Creepy - Day 25 - Curiosity & The Happy Worm

Episode Date: October 25, 2023

Curiosity***Written by: No One of Consequence***Bonus episode: "The Happy Worm" Written by: Thomas C Mavroudis and Narrated by: Owen McCuen***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.

No. This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous, chilling and disturbing creepypastas and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened or 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 25. Curiosity. Written by known of consequence. Halloween was one of my favorite times a year, but not anymore. Back when I had a family, dressing my son up in his costume and going trick-or-treating was such a blast. Those days were full of smiles, laughter, and fun. I don't smile much anymore.

Laugh even less. And as for fun, I don't think I know the meaning of it anymore. Coping with a loss has been a difficult task. Since I'm alone now, I save up my vacation time for three trips each year. For my son's birthday, I make sure to go somewhere he wouldn't ever have wanted to go. The wicked Christmas is spent down south near the border. He loved the cold and snow. Distracting myself from both allows me to kind of forget it's Christmas.

As for Halloween, I do something a little different. I tried to take my boy camping, but he was more of a city kid. He didn't even like sitting around the campfire because he claimed it was boring. As for hunting, I had tried to be. trouble getting him up for school. So waking him up at 4 a.m. to get to the deer blind before sunrise was out of the question. My buddy Leon owns a significant patch of land in the middle of nowhere. He's fully aware of my situation and gladly lets me use his place for the week of Halloween.

Three years ago, we were out having lunch and I saw a little boy outside the restaurant. He ran up to his mom all excited because he had a pirate costume that his dad just got him. my son dressed up like a steampunk pirate last year I tried really hard to hold it together but I broke down that was far from the last time I broke down but it did lead me to having a nice place to escape to every Halloween I treat myself to some of the finer things

in an attempt to distract myself and sometimes it even works this year I got myself an 80-year-old bottle of scotch and a box of specialized cigars. They're about twice as thick as a cigarette and only a little longer. The coolers loaded with some premium beer made by Belgium monks and cost $50 per six pack. As for food, I've got more than enough thick-cut tea bones, bacon, eggs, potatoes, and bread to last me ten days.

I'm only gone for a week, but it's not beyond me to eat my feelings. Besides, the best part of every meal out on the property is cooking it. Lance has this monster of a grill set up at the edge of a pavilion. The house and pavilions sit on top of a rolling hill that slowly turns into a hunting forest. I leave the city after work on Friday and managed to get out there before dusk. After putting all the food away, I take my first steak of the week, a seasoned and buttered potato wrapped in foil and one of those Belgian beers out to the grill. I put more than enough charcoal into the grill,

spray it with a generous amount of lighter fluid and weight. Taking out one of my cigars, I cut the tip off, put in my mouth, flick a match, and start puffing. As soon as my cigar is a nice red cherry on the end, I flick the match into the grill and immediately the coals are engulfed in flames. As the coals get ready, I stand at the edge of the pavilion and look out at the beautiful marvel of nature before me. Now this is the way to start off a week of vacation.

After a delicious dinner, I pop open another beer and take stock of what's in the living room. Lance is always changing what's out here, but there's always plenty of guns and ammo. In the corner is what he calls the guest safe, and inside are all the guys. guns and ammo and permitted to use during my stay. Anything not locked up is available for use. But if I break something, I'm responsible for either fixing or replacing it. The safe, as always, is a wide assortment of hunting rifles, a few shotguns and some handguns. There's a large black revolver that looks like something out of a Clint Eastwood movie.

But I'm more interested in what's next to it. It's a single shot, breech-load pistol chambered in 7mming to make. I've only ever seen these in the movies. Always wanted to try one. There's no scope on the barrel, but I'm out here for more of the distraction than the hunting. Hell, if I really wanted, I could shoot at some cans or something. After examining that unique weapon, I moved the items on the shelves. For the life of me, I don't know what half this stuff is for.

There's a trio of heavy-duty hand radios. binoculars, a range scope on a tripod, various holsters and magazines. I even find a 22 long rifle pistol on a holster with two spare magazines already loaded next to it. Lance told me this is for scaring off little critters like raccoons and possums that like to get into the trash. Next to this is a strange item that looks like some sort of headgear. I've seen those VR headsets before and this looks similar. but at the same time very different. Letting my curiosity get the better of me, I start fiddling with it.

There's a knob on one side and I give it a little twist. After a satisfying click, I hear an odd high-pitched wine, but the overall volume is quiet. Viewports light up with a bright green, so bright that I can't look at it. I'm about to turn it back off, but jump at the sound of something crashing outside. Grabbing up the pistol, I rushed to the door.

