Creepy - Day 9 - The Hidden Mountain & Halloween Stakeout

Episode Date: October 9, 2023

The Hidden Mountain***https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/***Bonus episode: "Halloween Stakeout" Written by: Daniel Parish and Narrated by: Cole Burkhardt***Donate and get rewarded at patreon.com/creepypod***Sound design by: Pacific Obadiah***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.

Hey, John, do you have a minute? Sure. I was just going to check out another room. What's up? You know how I have a new song coming out on October 27th? Of course. Do you think we could play it at the end of an episode for listeners to check out? Sure, I'd love to.

I'll run it at the end of day 28. Sound good? Thanks. Hey, John. Do you have a minute? Um, sure. I was just going to check out another room. What's up?

Do you think you could talk to Fred, about getting some rope or something for us to string up so I can find my room. I got lost for like three days trying to find the bathroom in the middle of the night. Yeah, sure. Wait, you found a bathroom? No. Um, which room are you going to? This one up ahead.

Okay, good. I think that one's safe. I'll just mark that one for Owen. Hey, John. Do you have a minute? Jesus Christ! We don't talk to each other for days at a time, and now is when everyone wants to talk with me? We can never find you, okay?

You are literally the only people who have ever been upset to not be able to find me. Uh, you're married, and you have kids. Yeah. Okay. Well, I was just wondering if... The tribute. This looks like, mankind. You think you can kill me?

Wouldn't be the first time! Why is he moving like that? That's not John anymore. It's millions and millions of worms who have come together and put on clothes. Is this... Are we in hell? We're joining us. You got walls and a roof?

Your guide to bed. Stranger quest, but I'm not one to King's Shame. We'll see what I can do. Okay. John, I need to talk to you. For fuck's sake. Can this wait? I'm just about to do another story.

I think you need to hear this. Okay. What's up? I've been doing some research on this house. Did you know that Koschamar means nightmare in French? I did not. Anne? Don't you think it's a little weird that someone who owns a haunted house

would have a last name that means nightmare? Not really. My last name is Grills and I used to be a line cook. My brother used to be a chef. What's your point? Oh, I kind of thought that would mean more to you. I bet there's a hot dog standowner somewhere named Weiner. It is what it is.

Anything else? Yeah, a lot, actually. I'm surprised you didn't see all the stories about this house. Stories are why we're here, Michelle. Try to remember, I have basically been possessed eight times in as many days at this point. It's going to take something a lot weird than that to concern me. Okay, well, how about this? What's this?

I did a background check on Frederick. Why? Literally all the reasons, John, things you should have considered before bringing us here. Do you see anything strange? Well, his credit score sucks. No, I mean that. Hmm. Yeah, I mean, that's...

Weird? I think it's a little more than weird. Okay, okay. You're right. I'll talk with him when he stops by later today. Until then, there isn't much I can do. Just let me know when he gets here. Thank you.

Jesus Christ. 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 9 The Hidden Mountain There are all kinds of horror stories in mountaineering Maybe more than any other hobby If you can even call it that I know some people hate the idea of hobbyists

And weekend warriors So it's a people who drop tons of cash Just have a Sherpa haul a ton of gear And I'll carry them to the top of Everest Just to take a selfie and act like they didn't buy their way to the top shit. You can climb the north side Everest, totally guided and geared up for 35 grand.

Of course, people die that way too. Green Boots is probably the most infamous on Everest. The unidentified climber who's body became a landmark on the northeast ridge route. Swear to God, you can still find him today. Because that's the thing about mountaineering. If you die up there, no one's going to bring you down. We could spend all day talking mysteries or horror stories of hikers and mountaineers. Did the Yacht Love Pass incident, a 2008 K2 disaster, everything surrounding crack hours into thin air.

People used to ask me why I climbed mountains. And I always paraphrase Reinhold Messner, who was my idol for a long time. He was the first to climb Everest without an oxygen tank. When he got down, people asked why he went up there to die. He said he didn't. He went up there to live. People like hearing shit like that. If it sounds poetic or if it can appear on an inspirational poster

that some middle manager can hang on his office, it's good enough for the masses. But the fact is, as far as Messner's philosophy, I'm not sure that I was ever trying that hard to live. I started climbing relatively late with my college rock climbing club. I did sport, bolder, trad, a little bit of soloing. But I was never the strongest technical climber. I could sport climb 511C on a good day.

