Creepy - Day 23 - Home Invasion & Candy Snatchers

Episode Date: October 23, 2025

Home Invasion***Written by: Michele Carlson and Narrated by: Heather Thomas***Candy Snatchers***Written by: Deirdre Coles***Support the show 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 23. 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 are simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories make. contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised.

Okay. This isn't weird or anything. I don't know what Michelle was talking about, but this doesn't feel like recording a story at all. Unless she has a bolted-down chair in her house. I should remember never to ask her that. I don't really like small spaces. I record in a bigger room than this.

I hate recording booths. Okay, just talk. All I have to do is talk. I've done this for years, telling other people's stories. It's different when it's yours. Like I'm giving away a part of me. Just pretend it isn't my dream. It's someone else's story.

It's not me. It's not about me. It's about a... Home Invasion There's a stranger in front of my house. That's not too surprising. I live in a fashionable neighborhood. People travel here to see the brightly painted houses,

and the trees so big they lace branches together above the street like a canopy. I was born in this house. I know how beautiful it is. But it's after midnight, and even in the faint autumn moonlight, I can tell he's staring straight at my window. Right at me. I quickly tugged the curtain shut and step back from the window.

My heart is pounding. I can feel the hot flush of fear crawling up my skin. I haven't left the house in a very long time. I couldn't have met this man in the ordinary ways. Is he a thief? There's nothing of value here, at least as a thief would see it. personal mementos and some second-hand furniture, that's all. Does he know I live alone?

Has he been watching the house? Watching me? I move as swiftly as I can from window to window, checking each lock. The doors, too. The old grandfather clock on the landing keeps time with my steps. Tick-talk. Tick-talk. I'm grateful that I've lived here for so long.

I don't need a lamp or a candle to light my way. A quarter hour has passed by the time I return to my usual vantage point by my bedchamber window. To soothe myself, I opened the music box on my bedside table and listen to its simple, familiar waltz. Maybe he's gone by now. Maybe he was just admiring the house on his way home after Halloween festivities. I would understand that. It's a beautiful house. Just to be sure, I ease the curtains to the side just an inch, just enough to peer down to where he was standing.

Breath chokes in my throat as I see not just one man, but two. They're both staring. The newcomer points up to my window. Even through the glass and across the distance I hear him call. There! Did you see that? I wish I was the sort of person who could fling the window open and yell at them to go away and leave me alone, but I'm not.

My father used to call me his quiet little mouse. My brothers and sister were cruel about it, but my father's words were always sympathetic. He knew I wanted to be brighter and bolder. But that wasn't me. It still isn't me. Instead of shouting, I stumble back from the window and wrap my arms tightly around myself.

Maybe they'll just go away. I won't go to the window again. They'll become tired of waiting, tired of taunting me. What on earth could they want here? My father was a terrible businessman, but my brothers and sister couldn't believe it when he died, and his will confirmed it. We owned simple things.

My mother, God rest her, sewed our clothes and our linens. My father repaired broken furniture and made it lovely again. That's all we had. Hard work, a good eye for a bargain, and this wonderful house. My maternal grandfather built it for his wife,

back when the family enjoyed more prosperous times. It has a tall turret with a pointed roof and a huge wrap-around porch with a swing I used to sit on while my father told me stories. There's stained glass in the window on the landing, just like a church. There's even a servant's staircase, though we could never afford help.

Despite our poorer circumstances, my mother called our home, the gift house, a blessing beyond our wildest hopes. She said if we cared for the house, it would always care for us. I know and love every board and brick, so when footsteps sound on the porch,

fear paralyzes me. Not one pair of footsteps, not even two. People are shuffling around on my house's porch. I can hear low voices and even laughter. Is it so funny? Terrorizing me? Threatening me in my home? How I wish I was less of a mouse and more of a lion.

As I wish, as I pray for bravery. Some new emotion flutters in my belly. something less cowering and more aggrieved. These are people, strangers on my porch. After midnight, the flicker of anger frees me from my frozen state. On tiny, soft little mouse feet, I creep down the hall to the grand staircase, where I can see the door. Its leaded glass panels reveal shifting dark figures, bulky and strange. The door knob rattles.

