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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Treyblowski on 2025-10-25 10:29:17+00:00.

My hometown was an odd place; we had a video store that never had the movies I wanted, a convenience store whose slushie machine was always broken, and a yearly food drive with a weird name.

“Help feed Bobby”

If you’re thinking, “whose Bobby?” Then you had something in common with my 10 year old self,  every other kid in town, and the people just passing through during the time the food drive was active.

We did ask our parents, teachers, and basically any adult why it was called that, but the standard answer was that Bobby was just meant to represent children whose parents couldn’t afford food regularly.

The other one was that Bobby is meant to be an acronym, but when pressed on what B-o-b-b-y is supposed to spell out, they always found a way to stop or change the conversation.

For the longest time, the most information we received was that at the end of the drive, some people would volunteer to take all the donated food to its intended destination, and then, around the same time the following year, it would start all over again.

One day, my dad came home and told my mom and me that he was going to have to go out next Saturday, as he had volunteered to help deliver the donated food to its recipients.

I tried to ask him where the food was going, and if I could come with him, but he shot both questions down with “Sorry, sport, grownups only.

I wanted to know so badly that I came up with a plan.

On the day he was supposed to deliver the food, my dad came home with a truck full of donation boxes.

As sneakily as I could, I snuck into the back of the truck, emptied the contents of one of the boxes, and ducked down inside.

I realized that the chances of being caught were high, but I didn’t care. I wanted to see where all this food went every year,

After about an hour, I heard the truck start and felt it move. I wanted to poke my head out and see, but I knew my dad could just check the rear view mirror and spot me.

Another possible 3 hours, and I felt the truck come to a stop.

I heard my dad get out of his truck, and some other volunteers getting out of their cars. I couldn’t really hear the conversation at the time.

I did feel someone grabbing the box I was in.

“Damn, what’s in this? watermelons and ham?”

He continued to grumble as he carried the box somewhere I couldn’t see.

It was maybe 45 minutes before he finally placed the box down. I got excited, I would finally see where the food went to.

I waited until I didn’t hear any more footsteps before I exited the box and started to look around.

It was a large cavern. I saw what I presumed was the entrance; the place was lit by what I assumed were battery-operated lights, with boxes of donated food stacked everywhere.

Looking out on the other side, I saw a cliff edge. Walking to it, I looked over the edge.

I don’t know how deep it went, I just knew it was the size of a football stadium…

I kept thinking to myself, What was the point of this food drive? Why bring all the food to some cave? And for the thousandth time, who is Bobby?

I felt the rumbling before I heard it, then I saw the cavern begin to shake violently.

Looking down, I saw something begin to emerge from the darkness; it looked like the beginning of a bright orange beak.

From there, a head only slightly smaller than the hole itself took form.

Imagine if a turtle’s head were covered in spikes, and you’d have the beginning of what its head looked like.

It stopped at about 15 feet from the top of the cliff edge and began to open its large beak.

I was paralyzed with fear. I didn’t know what this thing was going to do, for all I knew it was about to breathe fire, or grab me with some kind of frog tongue.

But it just stayed there, like it was waiting for something.

That’s when I realized…

This was Bobby.

This thing came up here, it knows someone will feed it, because it’s been fed every year for god knows how long.

And this was only the head and neck of it, I couldn’t fathom how big the rest of Bobby could be.

My fascination/horror was cut short by the sounds of my dad and the other volunteers coming back down the cave path.

I ran back over to the box I was hiding in, but realized they would probably start with that one, so I went to a stack of them near the entrance and crouched down next to it. My plan was once they all walked past, I was gonna run back up and hide in my dad’s truck.

The voices and footsteps became audible as my dad and the other volunteers returned.

“Okay, that should be the last of it, then we get a break for another year .”

“I wish we could just cover everything in cyanide.”

“Nice wish. There’s not enough poison on the planet for that.”

Then I heard my dad, he sounded nervous:

“Even if it worked, h-h-how do we know that the body wouldn’t stink up the whole town?

“Wait! I see its head!”

Then I heard my dad’s first time seeing Bobby:

“Jesus Christ.”

I could hear the terror in my dad’s voice. I almost wanted to run out of hiding and go hug him, let him know I saw it too, and he wasn’t alone in his fear, but I knew that could make things bad for both of us.

Another volunteer disregarded my dad’s terror and nonchalantly remarked.

“Let’s get started, just grab a box and throw it at the thing’s mouth.”

I watched as they all started grabbing boxes and taking them to the edge .

When it looked like all of their backs were turned, I quietly snuck to the entrance, and ran back up to the mouth of the cave.

From there, I saw my dad’s truck, and made my way to the back.

A few weeks later, I was at the library trying to see if there was any more information about Bobby. I should have expected my town wouldn’t keep records about a giant turtle monster living underneath it, but what was there was still helpful.

The monster was most likely named after the town founder Bobby Robertson, and during times of famine, the town was prone to “tremors” and was nearly destroyed during the Great Depression by a sudden magnitude 3 earthquake.

My guess is that the townsfolk of the time decided they needed the food more than Bobby, and he voiced his disapproval.

I don’t think my dad ever figured out that I was there with him that night, but I made it a point to spend more time with him, though I had to pretend that I wasn’t also scared of turtles now.

The next year, he did not volunteer to assist with “Help Feed Billy”, in fact, he had gotten a promotion at work, and we had to move away because of it.

So for the past 22 years, I was able to let “Help Feed Bobby” slowly fade into my memories.

Until a few days ago, when I was struck by nostalgia for my old hometown, so I started looking  into what had happened since we moved…

My hometown doesn’t exist anymore.

At some point in 2005, the town collapsed and sunk into the ground, the official explanation was that there were multiple caves under the town, and a long overdue mass cave-in had finally happened.

It was harder to find any more information on what the town was like before the “cave-in”, but the most relevant piece I found came from a Facebook group for it.

I learned that new people had replaced the previous town council in 2004.

And in the same year, they voted to end the “Help feed Bobby” food drive.