Creepy - 16 Spiders

Episode Date: November 2, 2020

Did you feel that?***Written by red_creek_young and narrated by Megan McDuffee***See your donation rewards at patreon.com/creepypod***You can also subscribe to us on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCQ3SrH_3fsROXFAjomKcUtw***Produced by Steve Blizin***Title music by Alex Aldea***Intro/Outro Narration by Joe Stofko Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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And before we get to today's episode, I have a few important announcements. Hey, seriously, don't touch that skip 30 seconds button. I'm watching you. First, since the beginning of COVID isolation in March, we've released about 125 episodes. I'm definitely exhausted, and you can probably hear the sinus cold that's just been waiting to hit me. And as we've now released stories for the last 33 days in a row as well, we're going to take a little break. Don't worry. By break, I just mean that we're going to go back to our regular weekly release schedule in November,

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Whether these stories truly happened or not simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. Creepy Presents 16 spiders, written by Red Creek Young, and narrated by Megan McDuffie. I'll never forget my sweet 16. It was everything I had ever dreamed of, ever hoped it would be. I mean, sure, yeah, it would have been cool if everyone survived it.

But you should have seen my dress. When I say perfect, I mean Cinderella can shove it. The dress was made for me. Actually, quite literally. My mother was quite dictatorial about what I wore on a good day, and my 16th journey around the sun, she used to say, was the day I stepped into the sun's light, the day I became a woman.

So, naturally, the dress was priority, couldn't go waltzing into womanhood dressed like a squand, grub. If I'm being really honest, I knew that the day I became a woman would also be the day I took a life. Every woman in my family had also killed on their 16th birthday. It was tradition. And, as I learned, the only chance to prevent infection. So fine, maybe it got out of hand. But if you heard what Kent said about me and saw the look on his side, he said, he said, face? You'd probably have wanted to kill him too, just saying. Whatever, he was a waste of air. I really don't see what everyone's so bent out of shape about. My family is acting like I'm the black

sheep and a murderer now, like, hello, they all told me I had to kill someone. Sorry they forgot to mention that it would be really freaking hard to control that. So I should probably backtrack a smidge. I'll bet you're curious why I didn't absolutely bug face when mother sat me down and explained to a sweet 14-year-old Ariana that I would kill a boy on my 16th birthday. Well, if you've ever had an itch, you couldn't scratch. Imagine it a thousand times worse and then have that itch for years. You'd kill someone with a fucking smile on your face to feel that itch finally get scratched.

The first time she sat me down for one of these talks was when I was, say, seven or so. I was a cute kid, big blue, green eyes and pale blonde hair longer than anyone I'd ever seen except my mother. But I had a really bad dandruff. At least, that's what I thought, and what I was to tell my teachers. Uh, how'd she phrase it? A severe skin condition resulting in an abundance of malacasia, or some crap like that. Again, she pretty much just told them I had mega dandruff. Thanks, Mom.

Everyone took so well to the itchy weirdo with the megadandruff. Not a great look, as a sticky little elementary schooler always scratching your head. Lice is the natural assumption, so mother was keen, on keeping my story straight from the start. It only helped her story along that I left trails of my silvery hair just about everywhere I went. Just a derby kid with a skin condition, itchy and sheds too much. Like the stray cat you never knew you wanted. As I got older, the dandruff got significantly worse.

Like gross and worse. It wasn't so much the powdery flakes that one associates with the dandrifts, but like chunks of my scalp, it felt like I was scraping out with my fingernails. I won't lie, it was a little satisfying when I felt the little lump of flesh push into my nail. I felt at least some degree of relief from the constant itch. But yeah, being that I was in eighth grade, this really wasn't any kind of improvement. If anything, it made me more repulsive to the other kids. But more importantly, and why my mother insists my condition had improved, it allowed for an

alteration in the story that gave me some social reprieve. Okay, maybe not reprieve because they tortured me in different ways for this story, but it provided me with a niche and at least a half-assed support system. We played it off as an anxiety disorder, which manifested itself physically in the nervous tick of itching my scalp. And hey, I was only a little bit more than that. a teenager, I'd at least learned to it somewhat more discreetly, not like a barbaric toddler anymore.