And I wasn't a typical nomad climber mentality either, living out of a van. I wasn't the guy you'd see climbing L cap on the weekend or looking to score some lucrative sponsorship and get photographed by Jimmy Chin. I think in some weird way, when I climbed my first mountain, the first real one as far as I'm concerned, Denali and Alaska, when I was 28, I knew I had to do more. There wasn't some specific goal. I didn't have much going on in my life. Most of my time was spent working, and when I was working, I was saving money to climb.

became something to do with my life, which, ask any professional climber, isn't a good way to take the kinds of risks my life was headed toward. Denali is 6,190 meters, but I wanted an 8,000er. There are 14 mountains in the world recognized as more than 8,000 meters. All of them are located in Asia, and their summits are in the death zone. I wanted to know what it was like in the death zone. Messner had done all 14. He was the first to do so, and he'd done them all without oxygen.

Also a first. The death zone. It's an elevation where the pressure of oxygen isn't sufficient to sustain human life. That's at 8,000 meters. Basically, your body starts to break down and you die. That's why most bring oxygen tanks. The rare few, like Messner, don't. No one lives at that altitude for long.

To the best of my knowledge, there are no permanent settlements above 5,100 meters. When I finally stood on the summit of K2 at the age of 33, I mean, there aren't words. I knew what to expect. But until you see the shadow cast by K2, it actually stretches out so far that it touches out so far that it touches China, even the peak of the shadows stretching over the clouds. You can't understand that unless you see it for yourself. And I made it down safely, which anyone will tell you is the hardest part about climbing K2 and found myself an elite company.

One in four who attempt to climb, die. Strangely enough, after I got down, things got kind of dark for me. I slipped into this weird kind of depression. Some people compare themselves against painters or writers, saying stuff like, oh, when Hemingway was my age, he'd already fill in the blank. Messner was my version, which is stupid. This guy is more first than anyone else in mountaineering. First solo summit of Everest.

First ascent of Everest and K2 without supplemental oxygen, etc. And the guy is still alive today. I wanted a first. I wanted to be the first to do a thing, because you can't take that away. History remembers the firsts. That's how I ended up in Gruel Himalayas, scouting out Maru. No one had ever climbed the shark's fin, so why not be the first? We were in a bar in Utarikand, and I was thoroughly sossed between my body acclimating to the altitude

and whatever my climbing partner Keith kept buying us rounds of. I must have made some kind of spectacle on myself because soon some of the locals came over, all smile and mouths full or not so full of teeth, staring at this stupid American acting a fool. I don't speak Hindi, but through our guide we got to talking about why we were there. I think at some point I must have divulged too much of my own personal issues about wanting to be a first,

and one of the locals mentioned a name that hushed the room. I mean that literally. People got fucking weird. Okay, so here's the thing. The 14-8-000ers, they're the ones recognized by the International Mountaineering and Climbing Federation, or UIA. Don't ask, it's French.

See, there are more than 14 8-000ers in the world, but the Nepalese government has been hesitant to open them up to climbers. Except the mountain that he named, one whose name I won't ever share, wasn't one on the expanded list. In fact, it wasn't even close to 8,000 meters, which I chalked up to being the reason I'd never heard of it. I can't remember the words he used, and I won't bother trying,

but he said there was another mountain nearby. Not as tall as Maru, which is 6,400 meters, and the hardest mountaineer on climb in the world. It was about 6,000 meters and was unclimed. As far as he knew, no one outside India had ever even tried it. That's how I learned about the hidden mountain. Let me get something straight right now. This wasn't a magic thing.

I didn't need to perform a ritual or any other bullshit to find the mountain. It was just hard to get to. And no locals were going to help. Even the man who mentioned it to me seemed to be ostracized for the rest of the night for even saying the name out loud. When we tried to pry for details, I tried to get some bait on the climb, I realized that there was an issue in the translation. The local hadn't said the mountain was unclimed. He said that no one who had ever attempted the climb had ever come back. It sounds like bullshit, right?

Yeah, that's what I thought when I was drunk. when I was drunk. It's also what I thought when I was sober. The shit if it was that we couldn't get concrete coordinates on it. The best we had was a general area, and by general, I mean like half-hearted pointing at best. Even our guides started to get really spooked to the point that once we started to move in the right direction, he stopped cold and refused to go any further. Without the locals said something to him, maybe a threat or maybe more. But within two days, we were on our way. It wasn't as hard to convince Keith to check out the supposed secret mountain, as you'd think.

The guy was a boring conspiracy theorist and knew how much it irritated me when he'd go off talking about whatever bullshit he just found on Reddit. Plus, I don't know how interested he really was in Meru. It's not like there were good stories coming out of the attempts, let alone Jimmy Chin's documentary on it. And I think that once the idea starts to sink in for failure, it never really goes away. We knew when we found the hidden mountain without anyone telling us.