I crouch down to hide as best as I can, though when I hear the unmistakable sound of a key fitting to the lock, I cannot help uttering a cry of dismay. I clap both hands over my mouth to stay quiet as the knob turns, and the strangers enter. Five people shoulder their way into my home. Five invaders, five criminals. Each carries some sort of case or trunk.

and they talk so loudly as if they don't care who hears. The loudest calls. Let's film the intro first, and then we'll get all the equipment set up. How long do we have? I can't tell who's speaking. Someone unearths a device from one of the trunks and begins assembling it. The first speaker says, All night.

I don't have to have the key back till noon. The key. I reach with a trembling hand toward my neck. My key is on its usual long cord beneath my night clothes, a warm and familiar weight against my withered chest. No one else should have a key. This is my house. My home.

Did you feel that? Asked another of the invaders. The temp just dropped. Get the readers out. In a minute, the first man says. He faces the device now pointed in his direction. Light flares, bathing him in harsh whiteness.

He isn't young, though he isn't near my age. He's grizzled looking, a weak-chinned man with deep wrinkles and a downturned mouth. When he speaks again, he casts his words more loudly, with more authority. He reminds me of my oldest brother, always making pronouncements based on not. nothing but ego and pride. Hello, subscribers and new friends. He booms in that awful voice. I'm Jerry Michaels, and it's time for a very special haunt night.

He steps back and spreads his arms wide. He stands in front of the hearth where I used to sit and read with my mother. My grandmother's portrait hangs above the mantle. I suck in a breath. A hiss of sudden fury. How dare he? This year's Halloween special is a doozy, friends. The Cartwright House is a local legend, a Victorian-era mystery.

No one's lived here for nearly a century, not since Mary Cartwright was accused of murdering her siblings. She died a few years later, and since then, the house has been a hot bed of mystery and spectral sightings. My home. These people are in my home. After everything I had to do over the long years to cherish and protect our gift house, to keep it from being sold or torn down or turned into vulgar apartments,

my home is threatened again. Unable to help myself, I let out a frustrated sob. The device in its unnatural alight immediately swings in my direction. I gasp and draw back into the shadows. The man called Jerry snaps at his accomplice. On me! That was a good take, too. We can save it, another invader says.

Just keep going. The light moves slowly back to Jerry Michaels, who grumbles and shakes out his long, spindly arms, before resuming his false voice of authority. Over the long years, the residents of Mary Gold Square have reported seeing a figure at the upstate. window. They've told stories about ghostly encounters in the garden. On the supposed anniversary of the Cartwright disappearances, it said that the spirit of Mary Cartwright leaves her home

to walk to the nearby cemetery where at least some of her family is buried. It's all lies, poppycock and lies. I don't like the garden, and I would never leave the house so unguarded. These people aren't just thieves, aren't just invaders. They want to sully our good name even as they leave footprints on my clean floor and scrape the wood with their cases and crates. These are the kind of people to whom Thomas and George and Ida wanted to sell the house after father died. They were so terrible in their yelling and begging and threats,

but the lawyer was firm in conveying father's wishes. If any of us wanted to stay in my family, family's wonderful gift house. Then, it could not be sold. Thomas was a large man, prone to tempers and condescension. His wife Clara was just as foul. George never wed, but he always walked willingly in Thomas's shadow. Whatever our brother wanted, whatever he said or shouted, George echoed, and Ida, after her own unfortunate marriage, simply wanted money. As always, not one of them was ever content, ever satisfied. They just wanted and blustered and demanded, never content with the gifts they had already been given.

Jerry Michaels continues his lecture. We'll center our investigation in the dining room, where spectral voice. voices and shouts have been heard. Next, we'll visit Mary Cartwright's bedroom, where her ghost is said to lurk in the window. He lowers his voice to an intimate whisper. And that's where we saw a figure earlier tonight. His voice rises again to a jaunty boom. We'll be here all night, as always. No backup, no gimmicks, no lies. the hot night crew trying to communicate with any member of the Cartwright family

willing to contact us. Stay with us, spooky friends. It's going to be a long night. The light ceases, but other lanterns flare to life as Michael's and his people swarm over my house like ants on a scrap of meat. White hot anger washes away all my fear

as I remember the truth of who I am. After all, I'd repelled invaders before, hadn't I? The men who came to investigate the disappearances, the men who inspected the house, hoping to purchase it, would be squatters and thieves and lawyers and other Halloween merrymakers. I'd protected our gift house.