And so my itchy, awkward youth dragged onward. The good news, I was a moderately attractive young lady, so it certainly could have been more difficult. I managed to maintain two very close friends and enough acquaintances who accepted me for what they knew of me. And I was promised, on my 16th birthday, I would be so beautiful. No one would even remember I'd ever scratched my head. So I stayed more focused on that than the whole, you're also gonna off someone that night, bit.

As my sweet 16 drew closer, my scalp only got worse and itchier though. In the weeks leading up to it, I could hardly fall asleep. Sure, partly from the excitement of impending murder, but mostly because the second I would lay my head on my pillow, it would become unfathomably itchy. Now, I'm sure you've felt something like this at some point in your life. Maybe a few days since you did more than dry shampoo your hair, it's been in braids for three days, and when you finally pull it down to sleep, it gets wildly itchy.

Like, somebody dunked you head first into a bucket of ants, and they're barreling over one another to run their millions of tiny legs over your scalp, and you've got mittens taped over your nails. Factor in almost a decade of itching that scalp. It was indescribably sensitive, and it was driving me off the deep end. Itchy all damn day, then so overwhelmingly so at night, kicking around restlessly, desperate for mourning, for just the smallest distraction from the incessant itch roaming the inside of my skull.

I fully expected night after night to wake up to the following morning in a psych ward, looped out of my mind on whatever cocktail of drugs makes a person stop hallucinating that their scalp is covered in ants. But, night after night, my mother hushed me with promises that it would all be over soon. Just a few more weeks, a few more days, just wait until you're sweet 16 and you won't want to scratch anymore. It'll all be okay if you just wait. So I did. Are you kidding me? Come on.

Obviously, no, I did not just listen to my mother and have everything go according to plan. I thought I had it all figured out. She'd instructed me that night that I was not to wash my hair no matter how bad the itching got. And no matter how desperately I might want to, she said it needs. to wait until morning. So I figured, well, I wouldn't wash my hair that night. I'd simply run some water through it. Normally I'd shampoo it and really massage some tea tree oil into it. That usually tended to help at least somewhat. I knew I should just go to sleep like she told me to, but it was just some cool water to soothe the irritated flesh. I couldn't resist. This was learning, mother.

Others always right, but ten times worse and more frustrating, and dangerous, I guess. I immediately knew that something was wrong. The second the water touched my scalp, it became itchier than in all the years of my life to that point combined. I felt like the ants were in my scalp, and trying desperately with microscopic razor-sharp teeth to chew their way out. My hands instinctively flew up to clutch at my scalp, roaming over it, feeling for these millions of ants as though I could force the itch away by smushing them all. And that's when my stomach did a backflip, and I started screaming in earnest. I could feel

them crawling over my hands now. And those fuckers were fast, and there were more of them than I had even fathomed. When I pulled my hands away to inspect them and confirm my awful fear, I saw something even more horrifying, then had a million ants come pouring out of my hair follicles in streams of my own blood. Spiders. A torrent of tiny, translucent baby spiders were escaping from my scalp so quickly that they appeared to move in unison as they fled from my scalp down over my face. They moved in waves, swarming in separate directions, but I could feel each and every set of eight legs scurrying down the back of my neck, tangling through every strand of my hair, scuttling over my eyelashes. I screamed so hard I thought I'd surely pass out once the

scream ran out of air in my lungs to back it. But as I gasped for enough air to support another blood-curdling scream, I began to choke as the insects filled my mouth, my nose, my throat, my lungs. I kept gasping and coughing, trying like hell to scream and bling them away. But the more I flailed about, the more and more I inhaled, and the itch spread like wildfire. From my eyebrows to the back of my throat to the base of my lungs, inside my ear canals, behind my eyes, every inch of my body convulsed with this light, rapid, tickling sensation,

making an itch with no way to scratch getting worse with every second. And then I woke up. Mother was standing over me, her face inches from mine, A clear look of disdain slashed with furious disappointment. I was definitely in deep shit. But, to my surprise, as I blinked away the unexpected sleep, her face broke into a warm smile, and she hugged me. Hugged me like I was ten years old coming back from my first summer camp away.

