Creepy - Day 19 - The Skeleton Boy & The Hollow Man

Episode Date: October 19, 2025

The Skeleton Boy***Written by: Jackson Arthur and Narrated by: JV Hampton-VanSant***The Hollow Man***https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/***Support the sow at patreon.com/creepypod***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.

Creepy presents the 31 days of horror. Day 19. This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepy pastures and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened or our simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. Good afternoon, J.V. How are you feeling today?

Not great. I can't shake my dream from last night. I see. Well, please feel free to share it when you're ready. Okay. It was about the skeleton boy. Mr. Shaw was babbling to the class about the Civil War, but I wasn't paying attention. I was daydreaming like I always did during history class. What do I care about a war that happened over a hundred years ago? How does that affect me? Unless I could suddenly time travel, what did it matter?

As my mind wandered, I glanced around the classroom. Everyone, including myself, was dressed in their costumes for Halloween. Town's trick-or-treat was later on after school, and most of the other kids were looking forward to it. But not me. I felt dumb. It all felt dumb. I was 13 years old, wearing a crappy superhero costume, one that my mom picked up from Walmart or Amazon or wherever.

I tried to get excited for Halloween like I used to. I wished that I could. I still loved candy, obviously. But there was something missing. I remembered trick-or-treating when I was younger, when I believed that ghosts and ghouls were real. Back then, when I went door-to-door in search of goodies, I would keep my eyes open for any real spirits that might be watching me, hiding in the shadows.

What would I do if I ever saw them? Would I run away or cry? On Halloween night, the souls of the dead were freed from their graves, or so I have been told. But that was silly. Ghosts weren't real. they didn't walk the earth on Halloween night or any other night of the year. I was old enough to know better. Ghosts were as real as Santa and the Easter Bunny.

And my love for Halloween was just another thing to leave in the past, like the Civil War. And I couldn't go back. Not without a time machine. Desperate for history class to be over. I glanced over at the room's door, wishing that I was going through it. In fact, I wished that the whole day was over, and I could just go home and play my Xbox. Maybe I would skip trick-or-treating. Maybe I was done with it for good.

My mom would always buy me whatever candy I wanted if I asked her. Amazon Prime might even do same-day delivery, bringing the candy to much. my door instead of the other way around. Something suddenly moved in the hallway outside the classroom door. I saw it through the door's little window. It looked like someone peeked into the room real quick and then ducked away. But it was too fast to be sure. I sat there staring for several seconds to see if it happened again.

then it did. The top of a bright white face appeared at the bottom of the window. I could see blue eyes looking around the room before meeting mine. The white face and blue eyes looked right at me, as if they had been specifically searching for me. I felt a chill on my neck. Who was that person? Did anyone else see them? Somehow, no one else in the class seemed to notice. They were still all listening to Mr. Shaw babble on and on about General Grant and the Battle of Shiloh. When the white face ducked away again, my legs acted on their own and pushed me up from my desk. Yes, Mr. Cooper?

Mr. Shaw asked. Is there something that I can do for you? I have to use the bathroom. I lied. After grabbing the restroom pass from his desk, I rushed out into the hallway. It was empty. No teachers, no other kids at their lockers, and no one with a white face. For the hundredth time in a single day,

I felt silly. Had I imagined the whole thing? Was I going crazy? Yes, I think so. But then I heard someone walking behind me, tiny feet on the tile. When I turned around, another kid stood at the other end of the hallway. From their size, they were nowhere near old enough to be in the junior high building. Did one of the younger kids wander over from the elementary?

They were wearing a little skeleton costume with a plastic white skull mask covering their face. There was something about the costume that seemed familiar, but I wasn't sure how or why. The little skeleton waved at me and giggled. It sounded like a little bit of a little bit. boy. I took a few steps toward them. Hello? I asked. Are you lost? They let out another creepy giggle. Trick or treat. The skeleton boy said, and then ran off into another hallway. Once again, my legs moved on their own, and I started chasing them.

Our shoes squeaked so loud, I was surprised when none of the teachers left from their classrooms to catch us in the act. We ran down two more short hallways until the tiny skeleton turned into the boy's bathroom. I was sweating, and my heart was pounding, but I went into the bathroom after them anyway. I guess that I didn't lie to Mr. Shaw after all. One of the bathroom lights flickered, like it always did. By the set of sinks underneath a flickering light stood the little skeleton. I started walking closer to them, and they didn't run away. There wasn't anywhere left to go.