There were shrines all around it. If we hadn't been to Everest and K2 and seen similar stone shrines, we might have missed it. There were piles of rocks and simple tin plates inscribed with the local dialect. The shrine at K2 is humbling. The piles of inscriptions to many of the 87 climbers who died trying to climb it. Keith and I are part of the 370 and change that survived and actually made it to the top. But these shrines, there were dozens of them, littered 100 yards apart in a sort of semicircle that roughly outlined what I would call the base of the mountain, at least the

path that led up the visible route. Keith and I stood there in silence, in the middle of an otherwise sunny day in late June, and looked up the slopes. We'd seen worse, and that was concerning. Unlike myself, Keith was more fiscally minded, and as soon as we returned to our room, started to shoot off emails to his sponsors about where we were and what we wanted to try. We returned to the shrines, the snap pictures you could send off, trying to get in front of the same. information on the mountain, any beta we could get from other climbers who'd spent time in this part of India. I wouldn't say people laughed in our face, but it was close. No one knew what we were talking about.

I mean no one. Not that it helped that we didn't know the name of the mountain and only had a rough approximation. Our navigational gear wasn't doing shit in the area. Back in the day, I could have been attributed to mineral. deposits in the soil or whatever else, but with satellite phones and navigation? Listen, I know. I know how it sounds. And it's easy to sit there and shake your head, but this is the world we live in.

And we weren't stupid. We weren't suicidal. Keith was part of Rocky Mountain Rescue in college before he started climbing full time. Get that Stallone Cliffhanger shit out of your head. No one's soloing up to rescue people. Safety's always at the forefront. I mean, for everything I've climbed with Keith, summoning was probably only thanks to him and his common sense.

Anyway, somehow Keith was able to get some money fronted for us to get some gear and do a couple of scouting trips, get some good photos that his sponsors had first right of passing on. He could always try to reselling him to other publications, and made a solid sidehouse. from some of his picks. The plan was spend a week scouting,

getting our pictures, trying to find local maps in beta. Sorry, I keep saying that. Beta's like intel on the mountain or on climbing routes. When we did go, we packed as heavy as we could for two days, and we're going to stay on the safest route we could find.

Two days. That was it. Get an idea of the routes and the mountain and come back. No risk. No heroics, no pushing forward because we thought we could go further. After two days, walk out and regroup. Let whatever we see either deter us from trying again or fuel us to go back.

Two days. Two days. I'll save the climbing jargon details and just start where it all began at the shrines. Keith and I stood there in silence, staring at the piles of rocks and makeshift altars to remember the dead. We couldn't say for certain that the names memorialized were those of dead climbers or how they died. The locals remained quiet any time we tried to ask.

But we knew what it was. The air was heavier there. But we were different, right? We were professionals. All those names were probably local. who didn't know better, right? We gave what we considered to be an appropriate amount of silence before moving wordlessly past them, officially taking the first steps as far as we knew of any American climber on this unnamed mountain.

We spent the first day ascending slowly, cautiously, moving about half as fast as we might normally, taking plenty of time placing gear. Unlike most of the big climbs we've done recently, there were no fixed ropes and remnants of past climbers. Honestly, the sun started to dip behind the mountains surrounding us. It felt like we were exploring Mars or something. It was eerie, too. Keith and I didn't talk about it because it's not the sort of thing we talk about. But being there felt so isolating and alone.

but it was just two days. We could do two days. At first night, we found some pretty good shelter to set up our tent. We weren't on a big wall, so we didn't have to bivouac. And from the route we looked to be on, didn't look like it needed to be an option, unlike Maru, and I was grateful for that. Hanging on a platform with no ground underneath you,

at least none close enough that it wouldn't kill you if you fell to it. Never made for the best night's sleep for me. We sheltered from the wind, and there wasn't much loose rock that we come across or hurt falling, so we felt pretty safe to get something in our stomachs and crash for the night. We were both pretty amped up from all the unspoken reality of our climb, or at least a scouting trip, so we chatted a bit, talked about being back in the States, which neither of us had been to in almost three weeks at that point.

We wondered how the next day would go. And if it went well, how much longer would be until we went back and saw family and friends again? For me, that number would be eight days. It was first thing the next morning when we realized something was wrong. Even before we unzipped a tent, we knew there was something wrong. From where we were, there should have been a shadow covering us from the outcropping. But the moment we climbed out, we were surrounded by snow. in the open.

