Creepy - Day 24 - Don't Go Out Looking for the Jack 'O' Mantern & The Devil's Drink

Episode Date: October 24, 2022

Don't Go Out Looking for the Jack 'O' Mantern***Written by: JGrupe***The Devil's Drink***Written by: NM Brown and Narrated by: JV Hampton-VanSant***Tickets for the "Creepy" live show can be purchased at: https://bit.ly/BloodyFM***Check out our reward tiers at patreon.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.

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Now, this. is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepypastas and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened or are simply fabrications

is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. Creepy Presents The 31 Days of Horror Day 24

Don't Go Looking for the Jackal Mantern Written by Jay Grub When I was a kid Around 10 years old My brother told me a scary story Ever since Whenever this time of year comes around It brings me back to that night

The memories come flooding back vividly Despite the fact that all this occurred over 20 years ago. At the grocery store, when I see the inevitable Halloween displays pop up in the seasonal section, when I see decorations on neighbor's lawns, gaudy displays of witches and tombstones, monsters, and ghouls, cobwebs, and, of course, pumpkins. Always and everywhere, there are pumpkins. Driving on the country, I'll see fields full of them, with farmers selling the orange and white

monstrosities in their driveways, and I'll cringe and shudder. I'll begin to feel ice cold, as if I'm in his presence once again. I'll start breathing quickly, my heart beating faster and faster in my chest until I begin to hyperventilate. I'll look away out the other window, but soon enough, it doesn't matter where I look. There are pumpkins everywhere. Smiling with her toothy grins, candles flickering from within their empty skulls. watching me, always watching me. Why do I despise the gruesome gourd so much? As I've said, when I was about ten years old,

my older brother told me a tale. It had come to him with a strange and impossible inspiration. He said later it was like the story had told itself through him, without his conscious effort. It was only after we'd left that he admitted to himself that he was more than a little scared of what had happened. how he had gone into almost a trance-like state as he spoke, later forgetting most of what he'd said as if it had all been a dream.

It had started off as him trying to get rid of us, but it developed into something beyond his understanding. We were home alone. My parents out at a church meeting. I'd have been sitting around the living room, waiting for it to be dark enough outside to go trick-or-treating. It'd be the last time I'd be allowed to go out to collect candy from strangers on Halloween, and I realized now.

My parents became born-again Christians, and we weren't allowed to go out again after that year. They had told me this would be the last time I would get to celebrate that demonic holiday. They were only allowing it this time since we were moving, and subsequently I'd no longer be around my friends as much. It would be my last Halloween living in that house and the same city as my friends. We were moving out of town later that fall, so I was trying to get the most of my last days there with them.

My parents understood that and allowed this one last hurrah. Have you guys ever heard of the Jacko Mantern? My brother asked casually, waiting for his turn to play Super Mario Kart. We were starting the new 150-CCP and he was in line behind four of us, so it was going to be a while before he got his chance to play again. Unless, of course, he could get rid of us. What's the Jackal Mantern? My friend Greg asked.

He was most gullible of the four. of us. You're so full of it, Dave. Chris slammed into the wall with his chosen Donkey Kong character and lost a lot of ground trying to catch up to the others again. Shit, why'd I pick this guy? He's so freaking slow. Ryan, how'd you get the Kupa Troopa again?

You always take him. You get to him first and you can have him next time, Ryan said. He was by far the most competitive when it came to any sort of video games and had a way of winning that I found mildly infuriating. All right. I guess you guys don't want to hear it. My brother loved user of a psychology on us.

Of course it worked, as always. Oh, come on, Dave, just tell us, Ryan said, momentarily distracted from the game. He sounded irritated. What the hell is that anyway? Some sort of urban legend? My brother Dave sat back, a small and devious smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

He had us hooked. Now we just needed to reel us in. Nah, you guys don't want to hear about it. It's too bad, really. It's actually a true story. Happened right near here. His face was sincere as he spoke. I looked at him, believing every word.

Really? Oh, come on, man, just tell us. I begged and pleaded with him. After a few minutes, he relented. All right, all right. I'll tell you. You can't tell Mom and Dad, though, okay? This is pretty dark, but I think you guys are old enough to hear it.