I fire off a few quick shots near the trash can and a raccoon runs off. And little bandits scare the crap out of me, but it's my own damn fault. I should have waited until tomorrow to take the trash out, but I do this every time I come. Just as I'm about to go back inside, I realize I'm still holding the headgear. The green light at the viewport isn't as bright anymore, so I bring it to my face. The world looks very flat, nearly two-dimensional. But the impressive thing is how easily I can see things in the dark. The world is a flat, green and black place through these things.

And the lights are too bright to look at. I've seen enough military and action movies to know these are night vision goggles. I don't know if it's the beer or my own ability to make questionable decisions, but I make one now. With the two spare maigs for the pistol in my pocket and the holstered weapon on my belt, I decided to go for a walk in the darkness. The night's alive with birds and insects in the warm air. I puff away at my cigar, hoping the smell of keep predatory animals away. These goggles pick up everything.

and I watch as a field mouse runs from a rock I just clomp past into a field beyond. After it feels like a mile, I turned to look back at the house. The lights around it are bright, but not so bad that I can't look at them. Besides, I've only gone a couple hundred yards. How many beers have I had? What's really tripping me out is my own shadow. Even this far from the house, I can see my shadow from those distant lives. light stretching on along the ground.

The cloud coverage above is pretty thick, so the only ambient light these things can pick up are from the house. At least, that's how I think it works. The forest comes up at me faster than I thought it would. I decided to keep to the edges of the clearing. I've made it far enough from the house that the light's extremely dim, even with the night vision. Out of curiosity, I lift the goggles from my face and stare out into complete darkness.

Unbelieving I'd been able to see anything at all. As I lower them back down, I take a step forward and trip over something on the ground. I hadn't been moving fast at all, but the tumble I take seems more appropriate for someone who was at the very least speedwalking. I lay in the grass for what seems like a long time. The goggles fell off my head when I went down and I have no idea where they went. Giving myself a cursory pat down, I find the pistol still in the holster on my belt. At least that's there.

Now, to be perfectly honest, I think the night vision goggles are worth three times what the pistol is, and that might be low-balling it. The clouds above start to thin out, and gray light starts emitting from it like a dim lamp. showing me rolling whips within the gray. If I didn't know any better, I'd swim at the bottom of the ocean, watching crashing waves from underneath. I slowly sit up. My eyes entranced by the light display above me.

Movement out of the corner of my eye snaps me back to reality. I look to my right, desperately trying to find what drew my attention. Sweat breaks out on my first. forehead, finally realizing how utterly exposed I am. I didn't bring a flashlight or even my damn phone. I've got matches in my pocket, but with a warm breeze, they're useless. I managed to get to my knees, gaining a little height, but not enough to make myself an easy target.

My first time out here, Lance gave me a brief rundown of all the animals native to this area. Bears weren't on that list. but mountain lions are. He did say it's pretty rare to see one, but it would be my damn luck for one to be in the area right now. Looking around, I find that I can see better with gray light, but not by much. The light moves like a living thing,

casting shadows every which way. Even the grass looks like it's moving. On shaky legs I stand up, my hand resting on the pistol at my waist. The play of light and shadows is disorienting me. My sense of direction is getting sucked into a vortex of vertigo. My stomach feels uneasy. Just when I think my equilibrium's about to tumble over,

a solid shadow comes rushing at me. I have no time to move out of the way. Whatever it is crashes right into me. The impact on my chest is a lot harder than what a shadow. should have been capable of. It's strong enough that for a moment, no part of my body is in contact with the ground. In the next moment, too much of me is touching the ground, and the wind has been knocked out of me.

Before I know what's happening, I'm on my back with a pistol in hand, the gun's black eye searching the darkness for that thing. But everything's dark, and it blends right in. I quickly roll over and get to my knees. My eyes try and look in all directions at once, and my ears strain to hear anything over the gentle breeze. In my attempt to find my attacker, I notice that there's absolutely nothing for me to see. Nothing at all. It takes a moment for that to sink in, and I realize something very bad.

