Creepy - Day 19 - The Ash Collector

Episode Date: October 19, 2021

Feeding an urge...***Written by Amanda Cecelia Lang and narrated by Owen McCuen***Bonus: "The Right One" written by Mark Towse***Find our reward tiers at patreon.com/creepypod***You can also subscribe to us on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/creepypod***Sound Design by Pacific Obadiah***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.

Welcome to the bloody disgusting network. 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 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 The 31 Days of Horror. Day 19. The Ash Collector Written by Amanda Cecilia Lang and narrated by Owen McCune. As the Sagebrush County Coroner, I always looked forward to disposal night.

That was when the unclaimed cadars stored in my deep freeze were transferred to my crematorium. Even though the territory I served consisted of barren desert in one tiny town, the number of unclaimed dead had always been satisfyingly high. You see, the nearby interstate was a favorite hunting ground for the chrome-faced butcher. The killer, besides Breeder naturally alluding the bullets of the local authorities on two separate occasions, also had a talent for picking victims with no next of kin, the castaways, the lonely hearts. Every few months their corpses would wash up on the side of the interstate with the fast food wrappers and cigarette butts. Pretty girls with artistic wounds

and nobody anywhere to claim them. To me, a lonely creature myself, they felt like offerings. I wasn't a murderer. Working with the dead was as close as I'd come to feeding the year, slithering urges inside. But on those glorious mornings when the sheriff called me to a fresh crime scene, I always felt like a VIP. Heck, crossing into the spectacle of police tape and flashing red and blues was like finally gaining entrance to an elite after-party. And though the guest of honor had already departed, chrome face never failed to leave behind plenty of favors. Weapons still lodged inside bodies. Clothing shredded to streamers. Cause and manner of death were obvious in these cases. Sharp force trauma, homicide. But wow, did the instruments of destruction vary

spectacularly. Pig splitters, pitchforks, bolt cutters, even a bear trap once. Such genius. It was an honor to probe and catalog each victim's wounds, to fingerprint them, and ID them, and officiate their impressive demise. On those mornings, as I wheeled their dripping gurneys into my autopsy suite, and on disposal nights, of course, I liked to believe I was in league with old Chrome Face, a partner operating on the back end. Chrome Face created the masterpieces, and I curated them. Back then I kept Chromeface's victims on display at the back of my crematorium.

A stark violation of county policy which mandated all unclaimed cremains be buried en masse. Despite that, or maybe because of it, my private collection had me gleaming with pride. Thirteen silver urns at last count. One day soon, I fantasized. The killer would arrive to claim his trophies. and we would become great friends. Maybe not the type who went trout fishing or puffed cigars at the local girly bar or anything, unless chrome face was into that.

But ours would be the kind of rosy secret bond that lasted a lifetime. Chromeface and the ash collector. Oh, yes, I like the sound of that. Not that I truly expected my dreams to come true, mind you. But on what would become the best disposal night of my life, I was hard at work, adding three more masterworks to my collection, Bill Hook, Tent Spike, and Javelin. Those weren't their legal names.

Naturally, I'd forgotten those almost as soon as I'd released them to the press. As expected in these cases, there were no weeping parents, no heart-shattered fiancés. Any distant relatives I'd attempted to contact, never returned my calls, not that I went out of my way to follow up. The revolving door of state detectives and their goony forensic pathologists had exhausted their need for the remains, and now the mandatory 12-month sleepover inside my deep freeze had expired. Barely containing a cheese moon grin, I slicked the eager sweat from my

receding hairline, then slipped on my favorite long rubber apron. No wetwork, that night, the get-up was merely ceremonial. After all, every aspiring sidekick needed a snazzy trademark costume. Sucking in the gentle bulge of my stomach, I tied the apron strings securely and checked my dull reflection in the side of the freezer, like a school kid primping for a date. Nobody was ever going to call me a heart throb, but I hoped I looked appropriately macabre. As I pulled open the individual lockers and rolled the naked freezer-burnt beauties onto the gurneys, I indulged a shiver of nostalgia.

I would miss visiting these ones, running my ungloved fingers inside the intimate contours of their injuries, whispering to them in the abandoned hours of the night. Maybe it was silly, but sometimes when I pressed my mouth against their cold ears, I'd pretend that chrome face, wherever he was when he wasn't hunting, could hear me. It was always a relief to talk about the shadows looming between myself and the rest of humanity.

