Creepy - Husks & The Throttlers

Episode Date: February 1, 2024

Husks***Written by:  Juan Cardenas and Narrated by: Cole Burkhardt***The Throttlers ***Written by: Evan Davies and Narrated by: Jimmy Ferrer***Support the show at patreon.com/creepypod***Title music by: Alex Aldea Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

No. This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous, chilling and disturbing creepypastas and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened or are simply fabrications

is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. which listener discretion is advised. Creepy presents. Husks. Written by Juan Cardenas.

And narrated by Cole Burkart. I saw my mother and father's husks when I was 11 years old. I didn't have much going on then. I was homeschooled. I didn't have friends or relatives close by. So my mom and dad were my entire world. But even then, I was lacking something. I felt that lack, especially at bedtime, because I would go to bed and hear the fuzzy buzz of the big TV in the living room go on for hours after I went to sleep.

I knew what my parents were doing. They would watch TV to perfect their English and catch up on pop culture. they were obsessed with assimilating, less so for me because I was to stay home, so I didn't get to watch TV as much. If I could explain how much I craved to watch TV late into the night. I could hear the canned laughter, the excited voices, the gunfire, the car sounds, and the wonder and excitement of whatever was on the screen. On our particularly cold winter's day, I decided to sneak a peek. Our little house was at the end of a country road, so I could play outside. But the cold made me almost sick, so I stayed inside.

My dad had driven home earlier that day. He gave me his usual speech about how proud he was to work for me, that he came from a homeland where food was scarce, work was scarce, and now, I live in a home where I don't want food. I have a clean bed, a safe home, and he looked me dead in the eyes, not blinking, and asked me if I was grateful. I nodded. He hudged me close for an embrace.

My mom had been silently agreeing. After finishing making dinner and removing the layers of Kate Don makeup, whitening creams, eyelashes, and other apparel, she had become an expert at applying since moving here. The lack of entertainment, idleness, and sheer encroaching loneliness of this place drove me mad. But I knew I couldn't complain. My mom and dad had so much riding on me being happy.

I knew I would upset them so much to complain or even go against their wishes. But that TV mought me. silently as I chewed my food, got ready for bed, and peeped one last glance at it before marching off to bed. Soon after, I heard those voices carrying through the thin walls. I snuck out very slowly, turning the door knob and gently pushing the door open. I could barely believe what I was doing. Had I been driven mad by boredom? What had lit a fire of defiance in me? Was it a product of age? I got to the corner, slinking, quiet, holding my breath, and I peaked around where the hallway led to the dining room area and the living room with the TV. Mom was right there,

sitting on a stool facing away from me and into the kitchen. Her body was sitting up rigidly, and I wondered why she didn't face the TV. My dad was on the easy chair, also not facing the TV. The glow of the television was the only light on it in the whole house. I could see it reach over the two-seater couch in front of it. Did they just leave it on and listen to it instead of watching? Are they asleep? I took a few steps forward. My mom didn't notice me. Still unmoving.

I could see on closer inspection that my dad's mouth was agape, but his breath must have been shallow and slow. I didn't hear any snoring. There was a slam on the TV, like a door closing loud. I stopped mid-step and jumped up, almost giving myself away. Neither of my parents reacted. I let out the air, and I sharply exhaled as soon as I heard a laugh track and kept moving. Even closer now, I was right in front of my mother.

Her empty eyes were deep and black, just like her wide, open mouth and flat, limp nose. I guess she was sleeping, but why like this? Why did she look like this? There was a loud series of quick lines from the TV blaring. The scene had switched to something very well lit so I could glance at my mother's face for a moment. It was like seaweed paper in texture, so dry and brittle that a little bit of her,

a dusting, covered my fingers. Horrified, I backed away. Deep and morose of voices from the TV discussed a murder downtown. Then I felt a slimy, impossibly hot pressure on my shoulder. To bed, I said, said a voice, I realized was somewhat reminiscent of a TV show dad like Bob Sagitt. It was practiced. with a just-off affectation, as a sound clip played out of context. I rocketed forward, terrified, past the husk of my mother, and tripped over a slimy, tentacle-like blob that covered the floor, into my dad. No, his husk, the dry, papery husk, gave no resistance as I fell into it.

