Day 25 - Followers of the Lonely God & Bonus
00:00I'm John Grills from Creepy, and I listen to the Be Afraid Podcast Network.Creepy presents the 31 Days of Horror.Day 25.No.This is creepy.A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepy pastorsand urban legends in the world.Whether these stories truly happened
00:36or are simply fabricationsis for you to decide.These stories may containgraphic depictions of violenceand explicit language.Listener discretion is advised.Megan!Megan!
01:01What?John, what's wrong?Don't walk over there.Why? I was just gonna check out that old building.You shouldn't. Listen, I know you all like this town and all, but seriously, there are places you just shouldn't go.I don't get it. Why isn't there some kind of sign or something? Why is it even standing at all if it's so dangerous? Shouldn't the town tear it down?They don't need to. Everyone knows enough to stay away. Plus, no crew is going to get close enough to do anything to it.Is there like sinkholes or something?
01:37No, it's just...That used to be the place of worship for the followers of the lonely God.This town went through changes like anywhere else.The 70s hit them hard in a lot of ways.You saw it all over the place.People suddenly not really sure what they wanted from life anymore.Suddenly there weren't just new opportunities, but there were new ways of thinking.People started to look at the lives their parents lived and questioned if it was what they wanted.
02:12A lot of people started to feel lostAnd those people started to find each otherYou saw a lot of cults pop up in the 1970sThis town was no differentAnd one such church, if you want to call it thatStood at the edge of a forestIt seemed determined to forget itEvery tree in the surrounding acreage grew thick and healthy
02:35But nothing grew near that churchNot grass, not weedsNothingThe earth was bare and gray and head-bend for as long as anyone could remember.There's simply a place no one bothered to go because there was nothing there.Until there was a church.Locals came to call to place ashfall.Though it doesn't seem like anyone can remember why.
03:01Probably something about the name that makes you think of death or at least a lack of life.If you take the time to look, the church first appeared in property records starting in 1916.as part of a defunct organization that lasted less than a decade.By 1980, the group had effectively vanished,leaving behind an abandoned church, a handful of missing persons reports,and enough rumors to keep the local gossip mill going for decades.The group called itself the Congregation of the Last Mercy.There's still a few pamphlets around tucked away in scrapbooks, photo albums,
03:36and old boxes destined for yard sales.Those pamphlets alone aren't like anything you'd expect.to see. Most religions are built around the assumption that divine beings desire, or at leastaccept, worship. The congregation believed the exact opposite. Their central doctrine held that thereexisted a God who wanted absolutely nothing to do with humanity. It didn't seek followers. It didn'tdemand prayer. It didn't offer salvation. Every prayer was an intrusion. Every expression of devotionwas a wound inflicted on something ancient and incomprehensible.The congregation didn't gather to praise their deity.
04:18They gathered to apologize for existing in a universe it inhabited.Consider how it would feel to be a god or godlike.How many beings do you think can claim that kind of power?Is it even more than one?And even if so, what are the odds you would ever find something else like yourself?The solar system, let alone the galaxy, let alone the universe, let alone however many dimensions and realities exist.The sheer size of everything.If you were born and dropped into the middle of the Sahara Desert or the Antarctic, putting aside all that dying stuff, you'd find yourself alone.
05:02You could start to walk, but how long would it take you to get to a place where you'd find more life like you, assuming you aren't walking in the world?circles. How long until you start to think that you are alone in the universe, that there isno one else like you? After all, if you were the last person on earth, how would you know? That is thelonely God, a being irritated by the very existence of humanity and any other life that's sofar below it that we might as well be ants. And if you are followed everywhere by ants trying to tell youhow wonderful you were in their little useless ant language?How long would you listen before you got angry?As for the church, inside stood a statue that remains there today,
05:52if you were so foolish to try and see it for yourself.It wouldn't be the first to try,but you'd be hard-pressed to find a local that would get within a thousand yards of the place.The figures carved from a black stone that, by all accounts, was never as successfully identified.At first glance, the figure resembles a seated human figure, though that impression weakens the longerperson studies it.The proportion seems subtly wrong.Its limbs are too long from one angle, but too short from another.
