Creepy - Day 27 - The Candle Lit Road of Hollows Hold Grove & Duke

Episode Date: October 27, 2022

The Candle-Lit Road of Hollows Hold Grove***Written by: C.T. Flaska***Duke***Written by: Amanda Mitzel and Narrated by: Megan McDuffee***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.

Welcome to the bloody disgusting network. No. This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing 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, Silence and explicit language.

Listener discretion is advised. Creepy presents. The 31 Days of Horror. Day 27. The candlelit road of Hollow's Hold Grove, written by C.T. Flasker. Orange Flames guide the spirit's home, well bad ones, invite them into yours. My hometown has always had a tradition on the night of Halloween. Keep a lit candle outside your door

and the spirits will follow them home to the cemetery at the end of town. It's a fun tradition to tell your kids on Halloween and it sets the mood to see the road glow with flickering orange. Certainly added to my trick-or-treating experience growing up. But the tradition grew old, as did I. My parents left town for a couple of days,

so I decided I'd have a house-sit for him. I could use a break from big city life. The hustle of the concrete jungle was beginning to wear heavy on my mental health. A nostalgic stay at home and a couple nights watching spooky movies was just a vacation I needed. My parents left the night before Halloween. I arrived shortly after. The sun was beginning to set as I drove into my old neighborhood.

The road is lined with terrifying fabric and plastic decorations. I never realized how much the neighborhood celebrated the holiday until I left. Similar spooky staples decorated the homes, carved pumpkins, impossible to put on and take off cotton spider webs and the occasional witch that flew into a tree. As well, each house had a glowing candle outside the door. Small flames danced in the breeze, their hue matching the yellow orange evening sun. With a warm feeling of fall embracing me, I began thinking of which movie to watch first. Arriving at the house, childhood memories flooded me.

It had been a while since I moved out, but I've only visited. since then, not stayed overnight. Walking up the decorative stone path, I followed the same pattern I walked as a kid. Stepping on the first three stones, then skipped every other, and gently touched the wind chimes in the right near the edge of the garden with my fingers. Flicking the screen door open, a gust flickered the nearly extinguished candle my mom settled for Halloween. It was on a Monday this year, but the whole neighborhood we usually have candles out before. nudging the door open, the familiar aroma of the old house greeted me.

Settling in, I tossed my bag on the couch and headed toward the kitchen. On the fridge was a note. Hi, honey. Like I told you already, there are some leftovers in the fridge and money on the counter for delivery, so help yourself. Your father and I will be back Tuesday morning. Kids usually show up by six or sundown, candies in the snack cabinet, and I left more candles in the entryway drawer. I know you know, but don't forget to light a fresh candle when one goes out. Also, I left a little surprise for you on a coffee table in the den.

Love Mom. Peering around the corner, the drawer of the small entry table was slightly a jar. Honestly, I wasn't so sure if I was going to hand out candy at all. Opening the cabinet, I said a giant bag of mixed goodies and thought. Nah, kids hate candy, but these would go very well with some horror movies. I finished dinner and sat on the couch to begin the first movie of the weekend, The Shining. Exhaustion from the long drive settled in, and I drifted off to sleep, peering through eyeholes, faint reds, oranges and yellow blurs together surrounded by darkness.

Orange illuminations on either side guided me toward a familiar place. Hazie at first, it became clear it was my old neighborhood. Not in control of where I was being led. merely a specter. I veered off the orange-lit path to a dark spot in between the glowing orange. Silence and darkness embraced me. I could only see black.

The muffled sound of wind chimes rang beside me, and the door appeared, inches in front of me. The door handle turned slowly, so as to not make a sound, and I floated into the void of the home. I jolted awake. The TV remote flew off my leg, and I sprang to my feet.

The dream was so vivid that I looked back at the front door. It was closed. The DVD replayed an endless loop of the menu, so I reached for the remote. Roving my eyes, I turned off the TV and walked toward the front door and opened it. A flash of morning sun struck my face in the sound of kids playing a few houses over could be heard over the rustling of leaves in the wind. A newspaper lay on the step before me.

