Creepy - Happy New Year

Episode Date: January 3, 2022

Should auld acquaintance be forgot?***Written by: Scott Savino and Narrated by: Alicia Atkins***Bonus episode: "The Mommet" written by The Vesper's Bell***Find our reward tiers and how to get your bonus magnet at patreon.com/creepypod***You can also subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/creepypod***Sound Design by Pacific Obadiah***Title music by Alex Aldea 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.

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Pretty good way to start 2022 if you ask me. To see how you can support the podcast and get rewarded, and for your rewards have an impact on others. Please check out the donation toers at patreon.com slash creepypod. Here we are. Welcome to 2022. A new year, and yes, you'll see a new outro. We have some updated information on the website, such as the main contact is no longer creepypod.com. It's now info at creepypod.com. Yep.

Just a shade under five years to actually use branded emails. So, please check out creepypod.com for any updates to contact info or the story submission process. We have a few new things that we're going to be trying out in 2022 that I hope you really like. But it's going to take a little while to get to those. So enough of all this. Now. 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 our simple fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. listener discretion is advised. Creepy presents. Happy New Year. Written by Scott Savino and narrated by Alicia Atkins. Then that tall thing in the darkness

interlaced its fingers and flex them until its joints snapped as loud as firecrackers. It proceeded to crack the others in its overly articulated fingers one by one. Shadows cast by an unknown source of light on the far wall seemed to show those hands, like the legs of an impossible bony spider, wrapping itself delightfully around a fly caught in its web. My feet were gritty and frozen.

That's how I found out it had taken my shoes. So many knuckles cracked and reverberated in the quiet cold, and my stomach churned into tighter and tighter knots with each explosion. Ten sickening pops. Fifteen. Fifty. An impossible number of knuckles. I hadn't realized I was hyperventilating until the room pulsed and the colors ran together like smears of acrylic paint.

I was gulping fitfully at a breath that wouldn't stick as the smears turned to candle wax and melted away. The room was monochromatic and every color had been drained by the belly of the dark. Then the outlines of the basement began to melt away too, growing dim, dim, dimmer. The feeling of the cold on my wrist growing more dull and more numb as the room began to fade until, there was no feelings at all. There was no room. I was somewhere else. I wasn't naked and shackled to a wall in my unfinished basement.

Where had those shackles come from? Rashida and I didn't have anything like that down there. But it didn't matter because suddenly, that place was gone. Somewhere far away. I was safe and warm. A consciousness floating bodyless through space. I'd been down there for at least a few hours at this point. That's why, well, you know, you know what happened.

Yeah, yeah, I know. You need me to tell it for your records. For the trial. If there's going to be one this time, nobody will believe me, and I guess it doesn't really matter. You know that, don't you? That nobody will believe this. Third times the charm, though, I guess.

Last time nobody caught me. This time you did. next time you won't. I don't repeat mistakes. I take what I learned and try again. Boston was a New Year's Day baby. Not just born Friday, January 1st, 2020. He was the first baby born in a new year in Braddonville General,

about a minute after midnight. Seems like a lifetime ago now. Imagine if you had everything you know now on that day. All that info. Do you think you can make it? use of it? Shit. I would have done what needed to be done a lot sooner than I did if I knew.

It was actually a fight about who was going to be the one to carry him before we even knew that Boston was going to be his name. Rashida won that, of course. We found out I probably couldn't get pregnant later on. I was with that woman for ten years, you know? We got married in 2015 a week after it was finally legal. We were talking about kids right from the end of that first year, probably. maybe even before that.

Nine or ten years we talked about really starting our family, and there we were, finally doing it. Boston was a strange baby right from the beginning. Rashida could always get him to sleep, but at first, whenever I came within a foot of him, no matter how deep in sound his sleep had been, his eyes would just shoot open. That shocking shade of blue,

little microcosms, like a whole world's worth of knowledge swirling around inside. Then he'd fucking scream his fucking head off. At least that's what happened for about the first month. He always still woke up whenever I got near him, but after that first month, he stopped screaming. He just stared me after that, stare right through me.

I know you may not understand this, but it's the only way I can think to describe it. It was like something ancient to know. dark was shining a spotlight out of his eyes. Bright enough to wash out everything but those two little marbles of light. Felt like knives made of ice pushing right out of that stare and threw me. I'd feel faint, and my body would go numb unless I looked away. You don't know cold until my fucking kid is staring at you like he stared at me.