And when I mean in the open, I don't just mean away from the shelter of rock. I mean we were totally exposed. If there had been an avalanche, rock slide, even a strong wind, we'd have been dead. We had camped on rock. We were a good 500 feet of climbing from the snowline. We didn't climb in our sleep. and even if we did we wouldn't have picked such a horse shit place to set up our tent. I could have been blind drunk and I wouldn't have slept where we'd woken up.

Keith and I just stood there for a long time, looking around at the field of white snow trying to get our bearings. We were no less than a thousand feet of climbing from where we'd stopped. And neither one of us said anything about it being impossible. because when it happens to you, it isn't impossible. It's fucking real. It's scary. It was cold.

And the air was so still. Like we were standing inside a picture or something. We just looked at each other and only said as many words as it took to agree that we were going back. I think it took less than ten words total. There was no arguing or nothing. I don't know if it was how the villagers already treated the place and the lack of beta or whatever it was. But we knew it was wrong. And whatever it was that had gone wrong, needed to stop.

We were done. We'd go back, regroup, talk things over, and see what happened from there. Any thoughts of first ascent were gone after day one. It wasn't happening. And we weren't going to add our names to the heart. hundreds of others at the base of the mountain. We packed up and started to move cautiously back to the snowline. Like I said before, more climbers die on the descent than the ascent.

We didn't know anything about the mountain. What it might be hiding. We took no chances. We were the poster boys of climbing precaution on the way down. The sun was out. It was bright. And why say bright? I mean, bright.

People who never see snow in their lives don't get what it's like when they're surrounded by snow on a sunny day and how it seems to light up the entire world. Even the light can be dangerous in mountaineering. Snowblindness is a real and horrible thing. If you don't have the right kind of eye protection, think of it like getting a sunburn on your eyes.

Going blind is bad enough, temporary or not, but on a mountain? The thing is, it was different up there. I'd seen the light hit snow all around the world, from the Rockies, Alps, the Himalayas. And this was different. I felt like being inside a tanning booth. The light wasn't just over our heads

and reflecting off the snow. It was coming from all angles, fucked with our depth perception. What we thought was only a few hundred yards of the snow line from where we woke up wasn't that. It was further. We walked for hours. Yeah, we were moving slow, but I could have crawled that distance in half the time. Something was wrong.

Something else was wrong. Keith and I stopped and talked about it, but we didn't have many options. calling for a chopper wasn't going to happen we were easily low enough for it to be a possibility if it weren't for the fact that well where were we supposed to get a helicopter from at one point eric keith stopped walking and turned around looking back at him only to see him turned around looking at something up to mountain i walked back to see what he saw and he just pointed there off in the distance Looked to be a cabin, an old school log cabin set up near the rocks. I stood there looking at it. Close enough that we would have had to have passed it at some point over the last hour. Otherwise, how could we still see it? With sunglasses on, I could make out a good distance of footprints in the snow,

and they looked like they had more or less went right up to the cabin door. All we did was look at each other. before turning back down the mountain. What the fuck were we supposed to do? Waste more time and energy to walk back to something that we might be hallucinating? All we could do is keep moving. For the rest of the day, until the sun began to set, we walked. The snow was up to about mid-shin and never got deeper or more shallow.

When we crashed for the night, honestly, we didn't look any closer to the snow line than we had that morning. But looking behind us, we could see our footprints disappear up over the ridge. I'll save our conversations, because they don't matter. But you can imagine the tone of them. The next morning, we were further away. I didn't sleep much during the night. There was no sounds of wind or snow, but when I woke up, we were sitting in the middle of a fresh, untouched layer of powder.

No footprints from the day before, no footprints from having moved. Keith and I stood there and looked down the mountain to the snowline, and it was twice as far as it had been that night. We did the only thing we could do. We packed up and started walking. The sun was just as bright as the day before, enough so that I could feel my skin starting to warm from exposure, and covered my face as best as possible.

But it made things hotter. I was sweating in my gear. We only had so much water and so much fuel to melt snow. No, you can't just eat snow and be okay. Eating snow lowers your core temperature and just makes things worse. By the end of the second day, Keith and I weren't talking. There wasn't anything to say anyway. As impossible as it all was, we just weren't making any progress.

I started to think that the sun and the snow had thrown off our sense of direction, and instead of going down the mountain, we were circling it. But that couldn't be. We were walking down elevation. You don't confuse walking down a flight of stairs for wandering through a hall. That night we started to hear the clicking. I can't describe it as anything more than that, just this weird, distant clicking sound

that seemed to move around the tent. Neither of us slept much that night, except for what exhaustion allowed. The next morning, fuck it. You know where this is going. We walked. We walked.