I crushed it and it enveloped me slightly like cobwebs but dried out. Disgusted, I flung what I could off of me. There were two slud-like blobs pale in color. They were coalescing, seemingly getting taller and taller as they flowed upwards towards the ceiling. On the TV, there was an old man talking to his son. and I realized he was saying the same thing my father always told me. Moving to this country, having enough food to provide for his family, growing up in starrity, word for word. Whatever this thing that pretended to be my father was, it had memorized all its language from watching TV.

The two slime monoliths, I glowed lightly. I ran past them, fear choking my breath. I wasn't thinking. I should have made for the front door, but ran back to my room instead. Maybe I didn't think I could make it out in the snow. I was barefoot and in pajamas, after all.

I did hear a slurping, rushing sound like water being sucked out of a giant straw. I could just see their formless bodies slide alongside the wall as I shut the door and went under the bed. Their glowing, pool bodies slowly seeped out from under the doorway. In two voices, reminiscent of old school police officers, I hear them say, No sign of them. Let's split up. One went left, the other right. Trail streaks were left upon the wallpaper where they split. Once I couldn't see them right in front of me, I shot out like a bullet back out the door. They anticipated this. I was on the ground with the two dewy forms, reminiscent of that image of the blobfish. I love it when a plan comes together, one said. Their warm, slimy masses were covering my eyes, nose and ears. I struggled to breathe, and then I wiggled free.

The masses blocked my exit, but stopped advancing on me. They exchanged what could have been interpreted as meaningful glances. I was crying and screaming at them. Please, no, I don't want to be with you, you monsters. They shrunk away, getting smaller, like... I had hurt them. Is that your final answer? They said in unison.

Tearing and sniffling, I nodded, then screamed at them to tell me what had happened to my real parents. Who were they? What were they doing? The truth is out there, they said. Then they were gone and slipped out from under the door. I didn't see what they did. or where they went.

I did find the slime trail going out the door and into the snow. I called the police. They were amazed to find me in this house, well, alive. I had been declared dead years ago, missing along with my parents, who I saw images of. And they looked nothing like what the blobs masqueraded as. No one has believed my story.

I was missing since I was a toddler, raised by blobs posing as humans. It didn't seem true to anyone. The official statement was that for a kid, living on his own, was a coping mechanism. I went into foster care. Didn't care much for television. I'm afraid of,

or maybe nostalgic for the creatures that raised me for all those years. I wonder what their goals were. I wonder if they were attached to me. I never saw them again. However, I can sometimes find a trail or a viscous, slimy substance, and can't quite identify what it is. At least, I try not to think about it, it and get on with my life.

Creepy presents The Throttlers Written by Evan Davies and narrated by Jimmy Ferrer My boss is one of them And she knows I know The white of my desk shown a dull blue Flickering back and forth from its true color

As the fluorescent panels guttered Ten minutes to five on a Friday and the office was still full. The day had not wound down. The work had not slowed. The office on 49th had no windows and only two doors. The walls were kind of lifeless beige that took focus groups to perfect.

The carpet was a quilt of baby vomit and freshly poured cement. In the corner beside the door. was a potted plant, the receptionist refused to let die. And over it all. Tube lights hummed in silent judgment. The head of marketing was watching me. She sat two rows behind, but I can tell when she was looking. They all looked when my back was turned.

There was not a human being among them. a human's gaze you could sense sometimes, like the real world seeping into a dream. With them, it was different. Their eyes dug into you and rooted around and squeezed. I still did not know what they were, what to call them, but I knew what they wanted. I knew how they got you. At first it was just the president. The air around her had always been different, colder and without smell.

Her eyes had always tried to strangle you. You never looked into those eyes for long. If you did, you saw things, crawling, scuttling things, wriggling against the pupils like maggots behind glass. She took the managers first. It couldn't have been difficult. The department heads had always stayed late, always letting the darkness creep in around them. It was eerie, having more of them in the office, feeling their needle-point gaze upon your flesh. But that had been months ago.

The days were still long then. The summer breeze still banished the memory of them. There had been times when I thought all of this was in my head. Then I heard a woman say my name. At the proximity of the voice my spine went rigid. This was it, I thought. Feeling sweat, seeped from my palms, their last great thrust. The chair squealed beneath me as I turned.