It was like staring at the endless vast knowledge of eternity, hanging impotent in the vast emptiness of space. I was insignificant to the universe, and that is my boss and saw me as a tool to foster his becoming. Of course, Rashida told me I was crazy. I think she was really worried, because everything about how she was to me began to change that night we laid staring up at the ceiling fan, and I told her about my fears. When he looks at you, you know, the way that he does, do you ever feel afraid? I asked her. I'm afraid about what the world's going to be like for him when he's grown.

I'm afraid about things like, will he be happy? I'm afraid that... What if we're not enough? Is that what you mean? I turned to face her. The room was dark, but I could see that her eyes hadn't moved from the spot she was staring at on the ceiling. She had the blankets pulled up to her chin, and I knew underneath that her fingers would be interlaced across her stomach. It's funny how many little habits that don't seem to register about someone until they're gone.

And then those things matter a great deal. She's only been gone a few hours now. But I've lost her twice, really. I've had time to think about things. No, that's not it. I whispered. I was scared to tell her about this. Of course I was scared.

But there weren't ever secrets between us, so I knew that I had. to say it and just see what she thought about it. So I told her about his eyes and how old they were and how much he scared me. I'm sorry. But Nora, what? Actually, what the fuck? Are you being funny? I told her about him waking up from dead sleep and just staring at me.

She told me I was seeing things that weren't there. He was only three months old at the time. couldn't think about nothing but taking naps and screaming for food. So I tried to show her, but trying to show her what that little fucker was doing was fucking impossible. He sabotaged me every fucking time, pretending to be asleep any time she checked him with me. He only woke up like that when she wasn't around.

Soon as I told her, other things started happening, because of course they did. It was like I'd opened Pandora's box. As soon as Rashida thought I was losing it, he started playing his little games more and more. From the day we brought him home from the hospital, he always, always slept through the night. A night or two after I talked to Rashida about all this

was the first time he woke up wailing in the middle of the night. The sound was deafening. It was like he wasn't screaming in his crib in the next room. It was like he was screaming right next to my head. head. I sat up, bolt straight, like I'd been jolted into action by electricity. Rashida was always such a light sleeper, complained about my snoring all the time. She hadn't moved. She was laying there as sound as can be. The first time I thought, well, maybe she's just tired. But the third or fourth time it happened that week, she didn't budge either. One night when Boston started wailing, I decided to wake her up.

Hey, I've been doing this every night this week. It's your turn. I said. I was already starting to feel throbbing behind my eyeballs as Boston screamed right into my ears from the other room. A sustained and breathless babies scream. He'd screamed like that for almost two minutes now without seeing me to even gasp for a breath. She looked at me in that sleepy way, confused and irritated by awakening. Go take care of the baby.

I told her, and without thinking about it for too long, she begrudgingly got out of bed, slipped on her robe from the back of the closet door and trudged out of the room. She was back a moment later, now fully awake and fully enraged. Why? she asked. He sound asleep. Why did you wake me up? She dropped her robe and let it briefly pull around her ankles before stepping out of it and climbing back beneath the sheets. She was normally a bed.

back sleeper, but this time she rearranged her pillow and jerked her head along it until she found a comfortable position with her back facing me. Thing was, Boston was still screaming in the other room, and when I went to look, it was just like it had been every other time that week. I'd opened the door to his room, and the screaming would stop, like it had been sucked out of the room as soon as my foot crossed the threshold. What would be left would be the near deafening ring of complete. silence. And that's when I'd go to the side of his crib and look inside, and he'd just be staring up at me and not moving, not even breathing. He was like a little dead corpse staring out from behind those icy blue irises, and I could feel them cutting into me like a hundred

icicle javelins. After that, he stopped doing it every night. It became something I would go to bed expecting, and it wouldn't happen for a few nights. And I'd let my guard down and start to think that maybe I was imagining all of this. That I was being silly. Well, that's when he'd do it again. Gaslighting me, you see. Making me think maybe I was the crazy one. Sometimes a week of restful sleep and sometimes just two or three days.