When I got close, I realized that they were even smaller than I had first thought. Who are you? At first the blue eyes only stared at me. Who are you? I asked again. The skeleton boy grabbed the bottom of the skull mask and lifted it slowly. I knew the mouth. I knew the nose.

And I finally knew the blue eyes. I knew them because. they were mine. It was my face, but much, much younger. And I finally knew why the skeleton costume had looked so familiar, because it had been mine two years ago. I remember wearing it every night for a year after that Halloween until it finally fell apart. I cried so hard over that stupid costume. My mom tried to find me another one, but she couldn't find the same one,

so it wasn't good enough. Trick or treat. The skeleton boy said, again. The bathroom door was suddenly yanked open behind me, and I couldn't stop from turning around. Great costume, Mr. Cooper. Mr. Riley, my math teacher. said.

Captain America was always one of my favorites when I was your age, too. I ignored him and twisted back around to the sinks, but the skeleton boy was gone. Are you excited for Halloween? Mr. Riley asked. Ready to go trick-or-treating? Smiling, I nodded my head and said, Yeah, I can't wait. And I wasn't lying.

Not one bit. Okay, Doc, lay it on me. What was that all about? Javy, you noticed that no one else in your class saw the face at the door. Only you. That matters. Dreams often isolate us when they want to show us something personal. Something that belongs to us alone.

But what does the skeleton boy represent? Ah, yes, the skeleton boy. At first, he seems harmless, even playful. But when he lifts the mask, you realize it isn't just any child, it's you. A younger self dressed in the same costume you once loved. He isn't random. He's deliberate. He wanted you to see him.

He wanted me to see him? And when he says, trick or treat, think carefully. It's not just a child's chant. It's an ultimatum. A bargain. Either you give him something or he takes something. And in your dream, you didn't offer him candy. You offered him attention, recognition.

You let him remind you of. of who you were and maybe of what you've lost. Do you mean lost in my dream or in real life? I can't say for certain, but here's the part that intrigues me the most. The moment your teacher interrupts, the skeleton boy vanishes. Adults can't see him.

They only see you in your current mask, the superhero, the older kid, pretending to have outgrown the holiday. But that other you, the one in the skeleton costume? He doesn't go away. He just hides. He's waiting for the right moment to come back. So are you saying I'm just having dreams about missing Halloween?

Again, I can't say for certain, but I... Was this really just nostalgia for Halloween, or was it something else? A warning, a reminder that there's another version of you that doesn't want to stay buried. And if you ignore him for too long, he might not be satisfied with just saying, Trick or treat? I'm not sure what to say about all this. You don't have to say anything. These are just dream interpretations.

The goal and hope is to get you to look at and understand. understand your own dreaming patterns to break you from the cycle you all have found yourselves in. Let's hope that's sooner rather than later. Thank you, Doctor. See you later. What the hell is that? Who are you? Please take the recorder and press play.

You'll never get out of here unless you tell them your dream. Never. You will sit in this room until you die. They are the only ones who can help you. No one else knows you are here. You have no friends. You have no family. You only have them.

Tell them your dream or they won't help you. Then what's the point? No friends. No family? I stay in this room forever. But someone has to know me. Right? Someone has to miss me.

Unless, unless my dreams are telling me that I'm the hollow man. I've always carved my pumpkins the same way. Big knife, bigger smile, eyes too wide, nostrils flared. I told myself it was about expression, giving the inanimate some personality, a face, a voice. As a kid, I used to pretend the jackal lanterns were alive. And I needed to give it a face so it could breathe and live, which, Saying that out loud as an adult sounds a lot darker than I intended. The whole I have a mouth but I cannot scream thing.

Good story but that's not this story. Because this October I found a pumpkin that screamed back. Let me start from the beginning. On October 20th I was driving out of town, thinking about nothing in particular, just escaping the sprawl for a few hours, enjoying the freedom of being safe. single after a week at work where it seemed like the only thing anyone can talk about is their kids and asking when people who don't have kids are going to settle down. I ended up in a little farming stretch north anywhere you call it real city.

Pumpkin season was in full swing and roadside stalls littered at the edge of the highway. I wasn't planning on buying one, but there it was, a sign hand-painted on rotted plywood, reading simply Old Flesh Patch, you pick, you pay. The word flesh caught my attention. It should have said fruit or produce or at least fresh.