The familiar smell of her perfume actually convinced me that it was. going to be all right. It was the morning of my sweet 16. The horrors of the night before drifted away like an awful nightmare, and I focused on the sweeping gown laid out on the bed in front of me. Today was my day, to be beautiful, cherished, celebrated, and finally no longer itchy. I danced on air, enjoying the very smell of the day I had waited so long to finally breathe. Even my hair seemed to naturally fall just so, now that I wasn't constantly running my fingers through it, trying to subtly terrorize my scalp. But, of course, I had known through my whole blissful morning that Mother would sit me down

for yet another talk that I would have been thrilled to live with me. Without. Warm hug aside, I knew I had made a mistake and we had to discuss the fucking spiders that I would so happily have burned from my memory. So I think the most prevalent piece of information she divulged to me just a wee smidge too late is the fact that my family has a hereditary disease genetically specific to females. Doesn't skip generations, hasn't been recognized by doctors as anything beyond mental illness, which, if I'm being honest, I think it's entirely reasonable to experience a mental illness as a side effect if you have spiders under your scalp, but shit gets really complicated when they're not actually hallucinations. Never thought hallucinating

spiders under my skin would be the preferable option in anything. Being that I had apparently already made a grave error, was exemplified by one of my most horrific fears. coming to fruition, mother didn't waste much time explaining to me how the disease should have progressed under ordinary circumstances. But the gist of it was that I was born with the infection, and that's why I was always scratching at my head, but the virus would otherwise remain latent until my 16th birthday. When the virus became active, I would have one chance to rid myself of it entirely by giving it to a boy of the same age. The exact same age, I mean, someone with my same birthday.

By transferring the virus to a male who is susceptible because of their birth date, I would stop the virus from infecting myself and any daughters I might have later in life. The idea was when the virus was mature, sunset of my 16th journey around the sun, I would kiss the boy, what a great first that would have been, and recognizing the boy's life to be the specific age to activate the virus, the spiders would hatch and flood into his mouth and nose and eyes and ears. The virus, being genetically specific to females, would die and take the male host with it, thus relieving me of the virus and the awful memory of someone like Kent being my first kiss. But none of that really matters or warrants any further explanation, unless I'm trying to save

a daughter of my own from this fate one day. When my mother sat me down this last time, it was to explain to me that the repercussions of hatching and drowning the spiderlings meant that I would remain infected until the day I was killed. Not the day I died, but the day I was killed. Someone or some thing had to actually kill us to rid us of this plague. Absently, I wondered then how old my mother was, how old all the women in my family were, and if anybody had actually ever been successful in this whole sacrificial passing of the disease, or if this was all a ploy, so I felt as though it was my fault, and that I had failed and must suffer with the rest of the generations of women who failed to stop the disease's progression.

The good news? Or, like, I guess, less shitty and tragic news? The disease presents asymptomatically. No more itchy scalp. Wasn't going to sprout another seven pairs of eyes or fangs or anything horrible. That was a really shitty consolation prize after finding out what my mother really is. What I really am, I guess. The rest of the night, my sweet 16 paled in comparison to the ornate ceremony we'd rehearsed for lighting my 16 candles. Okay, fine, shut up. I know it's the lamest part to sit through if you're not getting a candle.