This whole time he was waking up and screaming only for me. Rashida couldn't hear him and that's why she slept through it all the nights before The way we planned this out I was working and Rashida was taking her maternity leave from the hospital was supposed to be a full four months instead of just the 12 weeks that were covered because she was using some of her PTO After that I was going to take my sabbatical from the restaurant for six weeks

and we'd play it by ear Sabatical That's rich A restaurant GM with vacation time in a once every five year sabbatical. Do you remember shit like that? Insurance, benefits. At this point in the video,

Nora Wallace begins to laugh one of those wild, uncontrollable laughs. She continues doing this for several minutes until she has to lower her head at the table in front of her so she can reach her eyes with her hands and wipe away tears. This entire time she's been talking to Detective Trevor Barrett without taking many breaks from speaking, except to take a deep breath here and there for a moment,

or to take a sip of water. Her behavior had been erratic when they brought her in, and they cuffed her to the table as a safety measure. She spoke animatedly, using her hands and effectively to express herself when she occasionally forgot they were restrained. Her toxicology report only returned a positive for THC, but if she was high now, it wasn't from smoking a joint. Over and over throughout the interrogation surveillance, she can be seen taking the plastic cup in front of her into her shaking bruised hands and taking a small slow sip, setting the shaking cup back down on the table with extreme caution as it rattled under the surface. Finally, her laughing subsides into heavy gasps.

While she calmed herself, three separate times she lifted her right hand and moved as though she might put it to her chest, but the restraints prevented her from doing so. Do you think I could get some more water? And one of those cigarettes you've got on you? Oh, don't look so surprised, Officer Bennett. Oh, I'm sorry. Officer Barrett. My mistake. I've been craving one of them since you walked into the room. Smelt it on you.

Do you think I could get one of them? Well, I mean, I'm sure that's just the thing they do on TV, and there's no smoking allowed in here. Make an exception. There's more of this fucking shit. I know I probably should have a lawyer here, but I don't because I know what's going to happen to me. I'm not going to be in this room for much longer.

A lawyer would take too long to get here, and I got to tell you what happened pretty fucking fast, you see. I'm getting off from this. That's what I think. And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe, like I said before, maybe things don't happen the way I think they will. and maybe there'll be a trial.

If that happens instead, whether I've got a lawyer or not doesn't matter. They'll lock me up forever. Throw away the key. You can break a smoking rule for this. I'm sitting here making you famous because I'm telling you all of this and all of this is the fucking truth

and I'll live with the consequences of it after nobody fucking believes that I'm not crazy. That's if I'm wrong. Anyway, I don't think there's ever going to be a trial, if I'm honest with you. So can I have one? Thank you. Yeah, I can wait for you to get back with the water to light me up. All right. Thank you.

So what happened next? Oh, I remember. Benefits. Cushy jobs. That's fucking rich now, isn't it? Like I said before, if you could... go back with all the info you've got right now, right back to the beginning of this year? Could you make use of it? When the shutdown happened, my restaurant switched to to-goes. Who's ordering a five-star steak dinner, Officer Barrett?

Nobody. That's who. This whole time, I've got all this stress at home and I'm worried about my business. It's going to fail like this and I don't own the place. I'm the GM, but I'm an employee. Good benefits, but it was a small business. Those guys own like six restaurants, and they're not chains. They're all different. Ours was the only one not seeing any traffic.

They start talking about laying me and my whole management team off for a little bit, having us go on unemployment and wait this out. But before they get a chance to make a final decision about that, about three or four weeks into trying to keep the place open and running, Well, that's when my wife comes to me and says she'd like it if I moved into the guest room downstairs. She says I'm acting real strange these past few months and she doesn't know if she wants to keep being married. Ten fucking years. And suddenly she doesn't know if she wants to keep being married?

That's insane. I'm fine. I was fine. So, I mean, everyone should have understood I was in the middle of. of going through some shit. I should have kept that job. My baby's some kind of horrible netherbeast from the galaxy of hell,

and my wife wants me to move downstairs she doesn't have to occupy the same space as me because she thinks I've lost my mind. So when the owner, Tom comes in and starts asking me about the numbers, I lost it. What is happening here? All of the other restaurants

are making all their bills fine. They've even brought a few hourlys back because they're so busy. You guys did 300 yesterday. We've got to figure this out. Tom says to me, right? And I'm just kind of looking at him with my jaw kind of slacked because, of course, who the fuck is ordering a $150 steak dinner for two? And coming across town to pick that shit up? Who is coming all the way across town to pick up lukewarm Wagyu filet that have been sitting ready and waiting for ten minutes, then taking that steak across town to their house to eat it cold.

He starts talking about shutting down and the layoffs. I was making $1,400 every week. Unemployment is great to have, but it's not $1,400. So I start suggesting any other thing I can think of. And I'm trying to think of solutions, but the only thoughts I've got is my fucking demon child waking me up. Even downstairs now, he sounds like he's fucking screaming directly in my skull.

I'm thinking about how my wife made me move downstairs. What comes out of my mouth is, we could run a deal, advertise or maybe cut back on some of the expenses. Like, for instance, little things here and there. The water usage for the landscaping, stuff like that. I said, you'll have what happens next in my record.