I can't see the lights of the house anymore. Not a hint of them in the black. The brighter flash of gray light licks out from the clouds, bathing the field in a brief glow. It's enough for me to see two shadows, not 20 feet away. The one that's coming at me is nearly twice as big as the other. I raised the pistol, but by the time it levels on them, the light is gone. Squeezing the trigger twice, I hear nothing but the echo of the gunshots. No animal squeals of pain, no sounds of something wrong.

running away through the grass. Then again, I don't suppose ghosts would make noise. Because that's what these things are, right? What else could be people-sized and shrouded by darkness than some kind of specter? Something runs into my legs from the left, and something else shoves me from the right. Once again, I find the ground in a bad way, but this time I land on something hard. rolling off whatever it is I reach out and find the night vision goggles as quickly as I can I get them on and adjust the focus to see clearly um plunged back into the muted green world

but I can see without relying on the rolling gray light from the clouds as the field comes into focus I note that the light from above isn't affecting the night vision I scan the area keeping the pistol low but ready to bring it up at a moment moment's notice. I've nearly done a full circle when I spot the large shadow. It's standing about 30 feet away, but I don't see the other. Trying to keep one eye on it, I scan the rest of the area, but the little shadow is nowhere to be seen. Focusing back on the one I can see, I notice the black is swirling, just like the light in the clouds. The longer I stare at it, the more it takes shape.

After it seems like a long time, I can clearly make out the shape of an adult, but something's wrong. Yes, there are two arms, two legs, and a torso. But the clothes are very old and tattered. Another minute goes by, and I can clearly see the black hair and pale white skin. No. My eyes are playing tricks on me. There's absolutely no way my mind. My ex is standing there with those harsh eyes staring daggers at me.

You hate the outdoors, won't be caught dead in the middle of nowhere without cell service. This has to be my grief-stricken mind, screwing with me. I don't remember drinking enough to be attacked by a figment of my imagination. Wait, that should be figments, as in plural. Where's the other one? The two-dimensional world through the night vision goggles provides a much smaller field of vision than what my eyes can see on their own. So much that I can't see what's at my feet, especially if it's less than three feet tall.

My breath catches in my throat, and I slowly look down, not wanting to see what I think is there. Enclosed as old and tattered as my exes. My son stands there with dead white sand. skin and flat black hair that looks greasy. All the fear and panic rushes out of me it decided that precious face. A face I haven't laid eyes on in years. I don't understand why he's here and I couldn't care less.

I feel ashamed of my reaction and quickly put the pistol in its holster. I get down on my knees to be on his level and look into his eyes. Those same eyes that used to light up when I came home from work. that stared at me while I read him a bedtime story. Those eyes that tried so desperately to stay open as the fairy tale words slipped into his ears and triggered his need for sleep. I never thought to see these eyes again, but here they are. I only wish they weren't staring at me with that dead, emotionless expression.

Reaching out to him, I try to wrap my arms around him, but he does something he never did before. He twists his head to the side, bears his teeth, and sinks them into the meat of my left arm. It hurts so much that I scream as I try to get him off of me. He's got the jaw strength of a Doberman and won't let go. As I try to shake him off, pain radiates up my arm. I can feel his tongue flicking over my skin, lapping up my blood. With my free hand, I try to press on a pressure point.

behind his jaw, just below the ears. Most people don't know about that spot, but it's more than enough to make anyone release their mouth. I press on it hard, but it doesn't get my boy to stop biting. This has gone on long enough, and the pain makes me mad. I start hitting him in the shoulder, trying to get him off without hurting him. He may be trying to take a chunk out of my arm, but he's still my son. When that doesn't work, I get less concerned about.

who's biting me. I start hitting him on the side of the head, then slamming my fist down on top of him. Nothing seems to work, so I do something desperate. I take the pistol from the holster and bring the grip down on him. Even that doesn't work. Feeling his teeth sink in even further, I start poking at the corner of his mouth with the barrel. It takes some doing, but I managed to wedge it through. Now that's what his tongue is licking. My finger squeezes down on the trigger, intending to put a bullet through his cheek. Tears run down my face as to pain courses through me, and the gun goes off. The pressure on my arm is gone, but a horrible throb remains.

Somehow my son knew the bullet was coming and let go just in time. I'm so grateful for that. Why the hell did he bite me to begin with? I look at him, but he's no longer in front of me. Instead, he's standing 30 feet away with the other. I watch in confusion as my ex gets down to my son's eye level, just like I had, and licks my blood off his chin. The whole thing is making my head hurt.

lifting the night vision goggles, I leave the green behind for a brief second. The rolling gray light is back, and the two figures or shadows once again. After blinking a few times, I put the night vision back on. My ex and son have instantly halved the distance between us. And I've had enough. I run in what I hope is the direction of the house. After a hundred yards or so, something crashes. into my back, sending me to the ground.

The goggles get knocked up to my forehead, and I roll onto my back. There's a black mass standing above me, and I squeeze off a few bullets. If these things are ghosts, then they're the first ones I've heard of that are afraid of bullets. The shadow retreats, and I get back to my feet. As I reload and slip to mostly empty mag into my other pocket, the night vision goggles. struggles slip from my forehead and back to my eyes. I catch a glimpse a light ahead and to the right. It's the porch lights of the house.