Maybe it was a Halloween joke. I settled on that and smiled to myself in appreciation. I turned off the road immediately. The patch was deserted. No owner, no kids, no pickup truck half loaded with hay, just rows of gnarled vines

tangled in a forgotten field. Every pumpkin looked wrong. Mischapen. Too dark like they'd grown out of shadow instead of soil. They sagged with their own weight like ignored tumors. One caught my eye. It was squat and wide, slumped to one side, and almost entirely black orange. A crack ran from the stem to the base sealed over like a scar.

I touched it. The rind was warm. but not sun warm from sitting out in a field, more like a soft, radiant sort of warmth you feel touching someone's arm. Hindsight being what it is, I should have left it. But in the moment, it was just a strange and kind of cool pumpkin that would stand out from all the others in the neighborhood. I picked it.

The next day at home, I set it on the dining room table, wiped it down, and stared at it for a long time. It was both lopsided and bulbous, almost so. looking like it had shoulders. The stem curled like a withered turkey neck. I traced my hand down the scar. My finger snagged on a small chip in the skin. A single seed fell out, which was weird.

I should have probably taken a moment to wonder about that. But I was already reaching for the knife. The first cut was strange. I always start with the lid, a neat circle around the stem, angled inward. But when I tried, the blade caught halfway through, like the skin was clenching. I had to press hard, carving slowly through each layer of dense, rubbery flesh. I wondered if I was cutting into something rotten. If the pumpkin had sat there for so long that the insides had just started to pressurize.

I braced myself for an unwanted smell. The pumpkin seemed to groan beneath the blade as I continued to saw. Yes, groaned, like... wet shoe leather, old wood bending. Finally, I managed to wrench the top off and peered inside. Inside, everything was a dull red, not orange, not yellow, red. Deep and glistening with strands of pulp that hung from the inner walls stretching like sinew. The smell hit me right in the teeth, earthy, and something like old peaches.

I gagged and had to leave the roof. When I came back, ear freshener from the bathroom in hand, I froze at the doorway. The newspaper I'd said under it was dark and wet. The pumpkin had bled onto the table, not juice or pulp, something thicker. A line of it trailed from the rim down the side. The color was unmistakable. I cleaned it up with a towel and told myself it was just pigment, a mutation. Pumpkins rot, don't they?

I'm not totally naive. I tried to Google it, and from what I could tell, this sort of thing has happened before because of some bacteria's. I wondered if that was why no one was there at the pumpkin patch. Maybe they'd started to sell them, but realized they got in some germ or something and figured it was just better to give them away. As far as I could tell for my internet searching, it was only dangerous to me if I ate it. That night, I had a dream. I was scooping things out of my own chest with a spoon. I woke up early the next day.

I wanted to keep carving. Not so much for fun. More like compulsion. The kind of pressure you feel in your temples when you desperately need to tell someone something, like get it out of you. So I poured myself some coffee and set to work. I started hollowing it, scraping the walls.

The resistance was intense. The pulp clung to itself, to the spoon, to me. The fibers didn't tear, they separated, slowly, with a noise I can only describe as squelching, but worse. The more I dogged, the more it felt like I was clearing a cavity, not a fruit. My hands started to tremble, but I also started to resent the work in a weird way, as if it had become a personal challenge to not be defeated by a piece of fruit. Eventually I reached the center where the pulp was thickest. Embedded in the wall, I found something that wasn't supposed to be there.

I ran my hand along the area I'd already started to clear away when I felt it. Not a seed or a stone. A fingernail. I assumed human. Ragh had pressed flat against the inner rind like something had tried to claw its way out. My mind flashed to that scene in Texas Jainsaw Massacre when they found the broken piece of fingernail lodged in the wooden wall. For a moment, it was as if a fog had lifted from in front of my eyes. I dropped the nail and backed away, but not for long.

The next day, all I did was carve. Time lost all meaning the moment I was near the pumpkin. The face slowly took shape under my hands. Deep sad eyes. hollow cheeks, a jagged grin that cut all the way down to the base. I'm not artistic, I don't have one of those visual minds. I can't draw much more than stick figures. That pumpkin.

It inspired me. It was a canvas. I stared at my work in progress. There was a face I'd never seen before, but recognized immediately. Each cut I made went deeper than I meant. More stabbing than cutting. Every time I pressed the blade into flesh, it sank like it wanted to go further. The sound it made wasn't slicing, it was peeling, like cutting raw chicken or tearing tape

off your skin. I stopped paying attention when my phone rang. I didn't care who it was anyway. My fingernails were stained. My arms ached. I was sweating, but the house was cold. You want to know the worst part? It wasn't the face or the guts or any of the.

that. It was that I had the overwhelming feeling I was hurting someone. And still, I couldn't stop. I didn't finish until October 25th when I lit the candle in celebration of finally being done. I set it inside the finished jackal lantern. The light made the carved features twist. The shadows bent along the grain of the flesh, making the grin ripple. The eyes flutter. the whole thing tremble as if it were breathing. That's when I noticed the movement, inside. A twitch, just once. Something shivered behind the eye socket.