The previous arrest. You want to kill my fucking trees outside? The flowers? Do you have any idea how much the landscaping here cost? That big pine tree out front? That had to be brought in on a crane. Fully grown. You're talking about saving a couple hundred dollars a month and killing my goddamn trees? Jesus fucking Christ, Nora! Why don't I just take $20,000 out of my checking account and light it on fire? That's when I punched him right in his face. Right in his nose. We're both sitting in the office and a couple of rolling.

chairs having this discussion and I didn't even stand up. I just slugged him right in his nose and his chair rocked back like it was going to flip him out of it. He just looked at me in shock for a moment. So I hit him again. I don't really remember much after that second punch because I was seeing pure red. I didn't quit until Chef Michael pulled me off of him. Rashida bailed me out after a few hours. My life was unraveling, and they were so flip about it they called me the next morning and fired me over the phone. Only it wasn't Tom that called me. It was his husband, John. I should have known, really. Lesbians and gays are like cats and dogs. We don't really get along, but if we're in the same house, we'll tolerate each other. I should have known before I ever

started working for them that it was going to come around to bite me. After that, Rashida went back to work at her security job at the hospital, and things began to get a lot worse. She'd work overnight, and I'd climb into the bed we used to share and cry myself to sleep. Then the baby would start screaming, and I'd wake up. This had been going on for months pretty regularly, of course. But when Rashida went back to work, the little monster started ramping things up, making a whole stage production out of it. We never closed the door to the nursery before.

but I started to after he started doing that theatrical shit. I was over it. I'd wake up to him screaming, like usual. Whether I was in my bed or hers, it didn't matter. I'd find myself in the hallway upstairs, and the floor would be swirling with mist, a slow pulsing redness illuminating it like it was some kind of deadly toxin rolling across the upstairs carpet.

I'd look in on Boston, and he'd stop crying as I entered the room. His eyes would cut into me, like I was burning up and freezing at once. And his whole body would be pulsing with red light, like a heartbeat. It kept getting worse. One time he got the furnace going. Oh yeah. I don't know how, but he did. It's the middle of the summer.

He's screaming bloody murder, and the house is 100 degrees. Sometimes he'd make the phones ring. Sometimes he still did that even after. I unplugged all of them and turned off my cell phone too. I'd wake up and the call would be from unknown, and I'd go to answer it. But as soon as I swiped, accept, the screen would go right to black, because I'd left the phone off. That baby is the reason I've had such a bad year. My grandmother had an unfinished basement too, you know.

That's how I knew you had to keep the dirt down there oiled. She used to do that. It keeps it from drying out and getting all dusty. You'll find Rashida down there if you guys haven't found her already. Northwest corner of the room. I didn't kill her. I found her. I just put her there after.

She started taking Boston into the bedroom with her when she came in from her overnight shifts. I thought it was weird of her. She'd work a full, ten, sometimes twelve hours and come home and take the baby into the bedroom with her at seven a.m. Knowing full well, he should be waking up in an hour or two. Of course he never did, because by November he was back to screaming me awake every night. And probably that fog coming out of his mouth and the pulsing and the dead-eye stares really tired the poor guy out. Fucking little shit. I know why you guys showed up when you did.

Her boss probably knew we were having trouble at home. When she didn't come into work for the fourth day in a row, he called you for a wellness check or something. Am I right? He killed her the morning after Christmas, which, by the way, he was fucking miserable. Rashida worked Christmas night and came home the next morning and took him into the bedroom with her. I was finally going to lay down and get some rest myself when he started screaming again. I walked into the bedroom and he stopped right away, like he always did. Except this time he started laughing when I came in.

It wasn't a fucking baby giggled neither. It was a full-throated adult's laugh. A man's laugh. The bed was wrapped in a layer of fog that was slowly pouring out of his throat and pulling on the sheets. I couldn't see her through it, but I knew she was there. Even before I made it to the side of the bed, I knew she'd be dead. I had the part the mist away with my hands, like pulling back layers and layers of paper inside a gift bag. Rashida lay in the bed next to our son, whose laughter had completely subsided now.

The room was filled with silence as thick as the fog that was slowly water falling down from the bed spread and swirling at my feet. I didn't do anything for a little while. I just looked down at her. The blood was everywhere. I didn't know there could be that much blood. The gash on her throat was so deep that you could see her windpipe. When you dig her up, you'll know it wasn't me. Baby's fingernails are sharp.