With my destination inside, I put more effort into my speed. Something darts in front of me, and I shoot at it without breaking stride. It was probably my little boy again, but what hell is he moving so fast? My ex-passes in front of me from the opposite side, and I have no qualms firing more rounds. I'm well out of breath by the time I get to the house and I trip going up the porch steps. I keep going, damn near clawing for the door. Noise comes from behind me, and I blindly fire off the last rounds as I reach the door. Before I can register the two of them flying up the steps, I slam the door shut and brace against the onslaught to come.

Only it never comes. I slump to the floor, with my back against the door. That couldn't have happened. but the bleeding marks on my arms say otherwise. Those couldn't have been ghosts. There's no way. Now that my mind is a little clear and my drunkenness has subsided, something clearly obvious occurs to me.

My ex and son aren't dead. They left me a few years ago, and I haven't been able to contact either since. I get sick all over the floor. And the wound on my arm begins to burn. For your bonus episode, Creepy Presents, The Happy Worm, written by Thomas C. Maverdus and narrated by Owen McCune. The worst part of fall is that stretch between the final sweltering day and first sanitizing frost. The world rots during that period, not fully dead, struggling in futility to hold on to a

slipping face of life. The sugary stench of decay is everywhere, from the leaves in the gutter to spoiled fruit clinging by its stem. There's no escaping it. Eventually, everything rots. Growing up, my dad had an extensive garden around the house and fruit trees throughout the front and backyards. Thinking back on the center of the house.

of sagging crab apples and fermenting corn stalks permeating my room used to give me a melancholic joy of my youth. But now, the memory instills me with shame and dread. I pray for an early snow, a cleansing of autumn, and all its traditions. In high school, just about every day for lunch, I had a bag of chips and a pop from the corner store by school to save money for cigarettes, music, and magazines. imports were my obsession, especially 12-inch singles and hard-to-find zines. Not to mention the selection of English cigarettes from the cafe across the street from the record shop. In addition to the bins of vinyl and cassettes, the record shop had an incredible little periodical rack with indie comics and fetish magazines, right there with the month's worth of British weekly music papers.

Every Tuesday there was something new in the store, and my friends and I referred to Tuesday as record shop day. One of my favorite collectibles were the horror zines. I love the basement production aesthetics of them all, the just-off alignment of the typeface, the crooked stapling, the construction paper covers with crude pen and ink illustrations. Admittedly, they were the catalyst for me

pursuing journalism and my career as an editor. There were plenty of works by local authors, poetry collections and drug comics primarily. Often enough, there was some of the same. something on the rack you would see only once, one single copy. Many of these pieces were placed there sneakily by their author who wandered in and out of the neighborhood, manifestos, prophecies, and outright psychotic ravings. At first, I thought The Happy Worm was halfway legit. It had better production value than any one shot I'd seen before. In parody of the theater magazine Playbill,

it read Play Dead at the top and The Happy Worm at the Bottom in a curly hand script. The image was an overcopied photograph of what I assumed was a person in a tuxedo and cartoony maggot mask restraining a screaming, emaciated, and naked man. Turns out, this was a real image from an obscure play by a famous writer. This was not that play. I flipped through the booklet, checked the price, and bought it, along with the newest issue of love and rockets. I wouldn't say the happy worm was a masterpiece,

but the grotesque one-act monologue was a score. I read it twice that first night. It was quirky and rippled with honesty, wholly relatable to a disaffected teenager. Besides the text and a few stage directions, there was nothing else inside, no author, copyright date, or press name. It was truly handmade and one of a few.

kind. I wanted to ask the folks at the record shop if they knew where it came from, but they never knew where half their zines came from. So all I could do was enjoy it and share it with my friends. To my extreme disappointment, my friends didn't get what I got from it. We were always at the cafe on Saturday nights, smoking, playing cards, and reading things to each other, passages from books, from music reviews. However, when I read lines from The Happy Worm, they actually asked me to stop. For weeks I flipped through the play, drawing stars by my favorite words, underlining favorite sentences. There was a cadence to the work.