Like the lucky jars of spider legs I'd kept as a teenager, or the pocket tin of cadaver teeth I used to shake like a nervous rattlesnake all through med school. Somehow I felt certain chrome face would understand. It was never my attention to chase people away. they'd simply ran. All my fidgety weak-stomicked first dates, my holier than now-tall-tail peers, those narrow-eyed professors who suggested I aim low

and never work with living patients. Lucky for all of them. I'd long ago resolved myself to being alone with my dark intrigues. That is, until Chromeface's victims had rolled into my life, and I realized I had a kindred spirit somewhere out there, and oh, how I envied Chrome Face's ability to assert himself with such bravado.

Each new canvas came to me decorated in a frenzied flourish of stabs, slashes, gashes, gashes, and chops, the coagulated red autographs of a legend. Such stories they told. I found the defensive wounds, especially expressive. Practically all of Chromeface's victims had them, exquisite documentation of their desperate final moments. I could envision it all. The scraped knees as they ran and stumbled,

the abrasions on their elbows as they scurried backward across pavement, the split palms and severed fingers as they tried to fend off the nightmare. Whistling to myself, I wheeled the gurneys one by one by one, through the morgue's back door and across a moonlit walkway to the deceptively charming brick building beyond. Nothing else around for miles except desert grit and Joshua trees and the hard-baked ribbon of the interstate. Once the gurneys were lined up inside my crematorium,

first javelin, then tent spike, then bill hook. I propped the heavy steel security door open with a brick to let in a breeze. It violated county policy, but if someone wanted to come all the way out here for a peep, Who was I to deny them? My own instrument of destruction waited at the back of the large sterile room, a hungry black metal box with a smokestack and a corpse-sized loading hatch. On both sides of the cremation chamber, my silver urns lined the walls.

The polished surfaces reflected in new arrivals, bending the outlines of their cadavers into devious smiles. I smiled, too. Three empty urns waited on the nearer. by counter. With flamboyant flips of switches and twists of knobs, I ignited my furnace, preheating it to a toasty 1100 degrees. Then I stood back and appraised the exposed flash of the three victims with eager, incendiary eyes. To preserve the dignity of descendants, policy mandated that cadavers be placed inside a flimsy pine box that would burn around them. But that involved

sifting coffin nails from the cremains afterwards, it was far less cozy. I preferred having an intimate view of those pretty gaping wounds as I slid them into my pyre. The first, that night, was javelin. Female, brunette, five feet four inches, one hundred forty-three pounds with her organs intact. Lovely purple contusions and tiny crescent-shaped incised wounds decorated her neck. Those as well as the angle of the entry and exit wounds through her upper torso suggested chrome face had hoisted her by the throat before inserting his weapon.

The resulting wound track pierced her sternum, heart, then spine. The strength needed to accomplish such a feat was a savage miracle. Oh, to have been a fly on the corpse during that murder spree. Such a vision to behold! In fact, those rare cunning girls who saw the legend and lived told investigators he was relentlessly tall and muscular with a face of smooth, featureless chrome. They said he was uncanny and inhuman. They said he appeared like a phantom between the dust and the headlights and the streaking white lines on the highway. They said many things.

Heck, some even believed chrome face had died years earlier out on the interstate, the victim of a hit and run. They said he'd crawled into the surrounding desert with the motorist's shiny bumper still twisted around his skull. There, beneath the cold-bladed moonlight, he vowed to slaughter every unsuspecting soul who ventured alone along his road at night. And man, oh man, did I dig the sound of that, an immortal loner, hell-bent on inflicting endless revenge on the cruel, mocking world. Yes, please. Luckily, no cadaver's fitting chrome face's description had ever come through my autopsy suite. Not even after those spitfire deputies unloaded their guns into chrome face's retreating shadow. They swore the bullets had struck him.

Of course, they never located any blood trails. And although his victim's struggles usually ended with split and mangled fingernails, I never found any trace evidence of chrome face in my scrapings and swamens. for the lab, no hair, blood, saliva, not even clothing fibers. That wasn't to say discovering interesting debris on the victims was uncommon. A javelin, for instance, had arrived with loads of goodies embedded beneath her nails. Like the tiny crescent-shaped divvets she'd gouged from her own neck trying to pry chrome face's hand away. I detailed each stunning bit of flesh in my report. I always took great care with my findings, describing the finest of scratches and abrasions with the pen of a poet.

