Creepy - Day 15 - Running from the Dead & My Last Hitchhiker

Episode Date: October 15, 2023

Running from the Dead***Narrated by: Joe Stofko***https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/***Bonus episode: "My Last Hitchhiker"***https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/***Sound design by: Pacific Obadiah***Title music by: Alex Aldea Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Joe. Joe. You need to press the... You need to press the button if you want to talk. We've gone over this. Joe. Joe. Joe, I love you.

You're our elder statesman. But I swear, if you mess this up, I'll add a stoop of you like in Midsamar. Joe? Just tell the story, Joe. No. This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing The most famous chilling and disturbing creepypastas and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened or are simply fabrications is for you to decide.

These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. The 31 Days of Horror Day 15 Running from the Dead Narrated by Josephco Every morning my grandfather would wake up Pour himself a cup of coffee

And walk over the half miles down the road to the local church Behind the church was a small cemetery He'd walk up to one of the benches with his newspaper, sit down and quietly read the paper out loud. After about an hour, he'd walk home and go about the rest of his day, puttering around his shed or garden. Sometimes he'd stop in at his old job to say hi and volunteer a little time. My grandfather was Corporal Emmett Crenshaw,

one of the last surviving veterans of World War I. The Great War, they called it. Nothing great about it. He actually died February 26th, the day before Frank Buckles, the last surviving American World War I veteran, almost a full year before Florence Green, who was the very last surviving veteran of that war. He was 109 years old at his passing,

and he fought the Grim Reaper every step of the way, up until the day he went to. into hospice care, he did his morning walk to the graveyard, paper in hand. When he died, his eyes were wide open. Some old-timers, when they start getting up there and stuff starts breaking down faster than it gets fixed, they sort of acknowledge the constant trudge of time and resign themselves to the grave. But not cramps, no, not cramps.

He minced no words when it came to his thoughts on death. It scared the shit out of him. See, he was a part of the attack of the dead men. He was on the German side. Now, before you all get your assholes in a pucker, first, I'd like you to take a real good look at your family lineage before throwing stones. And second, my family came from Austria,

and my grandfather didn't have any say when the war machine came calling, not if he cared at all about what would happen to him and his family should he refuse. People these days get so caught up with this right side of history shit that they forget some people are just victims and pawns in it all. Yeah, people like to talk about their respect for soldiers and veterans and walk around with their open carry pistols and act like they served in the mud and sand. But they're just posers who don't think twice

about the actual lasting pain that war has on people. They just want to daydream about being heroes. I saw that lasting pain on my grandfather's face for as long as I could remember. Most of the time when he wasn't. wasn't working in the foundry, he'd be sitting in his chair watching wrestling, and God helped the poor soul who tried to convince him that wrestling was fake. His story about that battle never changed one word no matter how many times he'd tell it. Some soldiers never talk about their

time in the service. He was afraid of it enough that he couldn't pretend it never happened. On August 6th, 1915, my grandpa took part in the battle at Achevi, a fortress, a battle that became known as the attack of the dead men. The fort's location was a critical tactical position in Poland, surrounded by swampland, which meant going through the fort was the only way to pass. The Allied Tower was defending a railway and the main road, so whoever had control, of the fortress also had power over the flow of weaponry and medical supplies. Back then, before the Geneva Convention, chemical warfare was just a part of it. Not saying it's an excuse, just a cruel reality.

Back then, the Germans launched a mix of bromine and chlorine gas. By itself, bromine will irritate the lungs, but when you come from, combine it with chlorine gas, things turn deadly. Basically, it turns into an acid you inhale. That also sticks to your lungs and starts to eat through your body from the inside out. The lung tissue dissolves with each breath you take. It can kill you in minutes, painfully. While history would remember the horrors of chemical warfare in the trenches, it was still relatively new on the battlefield. The Germans knew the Russian and Polish soldiers didn't have gas masks, so they started launching the canisters. The battle had been going on for 190 days when the

call came down. When the Germans released the gas, everything in the combat zone began to change. Over 30 gas batteries containing thousands of cylinders of the gas led out a thick green cloud. The grass turned black as the gas slowly made its way to the tower and trees yellowed as their leaves curled up. A deep green chlorine oxide coated anything copper, including guns, shell parts, and vehicles. It looked like a biblical plague had come.