Come on, it was my spotlight. I'd been dreaming of this since I was 10. And after how fucking absolutely terrifying the whole drowning in spiders, ordeal was, I think I deserved a little princess shit. There's something deeply enjoyable about watching everyone's faces twist in jealousy, boredom, and annoyance for the whim of me hearing myself talk and lighting candles. Stupid, but a display of power nonetheless. I enjoyed every second of it, up until the end where I was supposed to kiss Kent and rid myself of this place. plague. I felt a small pang of panic and looked down at my hands as I felt the failure

coursed through me. And I noticed a wee tiny baby spider floating from a web just above my hands. And I smiled at the little fellow. He was cute all by himself and not touching me. I looked up at Kent from under my lashes, knowing I had never looked this beautiful. and this was still going to be my first kiss. I tried to look sweet. My face immediately dropped when I noticed the repugnance in Kent's. I hardly had to listen to the cruel words pouring from Kent's mouth. His heaving and wretching made his feelings toward me quite clear.

I thought he was doing this to make fun of me. They were all in on it. They all fucking planned it from the start. But then I felt an itch at the back of my throat and tried to clear it. When I did, I saw why Kent was so repulsed. I coughed up four more baby spiders that were now scurrying hurriedly away from me. I know I should have been scared and screamed with Kent, but at least they weren't running toward my face this time.

And it was my sweet 16, and I looked so beautiful, and why did he have to be so mean about something I couldn't help. I started screaming all right, but I was screaming at him, not with him. I was furious. Furious I'd failed. Furious he didn't kiss me, furious he was now cowering away from me, furious that my sweet 16 was ruined. The louder I screamed, the more and more spiked.

came pouring out of my mouth, but they weren't just directed at Kent anymore. I was screaming at the top of my lungs, whirling around to see the terrified faces of my candle recipients, and watching as the nests of spiders devoured them from the inside out. As my screams began to wane off into whimpers, the spiders moved furiously over the 16 closest people to me. Okay, fine. No, my family is fine. My 16 closest friends, I should say, the people who didn't roll their eyes through the ceremony. I watched in horror as each of their bodies swelled to a deformed, bloated replica of my friends and sank sloppily inward as their viscera were liquefied by the spiders. That's a gross way to die. Just.

saying. I expected the shock to wear off and be overwhelmed with guilt. I expected my mother to be furious. She was mad. Don't get me wrong. But she was kind enough to not pounce on me about it till we got home. I expected to feel scared because of what I'd just done without even meaning to. I expected a lot more repercussions for 16 corpses littering the hall we'd rented for the party. I expected having to explain a lot to the rest of the people who didn't just get eaten alive. But as I looked around me, the party still seated at their tables from the ceremony. It's like they were still waiting for it to begin. Like it hadn't just watched their worst nightmares come to life and devour their friends from the inside out.

So as I looked around the room, I wasn't feeling remorseful or disgusted. I was feeling satisfied to have watched the faces of the only people in the room enjoying that candle ceremony turned to fear as they disappeared. It was the same kind of enjoyment and fulfilling power I felt reigning over the stupid candle lighting ceremony. And I already missed that feeling. And that brings us just about up to date. My family thinks I have anger issues and that. I should feel badly for getting so out of control. We had to skip town after the story hit the papers.

I do feel badly for that. That was home, after all. Oh, more fun stuff. The disease manifests differently and more severely in every generation, which is why they were so desperate to break it. You'd think they'd have mentioned this beforehand, right? So that should be a good time to progressively morph into what, more of a monster than I already am. Ah, even better? Turns out every female infected gets pregnant

with a daughter of their own at 21. Didn't really want to hear the details on that freak show yet, honestly. I'm still caught up in the bullshit where I'm suddenly a murderer when they knew damn well that the disease would infect me in a new and profoundly more disturbing way that they couldn't predict. I'm just throwing it out there that I would expect a little more understanding from people who still know more about this than I do. Whatever. So, things aren't pretty grim right about now. Not a whole lot to look forward to. Oh, but apparently none of the other girls has done the killing spree for their sweet 16, so I got that going for me.

I guess I'll write more when the infection really takes hold. I wonder what can really kill it in the end, since there's so many generations of infected women still alive to help me. For more information, including pictures and videos of the stories told on this podcast, please visit creepypod.com. If you'd like to submit a story for consideration or recommend a story, please see our submission page at creepypod.com slash submissions.

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