He hedged closer to us and began his story. About ten years ago, there was this guy named Terry. He lived a couple doors down over at the Robinson Place. So anyways, Terry goes to work one day, right before Halloween. He worked over at the pumpkin farm on Highway 6. The video game was paused, and we had now forgotten. All about it. It's pretty busy there at the pumpkin patch because everyone's getting ready for Halloween

and they're buying up everything last minute. So Terry's really busy. They're working overtime. Terry does manual labor there, picking the pumpkins, but he also carves jackal aners for customers and charges two bucks for the service, splitting the dough 50-50 with the owner. Since he's pretty good at it and people are in a hurry, he's getting a lot of extra money that night carving pumpkin faces.

But one customer caught his attention. some creepy guy who was chanting under his breath while Terry carved his pumpkin. When he hands him the money, there's a razor blade hidden in it. He doesn't even feel it cut him. Just sees the blood all over the pumpkin when he hands it to the guy. Dude runs off before he can call the cops. So anyways, by the time he's done for the day, it's almost dark outside. He figures it's a nice enough night, so he just walks home.

Big mistake. He sets out from the first. farm distance twilight setting in. He gets a mile or so from the farmhouse and by then it's dark. Up ahead there's this guy standing in the middle of the street out there in the country road in the middle of nowhere. But the guy, he doesn't look right. His head is way too big.

It's a size of a beach ball. Terry can't see it too well because there's not that many streetlights out there on this country road. My brother began to speak in a strange way that I hadn't heard before. His voice was sure and steadies. he told the story with no hint of any sort of lie. All of us were listening intently as he continued on. So he's a little freaked out.

But there's no other way into town, and he keeps walking forward, hoping this guy's all right and not a crazy person or something. He gets close to the guy and asks him what he's doing with a pumpkin on his head. Because he gets closer, he realizes that's what it is. The guy's standing there with a carved jackal lantern on his head. Terry says later, he wasn't scared for some reason, just figured it was a guy playing Halloween pranks. Terry's a big dude, over six and a half feet tall, so he could take care of himself in a fight.

Only thing he couldn't figure out was how he was making it look like there was a lit candle instead of his face inside the pumpkin. He figured it was some kind of special effects since it was the only rational explanation. He says to the guy, I just want to go home. And this dude, the jacko mantern, disappears in the thin air, just gone. So Terry's freaked out and he bolts back home to tell his parents what happened and they lose it. They hug him and tell him that he's lucky to be alive.

They didn't speak the name of the jack-o-manturn out loud for fear that saying it would dry him out as the rumors warned. They said the jack-o-manturn only comes out on Halloween. There's a certain way to summon him, although he doesn't always show up where you expect him to. First, he must cover a pumpkin while chanting these words. Through three-sided eyes we see your face, flickering candlelight we do embrace, Jack-o-Manturn, Jack-O-Manturn, show your face, bring us into your dark embrace. We shuddered as he spoke the rhyme without emotion or inflection. He was now speaking as if completely hypnotized, his eyes blank and staring off into the distance

a thousand yards ahead. Second, he must baptize a jack-o-lantern in the blood of the white. one to be visited. And third, you must set forth to search him out at twilight as the darkness takes over from the day. When it becomes completely dark, with no sign left to the sun, he will appear to you. If you approach him unafraid and ask him what you desire, he will grant your wish. But if you lose your nerve, if you become scared and let terror take hold of you as you look into his impossible face, with its carved eye-holes, mouth, and nose, only a flickering candle where the brain inside should be. He will take you with him into the blackness of the night.

He will swallow you whole, and he will live forever in a perpetual state of terror for all eternity in the pitch-black confines of his domain, serving only as a meal for him as he feasts on your fear. My brother was breathing heavily. His face looked ashen and pale. He ran to the bathroom and I heard him throwing up violently a moment later. We sat around in complete shock. The whole thing was true. In our minds it had to be.

He had told the story with a conviction and authenticity that were undeniable. And we couldn't help but believe every word. Before he could come back, we left the house and rode away on our bikes, trick-treating, temporarily forgotten. as we decided to go searching for the jacko-mantern. Ryan said he had a pumpkin at his place that had been carved, so we went there first. He grabbed a steak knife from the kitchen, we slashed open the top of the pumpkin and pulled the top off roughly. The four of us dug our hands in and scooped out at seed brains,

tossing them in the garden without bothering to fetch a trash bag. Sitting on the back porch, we used a knife to cut a deep slash in each of our poems, our blood running together on the knife and all of our open wounds in a highly unsanitary way. We chanted the verses as my brother described over and over. Using the bloody steak knife, we cut rough triangle-shaped holes in the flesh of the pumpkin and did another for the nose. I made jagged nosferatu teeth for the mouth to give a surprisingly horrifying effect. The blood-smeared jack-lantern stared at us hungrily, taunting us as we prepared for what was next.