06:24Supposedly, there are photos of it out there somewhere, taken years apart that seem to showthe statue in different postures.Most disturbing of all is the face.Every visitor remembers seeing it, but nobody remembers what it looks.look like the moment they try to focus on any details.They can see it in their minds, but the words simply don't form to explain it.Supposedly, people have spent hours looking, only to forget it the moment they look away,as if the statue itself refuses to let you remember it.
06:57Even video or audio recordings are useless.Researchers have dictated descriptions into recording devices.Entire notebooks have been filled with observations.None of it helps.The moment attention shifts elsewhere, all the details disappear.The face becomes an absence occupying the space of a memory.The cult regarded this phenomenon as proof of divinity.Their God, they claimed, refused recognition.
07:28Human beings weren't even allowed to carry its image in their minds.They claimed that any God that needed worship wasn't a real God.Why would anything of such awesome power need supplicants constantly telling it how wonderful it is?For the lonely God, to remember its face is to attract its attention.And attracting its attention was the one thing the congregation feared more than death itself.Their prayers were apologies for themselves and for all of humanity,delivered never above a whisper so as to not annoy the deity.For nearly a decade, this belief remained little more than an eccentric religious dog.
08:06and that seemed to come from the collective as much as anyone leader.Then, in the spring of 1980,something happened that transformed the church from a curiosity into a nightmare.According to the few surviving members who were later interviewed,the statue cried.Not continuously, not a stream of tears or anything so dramatic.Witnesses described a single black tear forming beneath one eye,before slowly tracing a path down the stone cheek.
08:39The liquid was darker than oil and didn't reflect any light.Still several observers later claimed they could see movement within the tear.Others insisted the tear seemed to contain distant stars.Nobody agreed on the details except for one fact.The tear reached the end of the statue's jaw and fell to the floor.What happened next depends on whose account you're hearing.Some witnesses described hearing in normal.always like thunder in the distance. Others claimed it was absolutely silent. A few claimed the
09:11entire building shook. Everyone claimed that when the tear hit the ground, it didn't evaporate.It formed a stain about the size of a coin on the floor. While some immediately claimed thestain was sacrosanct, someone in the congregation grabbed a cloth to clean it up, muttering thatit shouldn't be there. But the moment he touched the stain, he disappeared.I'm not saying he died or collapsed or transformed.He just stopped existing.Witnesses described as being no more dramatic than blinking.One moment someone stood beside the stain.
09:49The next, there was just empty space.The gravity of the situation had soon after.Everyone who was there to see the man disappear couldn't remember exactly who it was that had vanished.They knew what had happened.They could see it happened in the fringe of their mind.but whoever it was was just gone.No matter how hard they tried, they just couldn't remember.Even when people in town asked about him by name,
10:18no one could quite connect the name with a face.Family members became convinced they'd lost someone important,but didn't know who.Soon his name even faded from the minds of those who have been present.Even his pictures faded out to nothing.He was justGoneSome think it's punishment
10:40For daring to get so close to the lonely GodOthers think it's just the beginningOf the lonely God's planSee that spotIt's still thereAnd it's grownIn the 45 years since the tear first appearedAnd stained the floor of the church
10:58It's expanded to about a foot and a half acrossthat's about a centimeter per year of growth.And it's still growing.The space it lays is there and not there all at once.Just a spot of pure blackness that swallows and forgets anything and anyone who touches it.Now those of the congregation who are still around have a different look in their eyes.A sort of blank inevitability.They believe that spot will continue to grow and spread across the world until there's nothing left.
11:32There's total silence.Hence, the self-fulfilling prophecy of their name, the last mercy.1.27 billion years.That's how long it would take for that spot to spread across the world at one centimeter per year.It's a long time.Nothing to worry about from any of us as long as we just stay away from that spot.You know, you avoid Jason Horhees by not going to Crystal Lake, right?But in time, the world will disappear.
12:07And the lonely God will finally have the silence he craves.Because the lonely God is patient.And he is inevitable.Okay, someone really needs to put up a sign or something then.Yeah, I guess they probably do.Sorry, I thought I might have already told you about that place.Um, no, I think I would have remembered something.like that.
12:42Sorry.Wait, where are you going?I just, um, I have to take care of something.Are you going to the bar later?I have a story for tonight.I'm not sure if I'll be able to make it, but I'll try.Okay, and next up, we have Megan.Thank you.