It was the head of marketing. She had a name once, before they got to her. A fleeting sense of humor. some wayward compassion. Now, she looked at me with glassy eyes and squirming pupils. She told me that she needed me to proofread the stinson brochure before I left. I glanced at the clock. 4.57.

Her smile was like a chisel through concrete. I took in the rows of desks sprawling out behind her. Everyone stared. Not with their eyes. Those remain soaked in the pallorous glow of last generation's computers. But the things inside them glared. Their hatred is so pure and so palpable, the very air seemed to flee from its presence. It was a viciousness, tinged with hunger.

For every second I did not join them and raged them. I nodded. I'll just run to the bathroom and get right on it. The head of marketing's smile did not shift as she turned away. I licked my lips. This was how they did it. They could not come out in the light. So they baited you, cajoled you, pestered you until the sun dipped and hope vanished.

The first to be taken hadn't known their mistake. In the summer, the long days had spared them. But as the leaves fell and the wind turned, the darkness had crept ever nearer. If there had been windows, they might have realized, but there were no windows. Through the fall, there had been holdouts, men and women who set their jaws and bawled their fists and refused to be snatched up. so easily. But one by one, the wheedling got to them. The lion always left their eyes soon after that. I rose from my desk, the carpet thump beneath my feet as I made for the hall. Empty walls exacerbated the sound as sharply as the acoustics of an opera house. The not-quaint

humans stared at their dead screens and listened. I let out a slow breath as the door clicked shut behind me. The short walk to the bathroom was my one reprieve from them, my one chance to check the time, gather my wits, and shake off the trance they had lulled you into. A dryness gathered behind my eyelids, tears without moisture, pressure, without release, tilting my head to one side.

I caught a glimpse of the lobby and saw a snapshot of reality through its broad glass doors. It was dark out. Not pitch dark. Not the kind of dark they needed, but dark enough for the streetlights to flick on. I pushed into a stall and sat without lifting the seat. I had known that they were tried tonight and had seen it happen enough times to anticipate how they would go about it. I pulled out my phone and opened the Stinson brochure.

Already proofread and ready to submit. My hand shook as I typed an email to the head of marketing and attached the document. My thumb hovered over the send button. As soon as she saw the message, they would start looking for me. wielding another assignment, another task, until the light was gone, and they could shed the vessels they puppeted. I closed my eyes. Why hadn't I just left? The answer came back like an echo across a canyon, because nowhere else was safe.

I thought about Kevin. He'd been hired at the same time I was. A good guy. Always irreverent. Always defiant. As soon as they began to creep in. He had started applying elsewhere. I had too.

There was still a lot of hope then. He'd gotten another job, a better one. Packed up his desk and strode out in the broad daylight. The envy of a... everyone. I saw him at a business convention, two months later, one of them churning behind his eyes. I saw him at a business convention two months later, one of them churning behind his eyes. It wasn't just this company. It was others, maybe all of them. There was no guarantee the next place wouldn't be worse. And there were bills to pay through it all. At least here,

I knew what to expect. My thumbs stopped shaking as I stared at the screen. They wouldn't get me, I thought, gritting my teeth. Maybe they would get everyone else in the world. Maybe they already had. But they wouldn't get me. I had sent and rushed for the door. I had sent and rushed for the door. I saw shadows scurrying through the lobby. They all assumed I would make my break for it there, but I knew something they didn't. Kevin and I had been exploring on our lunch the better part of a year ago. We'd pushed open a fire door by accident. Imagine our surprise when no alarm sounded. The thing had been busted for, who knows how long. I didn't use the door much. I didn't want them to know what I had found.

They might catch on after tonight, but I would never need it more than tonight. The sky above the parking lot was as close to black as made no difference. Off in the west, a silver of indigo lined the buildings in a dying halo. Streetlights cast the rows of cars and sickly yellow polka dots. True night hung over the world like a guillotine. Its darkness drawing upward in the east, preparing to sever the daylight from the world. I just needed to reach the bus stop before it did.

I took care to remain within the flickering puddles of streetlight. When the last ghostly trace of sunlight had faded, their glow would be my only protection. The shadows from the lobby still flickering out across the, the parking lot stopped suddenly. I froze. Had they seen me? I dared not look back.