The four of us believed in our ability to overcome our fears. And what kid didn't want any wish they could think of to come true? I had already decided I would wish for a billion dollars, or some other ridiculous amount, so that we wouldn't have to move, and I could continue living near my friends. If we were rich, we wouldn't need to sell our house. So we rode off on our bikes just after the sun disappeared behind the horizon. Our destination was that same road where Terry had seen the jackal man turned ten years before. Maybe we'd get lucky and see him again.

Perhaps you would grant our wishes. The alternative never occurred to us. That our fear was not something that could be controlled, like turning off a tap of hot water before it scalds the skin. Fear is a canister of gasoline sitting near a blazing fire just waiting to be tipped over and ignited. Fear is a primal instinct. An autonomic response.

A precursor to the potential for survival. We arrived at the area where my brother described Terry's encounter happened with Jacko Mantern. The sun was beginning to set and we decided then and there that getting our wishes granted by this mysterious figure would be a far greater reward than any candy we could contemplate. Regardless, we vowed to spend no more than an hour's searching, since trick-or-treating was still one of our top priorities as 10-year-olds. We had a pair of walkie-talkies and decided to split up into pairs to cast a wider net. David told us that if we said the name out loud, it would draw him to us, so we decided to do just that. We shouted out his name as we wrote around, foolhardy on her trusty bicycles, as if nothing

in the world could do us harm. Oh Jack, O Mantern, come out and talk to us, we want to see you, we're not scared. I shouted at the top of my lungs. A man standing on his front porch looked at me with wide and terrified eyes and ran inside his house, slamming the door shut behind him. There were rows and rows of corn past that house as the land began to turn into lengthy farmer's fields. I looked down each row as I went past, searching for the dark silhouette of a man with a pumpkin

for a head. You guys see anything? I asked into the walkie-talkie. Not yet, said Chris. He and Ryan had gone off together and Greg and Howe were riding by ourselves down the dimly-lit country road. All right, keep looking, I said. We spent another hour peddling up and down gravel roads and paved ones,

occasionally meeting up and never seeing anything. We split off into groups of two one last time and decided we would spend another 15-minute searching, no more. After that, we go back and hurriedly throw on our costumes and race around to as many houses as possible. I'm starting to feel a bit like Dave had just been pulling my leg after all. Maybe it had just been an excellent. and fabrication told flawlessly to get us to leave so he had the S&S all to himself.

Wasn't that all a great story was after all? Just a well-told lie. I didn't want to admit that to my friends, though, and continued peddling along on my bike with Greg at my side. We spent the next ten minutes looking around with little enthusiasm. I was peddling past the cornfield and looking at the rows as they stretched off perfectly straight into the distance. Each one at a gap in the middle that showed the well-lit sky above.

with a large moon illuminating the night until I went past one and saw him he was standing there in the middle of the cornrows blocking out the sky with his enormous pumpkin head and through the holes carved in the orange flesh

were no features but only the candlelight flickering dimly within I almost lost control my bike as I skidded to a stop dropping it in the middle of the road Greg stopped and turned around leaving his bike on the ground as well and coming to stand beside me. Neither of us dared to touch the walkie-talkie. I'd forgotten all about it, in fact.

We stared down the cornrow, speechless. The man with the pumpkin head didn't move. He simply stood there and watched us, his arms crossed. He appeared to be dressed in a dark robe, but it was hard to see with a lack of light. Greg began to go forward, seemingly hypnotized by the glow of the candlelight, inside the man's pumpkin head. I heard him say something like,

it's so beautiful the way it flickers in a half-whispring voice. Before I could react, he was running up to the jackal man turned to greet him like an old friend. He was laughing, giggling like a little kid much younger than his age. And that was when I realized

what a stupid mistake had it all been. Going out there, this creature was not here to help us. Whatever wishes it granted would surely be secret curses like those received from a demon, witch, or monkey's paw. I said they're trembling for a few moments longer before gathering my courage. Craig was my friend, and I couldn't let him die like this. I willed myself to move forward.