13:09My story is called Bonus.Sitting in her favorite chair, eating yummy candy,Nicole sighed, and then giggled.The middle-aged woman had cleverly murdered herannoying husband, Alex, five years ago. Yeah, really did a nasty, dripping job on him. Kitchen kniveshave so many practical uses in life and death, in the home, in the guts and heart, lungs, eyes,and Nicole Michelle Tate had gotten away with it. Without the help of Satan, the killer had rewardedherself with large amounts of chocolate. Not feeling the least bit guilty for her terrible crime,
13:52she went back to using her maiden name.Alex Baxter would not mind.He was still very dead.Our hubby was too lazy and stupid to come back from the dead to get revenge on her.Nicole Tate was not the least bit worried.Thank you, hordes of roaming school dropout teens,she said, while stuffing more chocolate into her brown stained mouth,the glass of red wine beside her on the table was half full.
14:19Yeah, the dumb donut munching cops had not.even suspected her. It was immediately and quite conveniently, all blamed on the rampaging highon something teens with their switchblades and reckless abandon. Poor Alex Baxter had been their11th victim, according to the cops. So, a smirking and quite satisfied Nicole got away withthat brutal murder. She now owned their house. She had plenty of money from his life insurance policypayout as much as she wanted to slash all to hell the smug insurance company employee who finallyhanded over the check to her. Nicole spent much of her time reading old horror pulps from the lastcentury. You can find anything to buy online these days. For the last five years, Nicole would
15:06hand out candy on spooky, scary Halloween night. The kiddies dressed up as ghosts, goblins,vampires, and now, mostly zombies. Yeah, all the rage these days. For five years now,she had to hold back the mounting urge to really get into the spirit of the special nightand scare the shit and hell and blood out of the little sugar junkies who dared to come to herfront door in search of free candy. You want some free candy? Well, then you have to pay the price,so to speak. Halloween is supposed to be scary. Constant warnings from her older sister.were the only thing that held Nicole back from putting jolting fear into the greedy little bastardswell on their way to diabetes.
15:50All her friends were either dead or in prison now from trying to kill their own boyfriends and husbands,both successfully and unsuccessfully.With the big, frightening night approaching soon,Nicole decided that Halloween night was becoming so very boring for her.Too damn predictable.The greedy kitties and their costumes were not even scary anymore.The ravenous little buggers just wanted candy, not to show off their costume creativity anymore.Not wanting to end up in hellish prison for, no doubt, the ultimate and terror,
16:24Nicole was not allowed to even try and scare the trick-or-treaters.Not even a little bit to get some of her prey crying and wedding of their costumes.Damn her goody-goody sister.Nicole decided to secretly buy a life insurance policy on the bitch.She might just die soon.or without the help of Satan.Chocolate was still her non-judgmental friend.It helped her think clearly.
16:50It also made the neighborhood dogs that barked day and night die violently.Chocolate is poisoned to the mutts' intestines.All sorts of useful information can be found online these days.It came to her while eating the last piece of sweet and yummy chocolate in the box the next day.Yes, it is acceptable to dress up as scary and spooky things on Halloween.Both kids and adults.No, I will not scare any little kids, because the lights will not be on when they drop by here.I will be out, dressed as whatever, visiting convenience stores.