In less than ten minutes, the gas was upon the unsuspecting soldiers. Russian and Polish soldiers scrambled to find anything they could keep from inhaling the toxic fumes. They tried using water-soaked rags, but the siege has taken most of their supplies. In desperation, they used their own urine to soak the cloth for improvised masks. It made almost no difference as soldiers coughed. up chunks of their insides as the gas melted away at their skin and eyes. When the German soldiers moved forward, they thought they'd find a mass grave, but instead they met men still alive, foaming at the mouth and spitting up chunks of lung

tissue. The chemical burns ate the soldiers from the inside out, and to the Germans, my grandpa included, it looked like they were being attacked by things from beyond the grave. They could barely stand, and their breathing was painful and ragged. Only around 100 soldiers were still alive, if you could even call it that, and instead of surrendering, they charged the 7,000 German soldiers who approached the fort. Their numbers didn't mean much in the face of that kind of horror. There was no way any of those boys could have been prepared were what they saw, and in fact they were completely horrified by it and started to fall back. The Germans turned tail and ran so fast they didn't even bother to hold on to their guns.

They ran into their own wire traps and suffered severe casualties. The Russians fired at the retreating enemies, and soon they'd retaken the land and successfully repelled the Germans against seemingly impossible odds. None of the Russian soldiers exposed to high levels of gas survived. Grandpa said after their encounter with the dead men, the Germans reportedly fell back and told tales of zombie-like Russians impervious to life-threatening gas. Some men supposedly tried to defect or go AWOL, not willing to risk running into anything like that again.

Others were so traumatized by what they saw, saw what the gas had done to those men, that they risked execution over having to see it again. Grandpa had been shot in the leg during their retreat. He wasn't discharged, but he was moved to a rear position to work in the supply lines. He said the other men treated him different when they found out where he'd been and what he'd seen. Most soldiers who died in World War I were buried where they fell, so there wasn't much need for transporting corpses. But he said he volunteered at the medical tents when he could.

He'd seen a different side of death, and he'd silently move and transport dead bodies without complaint. You can say whatever you want about it now, looking back on things about chemistry or biology, or even human will, to explain the soldiers that survived the gas and continued fighting. But you would never convince Grandpa of that. He saw death differently.

When he returned home, his own family was scared of him. He was quiet, eventually convincing him to immigrate to the United States, where he had my dad and his brothers not long after settling down and meeting grandma. not sure that there was a job he was more meant for than Undertaker, so that's what he became. By all accounts, he was good at his job, and to this day you could call it the family business. I have nothing to do with it, but our family name appears on almost two dozen funeral homes around the country. supposedly Gramps was a consummate professional, with the utmost respect for death, and the people who were still alive to deal with it.

We never talked about it, but rumors were that when he had prepared a body for service, he used to whisper to it. I wasn't there to hear it, so take it as you will, but family said that he used to apologize to the dead. think some people thought he said stuff like that because he was sorry that they had to pass away and leave their loved ones behind. But I think it was his way of apologizing to the dead men he had tried to attack all those years ago when he was still a boy. I think he was afraid every day of his life that they would come back for him and working with the dead was his penance.