If I had to die for him to live, so be it, I thought. As I raced to try and overtake him in the corners, I realized I was going to be too late. I called out to him, then immediately regretted it. Greg, stop! I shouted. He was almost in the thing's clutches, I saw now. He was reaching out with arms that looked like twisted tree branches and vines, withered and nodded, crooked and ancient.

The twig fingers elongated and reached out greedily as my friend approached. He stopped suddenly, and I saw him begin to tremble violently with fear. Greg tried to turn around, but it was far too late for that. The twig fingers wrapped around him like a thousand tiny boa constrictors as his saucer-wide eyes stared at me, terrified. The branches creaked and stretched across his features and wrapped tight around his chest. They went under his eyelids and into his eyes and noses his scream. Into his ears, the creeping twigs went next, growing and stretching and fading his body. That was when I made the mistake of looking up and into the jackal entrance horrifying face.

I saw I was lumpy with warts And the orange flesh of the pumpkin skin Stretched up and wrinkled in a malevolent grin The flickering candlelight from within his skull seemed to laugh at me as he began to fade into the night Taking my best friend with him Help! He said

Then disappeared into darkness I stood there Gasping for air like a fish out of water My body began to shake my chest heaved with a violent spastic motion. The world faded into shades of yellow and red then. Darkness, heard the voices of my friends calling to me from over the radio. I dropped it in the dirt and fell to my knees.

My jaw hanging down, tears streaming from my eyes and landing in the soil beneath me, Ryan said before the walkie-talkie cut out for good. I heard their footsteps coming closer from behind me and then slowed as they reached my body lying prone in the dirt. weeping uncontrollably. They didn't know what to say at first, but then pretty quickly got the picture. Was it him?

Was it the... I shot up to my feet. Dizzy and covered in dirt. The world fading in and out. I grabbed Chris roughly by the collar. Don't you ever say that name! I screamed in his face. Okay, okay, he said.

I'm sorry. We fled from that place after that, realizing suddenly how unsafe this world really was. Now that common sense and rationality no longer applied. Peddling home on our bikes, we abandoned trick-or-treating without a word, going home to tell our parents something, anything, to make them leave us alone. My stomach was upset. I didn't feel like trick-or-treating after all, I said. I couldn't bear to tell them until the next day. It was too fresh and too real. Part of me hoped I I would wake up the next morning and discover it all been a dream, but of course that would be too easy.

My parents nodded their approval, and I went straight to my room and lay in bed awash with emotions. Fear, grief, anxiety, dread, sorrow, melancholy, but nothing better beyond that for a good long while. I decided after all this time to share this story from my past. To leave it here for you as a cautionary tale. Don't let your children make the same mistakes. said, tell them. They can go out trick-or-treating, throw toilet paper at the neighbor's trees, and decorate their lawns with it, chuck eggs at cars, and set bakes dog shit on fire. But teach them this.

Warn them, don't ever go out looking for the jack-o-manturn, because you will find him. For your bonus episode, Creepy Presents, The Devil's Drink, written. by N.M. Brown and narrated by J.V. Hampton-V. Hempton-V. She left me. Of course she did. I'd have left me, too. A barrage of memories flashed through my mind at once. I stared woefully with bloodshot eyes at my reflection in my rearview mirror. The cragid cracks of age as plain as the fireball red nose on my face as I drove through the back roads of West Texas. Years of laugh lines taunted me, teasing days of better use. Lord knows I haven't smiled much recently, let alone laughed.

It never hit me before how much older I looked than I actually was. I guess that's what happens, though, when you drink two of your three daily meals for the past five years. It started out just fine. No one enters a marriage with the intention of getting a divorce. It's just something that happens sometimes. I could have blamed it on statistics, saying it was one of the ways of the world, but that's all bullshit. In the end, the demise of my marital bliss was my doing.

Don't feel too sorry for me yet, though. Even after all that's happened, the only thing I could think of was to go back to where all the trouble started, where the end began. Unfortunately, for the first, For me, I had been not so kindly asked not to revisit most of the bars here in town. And sadly, if I had the chance to do it over again, I'd most likely do things the exact same way.

You know how it goes, have seen it a million times. doors once opened with love become one slammed in anger. Intimate words of love become snappy comebacks. I mean, sure, it's not impossible to overcome, but I just didn't have the time. I know that sounds lazy, but I also know that I don't want to try to get back with her until I can become the man she needs me to be. I promise you, she ain't perfect. She's got her faults just the same as me.

