Creepy - Day 26 - Pumpkin Pie & Self-Made Mummy

Episode Date: October 26, 2023

Pumpkin Pie***Written by: Cyndi Gradel and Narrated by: Owen McCuen***Bonus Episode: "Self-Made Mummy"***https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/***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 26. Pumpkin Pie Written by Cindy Gradle and narrated by Owen McCune. I put my father in a nursing home last month. It wasn't the highest quality option, but it was close to my work and his insurance covered a lot of the cost.

I brought a few of his personal things that I thought would help him feel comfortable. I was slowly clearing out the house to get it ready to sell. Dad hasn't been able to speak since his recent stroke, so talking with him was just me saying something and him nodding in response. I showed him the things I brought from the house and promised to return the next day. Instead of going home to my condo downtown, I drove out to my parents' house to continue packing it up. The house looked small when I climbed the front of the house. steps. The stench of cigarettes and old carpet hit me as soon as I opened the door. Dad used to smoke on

the porch when my brother and I were little, but by the time I was in high school, he was chained smoking camels at the dinner table. It was a cruel fate that my mom was the one who died of cancer, even though she never smoked a day in her life. I had already donated most of the furniture to the local resale shop. The rest of their belongings had to be packed up or thrown out. I didn't feel any nostalgia or grief when I was going through their things. It was like sifting through the belongings of strangers. The rooms were musty and sad. Everything about the place was depressing. I crept up the narrow staircase to the second floor, two connecting rooms that spanned the length of the house. The ceilings were slanted, and there was a window at each end. My younger brother

and I shared the space growing up. The ceiling was lower than I remembered. A stifling heat was trapped in the rooms the way it always was when I was a kid. A thin layer of dust coated the dark brown 70s paneling. There were two small doors on each side that led into storage space along the walls. My mother kept holiday decorations and seasonal table linens in them. I remember crawling through the walls with my brother and getting splinters on the unfinished beams. I opened one of the doors and was surprised to find that the old decorations were still there. My dad probably hadn't touched them since my mother died three years ago.

I grabbed a black trash bag off the roll and started filling it with old wrapping paper, candles, and other holiday junk that no one would ever see again. I recognized a few of the ornaments that I'd made for them as a kid. They went into the bag with everything else. I noticed a gray metal box tucked all the way back inside the crawl space. I climbed in and dragged it out onto the carpet. it had a spot for a padlock but there wasn't one on it the box was closed by two metal clips that i flipped open easily

there were a bunch of those gold-colored envelopes inside the ones that closed with two pieces of metal that fold through a hole and pressed down i lifted one of the envelopes and it had halloween nineteen eighty one written in black marker on the front. Inside the envelope there were a handful of photos. The first one was of me and my little brother. I was 12 at the time and he was 10. We were both dressed up as skeletons and it looked like we were in front of a neighbor's house.

There were two more photos of kids in Halloween costumes. I didn't recognize them, but I assumed they were other kids from the neighborhood. There were a few pictures of mom, she wasn't smiling, and she wasn't looking at the camera. I paused at the last photo. I thought it was of another kid in costume at first, but something about it looked strange. The photo had yellowed from age, and it had a few spots of water damage, but I could see most of the details.

A boy in his early teens was on the floor in the corner of a basement. He was leaning against the wall, and his head was tilted to the side. His eyes were open, but there was a little bit. something off about them. It was difficult to tell because the photo was so old and damaged, but it almost looked like he was dead. I turned the picture over, and it had the name Jason written in faded blue ink. I didn't recognize the boy or the name, but he could have been one of the older kids from the neighborhood that I didn't know. I looked closely at the photo again. It was too creepy to be a costume that mom or dad would allow. I couldn't imagine why my parents would have

kept a photo like that. It had to be some sort of a prank and the photo somehow got mixed in with the others. I looked at my watch and realized I had spent nearly an hour in the attic. I grabbed the box, closed everything up, and left the house. When I looked up at the house from my car, it looked empty and abandoned. Dad always kept the place up, but Mom was the one who brought it to life. Our house was a typical Chicago bungalow on the west side, living room, dining room, two bedrooms on the first floor, and two rooms in the attic. Everyone in the neighborhood had the exact same floor plan. The details were what made each house unique. My mother loved to decorate.