Maybe he worked with the dead so much, trying to disprove what he believed he'd seen with his own eyes, or maybe he desperately wanted it to be true. To know he hadn't been scared his entire life for no reason. Every few years, Gramps would come across an open grave, freshly dug out, and rush home, as fast as he could. He wouldn't call the police. He'd go straight to his liquor cabinet for some of the same. whiskey. Grandma said he wouldn't tell her what happened right away. He'd just mumbled to himself. Over the years she grew to recognize the pattern. In reality, it was grave robbers. As strange as that

might sound now, it does still happen from time to time, and the little cemetery he'd like to sit in was a good target. Away from people, old graves, less chance of being caught. thought. Grandma would remind him of that simple truth, and they could call the authorities together. Gramps would nod his head, tell her he knew, but she knew what he really thought. I felt sorry for him, going through his life, having to see what he saw, and be haunted by it no matter what he did to try to cure the trauma himself. That's why I didn't, and still don't know how to do it. to feel when I got word from dad that one morning a caretaker from the graveyard had called

to tell him that grandpa's grave had been robbed. For all his fear, and all his time working at the funeral home, he'd refused to be cremated. I knew he didn't have anything special. He'd left his old uniform back in Austria. Then they explained that I misunderstood. It wasn't that something was stolen. It was that my grandfather's body was gone, and it looked like there were claw marks on top of the casket lid,

and footprints leading away from the hole. For your bonus episode, creepy presents, my last hitchhiker. I'd been driving long haul for a few years when I met him. Didn't take long for the company

to figure out that I was the guy for just about any route. I wasn't picky. I had things going on at home that I really didn't want to be around for, so it didn't make much difference to me where they needed me. You need me for the million-dollar highway? Good old highway 550 in Colorado. Sure.

Georgia's I-285? I'm your man. If my company had routes up to Dalton Highway in Alaska, I'd have done that in a heartbeat. Back then I could get on with the loneliness of the road pretty good. Now it's a requirement. I drive alone. No exceptions.

Generally, the rule is that drivers aren't allowed to pick up hitchhikers, but it happens. Someone want to rest for a few miles? Maybe someone working. Lot lizards and that sort. Most of the time I avoid all that stuff. I don't have any intention to picking up anything that I can't drop off when the route's done, if you know what I mean. Some dudes look like they're packing a crunch bar in their pants after a few decades of roadies.

That didn't be me. So I can't give you a good reason why I let him into my cab. I had to pull over on a stretch of I-15, a route that it quickly turned into my unofficial route when it got passed up by everyone else. runs all the way from Southern Cali to Jacksonville, Florida and there's 150 miles stretch in there where you're driving through the desert that people get distracted or start driving too fast.

About 85 truckers a year die there. It's about 1 a.m. and I'd just finish my check. The only light out there besides my running lights where the flare I'd pop just in case a driver came along. I knew no one would, but better safe than sorry. It was in that dull, dying light of the flare that I first saw him, walking up on me in the darkness. Backpack slung over his shoulder, long hair hanging in front of his face as he looked down at his feet. He didn't say anything to me as he walked up.

I think it was out of reflex or maybe just fear that I wanted to say something to break the tension. So I asked if he was okay. He stopped walking as soon as I said that. He was next to the flare, and I could see him as well as I'd be able to on a moonless night. He looked youngish, maybe 30 at most. From his clothes in general appearance, I'd have thought he was homeless or unhoused or whatever you call drifters now. But I couldn't imagine anyone voluntarily walk in that stretch of highway, even by mistake. I didn't remember driving by a broken-down car.

We were far enough from anything that I... I don't know. Maybe I felt sorry for him. Any other time, you leave someone alone on that stretch of road and they're as good as dead come sunrise. Must have been empathy as much as fear. That wasn't going to tell anyone about it. I'd drive him a bit down the road and drop him off somewhere

you'd have a better chance. I'd keep a 45 and a concealed holster into the dash on the driver's side. It's loaded, against regulations, but when you drive the roads I do, the last thing you want to be is broken down with no protection. I don't know too many truckers without a story about wanting a gun and not having one. Kind of a perfect storm for me to be okay with giving him a ride, I guess. A guy didn't answer me, and I wondered how messed up you might be. That time of year, the temps could hit 120 in the day.

and still hang around 95 at night. I'd started sweating within minutes outside my air conditioning. I asked if he needed water and he shook his head. So I asked if he needed some help. Could I give him a ride somewhere? To that, he just shrugged. I suppose he wasn't sure if I could get him where he wanted to go. Well, maybe he was just as nervous about me as I was of him.

