Creepy - Day 2 - I'll Never Trick or Treat Again

Episode Date: October 2, 2021

Never again...***Written by: SapphireLion15 and narrated by Megan McDuffee***Content Warning: Child kidnapping/murder***Bonus episode: "They Don't Trick or Treat At My House Anymore" written by Sum Gigh***Check out 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 creepy pastors and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened or simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of books. Violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised.

Creepy Presents The 31 Days of Horror. Day 2. I'll never trick or treat again. Written by Sapphire Lion 15 and narrated by Megan McDuffie. I think it's finally time that I write this down. It's haunted me for years. but maybe this will help me move on.

I don't know if I can ever forgive myself for what happened that night. I was 15. My girlfriend, her brother, my best friend and I, had come up with the brilliant idea to stay out all night on Halloween. We had the perfect plan.

My friend Art, not his real name, and I would tell our parents that we were going to spend the night at Layla's and Wills, not their real names, house. Likewise, Lela would tell her parents that she and Will would be spending the night at my house. I know. It was stupid, but we were confident that our plan would work. I wish the plan had failed. That Halloween night,

we'd set out feeling like total rebels. We had all decided on a group costume, and each of us was dressed as a DC superhero. Will had dressed as Superman, art was the flash, Layla was Supergirl and I was Bat Girl. We were all pumped. We had the whole night to stuff our faces with candy, hang out, and do whatever we wanted to. After we'd trick or treat in for about three hours, I'm not kidding, people started shutting their doors. By 12, there wasn't a single light on or door open. We four were the only people out on the street, and with the exception of a barking dog, there was no noise. Layla and I were bored. And I asked if we should just go home.

Will refused. You're out of sleep over at my house, remember? And I'm sleeping at yours. Do you want to be the one to admit to your mom that you lied? Come on, Will, Art spoke up. He'd been eating a lot of candy and had been pretty quiet for the last few minutes, likely battling a massive stomach ache. This isn't as fun as you said it would be.

Maybe it'd be better if we'd just went home and told the truth. They'll be mad, but maybe we can still have an action. will sleepover. Will looked at each of us and realized that he was the only one who wanted to stay out. He sighed and looked like he was about to relent. Then he looked behind us and his face lit up like a jack-o'-lantern. What's that? He said excitedly, beginning to move towards it. I turned around. Not 20 feet away was a house that I'd never seen before on her street. It looked like a typical townhouse that's usually what you saw in our neighborhood, but it was covered from porch to chimney with Halloween decorations, and not the cheap plastic ones you get at the dollar store, but the quality

makes you want to run decorations that give kids nightmares. There were two disturbingly lifelike pumpkin-headed scarecrows guarding the front gate, and over two dozen skeletons standing at attention in the front yard. Jackal lanterns dotted the porch, each one with a face frozen in agony. A gigantic spider was perched in the show window, looking like it intended to make the shrub it was hovering over its next meal. Bones were scattered across the roof, as if someone had just dropped a handful of them from the sky. And, for the finishing touch, a spotlight hidden among the shrubbery made the entire house glow and eerie purple. Lela and I glanced at each other. How had we not seen this house earlier? Granted, we hadn't been paying close attention

to every house we passed, but still, we'd been all over town. We'd have noticed a glowing purple house, right? I turned to ask Art, but he was as entranced as Will. Before I could blink, he was running towards the house, too. Once again, I glanced at Leila. She shrugged her shoulders, as if asking what I expected from two Halloween-crazed boys. They grabbed her hand, and we ran after them. Up close, the house was even more disturbing. The scarecrow's eyed us as we walked through the front gate. I tried not to gag as I passed them.

Someone had certainly taken liberties to make the yard believable. The thing stink like rotting pumpkins. I creptlyla's hand a little tighter as we passed the skeletons. They must be from one of those expensive artisan websites, I thought. They sure didn't look fake. We walked up the porch steps with Will shaking from excitement. Art's eyes were practically glowing. I remember wondering, half-jokingly, if they were in some sort of a trance.