Somehow I knew I would find them all staring, awaiting the onset of total darkness like sprinters before the starting gun. Perhaps they would be letting their human skin fall away, blanketing the floor in fleshy husks. I was almost to the sidewalk now. Once there I could abandon all pretense, run for the station like it would kill me to stop. But now while they watched me, not while the weight of their gaze pinned me down. There was only one car left ahead of me, a black Mercedes with tinted windows.

As I crept around the front of it, the driver's side door clunked open. A woman who stepped down to block my path was taller than me by a handful. of inches. She wore a cream-colored suit without a flicker of style, perhaps only to make her shoulders look bigger. Her hair was perfectly arraigned to say nothing about her, and her eyes were as dead as the grave. The president smiled at me. A real smile. She was the only one of them who'd ever gotten the hang of it. Jean asked me if I was leaving early. We saw. We saw. We saw. We saw. She was the only one of them who'd ever got in the hang of it. Jean asked me if I was leaving early. We stood directly beneath the glare of a streetlight, rendering the rest of the world darker by contrast.

I stared at her, tense but not quite anxious. It would not be her who came for me. She never handled that part herself. It's after five, I said without blinking. She glanced at a watch worth ten times when I was. was. Her smile receded into a look of sly amusement. She informed me that everyone here really likes me, and that she knows there's a place for me and their little family. They just need me to be a tad less reclusive. What they're looking for is more of a team player. I tried to swallow

without making too much noise. It always threw me off, how calm she was, how patient. The other scurried like cockroaches caught in the light, desperate to break others the way they had been broken, to trap them and throttle them, and take command of the carcass that remained. The president, however, never scurried, never broke a sweat. There was a cold patience to her, unwavering as a heap of old stone. My survival made the others anxious, made them wonder if something had gone wrong, but the president knew she would break me.

If not today, if not this year, then in the years and decades to come. I'll try. I told her without inflection. The smile split her face once again, and she stepped slowly out of my path. The city skyline melted into a dome of blackness as I waited for the bus. I zip my jacket up against the cold. It had been close, but I was here beneath the steady light of the station.

I only needed to step onto the bus when it came, and the dull glow of its interior would carry me through the teeming night, like a ship piercing the ice. They had not gotten me, had not tightened their hands around my throat. I was safe for another year. One of the two lights built into the station clicked off. My gaze snapped upward. The LEDs hummed on, even as their light was nowhere to be seen. Half the station descended into shadow.

I eased towards the illuminated half of the bench and checked the schedule. My bus was three minutes late. Any other night, I would have thought nothing of it. But it was the winter solstice. I had known they would come for me this night. And I had prepared. Who was to say they had not made preparations of their own? There was movement to my left.

Someone sat down on the far side of the bench, their form obscured by the darkness. I watched them from the corner of my vision. They were but a faint silhouette against the gloom. They could have been a man or a woman, larger, merely bundled up against the cold. I did notice they awaited the bus with sort of a tired dejection. But then again, who didn't? It could be nobody. It could be one of them.

It could even be a trick of the light. I dared not turn my head to get a better look. I knew, with the sure instinct of a prey animal that when they caught you, they went in through your mouth. If I shifted my gaze even a fraction, it could be the last thing I ever did. The remaining light. began to flicker. My breath hitched as darkness fell for a split second, then was banished, then returned.

I checked my phone in desperation. The bus was now ten minutes late. I clasped my hands together and watched the LED sputter, studying their pattern like a holy scripture, praying every moment for salvation. There was a movement in my parade. peripheral once more. Or was there? The figure beside me loomed and twisted as the flashing light sent spots into my vision. Had they shifted one seat closer? Were they turning their head toward me? Was that a glimmer of movement behind their eyes? I tightened my fingers in my lap

and closed my eyes. It was not good to run. I would only make me a moment. I would only make a little bit of it easier for them disappear into the rolling night and maybe swallowed up. Nor was it any use to fight, to turn around and yell defiance and go down with whatever courage I had left. It would only give them a straight shot down my throat. I could tell through my eyelids that the intervals of darkness were getting longer. The flickering slow to a miserable crawl like a jack-in-the-box set to a roll. And beside me, I heard a gentle rustling, like a human being slipping free of their coat. There was a rush of air across my cheek, far too warm to be the night wind blowing.