But that's almost what makes us perfect together. When you're in love, time can get in the way, no matter how long you've been together. Don't never let the monotony of love. Life, kill your butterflies. The job that I had made it easier for me to leave and for her to kick me out. So, no, I didn't cheat her and I didn't beat her. I just plain forgot about her. By the time I noticed a problem, she was already out the door.

But I guess sometimes things need to fall apart. before they can fall back together, though. Isn't that how the saying goes? I loved her with all my heart. I don't know why I never took the time to tell her. I just assumed she already knew. As if by sheer will, a faded sign for a place called the Dry Diablo Saloon, suddenly appeared over their cusp of the horizon.

It wasn't much to look at, but the best ones never are. It doesn't matter what the place looks like as long as the drinks are priced right. The decor was akin to something out of the old pages of the Wild West. The barstool wobbled almost violently against the worn seat of my lucky brand, jeans. Or maybe it was just my head that spun as I sat and waited on the man working behind the

bar. He was a confusing-looking fellow. He stood there decked out from head to toe in Western wear. His jeans were so goddamn tight that it made my own balls ache with sympathy. However, The mustache plastered across his top lip, looked more suited for someone performing in a barbershop quartet. I didn't have much time to people watch, as right then, a sudden flash of light beamed through the doorway, shining off the metal tips of the barkeep's shoes as he came around the counter.

The glint assaulted my vision, forcing me to avert my eyes momentarily. By the time I turned my head, back in his direction. He was only standing there motionless. A look of utter dread and terror was etched into his once cheerful facial features. Two blue orbs widened fearfully

at something I couldn't yet see as his jaw hung slack open, like a waiting bear trap on the forest floor. I repositioned my exasional. exhausted body, hoping to get a better view of what had haunted the man. In fact, the same effect had seemed to possess the entire bar. Patrons wore white, elongated faces of horror. The only color left was on their over-exposed bulging irises. A cacophony of hushed murmurs soon defeated the silence that had absorbed.

the saloon. If I wasn't a more rational man, I'd have said it looked like they were all gazing upon the devil himself. However, all that stood before me was an elderly, weather-worn man. The top of his hat and face were just visible over the apex of the wing-shaped doors I'd walked through moments before. It wasn't until he threw them open with both hands that I had been introduced to the full picture of what everyone else had already been familiar with.

The man was rail thin, with skin like bone-dry tissue paper. It covered his body like an opaque grocery bag. the stark blue contrast of his veins screaming out from underneath. His eyes were mismatched, mainly due to the fact that one of them was sunken into his face as if it had been stamped with a license plate press. The eye was consumed by a milky film. And if not for the red hues within,

I would have sworn it was one of the worst cataracts I'd ever born witness to. Surely he wasn't able to see out of that thing, I thought to myself. It scanned the room like a robotic sensor as he took a panoramic look around the inside of the bar, his head turning from side to side

with a slow, sweeping glare. He cocked his hat, lowering it over the the offending eye before turning his head in my direction. My face blanched as I realized he must have felt me staring at him. His expression remained grim at first, and then I was sure as shit that he was about to give me hell for ogling him like I'd been doing, blatantly at that. But he didn't.

Instead, he walked over to me, plopping his ass down in the seat next to mine. I half expected a puff of dust to shoot into the air around us upon impact. Well, I cleared my throat gruffly. Seems unnecessarily mystical and time-consuming to make all that fuss upon arrival, only to not say who the hell you are. Bar-keep. His voice was thick and gritty, like bits of concrete sunken into a muddy puddle.

I think this calls for nothing less than whiskey. Two shots. His bony elbow jabbed into my ribs jestfully, as a wry smile peeled across his ancient face. I held my hand up in gentle objection as my torso twisted to face more in his direction. I appreciate that, partner. However, tequila is my poison tonight, if that's all the same to you. I don't imagine you'd revoke an offer to sue the fellow's spirits just because you don't agree with his liquor of choice. I quipped.

The stranger growled with a disappointed shake of his head, response. I swear to Christ, I heard Spurs rattle every time his head moved. I picked the drinks. Else you want to forfeit. Wouldn't be the first time I shot a man before we got started. Who the hell do you think you are? My patience was exhausted at this point. and though I didn't have much of a home to go back to, so to speak, I certainly had better things to do than this. However, nothing could prepare me for the speech that was about to unfold. His lips curled back as the words came forth.