I could almost hear accompanying music, scratchy synthesizers and electronic drums. And all my notebooks that semester were little sketches of a maggot with a tiny smiley face and a bow tie and a word balloon with some standout quote. It had been a couple years since I dressed up for Halloween, even though regular people thought I wore a costume every day, but I was ecstatic to go to the All Ages Club that year dressed as the happy worm. Besides, the night was sponsored by the record shop, and I would have loved the gift certificate for best costume. The outfit itself was simple. My dad had an old dark suit I knew he couldn't fit into anymore, and a pair of dust-ruined black patent leather shoes with

tarnished buckles he let me borrow. Just like on the cover of the play, I made the mask out of cloth. It was a pillowcase, actually, yellowed by years of abandonment, solitary, loose on the floor of the hall closet. It smelled sweetly of cedar and neglect. Putting the pillowcase over my head, I could see a little through the worn cotton threads. I played with the two sewn corners, tucking them in in different ways to make the mask as rounded and tube-like as possible. After I safety-pinned the best shape, I took the permanent marker I had hidden in my underwear drawer with my cigarettes, and thought about the face. I didn't know what a maggot looked like up close, or any worm.

I knew the face of the happy worm on the cover of the booklet was not its real face, but close. All I had to go by was old comic books and cartoons, and what I imagined it must look like based on what it consumed. I drew large balloon-shaped eyes with tiny pupils in the shape of an X and a plain, wide smile with cutting mouth parts in the center of the curve. When I tried the finish mask on, I looked happy.

Also, I felt happy. Not that I was strictly morose. Not that I was the brooding teen I projected most of the time. This was a different feeling, like a birthday. Honestly, I felt elated and hungry. I didn't feel like I should put on the happy-worm costume for the trick-or-treaters, but I sure wanted to. When they started to dwindle, I told my parents I was going out,

so I put on my outfit and departed from the best of the best of them. back door. Usually my friends and I would take the bus down to the club and someone's parents, mostly mine, would pick us up. I'd walk two blocks over to Clare's. We'd pick up Andrew on the corner and then onto the bus stop on the other side of the parkway. Sometimes Sean and Ashley would join us on the bus. That night, there was only me and Andrew, who wore plastic vampire teeth. Andrew didn't like my costume, and I was offended. What was so hard for them to understand? At its core, the happy worm was about desire and need and how they were the same thing. What young person didn't crave that validation? Andrew hardly spoke to me on the way to the bus stop, and he walked

far off to my side. The smell of a damp, corrupted leaves was tantalizing. I wanted to scoop a handful into my face, grind them with my alien mouth. There was an old woman sitting at the bus stop draped in a black shawl riddled with holes. When she saw me, she gave me this year. She gave me this huge, toothless smile, like I was either her grandchild or a long-lost love. It was hard to tell in the streetlight. She patted a shadow in her lap, her purse or a bag. If I hadn't made her so delighted, you would have thought she was worried and we were going to steal it.

Instead, she handed it to me. Andrew yelled. Yeld at me, yelled at the old lady. Then he sprinted back across the parkway, cussing, in one breath insulting me, and in the next pleading for me to follow. I ignored him and took the old woman's gift. It was hard to tell at first what it was, this little tangy morsel. I'm pretty sure it was squirrel, flattened out there in the squirrel crosswalk we called the stoplights that did not intersect with actual streets.

It could have been anything, really, but most essentially it was food. Wet, still warm. I was the first to taste the treat. How I was able to bite into it did not matter. Regardless, it wasn't enough either. Have you ever come across a grumble? That's what you call a group of maggots, of happy worms. But one worm is happier than the rest, and that was me, the big one, the apex maggot.

Engorged, it seemed as though I could continue without end. I bore through the neighborhood, consuming every delicacy of ripened flesh I encountered, decimating roadkill and jackal-lantern alike. There were still some kids out, some older ones. I think I scared them, but I think they liked it too. Finally, I had to stop. I didn't want to, but I could feel inside that I could not devour one more scrumptious tidbit. I found myself on the side of Andrew's house.

I could hear him on the phone in his room, frantic, telling someone about me, the happy worm. I could tell whoever he was talking to didn't believe him. I could tell it wasn't the first person he told. I peered into his window, saw my reflection in the glass. When he saw me, he screamed and ran from his room. I riddled on home myself. I don't recall telling my folks I was home or going to bed, but I can never forget waking from a dead sleep,

retching, already soaked in my stomach contents. Pumpkin, fur, bones, apples, feathers, leaves. my bed looked like a demented compost heap. It was still so delicious to me. Luckily, my mother heard the eruption, called for my dad, and they rushed me to the ER. After all this time, decades, it only crosses my mind once a year. This is the type of event you never talk about again. You see a doctor a few times, you convince everyone, even the friend you traumatized,

that this was all a prank, that it was all exaggeration, that it was all exaggeration, that it was all for attention. Nobody really believes it, but we all move forward because how else can it be explained? Still, it's back there. Way back there, like a drink for an alcoholic. I'm disgusted by it,

physically repulsed by it, but I want it. I will forever hunger for it. There is no avoiding the happy worm. 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.