The state detectives were endlessly impressed with my thoroughness, and whenever their over-cocky pathologist nosed in, they failed to find even a single pinprick I hadn't already logged. Naturally, handing over my findings never felt like a betrayal because chrome face had proven himself a god beyond capture. While the cremation chamber finished preheating, I transferred javelin onto the conveyor and let my fingers say goodbye to her wounds. It was a shame such stimulating pieces as these were destined for the fire, like master paintings lost to history. But being a romantic, I preferred to see their transformation into ash as symbolic of something everlasting. These objects of fleeting carnal beauty connected me to chrome face

in a way that gave the night dimension. After the ashes settled, what remained was a brotherhood. Or perhaps I'm being overly purple, a habit in my profession, smoke and mirror phrasing to obscure the sharp force blows of death. Heck, even the concept of ashes

is a gentle lie. They aren't ashes at all. Take Javelin, for example, during her imminent cremation, the ruthless heat would incinerate every bit of her flesh, organs, and blood, before ushering her skyward through the smokestack. What would remain after my fire receded were naked, vulnerable bones brittle as relics. Next, I'd chop them up and sweep them up into another hungry little device, my crimulator. There, the bones thivers would be crushed and pulverized into dusty sand. Not ashes at all, but something so much more. Gritty, everlasting.

Just how I imagined my future with chrome face. I slid my fingers from javelin with a sweet shudder. How lucky she was to have met the legend in the flesh. I envied her even as I checked the temperature on my oven and rolled her into the hatch. Even as I watched through the viewing window as her eyelids crisped away. Had those same melting egg eyes widened in existential awe

when chrome face approached with his javelin? Oh, her cries must have gone from desperate pleas to thrashing mortal screams! Javelin wailed, a banshee's voice that ricocheted around the walls of the crematorium. Startled, I recoiled and looked back over my shoulder. Please, he's right behind me. It was a female, a live one.

Blue hair, tattoos, approximately five feet, eight inches tall, 125 pounds, with organs intact, though she appeared to be missing a respectable slice of her right shoulder. She staggered into the open entryway. For in a late instant, I wondered if she had come to view my collection. Then she spun and fumbled wildly with the security door, tugging on it with the full panic of her body weight, a delightful freak show of shaking hands and dripping mascara.

The door scraped inward, but my brick doorstop held the gap like a foot. I watched, fascinated, wondering if she would solve the dilemma in time. I glimpsed a flash of chrome out in the desert. With a wild cat scream, the girl kicked the brick into the night. Her autopsy would surely reveal an array of fractured toes. "'Does it lock?' she cried, pawing at the doorknob. automatically. I tilted my head, my heartbeat turning giddy. The question is, will it hold?

What? She didn't seem to be hearing me straight. You gotta listen, man. He's a monster. He's after me. You gotta call the cops. She staggered away from the entrance, then went rigid as her eyes caught the gurneys with Tenth Spike and Bill Hook. Tent Spike, with 33 distinct Stad wounds, was especially well-decorated. I studied the live one, anticipating an extravagant hysterical break. Her actual reaction was rather disappointing. Holy hell, you gotta be kidding me!

Her terror stalled momentarily on a scathing laugh of dark carnival irony. Of all the places along the highway, this is a fucking morgue? This was my calling. But before I could offer to show her the viewing window, a force like a Mack truck, struck the security door.

The metal bowed. The bricks lining the doorframe trembled and crumbled. Again and again. The live one shrieked and bolted for my wall of urns. Her shoulder laceration dribbled a pleasing bright red abstract across the tile floor. Tell me there's a back door. I shook my head. No phone either.

Oh, hell, oh God. She doubled over as if she might vomit and clawed at her hair. Fascinating. A split second later, she shot up, eyes like lunatic moons. Man, don't you stand there like a fucking freak? Baring her teeth, she shoved the gurneys recklessly toward the door, toppling them, creating a barrier of spayed legs and arms and desperation. Wouldn't be enough.