Next to it, a puddle of wax, did it drive below the burnt-out candle. The withered wick was cold to the touch, having gone out well before morning. Tossing the paper on the entryway, I pulled out a new candle and stuck it in the holder outside. With a stroke of a match, I perched a bright flame atop the new stick of wax. I spent the day walking the neighborhood, yard, and house. Gray skies hung overhead, accompanying my mood as I reflected on memories good, bad, and once I forgot. Forgotten memories never hit when you expect them, or sometimes want them. The feeling of having lost

through sense of youth and innocence is both delightful and heartbreaking, if not distressing. The essence of Halloween only compliments these. So when I stepped back into the house and noticed the surprise my mom had left, I was ecstatically somber. Lying on

the coffee table was a DVD labeled Family Halloween. A collection of home videos taken by my parents over the years. My eyes widened with excitement. This just moved first. First time I list the spooky movies for tonight. The sun was going down, so I grabbed the bag of candy,

silenced my phone, turned the porch light off so knocking trick-or-treaters wouldn't scare the hell out of me and settled onto the couch. Besides the whole movie, I had some of my favorites had in a while lined up, including The Thing, It Follows, Alien, and the Evil Dead trilogy tossed in for good measure. Popping in the disc, I hit play and set the candy beside me on the couch. The screen flickered alive, and there I was. was, in a mummy outfit patrolling the streets filled with children and costumes, eager to get their fair share of candy. My dad was filming, encouraging me to run up to the next house. In the background

I could see also its adated costumes and classic decorations. The 90s were showing its age. One kid was dressed as ghost face from Scream. Another stood there off to the side decorated in zombie face paint and fake dismembered leg in one hand. Another just stood there off to the side, in zombie face paint and a fake dismembered leg in one hand. An old friend of mine, wearing a reggae bed sheet with holes sloppily cut for eyes, ran excitedly toward me saying hi. I hadn't thought about Dan in a long time. The video cut to a Halloween party at our house.

My mom was running around making sure everyone was having fun. The Monster Mash played over the kitchen radio and people in costume talked and danced in the living room. I sat in the corner, and what I thought was a pretty convincing vampire costume. playing a game of Scrabble with another kid dressed in a sheet with the eyes cut out. It must have been Dan again. I grabbed the remote and turned off the TV. That was enough nostalgia for one night. Rurbing my eyes, I decided to pop in a horror flick instead.

Looking over the collection of movies by the Entertainment Center, I noticed something in the reflection of the TV screen. A dirty, matted sheet with crudely cut eyes stood in the corner of the room. Quickly I turned, but it was gone. In the corner was a small card table my parents would do puzzles or play board games on. Set up on the table was a game of Scrabble, already in session. My heart's still racing, I walked through the dark room and looked over the pieces laid out on the board. The only words I could read from the scattered pieces were Help Basement.

The TV exploded with static at full volume. I covered my ears and back toward the wall. The image of the basement leaped through distorted saturation and contrast. There, framed in the middle, was the dirt-covered sheet, inches off the ground. Its empty eye socket stared into me. The loud static of the TV was unsolily replaced with that of an awful screech, an unnatural cry of terror erupted from outside and I woke up on the couch where I sat. Lightning danced along the living room walls and thunder clashed. The remote lay beside me on the couch and the TV was off.

Nothing stood behind me in the reflection of the TV, not even the light from the candle outside. I stood and walked over to the door, passing the empty card table. I couldn't recall if rain had ever fallen on Halloween before. Opening the door, I looked around the neighborhood. The last couple of candles were going out from the heavy wind and rain. No one was out trick-or-treating. and everyone's lights were off.

I must have been out for a few hours. Slamming the door shut, I fumbled for a new candle in the entry table drawer. Grabbing a fresh one out of the pack and a box of matches, my feet rumbled on the floor beneath me. Something fell in the basement. Thunder roared outside as I made my way to the basement door. Grabbing the cold handle, I swung it open and flipped down the light switch. No power.

I held a candle in one hand. and struck a match with the other. The flame engulfed the wick and the first few steps of the stairs unveiled themselves in front of me. Slowly I walked down the steps. The boards creaking and moaning, echoing off the concrete walls and floor of the pitch black storage area. Stepping across the cold floor, a lightning flash every so often revealed a fallen over a rack of totes in the far corner. Memory sprawled from pictures to knick-knacks across the ground. my candlelight reflected off glass and plastic and I could see it was stuff from my childhood

old toys trophies and pictures most obviously laid out a picture of myself and dan he wasn't wearing a costume of course it was just us playing together outside after a baseball game had nearly forgotten what he looked like it had been so long this must have been one of the last pictures of us taken i think it was even that summer when he died. The flame quivered slightly on my candle and the sound of soft leather pattered across the floor towards me. A baseball bumped against my shoe, rolling back slightly.

