Penpal
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- Publication Date: July 11, 2012
- Written by: Dathan Auerbach
- Page count: 238
Way back in 2012, I began to spend my time listening to creepypasta narrations. This is when narrators like MrCreepyPasta, CreepsMcPasta and others were really taking off on YouTube. Characters like Slenderman, Jeff the Killer, Smile Dog, and so many more were in their heyday and had yet to become over saturated and no longer scary. MrCreepyPasta's Penpal narration appeared in my feed one day, and I decided to give it a listen. At the time, it was the most effective horror story I had ever listened to online. It scared me, intrigued me, and made me cry all at the same time. To this day, I still enjoy going back and listening to that original narration from time to time. When I eventually found out that the original six stories had been expanded and collected together into a short novel, I couldn't resist going through the story yet another time.
Penpal tells the story of an unnamed narrator and his experiences of dealing with a stalker through his childhood and teenage years. The chapters are presented out of chronological order, and each one reveals a piece of the puzzle as the story goes on. Who is this stalker? What does he want? More importantly, why is he focused so much on this young kid? If it isn't obvious from the premise, this story has some super uncomfortable undertones. The idea of a grown man stalking a child for years on end is not only incredibly disturbing, but it is presented in a way that feels like this could really happen to someone. Our protagonist is a different age in each chapter, and each one perfectly captures the fears that someone would have at that point in their life. As a young kid, that fear may be getting lost in the woods or hearing noises where you usually play. As a pre-teen, it may be knowledge that some unknown person is getting uncomfortably close to your life. The "monster" of this story is a stranger, a man who has no business in our narrator's life but keeps coming back in the most horrific of ways. That on its own makes this one of the most effective horror stories I've ever read. It's very ambiguous with its details in some of its revelations, but when you start to piece those details together, the picture gets more and more unnerving.
The novel version of Penpal is just as effective as the short story version, if not more. In the expanded version, we get more details about our narrator's childhood, some more moments between him and his best friend, and more details in the ending that makes the finale hit even harder. There will be no spoilers from me here, as I really think that people should experience this story for themselves. I will say that it remains one of the most gut-wrenching endings that I've read in a modern horror story, and it still gets me emotional after all these years. The book version even ends with an in-universe police report filed by our protagonist's mother when he was a child. Seeing and reading this report makes me imagine what this story would be like if it were to be adapted for a film or limited series. However, I don't think I would ever want to see this story adapted, just for the fact that nothing put on screen can match the horror of what the reader imagines in their head.
Penpal remains my all-time favorite creepypasta story. In a genre that eventually became full of "lost episode" and cursed image stories that eventually devolved into nonsense, this one stood out from all the others. It's chilling and real in a way that puts so many online stories to shame, and still holds up to this day.