She always went to the end of season's sales and bought things for next year's holidays. She had little gnomes for the yard for each season. She switched them out every month along with tablecloths and candles in the living. room. She especially loved Halloween. She had several boxes of decorations just for October. My parents were opposites and personality. Dad was always angry, complaining about how people were idiots, and his boss was out to get him. He worked at a commercial refrigeration company and hated every moment right up until the day he retired. My mother worked part-time for a few years at the library, but she mostly stayed home with us. She quietly navigated.

my father's moods and used my brother and I as a shield the moment dad came home at night. When I got home, I showered, and then went straight to the metal box again. An uneasy feeling gripped my chest when I opened it. I was about to find out something I didn't want to know. I put the box on the kitchen table and opened it. The envelope from 1981 was on top. I moved it over and went to the next one. It had Halloween 1985 written on it.

I was in high school then. There were a few pictures of me wearing a purple jacket and holding a guitar. I was probably supposed to be prints, but I had no memory of it. There were a few pictures of my brother, and then another strange one. This time, it was a boy who looked to be in his late teens. He was wearing a shirt and a baseball cap with the logo of a pizza place we used to go to that went out of business years ago. The kid was in the basement, just like the same.

other boy. I couldn't tell if it was our house because the basements in our neighborhood are identical. His head was leaning forward. I could only see a tiny sliver of one of his eyes. It was open and glassy. Something was dripping out of his mouth and down the front of his shirt. A knot formed in my stomach and worked its way up to my throat. It was too sinister to be a Halloween prank. This picture was disturbing. The only thing written on the back of the photo was the year, 1985. I put the picture back in the envelope and closed the box. My stomach rolled throughout the night. I didn't want to think about the possibility that my father had done something to these kids. And if he had, what would I be able to do about it now? I went to work the next day,

but I was distracted all day long. I kept looking at my watch and thinking about the pictures. I drove straight to the nursing home as soon as I got off work. My foot tapped impatiently while an employee cleared my dad's dinner plate. I rolled my eyes when he made some friendly small talk with my dad. The staff talked to him as if he was able to answer, but I knew that he never would. The first stroke five years ago left him disabled, but he was still able to talk, and he could still take care of himself. The more recent one left him less mobile and unable to speak.

I was grateful that the staff was interacting with him, but I had a feeling they were just doing it while I was there to make me feel better. We were finally alone, and I sat down in a chair directly across from him. He stared at me through cloudy eyes. He sensed something was wrong, and he pushed himself back against the chair. I found some weird pictures, I said. I saw the tiniest flicker of fear. What is this?

Why would you keep these? I pulled out the picture of the younger boy and put it right in front of his face. He didn't flinch. His only movement was to breathe in deeply and let the air out in a slow exhale. I held his gaze for a long time, waiting to see if he would show some emotion. He was still able to express himself through his eyes and nodding his head, but he was trapped inside a cocoon of silence, and he would probably never be able to speak again.

I'm throwing them in the trash, I said. I put the picture back in my pocket and got up to leave. I turned around just before opening the door. He looked like a frail old man in his chair, not the menacing force with a booming voice and giant fists, who intimidated me for most of my life. He used to shout at my mother about the simplest little things. She would say she didn't like the color of the drapes,

and he would scream at her for ten minutes about being too picky. He was cruel for no reason. at all. I stared at the box when I got home. I wanted to open it again, but I had a terrible feeling about what else I was going to find inside. What if there were more photos? What if they got worse? I had the picture of the boy from 1981 in my pocket. I took it out and looked at it again. I googled the name Jason, along with Chicago and missing children. Nothing relevant came up, so I added the name of our neighborhood, Garfield Park, and the year 1981. An article popped up about a kid named Jason Collins who went missing that year.