Not flame, not wax. Something inside the walls. I lifted the pumpkin. It was heavier than before. I held it close and pressed my ear against the side. There was a faint rhythmic sound. Slow and familiar, like a heartbeat. The next morning I awoke to see that the face had changed overnight.

Not dramatically or cartoonishly, but subtly. The eyes were narrower, the mouth wider, the lines sharper. I hadn't touched it, and yet it now looked hungry. There was pulp around its carved mouth. Not spilled out, but drawn inward. We could have been feeding on another pumpkin or itself. The skin had stretched along the base as if pulled from the inside. I felt a pain in my stomach, dull and clawing.

I hadn't eaten for a while. I didn't want to. I only wanted to watch it. I kept the candle burning. I needed it to stay warm. I whispered to it. I remember what I said. Something finally fought to the surface on the 27th.

Something inside me that had been shouting at me, telling me I had to stop. And I tried to stop. I carried it to the backyard intending to smash it. But when I lifted it above my head, something inside shifted. A slow sliding motion like lifting a half-full of jug of milk. but nothing so tame.

No. More like organs rearranging. The gourd let out a sound, not a voice or a groan. A vibration. My arms gave out and I dropped it. I didn't crack. It landed silently. Too silently.

Not a scratch. When I picked it back up, it was still warm. I brought it back inside. On the 20th I woke up with pulp under my fingernails and a tooth in my mouth that wasn't mine. It was small, yellow, a baby tooth, maybe. Worn down. I spit it out and stared at it for an hour. The pumpkin was smiling wider.

The face now bore an uncanny resemblance to me. Not perfect, I was distorted and stretched, but undeniably mine. My cheeks, my frown lines, my chipped front tooth, I touched the carving's edge and felt something soft beneath the surface. Not soft like rot, soft like skin. I couldn't stop touching it. The rind was warm and damp. It shuddered under pressure.

The eyes moved when I blink. I stuck my finger inside the mom. passed the carved teeth and felt something bite down. Not hard, just a warning. A puppy nibbling because it's too scared to bite. Yet. A kind of intimacy or a mutual agreement. It wouldn't consume me, not yet.

But I was part of it now. It had grown something new inside, and it needed me to see it through. I carved something else on the 30th. not a face, a chest. There is room for it now. The face had moved to the top of the gourd while the bottom of it had stretched and spread out,

presenting more room to work. I sliced lines down its belly, parted the gourd open. Inside wasn't pulp anymore. That even the version of it had come to know. It was still red, sure, wet and layered. Rib-like structures arched from wall to wall, and deeper in at the very center, something throbbed. I reached in. The thing was cold yet pulsing. I pressed my palm against it.

It pulsed in time with my own heartbeat. I didn't pull my hand away. Today's Halloween. And the pumpkin carved me back. I woke up with a line down my chest. not deep or bleeding, but still there. Thin and straight? An invitation. Or a prophecy. The candle's almost out. The pumpkin is opening.

I don't mean metaphorically. It's widening. The rind creaking. The face stretching. The insides unraveling. I think I've given it a new home. Maybe not for a soul, but for a body. Mine.

The face smiles at me now, full and open. And I smile back. Because I am hollow. And it is full. And it's time. Time to go and carve some more. Is that what you wanted? Now what?

Hello? Is anyone out there? Is anyone listening? Hello? Hey. Hey. I did what you wanted. I told you my fucking dream.

You said you were going to help me. You said you were going to help me. Hey! I'm fucking talking to you. Let me out of here. Let me the fuck out of... I'm happy with the progress of the others with the analysis. And we have been able to track the same.

subject's pattern of reactions with varying stimuli on a consistent basis. It's time to move on to stage three. Begin preparation to isolate the others and prepare tranquilizers for the subject in case. In case what? Just in case. For more information on this podcast, 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 done so through Creative Commons Sherrillite licensing or with written consent from the authors. No portion of this podcast may be rebroadcast or otherwise distributed without the express written consent of the creepy podcast production team and the stories author.