She grabbed the steel poker I used to crumble their well-cooked skeletons. Then she herself crumbled. She dropped into a fetal crouch against the side of my blazing cremation chamber and readied the poker with her good arm. It shook feebly. One by one the hinges on the doors popped like knuckles. This can't be happening. I want to wake up.

Her voice was devolving into feral, nasal moans, the kind of riveting first-hand detail, autopsies never uncovered. Just let me wait. Ironic words, you see, since I was the one living the dream, I'll take fine care of you, I promised as the door clanged inward.

The chrome-faced butcher had to duck to fit through the doorframe. A brute of midnight leather and gleaming heavy metal flourishes, he radiated fury and artistry, just like I always knew he would. Magnificent! Though the mask plate covering his face had no eye-holes, the chrome was polished to mirror-like perfection and reflected the crematorium with surgical sharpness. Hastily, I finger-combed my sweat-greased hair and straightened the edge of my apron.

"' Geez, I sure hope I looked menacing enough. "'Standing in the presence of such unbridled greatness, "'I felt suddenly underdressed. "'The moment was a whirlwind. "'Crom-faced crashed past the gurneys, "'sending tent-spike and bill-hook, pinwheeling to the side, "'too focused on his latest creation to admire old masterpieces. "'Behind me, the live-one's moans had choked to silence.

As Chrome Face angled for her, I reached back and pried the poker from her petrified fingers. I held it out before me, and with an awkward croaking frog in my throat, I said, I heard through the grapevine you love sharp forest objects. Delicately, I flipped the poker and extended the handle to him. I'd be honored if you used one of mine. chrome face paused mid-stride possibly nothing like this had ever happened before i saw myself reflected in the chrome a blushing and balding boy wonder framed by a portal of fire my collection of silver urns floated on the periphery like spider eyes with a hand gloved in leather and glisting blood chrome face accepted the poker i stepped sideways and extended my hand to offer up the live one so you can have I imagine my surprise when chrome face seized my upper arm with a superhuman grip.

A crunch, a hideous pot, then my humorous tore from the socket. Rapturous, white, hot agony erupted through my arm and shoulder. Chromeface leaned in close with his shiny faceplate and raised the poker to the level of my throat. I saw the glinting tip reflected in my own widening eyes, and my veins went cold with a nameless awe. behind me, reflected in Chrome, the live one stood, taking the opportunity to dash for the exit. With apex reflexes, chrome face hurtled me against my wall of urns, then caught her blue hair with his fist. Everything, a whirlwind. Earns crashed down in explosions of ash, the crematorium filled with a dusty haze and ear-splitting shrieks. It was exquisite.

it. Chromeface yanked the live one close. Her bulging eyes hung inches from his mask plate as he drove the poker home. Yet I barely noticed the point of entry. The surreal, gaping terror as the girl watched herself die. That was the spectacle to behold. She stared into the portal of her own eyes, a gallery of tragedy, of pains and regrets, and ambitions. Every cruel, ugly thing the world ever did to her, every hopeful, courageous thing she would never become. All of it skewered, devastated, obliterated, gurgling, tears wetting her face. She watched it all fade.

A final pulse beat later, her body hit the floor. Then Chrome Face turned his bulbous, genius head to regard me. And believe you, me, every lung in the crematorium held silent. Before I could commend his artistry, chrome face stormed me through the ashes, scrambling. I reached for the closest urn and held it in front of my face. I kept them for you, I rasped, so starstruck I wasn't certain I was making sound. I read the engraving on the urn. You did, you did this one with a bone saw.

Chrome face paused. He leaned in close with a gleam and a tilt of curiosity. The urn reflected his faceplate, and the faceplate reflected the urn, and somewhere in that endless hall of mirrors, our grisly souls sparked. Chrome face and the ash collector. United, at last. I whispered. Crom-face knocked the urn aside.

Then he grabbed my disjointed arm and man-handled me up to my feet. Resplendent pain stabbed through my shoulder, a cherished memento of that night which I've carried with me for all my days. With a single, rough yet gentle stroke of his hand, chrome-faced dusted the ashes from my shoulder. For several raging, eternal heartbeats,

we simply stood there admiring one another. Two lovely, lonely monsters born to walk behind the shadows of humanity, born to celebrate the messy surrealism of death. Chrome face nodded once. I offered up a bursting, gleeful salute. Then the legend turned and tromped back into the night. an immortal vision of passion and rampage off to add more pieces to our collection

For your bonus episode Creepy presents The Right One Written by Mark Tows Bubbling blood-filled screams surround us As the permeance of flesh tearing Limbs snapping sounds bore their way through into my mind This is hell.