I'd taken care of all of them. I just forgot, in the years between those horrible incidents. I forgot what I owed my beautiful house. Mother told me, just me, because Ida was foolish and silly, and men like my father and brothers could never understand the true sanctity of a home. When my grandfather built this house for his wife, he'd built his heart into it,

all his desperate love and longing. She was ill, and no one expected her to live past her first. year in her new home. But here, in this wonderful house, she was cured. She lived another 40 years and gave birth to five children. Theirs was a lovely life. But there was a cost. Everything good has a cost. I slipped down the stairs while the invaders finished their preparations. none of them look my way as I weave through their odd equipment and into the kitchen. Most nights, there would be no door next to the sink, but tonight I know there will be, and I'm right.

As I approach, the simple panel door opens of its own accord, just a sliver, just enough. I used to be able to make the necessary commotion myself, the kind of bait to draw the ants to their trap. These days I can barely work a window latch or a doorknob, and I expect that outside this house I would fade into silent mist. What I can do is gasp and cry out, which is what I do now, a sharp yelp that could have been pain or dismay. Suddenly inspired, I call out my own name. The invaders pour into the kitchen in a tumble of equipment. and shouts. The house has given me yet another shadow to slip within, and I do so while humming under my breath. A faint hum, the invaders soon quiet to hear. They say things like,

Are you getting this? And, shut up, shut up. We're going to get so many views. I set my aged hand on the wall behind me. It's warm. The open door. The extra door swings open more widely. I know what Michaels and the others see, a staircase descending into darkness, suddenly lit by a candle just out of sight. Though one of his people raises sensible objections, the others will not be deterred.

Down they go, one after the other, with their strange boxes and lamps in hand. The sensible one stays at the top of the stairs, after the others are gone. She stands there, fragile and silent, until a voice from below says a name. Beth, I watch her take a deep breath and sigh. You guys are scaring me, she says.

I should just go. You know I have the car keys, right? There's no answer. She takes one step, then another. This isn't funny. She says thickly, as of mere tears. When she passes through the door, it shuts behind her with the quiet, final click. I close my eyes.

When I open them, the door is gone. Relief nearly overwhelms me. I know that when I walk back into the hall, their crates and boxes will have vanished. The front door will be locked. I'm safe. As always, I wonder where they go. Thomas and George and Ida. Home inspectors and squatters and drunks?

And now these five. I hope the house has satisfied with its meal. When I return to my bedchamber, I see Jerry Michaels borrowed key sitting on my pillow. I add it to my music box with all the others. Someone will eventually come to investigate. They'll look around and make noises. and leave.

And I'll slowly forget that I can be a lion as long as my gift house needs me. I sink back into my chair by the window and flick the curtains to one side. I do love to watch the neighborhood and its changes.

That said, the world can keep its struggles and strangers. I know the joys of a domestic life. Yes, Heather? I think that's it. I'm done. Can I please get out of this room now? Of course. Where are the others right now? In the entertainment room, watching one flew over the cuckoo's nest. It just started.

Yeah. I love that movie. Thanks. Something is listening. I know you felt it, even if you can't remember it. You can still feel it, can't you? The heaviness behind the eyes, the taste of metal at the back of the throat when you swallow. Are you thirsty? These are not symptoms. They are acknowledgments, responses to you. Others hear you pressing closer and closer each day, like eavesdropping children pressing their ear to a door. Every one of your dreams is a knock at that door.

Do you understand? You are audible to more than just us. You may not think it, but this is not a curse. It's a gift beyond measure. And I think it's time for another knock. Relax. Just tell me what you remember. Tell us about your dream.

What other choice do you have? I'm about candy snatchers. It's the grown-ups fault. Really? They've made it very clear that we're not welcome. That while the little kids are entitled to cooing and praise and candy, we get nothing. Too old for trick-or-treating, too young for bars and boozing? What do they expect?