Will rang the doorbell. It was the sound of a church bell and resonated throughout the. the house. Trick or treat! We shouted dutifully, although Lela was practically crushing my hand. I was grateful for it. I needed to know that I wasn't the only one who found all of this unsettling. The door was practically thrown open. A gorgeous woman stood in the doorway. She had long legs, thick copper hair that stopped at her shoulders, black eyeliner, and blood-red lipstick. She was dressed in a revealing witch costume and grinned when she saw the four of us. Well, when she saw the boys.

My, my, I didn't expect to be visited by two handsome heroes tonight. She gave a high-pitched giggle. Her voice reminded me of how ladies and old gangster movies talked. Hart smiled and thanked her. Will was just staring at her. I took a step closer to Layla. That's when the lady noticed. I noticed us. I think she knew immediately that we weren't as captivated as the boys were,

not by her house or her beauty. Sure, she was gorgeous, but she was an adult, and I was already with Lila. Her eyes glazed over as she saw us, but her smile didn't waver. I noticed then that she was holding a bowl of candy. She slowly extended it to me. Candy, bad girl? I both of my arms around Leila and took a step backwards from the lady. I could tell she wanted something and that it wasn't anything good. No thanks. We've eaten too much candy already. It wasn't a lie. We didn't have of our candy throughout the evening. The woman's smile wavered, and she blinked three times, as if it was the last thing she'd expected. I noticed something strange about her eyes. They were kind of...

She turned and offered candy to the boys. Will took a handful while Art only took two, obviously still suffering from a stomach ache. I glanced again at the candy. The pieces weren't in wrappers, and it didn't look like any brand I'd ever seen. It sort of resembled malted milk balls, except bigger and lumpier. When the boys had finished their candy, the woman looked at the four of us. "'You must be parched. "'Why don't you come in for some apple cider?'

She gestured to the front door, which stood gaping open, like a mouth. Layla physically leaned away from the door. She wouldn't go in there for a thousand dollars, let alone a glass of cider. I agreed with her. I forced a smile. No, thank you. We turned and started to get down off the porch when I realized that Layton's and I were alone. Will, and Art, were gone. And so was the woman. My heart rate tripled.

They went in the house. My stomach hurt. Should we call the police? What could we say that a pretty lady with a spooky yard had lured two boys into our house with apple cider? Even if that didn't sound crazy, we were two teenagers out past midnight on Halloween. Not exactly what the cops were. would consider trustworthy. Plus, we couldn't prove that she wanted to hurt the boys. Still, we had to make sure that they were okay. We started walking around the house. On the left side, there weren't any windows.

This made sense, though, at being a townhouse and all. The back of the house had a porch, but the windows and doors were all covered. The right side of the house yielded the same results as the left, leaving us only one option. the show window. We maneuvered around the skeletons in the yard and went as close as we dared up to the window. I, being dressed in black and thus harder to see, decided to look in the window while Lela,

dressed in bright red and blue, made sure the lady didn't come out of the house. Before appearing in, I took an uneasy glance at the giant spider. Against my better judgment, I touched it. Solid plastic. I sighed and told myself not to be so jumpy. I peered through the window. I was staring at a lit fireplace. It seemed to be the only light source in the room.

It was pretty dim in there. Still, I could make out two enormous armchairs on either side of the fireplace. I could make out art's bright red flash costume and could see the blue from Will's costume. They were both slumped in the chairs as if asleep. There was a coffee table between the chairs, holding two half-empty glasses of what could only be apple cider. In the center of the room, stood the lady. She was standing up as straight as a rod, her arms lifeless at her sides. Then, with no warning, her right arm shot straight up.