My pulse started racing, and I continued reading. Jason had gone missing while trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. A memory started coming back to me as I read through the story. That night, a group of adults from our block had a meeting in front of our house. My brother and I were already in our pajamas, but we watched from the living room window. They walked the streets for the rest of the night looking for the missing boy. My mother finally insisted that we go to bed, and my father still hadn't come back yet. Jason was never found.

I opened the box again. I had to know what he had done. There were envelopes for three more years, 1987, 1990, and 1996. Each one had one of the creepy photos in it, mixed in with some Halloween photos of our family. The one in 1987 was a teenage girl who had a witch's costume on. Her face was frozen in a gruesome pose with gray and lifeless eyes that looked right into the lens. Her limp body slumped against the basement wall. It looked as if she had vomited.

There was a mess on the floor all around her. The two other photos were both older teenagers. One was wearing a uniform, some kind of delivery driver. The other was in a Halloween costume, a superhero, but I couldn't tell which one. The photos from the 90s weren't as weathered as the first ones. The colors were vibrant, and the victims looked like they could still have a trace of life fighting inside of them. Their eyes were pleading with the camera, as if at any moment they could wake up and jump right out of the photo. I dropped them onto the table.

I felt sick having them in my hands. I put everything back into the box and slammed the lid. My phone rang and my whole body jumped. It was after 10 at night. I'd been looking at the photos for hours. I saw the number on the screen, and it took me a second to make sense of it. It was the nursing home.

It was too late for them to be making a routine call and my father wouldn't be calling. I knew it couldn't be good. The overnight nurse was on the other end when I answered. She told me that my dad had gone missing. They hadn't seen him since dinner, and he was gone at bed check. Her voice quivered when she spoke. It sounded if she was trying to control the urge to panic.

I reminded her that dad had limited mobility, and he must be somewhere on the premises. But he proved me wrong when he tapped me on the shoulder, right behind me in my own living room. I spun around and jumped backwards in one swift motion. He wasn't a physical, threat to me, but the shock of seeing him there left me stunned. I stepped away from him and I swear I saw a look of disappointment on his face. My father had a key to my condo from years ago when I first bought

the place, but he never used it. He and my mother only came to visit a few times. Dad was holding something in his hand. I thought it might be a weapon at first, but on closer look, it was an old notebook. He stepped towards me and held it out. My fear. transitioned into anger he was intruding on my space and I was angry at myself for being scared. He held out the notebook again and pushed it into my hands. I took it and waited until he backed away from me. We sat down at the table and I laid all the photos out in front of him. He blinked his eyes several times and then picked them up one at a time.

I sat quietly and let him handle all the photos. He paused when he looked at the first. at the pictures of me and my brother. I could tell he was upset, but I felt no sympathy for him. He pushed the pictures away and nodded his head at the notebook. The pages stuck together when I opened it. I had to shake it to dislodge the dust and dirt. The lined paper inside was filled with notes in my father's handwriting. The first one was dated November 2nd, 1981, the year that Jason Collins went missing. I looked up at my dad. His eyes were determined, and he motioned for me to continue.

My father's note read, They still haven't found Jason. He was here on Halloween night, and Kathy gave him some pie. She put something in it. My eyes darted back to my dad. His expression pleaded with me to understand. I flipped to another page and continued. November, 1987, there was a delivery man here, and she gave him pumpkin pie.

She's done it again. She isn't well, and I don't know what to do. I slammed the book on the table and leapt out of my chair. What are you saying? I shouted at him. You're saying it was her? Mom couldn't have done this. Don't you dare.