Raising my arm, the candlelight climbed the dirt-encrusted bottom of a white sheet. The swaying fabric stood upright before me, nearly six feet tall. Holes jaggedly cut for eyes. I screamed and stumbled backward, dropping the ground. The candle went out and I sat still, trying to catch my breath. Nothing was in the room besides a tethered sheet now puddled to the floor. Lightning illuminated the room and for that

second a translucent figure stood in the center, a torn old bed sheet floating inches above the ground. The black void of its eye holes gazing at me. It vanished when the lightning was gone only to appear when the light burst again from outside. I struck a match and let the candle. The flame revealed it completely in front of me. Dan? The figure's head cocked slightly to the side. I stared for a moment, not believing my eyes. I didn't feel in danger.

I felt like it just wanted to say hi. But a matted cloth before me, floating and fading in and out of transparency. I wasn't wanting to stay in the same room anymore. From outside a deafening unnatural scream wailed. Orange Flames guide the Spirit's home, I thought. The entire neighborhood's candles were out, and while the ghost of Dan seemed friendly, not all were expected to be. It's too late to light every candle that went out.

Spirits have already begun to enter people's homes. I took one step before loud bang from upstairs stopped me dead in my tracks. Boom, boom, crash. The sound of wood and nails spilling on the floor, remained above me. All I knew about the tradition was that candles guide at the spirits of the cemetery. I never heard anything about what would happen if they found you. I don't know how, but I knew I had to get to the cemetery. Now, I grabbed an old duffel bag off the storage shelf and batted off the dust. Opening it, I stuffed in the package of candles, box of matches, and the picture of Dan and myself.

Running for the stairs, my feet became entangled in the old sheet on the ground. of course. Stuffing the sheet into the bags I ran for the stairs, lightning struck and a tattered six-foot-tall spirit appeared in the light, following my candle closely. Bolting through the kitchen, I stopped midway between the front and back doors. Lightning flashed through the remains of the broken-down front door. With every flash alight, the body of something mangled and dark began peering around the corner from the living room. Another spirit had welcomed itself into the home. A little snarl crackled from the grinning being, and I turned quickly running for the back door.

As I burst outside into the rain, I heard the ear piercing shrill from whatever stood in the living room. As I veered the corner of the house, the back door exploded open. The cemetery was just west to hear, hardly half a mile. My shoes filled with moisture as I stumbled through the slippery grass. All around me echoed screams of terror both on earthly and of the neighbors. Windows were breaking, families screaming, and with every flash of lightning, spirits both dark and light were revealed roaming the streets and into confusion. I made it to the sidewalk and realized how dark it was. My candle was out.

Panicking, I reached into the duffel bag and pulled out the sheet, tossing it over myself. Holding up a corner for cover, I lit a new candle. I jumped as the towering figure stood right next to me, waiting for guidance. Before I could take another step, I was overwhelmed with a few. fear as all the screaming stopped. Everything went. Quiet. I took a deep breath and started running.

Hardly two steps in the bells of hundreds of afterlife beings roared over the suns of thunder. All of them following my candlelight. Step after step the trembling flame revealed spirit so terrifying I began screaming as hard as I ran. Things missing limbs and contorted spider-like bodies crept in the grass. Puss oozing deformities clawed their way in my direction with every strike of lightning, new and more horrifying things came into existence. Small tugs on the sheet I held above me, weighed me down, and threw off my footing, nearly falling. I held the cloth tightly, the sound of tearing fabric behind me. Buried in the mix of spirits surrounding me, I'd often see another tall sheet, floating carelessly.

Slowly they turned toward my light and follow hopeful for a place to go. My legs were numb and I could hardly breathe. The bottoms of my pants were shredded and matted with blood and rain. I hadn't noticed the slight cut being dug into my limbs by the pursuing spirits. The intersection just before the cemetery peered and the lightning lit the sign. Hollow's whole grove flashed before my eyes. I skated across dirt and stone entering the iron gates. They creak loudly from rust and rain, but when I entered the stone perimeter all sound ceased.