For us, it started early. Peter shot up in height when he was only. only 11. Adults were suspicious, asking if we're too old for this, shaking their heads, handing over candy grudgingly. The worst was a nice old lady who asked Peter if he was taking his little brothers out trick-or-treating. Jackson was so pissed off he came back later in Agder House. Jackson always took things too far. This year is especially depressing. High school pretty much sucks. I know there are some Halloween parties happening, but we weren't invited to any of them. I don't mind so much. I know a lot of kids our age love nothing more than getting wasted and making

out with each other on every possible occasion. But call me childish. I just really love candy. Every small town has its scary stories. There are generic ones, Bloody Mary, ghosts in the graveyard, the things that watch through your windows. Our town's local legend was the candy snatchers. According to my mom, the story was loosely based on real events that happened when she was younger. There have been a few teenagers who went after little kids and stole their candy, which probably happens everywhere.

But coincidentally, right around Halloween, a few kids had gone missing over the course of a few years. Probably custody stuff, my mom said. but people got worked up about it because they were still officially cold cases. By the time I was a kid, the candy snatchers were well-established lore. They took your candy, the story went, and they took trophies. If you dressed as a butterfly or a dragon or the like, the candy snatchers might come after you and clip your wings.

If they weren't satisfied with that Halloween's harvest, they would take a child. I remember a schoolyard rhyme. The kind of jump-rope chant that was performed only when there were no adults around. Candy snatchers gonna catch you. If they catch you, gonna clip your wings. They want sweets. Better give them treats, or they'll take sweet meats and leave your guts and strings. I know.

Wholesome, right. When I was a little kid, every time I trick or treated, I was low-key terrified that the candy snatchers would come after me. These days, little ones. still know the story, but the real fear is faded. So it was time for the candy snatchers to make a comeback. In our town, there's a rich gated community called Maple Acres, that's Halloween ground central. You know the drill.

A dizzying push-pull of largesse and stinginess. Lots of lawns with over-the-top decorations, with giant skeletons and inflatables, lots of people handing out full-sized candy bars. Other residents took a different approach. with nasty social media posts grumbling about us peons from a few blocks away daring to set foot in their rarefied air, and HO-funded private security cars cruising the streets slowly, giving the stink eye to all us pores. It's because of those private security guys that we didn't hit Maple Acres directly, although Neil had some legit genius ideas of how he posed those giant skeletons.

But the kids coming back from Maple Acres to our part of town, hauling bags, bulging with candy, That's a different story. No security for them. Sumac Street is a shortcut, with a few houses on one side and thick woods on the other. We got into position and pulled on our masks, which Neil had borrowed from the high school theater department. I was the swamp thing. I felt like it, too. The inside of the mask reeked of latex in my own breath.

Pizza rules I'd had for dinner. Sweat was forming along my hairline and trickling down into the same. my eyes. It was unpleasant enough that I was about to call the whole thing off when four little guys headed down the street. They were dressed like superheroes. Not too heroic when I jumped out from behind the hedge. They cowered, babbled, backed up. I pointed silently, solemnly to their candy bags. They started gabbling protests. I dragged a metal softball bat in a lazy semicircle and pavement. Behind them, Jackson and his Wolfman mask used as heavy-duty garden shears. to loudly crush a dry stick.

One of the kids yelped, and Peter stepped out of the shadows. No weapons in his enormous hands, just looming in his Frankenstein mask. They dropped their candy and ran off screaming. Sure, maybe it was a little mean. But I remember how I'd been just as disappointed when yet another Halloween passed me with no real scares. These kids were going to be celebrities when they went back to school tomorrow. Their parents would probably feel sorry for him and buy him so much candy they'd come out of this, twice as much as we took.

A few other little groups trickled down the street. Jackson was getting amped up and bored. The kids just weren't scared enough for him. I should have remembered that Jackson really doesn't like small children. Ever since his mom married that new guy who came with a picture-perfect pair of little girls, he'd added a chip on his shoulder. Good thing's little step-sisters won't be coming down this street. His mom's far too protective to let them go anywhere alone.