He glared at me. I wished more than anything at that moment that he could have his voice back and speak to me. I wanted an explanation that made sense. I felt sick to my stomach. My heart was beating so fast. and my head started to feel cloudy. I remembered how my father's job

used to have him traveling all over the state in his truck. He could have dumped victims anywhere along the way. I couldn't believe those thoughts were actually going through my mind. The idea of my dad doing something so heinous and then coming home and acting like a normal family was too much to take. He held the book out to me again, but I refused it. I didn't want to read any more of it.

I wish I'd never found that box. I distanced myself from my parents. over the years. They always favored my younger brother, especially mom. He went to college on the East Coast and never moved back. He's got grown children of his own now, and they hardly ever see my parents. Mom took out her anger on me over the years. It was my fault for being the sibling that stayed instead of him. She never recovered from losing her favorite child. Dad held the book open and pointed furiously at the note on the page. It was from November, five years ago, the night my father had his first stroke.

I came over that night to help my mother put away the Halloween decorations and bring out the harvest ones. My memory of what happened was blurred. My father was in a nasty mood that evening. He was probably already feeling early symptoms before his stroke. I ended up arguing with him and leaving, which I felt guilty about later because I wasn't there when he collapsed. I looked down at the page my father was pointing to.

There was only one line written on it. November 1st, 2018. She's making a pie. I looked up at him, and the details from that night started flooding back in. My father started an argument with me that night intentionally. He wanted me to leave. I remember Mom being adamant about me staying.

I thought she just wanted me around a referee between her and my father, and I didn't want any part of it. Dad seemed almost relieved when I left, but Mom was angry and ranted. She shouted at me from the porch when I stormed out. She pleaded for me to stay because she wanted me to taste her new recipe for pumpkin pie. For your bonus episode, Creepy Presents, Self-made Mummy. I think anyone who's ever had a roommate has some kind of horror story about living with someone.

Years back, I started living with a guy who was a bit different from me. The main thing is that he was one of those white dudes just obsessed with Japan. Personally, I don't really care what you spend your time enjoying as long as it isn't something that hurts other people. That's also something way easier to say than to live when you come face to face with it. He was super into anime or manga or whichever it was. Maybe both. He had ninja swords. Remember when people were going to storm Area 51?

and there were all these people doing that thing where you run with your arms behind you, like that cartoon character, Nerudo. Yeah, he'd have been part of that. God, he loved those samurai swords. He referred to women he went on dates with as wifu. It was weird, but at least he wasn't some kind of weirdo shut in. He had a group of friends, mostly online, but still, he'd been laid as far as I could tell.

Finally, all his dreams came true and he started dating this girl whose parents were from Japan. I mean, the dude couldn't have been happier. Wouldn't stop talking about her. About how he wanted to take her on a trip to her motherland. This whole cringy schick. But again, dude was happy, so whatever. I had my life, he had his. Then one day, she broke up with him.

out in there or anything, but considering how he was talking afterward, I had to assume that it was her decision, not his. Things like, She doesn't know what she's missing, and, I don't even know if she really was Japanese. She kept pronouncing things incorrectly.

Like I wouldn't know better after 50 episodes of Full Metal Alchemist? Or maybe it was Full Metal Wizard. I don't really care. Anyway, dude's just the worst for about a week. Moping around, doing all the depressed things people do after bad breakup, even though they were only going out for like three weeks.

Except, I think it was worse in his case. Because it was like his fantasy bubble had burst. I don't even know what he was feeling. Didn't realize how bad it was until a lot later. Things started out like how you might think. change in diet. Some people put on weight. Some people lose weight.

It was the latter on that one. That was never the most healthy person. But he wasn't that overweight by any standard. Still, next thing you know, the only thing he's eating is nuts and berries. Dude went full forest dweller. And I'll tell you right now, it fucking stunk. I don't mean that it wasn't fun to live with. It wasn't.

I mean that dude's farts could have peeled paint off the walls. And he was obsessed. Guy wouldn't go out drinking. Wouldn't have late night tacos or pizza anymore. Went from being weird, straight up boring. He hung a new picture on his wall, some bald monk. I thought he was going Buddhist. But he said it was a 9th century monk named Kobodashi.