This is what he promised. The barn groans as the wind howls outside. But no gust, no matter how strong, can claim to move the wood in such a way. My father built this place. Was there a hurricane and an attempt to burn it down. No. This place is crying for the victims. undoubtedly a virgin to such horrors that are happening up those steps.

My parents and older brothers sit huddled on the couch opposite, pleading and sobbing. I clench the handle of the knife tightly, wishing it all to be over with. Thunder crashes around us. Instantaneous lightning basks the room in paleness and highlights further the blood that spills down the the walls. I watch two viscous drops of red slowly making their way down the window pane. My money is on the one on the right. My mind provides a flashback of Father's car and the long journey spent laying across

the backseat watching the trees sliding by. Warm and sleepy. Sometimes struggling to keep my eyes open. I used to bet on which raindrops would make it down the window. first. I always chose the one on the right, what creatures of habit we are. The canopy gradually thickened as we approached our destination, in my mind projected images of what might be concealed behind the tree line. It was the same beast that visited me in my sleep when I was younger, a carnivorous creature, half human, half beast, panting its smoky breath and standing its smoky breath and

sniffing the air for the smell of human flesh. It had long, spindly legs, a sinewy body covered in sharp black hairs, an elongated mouth full of razor-sharp teeth. Sometimes, I even thought I saw its red eyes flashing in and out of the woody darkness. For safety, the location of the camp would change frequently, what was usually a large clearing in the forest, packed with around 40 pence of all different shapes and sizes.

People were dressed in white robes and smiles. And from the very first gathering we attended, they made us feel like royalty, nothing too much trouble. The whole thing stifled me immediately, made the hairs prickle on the back of my neck, and gave me an icky feeling in the stomach. Just like the first time I stepped into a church,

I remember that first night at camp when the moon came up. We began to gather in front of the small stage area. People began to pray, and mom and dad were keen to join in. My brother reluctantly so. I just watched, nervously waiting for this figure of worship to emerge. As soon as the microphone gave its initial squeal, anticipation gave rise to a wave of nervous laughter and chatter. and then old blue eyes swaggered onto the stage.

David Weber. The explosion above the house makes me jump. This dark lightning exposes my family's terror-stricken faces. There's a disconnect as we make eye contact, though. I don't feel like I know I should. My brother was a tag-along like me. He was reluctant at first but finally succumbed to being just another pawn. like the others.

Mother and father, however, became smitten with David immediately, hypnotized by charisma and irrepressible zest for life. It's easy to understand his appeal. My parents are underachievers, weak, God-fearing people, dwelling in their failures and insecurities. My mother was the worst,

giving out regular beatings and telling us they were sent from the Lord, while my father stood sheepishly in the corner watching. As soon as David placed his hand on my shoulder that first night, though, I knew he wasn't who he claimed to be. He crouched next to me and whispered in my ear, You can smell it, can't you? All the cold lights up the room, just in time for me to see a thick splatter of crimson splash across my brother's cheek.

I expect him to start sobbing, but he bites into his lip and screws his eyes tightly shut. The shallow cries and whimpers continue from above, less frequent and with resigned perfunctory. He's getting through them quickly. I can hear him hungrily chewing through body parts, and there's the occasional sucking sound as though he's leaving no flesh on the bone. Soon, he will come downstairs. Everybody loved David. He was everything they weren't. Collected, self-confident, and with unparalleled inner strength.

David knocked on our door one day and promised my parents' guidance. A path to serenity in the end of the fucking rainbow. He said he could take them closer to God than any church could. The camp seemed above board at first. prayer groups, work-sharing, and late nights around the campfire singing hymns to badly played guitars into the early hours. But over time, he slowly indoctrinated people into his systematic beliefs. The drugs started soon after. And before long, they were even weaker than before.

Drifter is floating on his every word. People used to travel for miles. belongings and kids shoved into the back of cars chasing this so-called utopia promised by strangers at the door. The camp became overcrowded quickly.