We walked, and we started to argue. We didn't argue about anything in particular, we just argued. We'd mutter to ourselves, curse the air around us. Anything to keep from just breaking down and crying. Anger can be a motivator. Wasn't really directed at anyone, but we were the only two there. We'd snip at each other, comment on the pace we were moving, whose idea of what had been.

I found the mountain, but he got the endorsement from his sponsor. Whose idea was it not to pack a satellite phone? Stuff like that. Meaningless, but dangerous, too. And worse, at one point. Way off to our left. I swear I saw a cabin. The same cabin.

And I mean that. Everything about it was the same. The angle we were looking at it. from even. Everything. Like it was a picture that someone had just moved from one place to another. I swear I heard Keith mumble something about maybe them having a phone, but no one would be alive up here where we were at that elevation, temperature, and isolation. No. We kept moving forward on the infinite treadmill of snow until the sun started to dip down again.

That night I closed my eyes. Keith was still up, but turned to his side. We hadn't spoken since setting up the tent for the third time. No words over a dinner, a string cheese, and cured salami. I woke up in the middle of the night to a scream. I sat up and grabbed my light. I was alone in the tent. The flap was closed.

I tore it open and stepped out into the snow. I shine my light everywhere, but there were no footprints. Everything around me was completely untouched. At first I thought Keith went out to piss or something, but he was just gone. I searched the area in concentric circles, keeping an eye on the light hanging from the tent, but there was nothing. Nothing. No footprints, no Keith, no sounds, not even the wind. I stood there trying to stretch my ears out into the darkness.

Nothing. And then I saw the light, way off in the distance. The wind had picked up, whipping snow across my face, Dam near blinding me while I froze. But I could see it like it was next to me. A light from a cabin door swung wide open. In the door I saw Keith standing naked. Backlit, but I knew it was him.

I could see him start to open his mouth while the door slammed shut. The wind picked back up and the cabin was gone. I had two options. I could try to move forward, blind in the night, or I could go back to the tent and maybe survive. In the morning I opened the tent thinking I'd see the cabin just off in the night. distance again. But I was alone with the snow and rock. I tried to look around more, maybe see a cave you might have found, but there was nothing I could do. I just believe I tried.

I spent the whole next day and the day after that in the exact same spot. I waited for something, anything. A sign of Keith, a footprint, a scrap of protein bar wrapper. There was nothing, except the screams. That night, after Keith disappeared, there were screams. At first it was way off, and I assumed it was Keith. The person without him, it drove me crazy, and I almost wandered too far away from my tent. As much as I was always in the same place, I felt like I had no sense of direction. Nothing around me ever changed, but nothing around me ever felt familiar either.

the next night it was more, more screams in the darkness. Some close, some far, I couldn't take it. I clamped my hands around my ears and screamed from to stop. I begged and pleaded and told him I just wanted to go home. Then there was silence. The light and the tent changed. The sun was rising up over the horizon. The screams stopped with the silence.

the daylight. That's when I knew I had to go. I tried. I really tried. But Keith was gone. He had no gear, no food, nothing but whatever he was wearing when he disappeared, or not wearing. That's assuming he was alive at all. I walked the next day alone. Fast, dangerously fast, but I didn't care. I had to make it down the mountain, but as the sunset, I wasn't any closer to getting down. And I still hadn't seen that cabin again. That night the screams started again. I was running out of food and water, spent too much energy that day and was exhausted. Survival kicked in. and I didn't do anything stupid, but I knew my time was running out.

When the screams started that night, something inside me snapped. And I ended up the tent, mad and scared and tired. I don't know what I intended to do. Confront the darkness? But as I stepped out, the moon shone on the mountain and the snow. And I saw I wasn't alone. All around me, dozens, hundreds of people stood motionless in the dark, arms at their sides, faces hidden in the shadows.

They stood there silently behind them. As close as it had ever been was the cabin, and inside I saw Keith. One bare hand pressed against the window staring at me. I opened my mouth to call out to him, but before I could get a word out, they started to scream again. They didn't move. They just screamed and screamed and screamed. I dove back into the tent and covered my ears with my hands.

I cried. I cried until I passed out from exhaustion. and screams were my lullaby. When I woke up, something felt different. It was the ground. I unzipped the tent, and I saw that I was out of the snow. Back where Keith and I at first came. I didn't bother packing my gear.

I just left. I walked down the mountain, practically running in some places. I passed the markers and collapsed at the nearest town. I woke up in a hospital. the next day. I told the authorities or what passed for them, what happened, but no one seemed to care. I told the American Embassy,

but beyond having me show them where we were climbing, nothing came of it. I called Keith's family, trying to tell them what happened. But after my first call, they shut me out. No one blamed me for what happened. Rumors started.