I swear one time I came home, and again, I swear he'd been standing in front of the open fridge. When he saw me, he slammed the fridge door and went straight to his room. When I walked by his room later, he was standing in front of the picture muttering something to himself. After a few months, he'd dropped a bunch of weight, but his attitude seemed to stay more consistent. You go to work, come home, watch TV, basically just keep to himself, almost always chewing on something. thing. Then one day, it went from fruit and nuts to some kind of weird trail mix.

At first, I thought he'd started drinking in the middle of the day. Everything smelled like pine needles. When I asked what he was eating, he just mumbled Moku Jikio? Your guess is as good as mine. He said the same thing to anyone who I asked, but never elaborated. Next was the tea a few months later. By that point, he lost a lot of weight. A lot.

Like that dude in the movie Thinner who got the gypsy curse? It was so unhealthy to say the least. And I told him so. But how much could I actually do? How much would you do? Would you have held him down, forced him to eat, called emergency services? He didn't have any family I knew of. None he was friends with on social media as far as I could see from snooping around.

He paid his rent on time, and, minus the smell, it was easy to live with. Friends of mine had way worse stories about their own roommates. The tea I mentioned also stink-eye heaven. I never tried it myself. Luckily, as it turns out, I don't even like tea, but one time I asked if I could have some is some kind of way to reach out to him. He almost looked panicked when I asked and said no. It was hard to get, that it was nothing personal.

It felt a little personal. Then one day he was gone. But not. He was still there, just in his room. He left a note on the table saying he started working remote and he'd be in his room and he wanted his privacy to concentrate since he was always on call. I did what he asked. Each day, though, I would do this weird thing.

I can't say why. When I'd leave in the morning, I'd walk. by his closed door and tell him to have a good day. And each day there would be two quick knocks on the door. I took it as him returning the sentiment. At night, I would say good night, not even sure if he was in his room or not, and I'd get two knocks in reply.

That was it? For months. I never saw the guy. Just two knocks in the morning, two knocks at night. Then one night, no, knocks. none the next day either. I called the landlord and he had to kick the door open,

thinking something had happened to him. We didn't know what, but it sure as hell wasn't what we found. What we found was like something he'd see at a science museum display on Egypt. His skin was dry and pulled tight to his skin. For all intents and purposes, he was a mummy. He turned himself, into a mummy.

I only heard rumors about what happened next, not being family or anything. Supposedly, the autopsy turned up all kinds of horrible things. He actually had pebbles in his stomach. That trail mix was pine needles, tree bark, and resin. That tea was toxic, made from the bark of the Yerushi tree, also known as the Japanese varnish tree. The sap from this tree contains abrasive chemicals that can cause a rash like poison ivy.

What he'd done was something outlawed in Japan over a hundred years ago, a practice the monk in the picture on his wall invented, called Sokushenbutzu. Evidently, he hadn't done the process exactly right, but it had its desired effects as he sat in his room, his body slowly eating itself, destroying the bacteria inside his own stomach to stave off decomposition. When all said and done, I don't know why he did what he did,

if it was some statement to his girlfriend or something deeper. I hope it was something deeper. Because if his goal was to leave behind something that people would remember and that would last, he both succeeded and failed. If he had final wishes about what he was trying to say, no one paid attention. I can't imagine a person

would go through all that and not have a plan for after. There's a statement after all, right? Sadly, for one final insult, unlike the bodies of the monks who had done the ritual hundreds of years ago,

no one put his corpse in a shrine for the public to see. He was cut open for the autopsy, then cremated. The only thing left of him is the image I have of his sunken, dead eyes, staring at me as we broke in the door of his room, the way the skin was pulled back on his face

in a way that almost looked like a smile. 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, social media and YouTube. All stories told on this podcast are done so through creative comments share a like licensing or with written consent from the authors.

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