The storm crashed around me still, but inside was quiet. Swimming through the air, hundreds of translucent phantasmic beings soared into the cemetery, vanishing into the darkness. The rumble of the storm and patter of rain slowly rose over the screams of the dead. Hunching over my body ached and wheezed, choking on exhaustion. The duffel bag slung over my shoulder and I tossed the sheet to the ground. I sat for a moment, collecting myself. feeling the cold rain beating on to me.

I rose my head and looked around the cemetery. I hadn't been in this cemetery since I was a kid. Well, I could never have described the layout before tonight, sitting here now. I knew right where I was. From the entrance, I go three rows down, then skip every other grave to the right and tell. Grabbing the bag and sheet, I walked over to the plot. I stood in front of it for a while

then pulled the photograph and a candle out of the duffel bag I hadn't thought about Dan in a long time I didn't forget about him it was just hard to remember I lit the candle and placed it beside the tombstone then rested the picture at the bottom

as I stood the tattered cloth of the six-foot figure stood beside me slowly fading away, turning around. I too went home for your bonus episode. Creepy Presents Duke. Written by Amanda Mitzel and narrated by Megan McDuffie. I woke this morning to sunshine, heavy, gold sunshine,

the hazy kind, soft but still bright, that makes you sink deep in your pillow and burrow into your sheets while you wait for the shadows to cast themselves away. My thoughts bounced between waking and sleep, still aware of snippets of whatever it was I'd dreamed, the hollow twang of a guitar, a smell of fresh-baked bread, a dark room with walls covered in red silk. The sun eventually brought me back to the present, and I took notice of a dog. Then, just like that, two dogs. One, familiar and warm, nestled against my leg. Duke, my sweet boy, a German shepherd ten years old. I'd had him since he was a tiny, wriggling thing. He was snoring, loud and quick, and I could feel his big paws twitching in his sleep against me like a cat, making a nest in a blanket.

The other dog was outside, and any sense of serenity the morning had started with was gone. The barks were loud, sharp, and insistent, way more serious than, hey, there's a squirrel. "'Good morning,' I said, sitting up and stretching. I reached over to Pet Duke between the ears, but pulled my hand back almost immediately. A stick in my finger like I'd pricked it on a thorn. Something nodded in his fur, like a burr. "'You stink, bud,' I said, wrinkling up my nose. The smell was bad and hit me all of a sudden.

It couldn't be him, I thought. But then, where was it coming from? and smelled like trash, like something got trapped in the attic and died, a harsh, sour smell. But I was distracted by the dog outside, and still the phantom dream smells of rising yeast, echoes of children laughing, the click-click of tiger's eye marbles.

Duke had been snoring until he heard my heels hit the floor, then he played possum. No more sounds, no more stirring. An alertness was there, however, but isn't there always with a German Shepherd? I absent-mindedly scratched my left wrist where I have the number 31 tattooed, a private reminder to live in the moment.

It burned like fire ants had just launched a small attack. Duke, come on, get up, I said, hoping for the sake of my sheets that the smell really wasn't him. I started to wonder, though. The smell was close. He slunk off the foot of the bed and crouched low on the floor, starting to pant. The smell got worse when he moved.

Noxious, sickening waves of it floated through the room and my stomach clenched. I found, though, alarmingly, that even when I tried, I couldn't focus on much beyond the barking outside. The haziness of the light had turned out to be my vision. It reminded me of the time I'd gotten an aura with a migraine and the whole room had taken on a halo, a shimmer, heat lines on black asphalt. I stood and walked over to my doorway, where it just beyond is the hallway, the stairs, the big bay window. I heard Duke's chain collar rattle as he stood to come stand by my side. I could tell that he walked with jerky steps like he was limping, and when he pushed against me, I could feel mats in his fur through my pajama pants.

I didn't look down, though. I couldn't seem to look away from the window. With every step, I could hear the outside bark better, and that bark. It was familiar. More than familiar. That bark was the one I'd listened to for almost a decade after Duke grew out of his puppy bark. It was Duke out there. I knew in that moment it was, one hand pressed on the cold glass.

I knew I'd see his face looking up at me when I looked out. And I did. My fingers flailed and grabbed the yellow curtain with the blue seagull pattern, pulling it down so tight on the rod that I almost pulled it up. off. There he was. Duke, my sweet boy, running in circles in our yard, right by the pink rosebush and the statue of a frog in meditation. His tongue rolled out the side of his mouth, spit, foamed across his chowls like a horse ridden too hard. He was exhausted, fur, bright and blazing hot in the early morning sun, like the time we went hiking, and he ran himself so hard he cut the side of his paw open.