17:25Nicole Tate maniacally left like a witch.Okay, I'm going to be a witch.She easily found a witch costume for free.The femme fatale had timed it just right.Enter Ernie's costume shop a few minutes before they were closing.get the right scary costume, stab the impatient and snippy shop clerk to death, however manystabs it took. Give the place some free advertising when somebody, maybe Ernie, finally found thebloodied corpse and called the cops. So when the big night came, Nicole left her home before any greedy
17:59little bastards could come to her door and ruin her night of fear and fun. The lights were out.The witch was out for the night, not to collect free candy. She just wanted to scapeer.as many convenience store clerks as possible, and if a few of them died of trembling, spine-chillingfright, then so be it. A good night for that sort of mayhem. The killer did not even notice thename of the first convenience store that she came across while walking through the city. With herscary, black and ominous costume, Nicole added to the fearful atmosphere while entering the placeof overpriced items. She cackled maniacally and completely ignored the store clerk.Without even looking at that person, she knew that they were instantly afraid of her,
18:46a customer with their face hidden.Makeup, cackling.They were sure to rob the place and maybe gun the innocent clerk down in cold blood.Plus more nastiness.Nicole listened for the pathetic whimpering as she searched for the potato chip aisle.She heard those sweet sounds and smiled.After spending ten minutes of browsing and making the clerk even more nervous and terrifiedas each agonizing second passed and damaged their jangled nerves,
19:15she walked up to the clerk and said nothing.No cackling.She calmly paid for her three chocolate bars.The trembling, crying clerk just stood there in heart-pounding fear and horror,waiting for the bullets or knife to finally end their life.Turning and leaving, Nicole did not care if they ever recoveredand picked up her exact change, money, or not.It was more of a laugh than a cackle, as mean and cruel,
19:40Nicole walked in search of another convenience store clerk to frighten, maybe to death this time.The next door that the cruel witch entered also had just the one clerk, some old guy that reallyshould have died long ago. There was a half dozen other customers here, though. Nicole would be patientas she browsed and felt the old guy's eyes on her. Good. He was nervous. The fear would show soonand increase. She roamed the store, picking up this and that, putting back some of those items,so that every time he saw her, the old guy could not help but notice that her selected items weredifferent. He just had to be thinking that she was waiting to rob him, maybe kill him. This guydid not whimper. His heavy, labored breathing took over, and when it was just him and her in the store,
20:32Nicole sauntered up to the front counter, her cackling is.sounds were really being drowned out by his heavy breathing sounds.She asked if they sold eye of newt here.To a frog?The poor guy could not even answer.Panicking and sweating like never before.He passed out from lack of enough oxygen and hit his head on the counter.Nicole smelled the odor of urine.
20:56Looking over the counter, Nicole could see that he was still alive.So happy to still be alive after this ordeal that he was unconsciously giving free chocolate barsto all customers, just like the ones that Nicole had in her hand now. Unwrapping a bar and tasting it,she smiled. The sounds of hungry mice took over. Dozens of the furry vermin had found the poorclerk on the floor. They went for his bleeding skull first, then his eyeballs. The little buggerswere scampering into his ears next. They would find Grandpa's brain and feast on it soon.This gruesomeness was a real bonus for Nicole.What do you know?
21:35I can have fun without me being the one to actually kill somebody, the costumed witch said.The crulness continued during eight more convenience store visits, mounting fear, terror,plus the smell of urine, praying, begging for mercy.Nicole could not help but finally noticed that the price of chocolate bars had gone up from two days ago.The greedy bastards, she thought.The nasty fun finally.stopped when the last terrified, stressed clerk snapped mentally and pulled out a rifle from underthe counter and just missed killing the cackling witch. With his eyes closed tight, he maniacally kept
22:16blasting. This gave Nicole the opportunity to sneak around behind the highly vulnerable manand scratch his eyes out. Fear and now pain made a nice combination, according to the witch.He was out of bullets and his eyesight, not really wanting to stick around.to watch her prey bleed to death Nicole and her ten free chocolate bars happily left the store.I better not push my luck, Nicole said as she calmly walked home. Wow, those pricey conveniencestores sure are greedy, raising the price of chocolate on this Halloween night. Chocolate made herforget all about that greediness, plus the fact that she had almost been gotten down. I would be wiseto not be greedy myself. By the time that Nicole got home,
23:03It sounded like the little candy eaters had finished going from door to door for the night.No sounds in the neighborhood.No kiddies in sight.This had Nicole wondering.They could probably get in another half hour of collecting free candy.I wonder where they could be.She quickly found out.Fifty kids in costumes suddenly came out of hiding and viciously attacked the lady who did not give out free candy tonight.
23:32They had felt so damn cheap.cheated. With snarled faces, they now felt really good as they kicked and bit into her flesh.Poor Nicole screamed in horrific fear and unreal pain until she was just a bloodied corpse lying on herfront doorsteps. One of them found the eight remaining chocolate bars that Nicole had takenfrom the last convenience store. A real bonus.For more information on this podcast, including how to submit your own story,for consideration.Please visit creepypod.com.
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