Stories. Accusations. There were never any charges filed against me, but I imagine if there were, I had been found guilty. What could I say that anyone would believe? There's a few people, mostly in my family,

who tell me to take solace in the fact that I survived. They remind me of the risks of mountaineering that Keith knew the dangers. I just let it be. There's no point in arguing. Even though they're completely wrong about all of it, Keith knew the dangers of climbing mountains, but that's not what got him in the end.

And I may have gotten off that mountain, but surviving isn't what I'd call it. Because every night I open my eyes and I see the zipper of my tent, the tent that I left on that mountain. And when I open it, Keith is standing there motionlessly in the snow, screaming. Just screaming every single fucking night. When I leave this room, I'm going to go back there and leave a memorial for Keith and hope that whatever it is on that mountain that got him. whatever it was at Trappist there and let me go for God knows what reason,

has let him rest in peace. And when I get there, I might just walk past those markers, go back up the mountain, search for that cabin again, and try to find my friend. Good evening, all. How has your first full week in the house gone? surprisingly good actually Really? No major issues with the house

Well, you were right about getting lost The house seems to shift around and reorganize itself I must say I'm a little surprised That isn't more disturbing for you Eh, John's put us through a lot worse than that I'm willing to put up with a lot For good water pressure in the shower I'm just delighted to hear you say that

Please remember as my when it comes time to leave a Yelp review. Before we get too chummy here, there's something I'd like to ask you about, Frederick. ominous, how lovely. It's been brought to my attention that you may not be telling us the whole truth about this house.

How do you explain this? I was young, and I needed the money, and they told me those pictures would be more artfully done, though I did wonder why they wanted me to spread my... Stop! Please, for the love of God, never finish that thought out loud. No, I'm talking about that part. Do you mind if I read it aloud?

I'd prefer it for the sake of continuity. Police responding to noise complaints at Kosemar Manor were shocked to discover the bodies of nearly two dozen unidentified corpses in the basement. The owner of the estate, Edward. Ah, father, was taken into the local police station for questioning. The police are asking, blah, blah, blah, yes, what of it? Was your dad a serial killer who killed borders and hid them in the basement? I believe I did mention that my family may have had some doing in provoking the goings-on in this house.

By murdering people? Now don't be crass This has all been cleared up As I said before My family has many business ventures One of which happens to be real estate It just so happened that when father broke ground On a new development

He happened to stumble across what appeared to be the remains Of a graveyard You son of a bitch You moved this cemetery but you left the bodies didn't you You son of a bitch you left the bodies and you only move the headstones. You only move the headstones! Why? Why?

Well, yes, of course. At first, at least, do you have any idea how much more difficult it is to transport a body versus a headstone? So, we're on top of a burial ground? I knew it. Has anyone told you all that you are quite terrible at guessing? No, this happened upstate.

While it wasn't the best idea, Father temporarily kept the remains in the wine cellar while he arranged to notify the families. It was more a matter of bad timing than anything else. So, you're telling me there's a wine cellar here? Yes, but it is incredibly haunted. Yeah, I'll risk it. Are there any more accusations for this week? No, I think I can wait another week. but can we add torches and pitchparks to the grocery list?

Can do. Wait, do we still have another story today? Oh, I do. I'm on my way now. For your bonus episode, creepy presents Halloween steakout, written by Daniel Parrish and narrated by Cole Burkart. I am scared, and I am so hungry. The Wilson's moved into the large house. house on Toothbert Lane about four years ago.

They mostly kept to themselves, except for one day a year. They made their home the Halloween house to visit, at least for those who liked a good scare. They gave every kid who braved their way to the front door, a full-sized candy bar, and a huge caramel apple covered with chocolate chips. That would have been enough. But they also put up these amazing displays. No plastic store-bought crap or white sheets on clotheslines. They had professional haunted house quality stuff. They didn't set anything up early, but on the day of Halloween, the house was always bathed in a thick fog. When evening came, they lit up the gray mist

with lights, giving the whole yard surrounding the house of haunting glow. The first year they had placed just before the steps up to their deck, a scarecrow that shook violently, turned its head to you as you approached, and stared you down. The next year, they had a zombie or murdering emerging from the ground, its head writhing in arms clawing at the dirt to get out and try and grab your legs. Last year, there was a man with his leg clamped in a bear trap, screaming to be let out. Mr. Wilson was always dressed as some crazed backwoods killer type holding a chainsaw, emerging from the fog to scare the fuck out of people, yelling at them to stay on the path

