Penpal (novel)  Penpal is a 2012 self-published horror/thriller novel and the debut novel of the American author Dathan Auerbach. The work was first published in paperback on July 11, 2012 through 1000Vultures and is based on a series of popular creepypasta stories that Auerbach posted to Reddit. The stories were adapted for "The NoSleep Podcast's" debut season in 2011 and narrated by Sammy Raynor. The book follows the narrator as he finds himself the focus of an obsessed stalker who tracks him throughout his childhood. Film rights to "Penpal" were optioned by producer Rich Middlemas in 2012. "Penpal" is told via a series of non-linear recollections by an anonymous narrator trying to make sense of mysterious events that happened to him during his childhood, the truth of which was kept from him by his mother all his life. As a boy in kindergarten, the narrator becomes best friends with another student named Josh. One day, their class conducts a penpal experiment, in which the children tie a letter to a balloon and send it off. Most of the children receive a letter back, but the narrator does not until the very end of the year when Polaroid photos are mailed to him. On realizing all of the photos feature him and his mother; his mother calls the police. In the weeks that follow, the narrator receives an old dollar note when selling snow cones with Josh, the same one he’d sent to the Penpal ages ago. Later, when rafting with Josh one day, he hears the sound of pictures being taken and a drawing of him (standing next to the penpal, with his initials) is left on a tree for the narrator to find afterwards. A few weeks later, an elderly lady with Alzheimer’s in the neighbourhood is murdered, and it's speculated that the Penpal tricked her by pretending he was her dead husband from a business trip and that he lived with her to get close to the narrator. Later, the narrator awakes in the woods late at night, he can't understand how he got there since his feet are clean. He makes his way home to find that his mom and the police found a note on his bed saying that he wanted to run away. However, the narrator points out that he didn't write it, as his name was misspelled. Alarmed, his mother puts the house on the market and when she discovers the Penpal has made a new home underneath their house, she hides this information from her son but forces them to leave sooner than expected to their new neighbourhood.