He left a lot of marks on her. you'll be able to match that up. Took those little hands and just dug them right into her neck. But it doesn't matter anyway. It's all going to work out because I know what I did wrong, and I'm going to own up to it. I took her down to the cellar and buried her in the northwest corner. I had no idea what to do after that,

so I just went back upstairs and stood there, looking at Boston as the mist swirled around him for a little while. Might have been five minutes. might have been an hour. Neither of us moved for a long time. Just stared at each other. The fog just kept pouring out of its mouth until the groaning started, and the hands came out.

Two fingers at first, long and spindly like a pair of black twigs growing out from him. Then a whole hand. Then a second one. Both with too many fingers crawling out of him like a set of tarantulas. The mouth wasn't white enough, so the hand still on his face, one on his skull and one on his jaw, inserted to pull the lips wider and wider apart. There was a sound like something ripping through soggy cardboard, a sickening wet noise.

Those arms came out further and ripped the rest of Boston's head completely off, and that thing started to climb out of the hole, impossibly large. The arms, then a head, then a torso, squeezing itself out of the baby like toothpaste from a tube, a little tube with arms and legs and no head. Boston's jaw was completely disarticulated and laying on his tiny chest. It was still hanging on by the skin of his neck as it continued to rise and fall. It was a dark shape with no defined features. When it had gotten itself out from what was left of the child completely,

it filled the space between the ceiling and the floor, so tall it had to slow. its head. That's when I snapped out of it. I ran at it. I went to hit it, to kill it. That's why my knuckles are all bloody. But I don't remember hitting it at all. I must have. All I remember is waking up in the basement and chain to the wall. But that chain didn't belong there. There was nothing like that down in our basement. I remember I saw it down there in the dark just before you all came in and rescued me. It is worth noting at this time that this was not, in fact, the way the police found Nora

at 9.23 p.m. on December 31st, 2021. Police had been called to perform a wellness check, and when nobody answered the door, they began to do a cursory inspection of the perimeter of the property, before leaving and returning to do a second visit the following morning. Nora Wallace was seen, unclearly, a shadow moving through a mist of red fog through a basement window. The officer who spotted her claim that the fog seemed to be pouring out of her mouth as she moved in darkness. She was found tamping the upturned earth down above where she buried her wife.

When Rashida Brown was exhumed, it was determined that she had begun decomposing several days earlier in a secondary location. The soil surrounding her body reflected very little of this decomposition, suggesting that she had only been buried in the basement for a few hours, a day, ever. most. The child, Boston Wayne Brown Wallace, has not been found. It's almost midnight now. If you had it all to do again, Officer Barrett, the whole year. Would you do it? Take everything you knew about 2021 back with you and start over? Would you do it? I thought so. Me too. Third time's a charm, I guess. Is it midnight yet?

Nora Wallace stops suddenly. A shocked look crosses her face and she begins to smile. She slowly lays her head down on the table and her mouth yawns open. A red mist begins pouring out from her. And like a cautious animal, it slowly moves around the room until the floor is pooling with fog. The red light seems to pulse from her chest. Seems to pulse through the fog as though it's something that has come to live. life. Officer Barrett looks terrified, but he can't take his eyes away from her, and he can't move.

The fog reaches the table and slowly covers Nora. Every officer watching this through the two-way glass is understandably shocked, and nobody moves until finally someone does. He moves so quickly. It's as though he's been spurred into action by the starting gun of a race. He throws the door of the interrogation remote. and the fog drifts slowly out. When it's cleared, Norrell Wallace is gone. The shackles that bount her to the table lay empty. The tape ends.

For your bonus episode, Creepy Presents The Mommet, written by the Vespers Bell. Every day on the bus ride to school through the country, I would see it. The Mommet. That's what we called it, but no one seemed to know who had called it that first.

The mammoth was an old scarecrow, sitting atop the shallow valley my bus route cut through. The field that was intended to guard had long ago been abandoned, surrendered to grass and weeds and wild-growing Indian corn. Backdropped against it was an old woodlot filled with too many dead trees to count, long overdue for felling. Perpetually perched in those naked branches was a murder of crows, inexplicably indifferent to the insidiously imposing scarecrow beneath them. The first thing that most people would probably notice about the moment was that it had been deliberately and irreverently placed on a life-sized cross. Its outstretched arms have been bound at the wrist of the horizontal beam, its body sagging under its own weight