She held it there for a second, then let it fall. A second later she did it again with the other arm. Then, I swear, she started growling. As if this was a signal, Will and Art got up. I could tell that their eyes were closed, but they came right over to her. She put her left index finger on Art's forehead and her right index finger on Will's forehead. Then she began to chant, Veneno sanitatem, Aje, puer, languorem sanitas, sanitas,

Nessio comodo, Lantitam logui, or aligiant. All three of them suddenly began to convulse. Art went down, followed by Will. They both started to kick wildly. Then their kicks became weaker, as if they were losing energy. Then they stopped. I must have made a noise. Layla told me later that tears were streaming down my face.

I must have sobbed without knowing. it because the lady turned around. Her eyes were completely blue, with no pupils to be seen. Our mouth was hanging open, with saliva the color of her eyes dripping from her lips, and her face was starting to melt. I screamed. Lela screamed. I shoved myself away from the window and landed flat on my back. The wind was knocked out of me, but I was too scared to care. Lela yanked me to my feet and we just started running. We charged through the skeletons, which I now thoroughly believed were real. As we charged through the gate, I knocked over one of the scarecrow's, its head smashed to bits on the ground, revealing a human skull underneath.

We ran, not knowing where we were going and not caring. We finally ended up in front of my house, and we both collapsed into each other's arms, sobbing, I told my mom everything. At first, she thought I was making up a story to get out of lying to her, but one look at her faces, and she knew we were serious. She called the cops immediately. When they investigated the strange house, they made a shocking discovery. It belonged to a Mrs. Smith, not her real name, who was a woman in her 20s and fit her description. but she'd been on vacation in Alabama with her mother for the last two days. They never found their bodies.

Art and Will remain missing to this day. The police don't believe our account of some life-sucking wish. They believed that a child predator drugged them and ran off with them. I don't think Layla and I ever really got over it. We broke up in 12th grade when she and her family moved away for a fresh start. A few months later, I moved too. We text now and then, but we aren't as close as we used to be. Still, I'm glad I've saved her number all of these years, because tonight I saw something that brought back that traumatic Halloween. A townhouse bathed in purple light,

with skeletons set up in the front yard. Two of them guard. Two of them guard the gate. One is dressed in a Superman costume. The other is dressed as the flash. For your bonus episode, creepy presents. They don't trick or treat at my house anymore. Written by some guy. I love Halloween. Hell, I love October, autumn, all of it.

The moment that the chill starts to fill the air after Labor Day, as the leaves fall and crunch like potato chips underfoot. If there was anything I ever wax poetic about, it's that. October means scary movies at night. It means stores filled with candy and costumes and all the decorations you could imagine. Apple, cider, carving pumpkins, all the best things in life. The things that even adults can enjoy without anyone judging them is nothing to do with religion or politics.

politics. At least it shouldn't. Or it doesn't to me. It's just a time of year when people can revel in the idea of make-believe fear and let themselves be okay with that. Halloween sets people free. And it makes me sad when I see other adults not enjoying it. The ones who refuse to wear a costume into work or call horror movies trash, I think those are people who are just afraid to show vulnerability. I moved into my house seven years ago. I'd lived in an apartment downtown ever since I got a job out of college, and the moment I'd finally saved up enough money for a down payment.

All I wanted was to move out to the sort of neighborhood I'd grown up in. When I first moved in, this was a good neighborhood, filled with families who knew each other's names. It wasn't just a nod and a casual wave. We knew first names. We hung out at block parties. It felt so much simpler. Funny to say that about the 2010s as if I were some boomer talking about the 50s.

I moved in during the summer. And the second, I saw even a hint of neighbors starting to put up decorations. I took that as my invitation to join in. I had the orange lights strung up like it was the middle of December. The styrofoam gravestones. The giant web made out a rope hanging between two trees in my front yard. The huge furry spider nested. in the middle.