and threatening what he would do to them with that saw if they didn't. He would periodically rev the saw for effect and point out dead or dying creatures or body parts lining the way in. Mrs. Wilson would stand by the door on her porch, always dressed as a witch, poised in front of a cauldron that held Halloween treats. She wore a different outfit each year,

but they were always frightening, or at least unsettling. And each year, at 11 o'clock p.m., sharp, the house would go dark. By dawn the next day, there was no evidence of anything from the night before. Me and my friends, who love horror films and this kind of door, were in awe of what they did. But we should never figure out how they did it, how they made everything so life-like. The fog made it hard to see any wires or look too closely at any gaping wound

or disintegrating skull. The rumor was that the Wilson's had moved from Hollywood where Mr. Wilson had been a director and Mrs. Wilson had been an actress and a makeup artist. Although why anyone would leave California for our crappy Midwestern suburb, but I had no idea.

My friend Alex thought Mrs. Wilson looked a lot like one reoccurring actor in a found footage horror series, but I didn't think so. And the name was different. When I looked them up on IMDB, I didn't find any mentions, although they might have used different stage names. Well, I was determined to figure out how they made those displays. I came up with a story that I thought was pretty good. I would tell them, I was in the stage crew at my high school's production of Macbeth

and wanted pointers on how to make the witches of Endor more spooky and how to make Bainquo's ghost appear more realistic. I figured an actor type would he eat that up. I went over to the house a week before Halloween and knocked on the door. Mrs. Wilson answered. She was wearing a red head. headscarf that kept her hair back. She had on thick, worn, stained leather-work gloves that came up to her elbows. She must have been working on this year's display, I thought, excitedly. I introduced myself and rushed out my story,

trying my best to sound like the earnest and over-enthusiastic high school student I kind of am. She folded her arms over her chest, slowly looked me up and down, and smiled. She told me that it was a nice try, but she wouldn't reveal their secrets. It would take away the magic, she said, something about not looking behind the curtain or seeing how the sausage was made. With that, she went back in and shut the door. That rejection just drove me to another plan, because I was going to figure this out one way or another. I decided to stake out the house the night before Halloween, because that was when the display would go up.

I would see it being put up firsthand. I told my mom I was going to sleep over at Alex's house that night. It was Friday night, so she would not be suspicious. I thought about telling Alex, so I would have some cover if my mom looked into it, but then Alex would want to join me, and I wanted this to be my discovery. I wanted the credit at school on Monday morning.

I was really careful and deliberate in my scheme. I thought the Wilson's might be suspicious if an unfamiliar car just showed up, parked outside their house on a Friday afternoon. I was also worried about getting a spot on the street with a good, unblocked view of their porch. And so, I parted it in what looked to be an ideal spot, on Thursday and just walked to school. It's only two miles from my house anyway. I parked on the street at home, so my mom likely wouldn't be suspicious about not seeing the car. On Friday, I came home from school and filled my backpack with clothes and toiletries, although my mom probably wouldn't

care. I would change before I went home on Saturday to allay any suspicions about where I had been, and my mom's birdwatching binoculars to go to Alex's. I then ran over to Cuthbert Lane. The street was pretty quiet, and there was no activity at the Wilson's. When I was sure no one was watching, I dashed over to my car, quietly opened a backseat door, and slid in and set up shop. I had thought about burning food and drink, maybe have a cup of coffee like they do in the cop shows,

but I didn't want to have to go to the bathroom in the middle of my surveillance. Turns out, stakeouts are pretty boring, which I guess is why cops and private detectives always bring food and drink. I watched for hours and nothing happened. I huddled down occasionally on the floor of my car to look at my phone, but I only did that infrequently so as not to miss anything. I was also really hungry. I had barely eaten breakfast and had skipped lunch.

Around ten or so, I saw some kids. Two guys, I was pretty sure we're on the football team, go up to the barely lit walkway of the Wilson's. Were they trying to scoop me? I looked at them through the binoculars and was able to see that one had a carton of eggs. Oh, yeah, it was devil's night. what my mom would call mischief night. They were probably doing this on a dare from their teammates.