in the undeniable mockery of Christ's crucifixion. Even more bizarre was the fact that the mammoth's head had been made from a leather plague doctor's mask, topped with a wide-brimmed black hat. Combined with dark gloves and a tatter black cloak on its outstretched arms, the mammat had apparently been made in the image of the crows that was meant to fend off. We kids told countless stories about where we thought the mammat came from, Of course. The most common, and most cliche, story said that the farmer who lived there had caught a man

sleeping with his daughter. He murdered him, then hid the body in plain sight as a scarecrow, covering the face with the only mask he had at hand, which, for some reason, happened to be a plague doctor's mask. A related story claimed that it was the farmer himself who was the mammoth. Having grown fed up with a murder of crows that cannot be deterred by old clothes stuffed with straw, the farmer grabbed his shotgun and took aim at them. He killed only one before they descended upon him in a murderous frenzy, hanging his corpse upon his scarecrow's post,

and decorating it with bits of stolen clothes as a memorial to their fallen brother. Others say that the mammoth was a First Nations man who could shape-shift into a crows. When the European settlers came, he ran a foul of the first white witch he met, another local legend by the name of Eleanor Flanagan. During her ritual, he swooped down and snatched her wand out of her hand. But that wasn't enough to stop her from cursing him into a permanent juxtaposition of his crow in human forms. My favorite story, though, says that an entire coven of witches had been holding a Sabbath in the woodlock. and caught a man who had dared to peep at them as they danced naked around their fire. When he invoked the power of Christ to defend himself, they acquiesced by nailing him to a cross.

And since he'd seen them naked, they draped him scalp to toe so that not one inch of him would ever be bare again. I could go on. But suffice it to say that making up and retelling stories about the mammat, was a popular activity during my childhood. As kids, we were all terrified of it. Every day, twice a day. We all went silent as we drove down mom at lane. Most of us tried not to look at it,

but some just couldn't help themselves. In at least once a week, someone would shout, It moved, sending us all into fits of hysterics. Everyone claimed to have seen a move at least once. Some of us were lying. Some of us just thought we had when it was really just a trick of the light or the force of the wind. But some of us really did see a move. I know that now.

When we were kids, we said that if anyone ever saw the moment when they were alone, it would kill them. So we regularly dared each other go to. to the top of the playground hill by ourselves. On a clear day, you could just barely make out the shape of the crucifix in the distance from the top of that hill. What everyone wondered, and no one ever seemed to know, was who had actually made the moment, and why was it allowed to stay up? It was a simulacrum of a crucifixion, morbid enough on its own, and disrespectful to anyone

of any Christian denomination, and children as young as four. were forced to witness it on their ride to school. We were all terrified of it, and it gave us all nightmares. But there never seemed to be any discussion of removing the moment. There was no official record of who had once owned that land, and no official explanation as to why no one else seemed interested in buying it. Surely the township, if not the county, had the authority to remove it. and even if they technically didn't,

who had objected the removal of an eyesore from an abandoned farm? My parents didn't see it that way, though. When I brought up the issue with them, they dismiss it as juvenile. All the stories and rituals around the moment were just normal silly games the children played, and the moment itself was harmless. It was a landmark even. After all, what would we call Mommet Lane if there was no Mommet? Besides, the school's mascot was a scarecrow,

so the children couldn't have been that scared of it. I was just making too much out of things. Every adult I spoke to seemed to be the same mind on the matter and assured me there was no course of action I could take that would result in the Mommet being removed. So, I kept riding past it on the bus, falling silent each time, doing my best not to look at it. Sometimes I did, of course. It couldn't be helped.

But I, and seemingly I alone, was the only child who never saw it move. Eventually I graduated eighth grade. Please hold your accolades. and from there attended the high school in town. Their mascot was the periwinkle pine porcupine, which, as far as I was concerned, was a marked improvement over a scarecrow. I never had to drive down Mommet Lane or see the Mommet again.

But as the years passed, I thought about the Mommet less and less. And one night, while leaving a friend's house, Momit Lane happened to be the shortest way home. By then, my fear of the mom had largely subsided. I just wanted to go home as soon as possible. And I can't say I didn't have a desire to face my fear and prove my childhood phobia wrong. It was a mostly clear sky with a full moon that night.

The world looks so different under the light of a full moon. Familiar and alien at the same time. Like some kind of nocturnal fairy country. A world that you don't quite belong in. As I drove past the abandoned field, I slowed down, turning my head to the right to look at the mammoth for the first time in years. I don't think I'd ever seen it after dark before. Sure, there was the occasional school play held after hours, but if there had ever been

one during a full moon, I had deliberately avoided looking at the mammet on the ride home. Now, though, I deliberately looked straight at it. and saw that it hadn't changed one bit. Its cloaked form fluttered slightly in the night breeze, moonlight glinting slightly off the glass of its eyes. It's crossed itself a miracle for never having collapsed. It was creepy, sure, but harmless. I let out a sire leaf and was just about to turn my head back to the road.