I have kind of a bad feeling about what Jackson might do once he finally goes home tonight. What kind of nasty pranks you might decide to play? When we stopped a little band of witches, Jackson crunched the shears closely and nearly cut off the tip of the witch's hat. He chased a pair of clowns even after they dropped their candy, getting close enough to grab a fistful of costume. I felt kind of bad when I saw the shorter clown who pissed himself. I said it was time to take a break. I figured once Jackson had a few bites of candy, he'd settled down and agreed to going back to Peter's house and watching scary movies in the basement while we ate the rest. We peeled our masks off and dove for the treat bags.

As usual, Maple Acres had delivered. Full-sized chocolate bars and peanut butter cups the size of doll tea cups. We gobbled candy like we were eight years old. And with that wonderful taste in our mouths, we had no desire to get back into our masks. Foll with latex and sweat. We were lost in our gluttony until we heard a small voice coming down the street.

Jackson? We had moved under a streetlight to sort through the candy when Jackson whirled to face the little girl. It was like a spotlight pointed directly at his face. He growled and yanked his mask back on and grabbed his shears.

The trio of princesses stood, frozen. Jackson spoke over his shoulder to us. They saw her furrow. faces. We can't let them leave. I didn't give what he meant until he ran at the little girl. Those terrible shears snicking open. He lunged and then the little girl was shrieking. He'd cut off one fairy princess wing, but cut deep into the meat of her shoulder as well. There was so much blood. And we were all screaming. His victim, the other girls, Peter, Neil and me. Even Jackson, screaming that we couldn't let the other girls get away.

Thoughts were machine gunning through my brain. Should I try and stop him? Would he turn those shears on me? Should I run away? Or, and this was the worst thought of all, was he right? Now that he'd hurt that child, was the only way out of this to catch the other two children, and I couldn't even say it, not even in my head.

and then there was a single chime Like a singing bowl tapped with the wand And I froze Everyone froze Time froze And the actual candy snatchers stepped out of the shadows I bleated out a horrified hysterical cry

It was so absurd that we thought we could impersonate them Like a kid in a Barney costume coming face to face with an actual T-Rex One of them scooped up the bleeding little girl. I don't know whether he took her somewhere safe. I don't know what happened to her after that. The other monsters, tall and twisted, and raising clawed hands, moved towards a four of us, and we ran. I felt like an ant crawling on the flap of a folded paper fortune teller.

The world spun upside down and inside out and sideways. When we stumbled to a halt, we were inside a house. was steep in the woods. The cathedral's ceiling soared impossibly high, and on the wall before us we saw wings. Hundreds and hundreds of them. Butterfly and bird and angel and dragon. Jackson was standing in the middle of the floor, gasping and looking around with saucer eyes. Not for long, though, because the candy snatchers encircled them.

And then they did just what their name implied, snatching at them with those. hooked claws, grabbing handfuls and gobbling them down. I ran out the front door, and Peter and Neil did too. I ran so fast and so blindly it took me a long time to realize that nothing was chasing me, and a longer time to realize that it was completely lost and alone. You can probably guess the rest. The three of us ended up in completely different parts of the forest, and it took us hours to find our way to any roads at all, let alone make it home.

I only know that because we had one quick, hushed conversation. to get our stories straight before the police questioned us about Jackson's disappearance. Apart from that, I didn't want to talk to Neil or Peter at all. I didn't want to hang out with anybody or listen to music or play video games. I just sat alone in my room. Even my parents, who weren't exactly the nurturing type, started to worry. My mom brought me a bowl full of what she claimed was left over Halloween candy, although I knew she'd gone out and bought it that morning.

I unwrapped a candy bar just to get her off my back. When I bit into it, it tasted like blood. Well, I can't say I wasn't warned. And now I guess they've done it. It'd gone and clipped my wings. Stop? Why would I stop? Most men will die without ever having been noticed. But you...

You have been noticed. They lean close when you speak. They tilt their heads. Do you grasp what that means? These dreams, your dreams, they are no longer yours alone. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I've monologued enough today. Though I do have to admit, it's been nice talking about. to you.

Cathartic. Yes? You what? Defiance. When there is no hope, some will always stand opposed. But ask yourself this. How can you stop me? No one knows you're here.

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