I swear every face inside that bar turned a shade of pale as he spoke. My name is Kreller Steele, and according to my death certificate, I left this world six years ago. I had something of a, what you'd call, an alcohol problem. Still do, maybe. As if on cue, the bartender placed two shot glasses full of amber-colored courage down in front of us ceremoniously. Well, it was in that vein I decided to break into a liquor warehouse. No one else was supposed to be there and definitely not get hurt. Of course, that didn't stop me from pulling the trigger, though.

That poor bastard was in the wrong place at the wrong time. He continued. They tied me to the table there and poked me full of tubes. Lethal injection, they called it. Yet, here I am, cursed to float between planes. Every Halloween night I get to challenge some poor sucker until someone takes my place. He raised his arms skyward and performed a slight twirl. for a show.

Each and every face lost all pallor and color as his fingers pointed their way. And if I lose? I pondered playfully. I hadn't drunk enough to be in the state of mind to give his words much merit. Krelller snickered, disdainfully, glancing down at his hip before answering my retort. They win a bullet to the head and chest. But I must forewarn you. I've been to saloons all over these lands,

and each and every evening I challenge a new lost soul. I haven't lost yet. That hardly seems like a fair bargain, I countered, shoving the shot glass in his direction. What are you going to do? Drink yourself to. to death? The ship has sailed on that, it seems, my friend. Now please, let me get back to my drink and go about your way. He tossed his head back, his lips pulling tight over his

piss yellow teeth and jaw as he let out a long, dry laugh. Oh, it's way too late for that, son. He cackled. gesturing to the empty shot glass that sat before me. Ain't no man that I can't beat, be him live or dead. You and me, all you can drink all night. Bar-hop, set us up, please, friend. His skeletal hand clamped over mine with an iron grip, and I was suddenly awash with vision.

It was as if I was a fly-on-the-wall. of his mind, experiencing things through his body that I had no control over. I was with him as his careful fingers took a shot, and I was shocked as shit to look down at my right hand and realized that I was the one that pulled the trigger. Kreller's steel tipped his hat as a dry, wicked laugh rasped through his bony lips. I looked around for someone, anyone, who could help me free myself from this deranged man and his deal. I'm afraid I'm the only one that can help you out here, friend, Kreller said, reading my mind.

The bar hop nodded his head solemnly in affirmation, and I knew that I was screwed. I would have no choice but to match him drink for drink, no matter if I choked. We drank until the afternoon began bleeding over into the evening, with me matching him drink for drink, swig for swig, ounce for ounce. Soon enough, it was six minutes to midnight, meaning the bony hand of death was fast approaching. In a swift flash of certainty, I knew what had to be done.

And what's more, I knew I had to do it while I still had the faculties to do it right, make it real subtle, seamless-like. I had to make sure to grip the shots between two fingers, make sure to dip both into the whiskey, swirling the glass. To life. I roared as I raised my glass, giving him no choice but to do the same. I threw the liquid fire down my throat, trying my best to ignore the burn that radiated through my nasal cavity and lungs.

Determination won out in the end as my poker face prevailed. Though I knew if I subjected myself to much more of this, I wouldn't live to tell the tale. The ghost sat before me, poured the warm liquid into a bone-dry throat, and I imagined him suffering from a thirst that would never be quenched. However, I had something that he surely didn't have. As if the very thought had brought the act. Crellor's eyes bulged as he swallowed the faithful shot. His rickety body reeled back as if hit with a tsunami of punches and kicks.

His breath rasped and wheezed as he struggled to keep breathing the air that he had no right to inhale anymore. You! He bellowed, and at the time, I couldn't tell if it was a question, revelation or accusation. It ultimately didn't matter, though. The end result would always be the same. That's right, I replied coolly.

Me. And do you know who I am, Mr? I'm the husband of a preacher's daughter, one who gave me his physical blessing in the form of a hand, shake. I continued as his body fell limp against the bar. I, sir, am a man whose union is protected by God and his disciples in heaven and on earth. And it was true. My wife had left me. Hell, I'd have left me too, but she was still my wife. And sometimes, when it seems like a man's got nothing left to hold on to, the vows he made hold

truer than ever. Krelller's body finished its descent to the floor, turning into nothing more than a pile of bones and dust upon impact. His femurs fell into the shape of a cross. How fucking poignant! They say that the adult body has 260 bones in total. But I swear that day, if I would have taken the time to count, I would have noted 66.

It almost doesn't seem right that the thing that brought me here ended up being the thing that saved my ass. 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.

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