I know how it looks being a single man, living on his own, getting all excited for Halloween. People say things. I get it. People wonder when you don't have a significant other children. They look at you a little more cautiously. So that first year, I made sure to do things right and neighborly. I lit a fire in the portable fire pit, set in the middle of the driveway, had a bucket of candy set out for the kids to take as they wanted and a cooler beer for the parents who needed

a little more motivation to get into the holiday spirit. A good number of people came by, and I got to know a lot more of my neighbors. I kept my distance from the kids, spoke confidently to the parents with eye contact and wished them all a happy Halloween. Admittedly, I held back on my decorations a little bit. I didn't want to overdo it and make people too nervous. But I figured that was was an acceptable sacrifice to get comfortable with my neighbors. The rest of the year progressed as usual. People mostly kept to themselves, but there was the occasional get-together between the adults.

I hosted a couple barbecues in the summer, but mostly just did my own thing. My job keeps me busy most of the time with travel, so it's not like I was milling around an empty house just waiting for the next Halloween or anything. The next year I did things a little bigger, set up a makeshift haunted house in my garage. Wasn't anything special.

Mostly garbage big walls with little stations around corners with peeled grapes, fry balls, and that sort of thing. Just silly stuff. I kept a big bowl of little trinkets at the exit. I figured parents would appreciate stuff like stickers and bubbles and things that wouldn't result in an overload of sugar. That was the year when the girl from the end of the street disappeared. I live at the end of the street where it culminates in a cul-de-sac.

I think her name was Angela? She was 11, dressed as Elsa from the movie Frozen. She was the last seen with her group of friends, all of which were either dressed as Anna or Elsa from the movie. The police came by my house as the girl she was with told him that she had gone through my maze. I admitted seeing the group and even showed the security camera footage of her from my garage. I'm not stupid. I'm not going to have kids wandering through my garage without making sure there was footage of it in case someone claimed they got hurt or threatened to sue. I like my

neighbors, but I don't hold any illusions about the quality of character in suburban neighborhoods. The footage showed the group arrived, all five girls, Angela was the only one who was wearing an Elsa mask along with her costume. The footage showed them walk in and the group of five grabbing a hand full of prizes as they left. The police took the footage and moved on. I never heard anything else about it. I tried asking around, but never heard anything else beyond the family moving away a few months later. The older couple that moved in didn't celebrate Halloween and kept their lights off the next year.

I kind of blame them for what happened after that. Not for the boy who went missing. I mean, they weren't responsible for that. but I think they introduced the idea of not celebrating. The boy was its own thing. When he was reported missing by his parents, it soon came out that he and his friends had spent the night going around egging and toilet papering houses.

Mine was one of them they'd gotten, along with a dozen other houses up and down the block. At some point, a house motion sensor came on and the boy scattered to avoid floodlights. That was the last they saw of him. Tim, I think his name was. Again, the police talked with me and everyone else in the neighborhood. I showed them my camera footage of the boys coming up to my house.

They were all in masks and the first thing they did was spray shaving cream on the lens. So there wasn't much I could do to help. After that, things really changed. How is this kind of stopped celebrating? I get that there was a sort of somberness over. two missing kids in two years. But blaming Halloween on their disappearance is stupid. One was wearing a mask and could have been taken or replaced by anyone.

The other was a little hood on the verge of a life of crime. The third disappearance was just parental neglect. Parents who thought it was a good idea to let their three-year-old wander up to houses all on their own. According to neighborhood rumors, at least from the neighbors I still talked with, The parents got distracted and were pretty drunk at the time. They thought it was a good lesson in independence to let the kid go through all the houses in the cul-de-sac on his own. My camera footage showed that he came to my door,

but I must have been in the bathroom because I never so much as saw him in his little chicken costume. After that, the writing was on the wall. People didn't want to celebrate after that. Rumors of curses and people pointing fingers were all we got. It was the last I ever heard in neighborhood gatherings. No more casual conversations during yard work. People kept their kids in the houses or moved away outright.

Soon enough, it's like Halloween didn't even show up on everyone else's calendars. I assume it's widely known, but in case you don't know, the simple rule of trick-or-treating is that if your lights are on in your house, then there's candy waiting. off means move past the house. Well, who the fuck is going to walk to the end of a long street that the only house lit up for Halloween? It's almost like my neighbor they're trying to keep people from going down our street at all.

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