The bus' air brakes were like a gust of a hurricane, the warmth of its exhaust like a sauna. I alerting to my feet as the vehicle settled. Behind me, the station lights sputtered and died. I heard footsteps follow me through the snow and felt the figure from the bus stop loom closer through the glass. I saw the driver. His attention fixed on middle distance. His hand poised over the lever.

Still, the doors did not. open. Something brushed the back of my coat and my shoulder blades cinched together. Sitting atop his altar like an impartial god, the bus driver rubbed his hands and stifled a yawn. I wanted to scream, to pound on the doors, to force them open and wriggle my way through. But if I did that, the bus would pull away, leaving me to the horrors of the night. Even now, with the eyes of some dead creature boring a hole into my neck, I waited at the mercy of someone else, warmth boiled over like a pot on the stove when the doors finally hissed open. The thing from the bus stop followed me on board. I felt it's

breath against my neck as I scan my pass, hurrying past the driver, I took a seat in the back corner and settled in myself, hurrying past the driver, I took a seat in the back corner and settled into myself. The thing found a spot near the middle and waited. There were others on board, but not many, fewer than there should have been on this route. They got off one by one, disappearing into the mounting snowfall. Soon it was just me and them. I stared at the back of their head, scarcely noticing the city blocks skip by.

They wore a long black coat in a skull cap. These, they neither took off nor adjusted, despite the warmth of the bus. Occasionally, I caught a glimpse of their face, reflected in the window. A scarf covered their nose and mouth. Their eyes were obscured behind thick glasses. They could have been anyone.

They could have been anything. The lights had passed in broad streaks as the bus trundled along its route. The thing would not make its move here. The interior was too brightly lit. Did it intend to follow me home? To take me during the short walk to my door? If so, it would have to be quick. I lived far closer to the city center than was my office.

Things were lit up there, even in the deep hours of the night. I shuddered to think what it would be like to face these things out in the country, where darkness fell like a hammer. Failing a flutter of optimism at my chances, I glanced out the window with the blackened landscape. Beyond the houses and low-rise apartments I saw mountains looming towards the sky. A grid of lights climbed up their lower half as the city struggled to maintain its hold. But the creep of civilization soon lost momentum, giving way to darkened forests and shadowed rock.

There were no stars. The mountain peaks melted into featureless night, inviting it to sweep down. over the world. I came jolting back to the present as the bus hissed to a stop. My eyes leapt to the stranger's seat and my heart shuddered to find it empty. There was a moment, not a short one, when I expected to find them looming over me. But then there was a crunch of footfall into snow. I turned my head just in time to watch the black-clad figure stride off into the night. The noise I made was somewhere between a laugh and a sigh.

Had the thing given up, I wondered, as the bus eased away from the stop. I glanced out the rear window, hoping to catch a glimpse of it as we peeled off. But the sidewalk disappeared into snow-dusted shadow. Perhaps it hadn't even been one of them. I thought easing back into my seat. Perhaps those things had given up the chase. rubbed my eyes and let out a long breath. A full-bodied warmth descended upon me like a blanket, easing the muscles and stilling the hands. I knew the sensation well. It was the relief of having

survived one more day, the freedom of existing no longer beneath their scrutiny. It was like the first deep breath after a stuffy flight, the heat of the sun after a storm. It made the creeping dead of the office seem suddenly trivial and distant, as if it had happened in a dream to someone else. It would not last. Come Monday I would wake up cold and groggy, and the terror would set in all over again. But even as I knew that to be true, Monday morning seemed like a thousand miles away. Floating in an ocean of willful ignorance, I pulled out my phone to check how much further there was to go. I stared at the screen for a long time, waiting for it to fix on my location.

When it did, it showed far more stops ahead of me than I had expected. I should have been more than halfway there by now. A flicker of confusion darted through the haze of unconcerned. I gazed at the display showing our next stop. I didn't recognize the street. I looked out the window. The rows of houses sloughed the way without my noticing. There was nothing but blackness on either side.

I sat up sharply, almost dropping my phone as I brought it close to my face. It showed me further from my apartment than when I'd started. All at once, the glimmer of reliefs. sputtered like a broken light, replaced by a cold hand of terror that wrapped its fingers around my throat. Up ahead, I saw the driver reach out and adjust a mirror, granting me the briefest glimpse of two cold, dead eyes, staring back at me. I had gotten on the wrong bus. information on this podcast, including how to submit your own story for consideration. Please visit creepypod.com.

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