When I saw it tip its hat and nod at me, I screamed, slammed on the brakes and craned my neck, desperate to confirm if what I had seen was real. I saw that its hat was on its head and its arm nailed to the cross with no indication that it had ever moved. I stared at it, barely blinking, waiting for it to move again. When it didn't, I got out of my car and squinted at it from the edge of the road, staring for several minutes at the very least.

But it still didn't move. At this point, a rational person would have accepted that they'd imagined it, gotten back in their vehicle and headed home. But something in me snapped at that moment. That thing had tormented me since I was a child, and I wasn't going to put up with it anymore. If no one else was going to take it down, then I'd do it myself. I didn't care if I got charged with vandalism or trespassing.

I didn't care if people thought I was crazy. I just wanted that thing gone. I threw open my trunk and rifled through my emergency kit and some leftover camping supplies for a hatchet and a lighter. If I couldn't cut it down, I'd burn it down. With a hatchet in my hand and the lighter in my pocket, I marched across the field and up the valley of ripe Indian corn. My heart pounding in my heart pounding in my arm.

ears as the mammoth implacably gazed down at me all the while. I refused to take my eyes off it. My hand poised to swing the hatch defensively should the need arise. By the time I was standing right in front of it, it still hadn't moved again, and I had calmed down enough to reconsider what I was doing. It's just a Halloween decoration that no one ever took down, I said to myself, shaking my head at the ridiculousness of it all. Before heading back, I paused to take a good look at the obscene straw man,

since I'd likely never be that close to it again. I considered taking out my phone and taking some photos but thought better of it. I wasn't technically supposed to be there after all. The mama was tall, but still within the range of normal for a man, about six and a half feet. The body was also very manlike. in shape. More so than should have ever been possible for old clothes stuffed with straw. It was easy to understand why most stories about the mammoths said it had been made from a corpse.

As I continued my inspection, I noticed that its cloak, mask, and hat were all in fairly decent condition, far too decent condition for items that had been neglected outside for decades. The glass of the mask's eyes were unshattered. All the rivets along the length of the beak were still in place. And the leather was so fine it could have been used to make a pair of dress shoes. The hat was likewise in near mint condition, and the tatters in the cloak, which had been obvious from the road, now appeared to be merely decorative.

Most distinctly, though, was the deep, black coloring of all of them. Decades in the sunlight should have faded them to a much lighter shade. And yet they remained in inky obsidian black. I was so perplexed by the moment's inexplicable condition that I actually took a step closer and dared to place my hand on its torso to see if I could deduce what it was made from. The cloak was smooth, supple leather, exactly as it had appeared to be.

But when I pressed harder, I found that the body possessed a firmness that was quite unlike straw. I turned my gaze upwards to its outstretched arms, nails the size of road spikes driven through its wrists. Its dark hands spayed open and poised to grasp anything that might come too close. It was then I realized that my favorite story about the mammoth couldn't have been true. Because the mammoth was not wearing gloves. Rather, its hands were covered in black avian scales, with long curved talons glistening in the moonlight. For all intents and purposes, appearing to be giant crow's feet.

I stumble backwards, my nerves wholeheartedly diminished by this revelation. I wanted to run away, but I didn't dare to take my eyes off the moment just yet. Then it slowly raised its slump head, curiously cocking it sideways at me. I spun around and bolted, and the instant I did sell the crow was roosting the dead trees behind the moment awoke with a cacophonous cawing and a thunderous beating of their wings. The murder swooped down upon me before I could get to my car pecking and scratching and flapping all at once. I swung my hatchet wildly, but razor-sharp beak swiftly pried my fingers from its handle and was lost to me.