His eyes were wild, pitted with worry. And when he sawed, Saw me looking out. He reared up on his back legs and poised himself to jump as if he could get up here and save me. I watched him topple over and then fall flat on his back, shrieking in pain. My heart broke, but I couldn't move. Standing there, just gripping the curtain, my mouth wrenched open, pulse pounding in my throat. Time opened up like a vista and sounds lifted and fell away. I noticed the quiet inside, the deep still. Quiet. There was no sound here. In the space of a breath, all I heard was the rush of blood in my ears as I turned to look down at the lump of heat and breathing fur leaning against my leg. The hallway was dark. The only light, the stream of sun led in by my grasp on the curtains. His head was tilted down, like he was studying the floorboards, and his panting was suddenly ragged, the pull of air like the rattling gasp of a dying man. I could see then that his fur hung loose. more like a coat than a hide, and shapes seemed to move and twist within, bound by skin like snakes

trapped in a leather bag. With one shuddering arc he rose, like the witch melting but in reverse, coming to stand above me. It was Duke's form, but it was not Duke. Duke was howling in sheer panic outside and my heart felt ripped in two. My back was turned to him and I knew in that moment, I wouldn't see him again. Just that one simple thought, I won't ever see him again. I couldn't turn from what I was seeing. This figure, this thing, wore Duke like a coat. Not Duke, some bastard copy of him. His face like a Halloween mask hanging by a hook on display, hollowed out, sagging, a buzzing sound like bees inside. The smell like carcasses, like swamps, like upturned graves. Breath coming out in snorts like a bulls, and even though he didn't have eyes,

he was facing down, facing me, and I felt those hot, wet, sewer-sweet gusts of breath engulfing me. I looked down too then, trembling, and saw my tattoo again. The itch grown deeper. I could feel it in my bones, in the pull of the tendons, like the ink had sunk all the way through. 31. The idea coming full circle now, I thought to myself with not fear or collapsing sanity, but a calm certainty. Time was starting to flatten, to tease itself out, the impact of a sensed completion. I tried to keep the terror at bay, but it soaked back up like floodwater rising through a grate, the fear that is the black of the bottom of wells, the black of dead, edgeless space.

To 31 was a toast we'd sometimes substitute for cheers, with so much, so much laughter. Because at a summer fair when I was nine, in a tent next to a bread-making demonstration and a man dressed in leather playing guitar, a fortune-teller told me the day of the month on which I'd die. I'd been staying over at a friend's house, someone I'd wanted to impress, so I hid how scared I was and waited until the middle of the night, sneaking downstairs to make a call home from the dark of their kitchen. Phone cord twisted around my palm and wrist like a tourniquet.

My mind had been in a frenzy, the first real horror I'd ever felt sticking to my throat like hot, wet heat. My uncle Terry had answered, he was drunk, and this usually annoyed me to no end, but there was something about how he had laughed and laughed, so good-natured that he caught me laughing to. It was the first time I heard the word cockamamie, and I let him convince me she was just a sight show weirdo with a mean streak in her heart.

My fear was snuffed out so quickly. It was a family joke for years. I remember that she didn't tell me how it would all end, but maybe that was so I wouldn't fight when it came time. I wouldn't know how to prepare. I thought I'd be with Duke at his end, in the vet's office, after sleepless nights of the agony of back and forth, forced to feel his pulse sink down and away. But it's mine that's going quiet now, having just been a tidal wave battering my temples and throat. Now it's going away. Now it's almost gone.

31. Fall wind tap, tap, taps at the window. Brown leaves blow like tumbleweeds. I know that behind Duke, in the neighbor's backyard, there is a line of jackal anterns with wide teeth. wide jaws. There is a bowl of sour candy in my kitchen, right by the front door. I've eaten all the blues. 31. This brings us up to now. The time is now. My time is now. I whisper goodbye to my duke, my sweet boy, as the other duke draws me up into an embrace, as he folds me up inside himself, and we go up. We go up and away. It hurts. It does, but it's all over now. For more information on this podcast, including how to submit your own story for consideration,

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