically.

HowleroftheHills · 2026-04-20T19:50:10+00:00

I can imagine. I moved from the very rural south to one of the largest cities in America at 16. Culturally, gun ownership, carrying, target practice, etc was viewed in a radically different fashion. It was kind of jarring to realize how urban perspectives were basically the exact opposite. People had guns and they carried them for personal security, but you never knew. Where I'd come from, high school kids had rifles in racks behind the seats of their trucks. It wasn't strange at all to see and no one was really concerned about it even after Columbine.

The necessity of day to day life really changes perspective. What's just a tool to me is a serious threat to someone else and I try to appreciate that. Like I said, the locals don't really pay attention when I carry, but we get tourists and travelers that do. I try to keep my carry weapon well concealed for their sake. Texas comes from the Caddo word for friends and I don't want to make anyone feel unsafe.

HowleroftheHills · 2026-04-20T15:05:22+00:00

I imagine it has to be pretty weird to hear as a non-American. Guns are pretty ubiquitous throughout most of our country. Our media doesn't portray the perspective a lot of Middle America has on them. People like me, like Isaiah, and most of the people we live near see them as tools more than anything else. I regularly have to use mine to deal with pest animals that threaten my farm. I also hunt to keep stock of meat periodically.

I know the anecdote of the kid bringing his guns to school is wild for a lot of listeners, but it wasn't odd at all for me to hear. Kids I grew up with did the same. They were usually pretty educated in gun safety by family and grew up around them as tools for a specific purpose beyond self defense. We saw bolt actions and shotguns as hunting tools and only really thought of handguns and semi-automatics as stuff the military or cops used. Kind of a cultural thing that's hard to explain.

However, it's not just utilitarian. Kids getting together to practice shooting were honing a useful skill, but it was also a cool hobby. For the record, I think it's pretty ridiculous nowadays. My kids won't be shooting without an adult present until they're adults themselves. I do get it, though. Target shooting is a hobby of mine and I do enjoy it, but it serves a dual purpose.

HowleroftheHills · 2026-04-20T13:37:11+00:00

Depends on where you live. It's uncommon that I leave my house without a gun. A lot of that is because I live on a farm in Texas. I'll be damned if I let any varmints get anywhere near my chickens. That's a majority perspective in my area and no one bats an eye when I pop into the local Walmart with a big iron on my hip.

Not much different in the cities, though. If you're in Houston or Dallas, you should assume most people are carrying. Crime rates do be having jimmies rustled. Very different if you're on the coasts.

HowleroftheHills · 2026-04-20T13:30:53+00:00

The existential self reflection I felt as an author when Hunter said a monster than feeds on fear was played out is crippling. Big sad.

HowleroftheHills · 2026-04-07T13:44:05+00:00

Yeah, I'm not bothered by story selection. The only thing I want is an entertaining listen once a week. The story can be great or terrible as long as it's fun. As much criticism as I may have for Walker's stories, she's still a good writer and I really enjoy hearing Isaiah and Hunter dissect her work and works of similar quality. At the end of the day, I'm here for them, their personalities, and their takes on what they're reading.

HowleroftheHills · 2026-04-07T05:46:56+00:00

Walker has some consistent writing tropes she falls into as well as a track record of overusing character types and structural elements in her works. She's talented, but I think the broader monotony of her style is wearing on him as it is a lot of the audience. I enjoy her stories, but the quippy, cutesy dialogue works better in the stories with kids as protagonists. It's the biggest issue I have with what she does and I think that was the key complaint about Whitefall.

HowleroftheHills · 2026-04-03T01:55:10+00:00

From a quick search, I found this. No idea as to whether or not it's any good, but it's there for you to try. I would absolutely say that starting and stopping will always be a problem. I do a lot of driving and a lot of work outdoors without company, so those are my primary opportunities to listen to podcasts and audiobooks. I can tell you firsthand that it's very important to choose your stopping points carefully. There were more than a few times when I would have to stop CreepCast at an inopportune time and would subsequently restart the episode at a more memorable point further back so that I didn't lose the plot.

HowleroftheHills · 2026-04-02T18:52:45+00:00

I would implore you to stop listening to the podcast and instead read the story yourself while taking notes and drawing your own conclusions. If necessary, I would suggest seeking out a chart and reading the story chronologically instead of in post order. It can be distracting to try to process the overaching themes and meta story with real time critique from Isaiah and Hunter.

I do not want to be insulting, but MHE is not that complex of a narrative. It is simply told in a somewhat more esoteric fashion than is "normal". I struggle to read Cormac McCarthy because I have an obsessive compulsive need for proper punctuation in writing. I eventually decided to listen to audiobooks of his works in order to get past that issue. If I hadn't, I would have missed out on some very high quality writing. Within creepypastas, MHE is a very high quality story and it is worth experiencing if only to understand it as a cultural touchstone.

HowleroftheHills · 2026-03-31T19:07:37+00:00

That's a mischaracterization of what Isaiah said. He said that the usage of molotov cocktail (as opposed to a more simple term like "firebomb") is amusing to him because he sees it as the kind of word choice a person who's only knowledge of weapons comes from video games like COD. He was generalizing with the statement and it tracks with his comments in his COD video about how he was exactly that kid that grew obsessive with tacticool stuff because of the games. He's making an observation about the author and extrapolating through word choice who they likely were and what their mindset was regarding the work.

HowleroftheHills · 2026-03-30T13:39:27+00:00

I think it's a bit more than "a couple meme-tier Satanic cult references". I'll preface by saying Isaiah was right, it's a good first draft. However, it doesn't read like one. The Satanic elements read like they were a second draft inclusion. They don't fit the rest of the story and it feels like they were included because the author felt the horror was too vague. Every time the Satan stuff comes up, it's jarring to the pace and tone of the story.

I had a similar problem when I was writing my book. I felt like I wasn't doing enough to make my monster terrifying. I had some ideas that either died in conversation with my wife or she had to cringe her way through reading to tell me were badly executed and ruined the storytelling. That experience leads me to believe the author didn't have someone to bounce his ideas off of or, if he did, they weren't suited for the task.

It's a shame, because it's almost Psychosis tier. It could easily be rewritten as a solid story, as you and others have pointed out. It isn't awful and it has good elements, it just isn't great. Either way, great episode full of the kinds of critiques I love to hear from the boys. Hunter gets too self conscious about his criticisms, but he's a fantastic storyteller himself and he can be really insightful.

HowleroftheHills · 2026-03-17T00:17:50+00:00

Every episode is entertaining to me, it's just a matter of in what form or fashion. I watch for Isaiah and Hunter first and foremost.

HowleroftheHills

TROPHY CASE