Now they were at least six inches taller and damn near 50 pounds heavier in that wisp of a kid. I told him I could give him a ride down the road if you wanted. But I had no intention to arguing if he said he was fine. When he started walking again, I thought he'd ignored my offer. But his route changed, and he walked around to the passenger door of the truck. I hurried to my side, and as soon as I opened the door, I saw him already sitting there. I hadn't even heard him open or close the door. We drove down the road of ways in silence.

The only thing I could think to ask was where he was going, trying to figure out a good time to drop him off. Wasn't that I was scared of the guy. He just gave off a weird vibe. Maybe he was strung out or hit a few screws loose. Even then, I wasn't the guy who could just let him wander off into the desert without at least offering help. I feel a little different about that now.

He never looked up. Just had his head down. No way he could know where we were or how far he had left to go. But he said, Soon. I'm almost there. There weren't any towns than 40 miles at that point.

So soon was in relative terms, I suppose. I sped up a little hope in the next town was a stop. I asked if he needed anything to eat or drink, but again he shook his head. We drove for another five minutes or so before he said anything else. And that was to ask me to slow down. That he'd get out there. It was still the middle of nowhere.

You couldn't even see lights from other towns. Nothing. If it went in the reach of my headlights, it didn't exist. Still, when I slowed down. Maybe he was going to set up camp. Who was I to argue? When I pulled to a stop, he looked out the side window towards desert and said it was a good place to stop.

I couldn't be sure at the moment, but he sounded happy, almost relieved. It has to be lived around there. If he was just camping, that's when he looked at me. I could just see his eyes and glow on my dashboard. They looked bloodshot. The skin on his face looked burnt and peeling away, like he'd been laying in the sun for days. He said he was going home.

Home. We weren't near anyone's home. When I told him as much, he started babbling nonsense. He said he couldn't remember how to get home. He'd laughed thinking was for the best, but that he missed it. That he couldn't get used to being away. Things were too complicated. Claimed he'd been all over the world trying to find his way back,

to feel like he was home again. He'd been looking everywhere. Andermatt, Switzerland, Munich, Germany, someplace in Serbia, Brighton, England, North Manchester Meeting House in Maine. Everywhere and anywhere he could think of that people talked about his father having been. He unclipped his backpack and took out a huge old book, like a prop you'd seen a Hollywood movie. Pages looked yellow.

The cover had a sort of weird texture to it, not quite leather. He said a monk had made it for his father, all 620 pages of it written in one night. that the monk even drew a picture of his father. But he didn't say father at that time. There was something else. What did he say? Oh, God, yeah. He must have mumbled it before.

Because that time I heard him clearly say, Father of Lies. And that his picture was in the books so no one would forget him. He pulled the page open with a horrible sort of peeling, tearing sound, flipping through as he counted out loud until he reached page 577 and turned it toward me, and that's when I knew the kid had to go. The picture he showed me looked like some kind of monster with its arms raised,

four clawed fingers on each hand, horns, and a green face with red sort of tusks hanging out. He had this content little son. smile as he put the book away and opened the cab door. Immediately I felt the heat roll into the cab, even with the AC blasting on full. I mean like oven hot. Even in the middle of the night I couldn't believe what I felt on my skin. But the kid, he looked like he was happy to step out into that inferno. As his feet hit the ground, he put his hand on the door to close it.

He looked at me with those red, bleary, eyes and told me, it's not as bad as anyone thinks it is. At one moment you think you hate it, then you realize you can't live without it. And right before he closed the door, he said, See you soon. Maybe you get it. I didn't. Not until later when I started looking up those places he told me about. The connection they all had. The book. The real is the realization. The real about what or where he was looking to go, or go back to. But I'll tell you this much.

I'm doing all I can to live a good life, so I never have to see that kid again. If I see you on the road looking for a ride, please don't think less of me if I don't slow down, especially if it's in the desert, and the air starts to feel like we're getting a little too close to hell. For more information on this podcast, including how to submit your own story for consideration,

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