Screaming, I dropped to the ground and curled up in the fetal position, shielding my head and torso as best I could against the onslaught. After a few moments they relented, seemingly without cause. And when I dared to raise my head, I saw the mammat free from its cross, towering over. me while blocking out the moon, little more than a vague silhouette in the night. It bent down and picked me up, slinging me over its shoulder and carrying me off. I flailed my limbs kicking and pounding at it, and I could not escape its grasp. I screamed and screamed in the hopes that someone might hear me, but the murder erupted into a cawing coarse that completely drowned me out. The mama carried me past its cross and into the woods

and everything went black as crow feathers. When I regained sight or consciousness, I'm not sure which, I was deep within the woodlot and tied to the trunk of a dead tree. The rope around my waist and arms was so old and coarse and reeked of crow guano and stale blood. I looked up and in the To have a moonlight, I saw the murder of crows perched all around me. If I tried to scream or shout that I'll call in unison to drown me out like they did before, destroying any chance that someone might hear and come to my rescue. I looked down, and I saw that the tree was encircled by scarecrow post-fashioned from fallen branches and spools of twine. all but one was decorated with an unstuffed flannel shirt,

straw hat, an animal skull. Only the post straight ahead of me lacked a scarecrow. And I could only assume that I was intended to fulfill that role. I briefly wondered why I hadn't just been killed straight away. But the perverse reverence of the setup that surrounded me made it clear my death was intended to be highly ritualistic. I looked around for the moment, but it was not to be found. Perhaps it had been compelled to return to its cross before someone noticed its absence.

The ground by my feet was littered with various animal bones, dead leaves, and odd cobs of corn. I had no idea if it intended to come back to murder me, or if I was just meant to slowly die of thirst. but I knew that I couldn't squander whatever time I had. Though my arms were tightly bound to my side by the rope, I was able to move my hands enough to reach into my pockets. To my relief, I found that both my keys and the lighter were still there. With one hand, I very carefully pulled out my key ring and flipped open the small pocket knife I kept on it.

Then I started sawing at the rope from the bottom up. It was slow going, and I was constantly glancing up at the murder of crows overhead to see if they'd interfere. Crows are smart, but fortunately, those crows weren't smart enough to realize what I was doing. Thread by thread, the rope began to fray, and eventually it was weak enough for me to snap it by brute force alone. That's when the crows went crazy. Shrieking loudly they descended upon me in a mad force. frenzy. Ducking, I dropped to the ground and rolled to the boundary of the ritualistic circle.

Whipping out the lighter, I set fire to the first flannel shirt I could. Fortunately, it was dry and caught flame quickly. The crow's cause immediately changed from aggressive to a mix of caution and anger. But none of them dared to get too close to the blaze. I grabbed the post by its base and pulled it upward as hard as I could, freeing it from the earth that had been embedded in for God knows how long. I then ran around the circle, setting each of the other posts on fire, starting with the one that had been intended for me.

The crows were in a pandemonium now, but despite the ruckus, I could hear a large creature crashing through the brush towards me. It was the mammoth, of course. I saw it emerge from the darkness and into the moonlight, its wicked talons poised to claw my face off. I didn't give it a chance, though. I swung the burning branch. I was holding as hard as I couldn't struck it across the head,

knocking it to the ground and sending its mask flying into the sacrificial circle. What I saw was an ashen, wizened, hairless human head with beady black eyes and the broken remnants of a beak where its nose and mouth should have been, shaking its head in pain and disorientation. It looked up at me as I stood firmly with a burning weapon in my hands, as though trying to assess my threat level and importance. It then looked over at the rest of the burning scarecrow's. And with only a moment's hesitation, sprinted off to douse the flames.

I ran off in the opposite direction, out of the woodlot and across the field and back to my car. I abandoned the scarecrow on the side of the road and sped out of there at over 150 kilometers an hour, constantly checking my rearview mirror for any signs for pursuing were crow. But the mammoth didn't follow me. I got home without incident. Now is technically the end of it. I followed the local news to see if there was anything about the mammoth going missing or a fire in its woodlot. but there was nothing.

As far as I know, no one ever found the burnt scarecrow I left by the road. I can only assume the moment collected it itself. I've given a lot of thought on whether or not to tell someone about what happened. I don't think I'm going to. The ma'amette is dangerous, yes, but it's managed to avoid getting found out for this long. even if I could convince the relevant authorities to go out and investigate it. I have a sinking suspicion that they wouldn't find anything out of the ordinary

or that if they did, they wouldn't admit it or be able to remember it. I still don't know exactly what the moment is or what is capable of, but I know it will always be looking out over Momit Lane. I took another drive out there last week. This time in broad daylight with my doors locked in the biggest axe I could find propped up in my passenger seat. I looked out my window and saw it at the top of the valley, exactly where it had always been, its mask back on and in perfect condition. There was nothing to indicate that it had ever moved, or that there had ever been a fire in the woods behind it.

I could have almost convinced myself that the entire incident, and it never happened at all. Had the mammoth not once again tipped its hat and nodded at me as I drove past. 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

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