I watched one open the carton, and they each took turns throwing eggs. Then the porch light came on. The one dropped the carton, and they turned to run, but one tripped and the other fell on top of him. The lights on the porch and the walkway suddenly went out. I couldn't see what was how. happening. I ducked down to the floor of the car and hid. I wasn't sure what to do. I didn't think

those boys needed help. They were probably just going to get up and run away. At worst, they would get a tongue lashing from the Wilson's or maybe have the cops called on them, and I didn't want part of either. I didn't think my cover had been blown, but with all the lights out, it would have been hard to see, at least until my eyes adjusted. I stayed huddled down. I stayed huddled down. not risking turning on my phone in case the light drew attention. I decided to wait a bit to see if it would be worth

restarting the surveillance. Time passed slowly. I made a note to cross off undercover cop from my list of potential career choices. With nothing to focus on except being hungry and thirsty, I began to feel a bit sleepy

lying in the warm car and dozed off. I awoke to find myself sitting in a chair. I had no idea how. I was a bit groggy. I was completely covered with some kind of dark cloth that greatly limited my vision,

although I could tell whatever room I was in was lit. I could also hear a constant mechanical hum. I tried to stand up, but I was tied to the chair, and the chair was fixed or bolted down. I also couldn't move my head. It was stuck to the back of the chair. It felt like I had a neck brace on. My wrists too were tied down to the armrests of the chair.

I could smell what seemed to be barbecue, which reminded me of how hungry I was. I had no idea of the time. My mouth also felt very dry, reminded me how thirsty I was. I called to ask for help, but I couldn't form any words, only grunts as I moved my lips. I tried to lick them and realized I had no tongue. I screamed. And then the cloth was torn off me. My eyes hurt as they adjusted to the light, dim though it was.

I was on the Wilson's porch. Mrs. Wilson was standing in front of me, her arms again crossed as when I had seen her last week. Only now she was dressed as a witch. The familiar fog of the displays seeped around us and limited my range of vision to about ten feet. She inspected me like a sculptor contemplating an unfinished work. She took out a straight razor and moved towards me. I strained to move away but couldn't. She took the blade, quickly to my scalp, and I could feel my hair falling away. She made a few dashes that left me wincing, as some blood seeped down onto my face and neck. One small trickle fell into my mouth. It tasted of iron. There was a table in front of me, and I could see that they had sealed into

each of my hands, which were locked in a tight grip, a knife and fork. Mr. Wilson, came over and set out before me a huge silver serving platter, on which was laid out the torso and head of a boy. I was sure it was one of the ones from last night, although the eyes had been plucked out and the abdomen filleted. The internal organs had been grilled. I could see the sear marks on them, then re-inserted into the abdominal cavity, and smothered in barbecue sauce. I was terrified, but involuntarily my mouth watered. I felt saliva dripping from the corners of my mouth. Mr. Wilson, dressed like he usually was for Halloween, smiled. His chainsaw was covered in red

streets and small bits of flesh. The procession of trick-or-treaters began soon after. They were all freaked out as they saw me, having to reassure themselves that I was not real. A few

made jokes, trying to comfort themselves. Alex came too, with Sam. I tried to get her to realize it was me, to say something to her, but I to do no more than yell or girdle incomprehensibly. Alex looked at me and said that it was a shame I had blown them off, because I would have

absolutely loved this one. But she and Sam, like everyone else, took their damn snickers and caramel apples and walked away as Mrs. Wilson looked on. It's now 11. I know because the lights have just gone out. I don't know what will happen next. I am scared and I am still hungry. Again, I am so sorry about all the confusion, Frederick. But you know what they say? about having too much time on your hands. No, what do they say? Um, something, probably. Well, until next week, feel free to scream if there's anything you need,

or wild accusations I can account for before getting here. You know how to scream, don't you? Just open your mouth as wide as you can, unhinge it like a snake devouring a son. cockling pig, and unleash all the rage, fear, and angst you felt in your entire life fueled by the realization that you are alone in the universe, and your death will mean nothing. That is exactly how I wake up in the morning. It's true. He does. We share a wall. It's pretty wild. Oh, shit. Before I forget, tribute, this looks like.

mankind. I followed the shadow god to his home, but they laugh. They put things in my head, horrible things, crawling things I feel behind my eyes. They whisper to me about the birds circling, waiting for carrion, the smell of death that I've become. No more than a meat puppet for their machinations. I am flesh for their torment. Like modeling clay in the hands of an infant. They play, tear, reform. I am not what I was.

I am more. I am less. I am nothing. There is no. escape and there is no home nightmare. We're joining us. You got walls and a roof? Welcome.

Now that all that unpleasantness is behind us, who wants to play Jenga? Ooh, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. For more information on this podcast, including how to submit your own story for consideration, please visit Creepypod.com. You can also follow us at CreepyPod on social media and YouTube. All stories told on this podcast are done so through Creative Commons Sherrillite licensing or with written consent from the authors.

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