My father was a builder before he gave his life away. He built this barn for David as a bigger venue for the prayer group. We had a big opening celebration and David blessed the building. Things carried on as normal for a while until folks in town got word of a cult

and tried to burn the place down. Strangest thing, though. The place wouldn't burn. There was a ring of charred grass around the building, but not one board so much as charred. And then we had the hurricane, took most of the town with it, but not this place.

His disciples became more and more brainwashed over time, devoted and eager to please, Classes became more frequent, and many hours a day were spent praying. He added special adult sessions a few days of the week. I sneaked a look through the small gap in the barn door one day and saw them all naked and writhing against each other on a blanket of white robes. David was stood at the makeshift altar, when Mom and Dad took turns in pleasuring him.

He waved at me. The noise is beginning to dampen upstairs now. It's nearly time. My family's shivering on the couch opposite. Stringy saliva and snot dripping from their vile holes. They're so damn weak. I turned my attention upstairs and see him leaning against a banister in all his glory. A smile stretched across this wolf-like face.

muscles throb with adrenaline under the coarse black hair And his serrated teeth are stained with the blood of his disciples His red eyes still look hungry This true form is magnificent And I much prefer him this way He's promised me power That one day I can be like him He jumps down to the center of the room

and begins the saunter, hoves clopping ominously towards my family. He knew I was the right one. That's why we were the only ones to get a personal visit. He'd been watching me for some time, even visiting my dreams on occasion, which explains a lot. His disciples were sent to recruit the others, wasters convincing other wasters to jump on promises and the chance. of a new life and like someone fattening up a turkey for Christmas, David fed them goodness until they were stuffed full of it.

It made the meal even sweeter and was one in the eye for God at the same time. I used to wonder why he never ate. He would just sit there smiling through dinner. That takes real commitment, real strength, steving off appetite for the big. day. The rest of us ate like kings and queens, unless we accidentally orated one of our old names, in which case we would be locked away for the day without food. David took me under his wing. Not like the others, though. I could see his true evil, and he could see mine. He saw the hatred that I harbored for my God-fearing family. For the weakness.

they represented. And on only the second day, he told me his plans. And I want it in. And I suppose this is judgment day for me. Which, he growls. Fear pours for me to them in abundance as I study them one by one. David says if you concentrate, you can smell it, even absorb it. But I guess I will learn over time.

My eyes pass from my father to my mother and then to my brother. The one on the right, I say. He grabs my brother by the arm and escorts him across. There's no kicking or screaming, just whimpers and a damp patch extending across his green pants. As I look my brother in the eye, something registers deep within me. But I write it off as pity over anything else.

Perhaps that's why I chose him first. No, that's not true. It was just habit. David holds my brother's head back, exposing the smooth flesh underneath. I ready myself. And in it goes. The knife gets stuck halfway.

I think I might have gone. a wrong. He's choking and wheezing, blood spraying across my face, some of it entering through my open mouth. The taste, it is not unpleasant, sweeter than I ever remember it being. Drink, David commands. And while my brother's choking and clawing at his throat, I lap greedily and obediently at the blood spilling down his neck. David gets to work on the flesh, grinding his bones so as to not waste a single mouth full of meat. Wait, he says. I watch mesmerized as the smoky haze begins to drift towards the ceiling.

The same sucking noise begins. And I turn to David to see his eyes closed and breathing in deep. deeply. He inhales the mist as though it's fresh air, not the soul of my dead brother. We can't let him have it, can we? He says. We continue the meal until my brother is just a puddle of flesh and bone. My mother is next. She's putting up a good fight. Throw out all it choking and screaming. I feel nothing. Only relief

when she finally ceases. Father goes easy. Such a weak man. Well done. David says, smiling his cheesy grin. He's back to human form and patting me on the shoulder as though I've just caught my first fish.

We walk out the doors together with his hand. still on my shoulder. I think of him as my new father now, a proper role model. He clicks his fingers, and the building that they couldn't burn catches a light. It gives off a tremendous whoosh as the flames dance across its bones, as though emitting a sigh of relief to be lifted from the curse and all the bloodshed. My father blessed this building once.

How weak he was! We need to recruit, he says. For even more from creepy, including how to submit your own story for consideration, please visit creepypod.com. You can also follow us at creepypod on social media and YouTube. All stories told on this podcast are used under license and may not be rebroadcast or distributed without the express prior written consent of the story's author. Please contact us at creepypod at gmail.com

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