Creepy - Pearl's Visitor & The Madness is Spreading

Episode Date: February 23, 2023

Pearl's Visitor***Written by: Teresa Freeland and Narrated by: Jimmy Ferrer***The Madness is Spreading***Written by: No One Of Consequence and Narrated by: Danielle Hewitt***Check out our reward tiers at patreon.com/creepypod***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.

Welcome to the bloody disgusting network. 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 biosephabicions, Silence and explicit language.

Listener discretion is advised. Creepy presents. Pearl's Visitor. Written by Teresa Friedland and narrated by Jimmy Ferrer. He started showing up on Halloween in the year of 1955 when Pearl's twin baby girls were only a year old. And the house, the little family shared, was brand new. In deep anticipation for the first Halloween, involving babies in a new house, Pearl decorated the front porch, two jack-a-lanterns along with a handmade miniature scarecrow, along with a stock of autumn corn, hanging over the porch light. Then she waited impatiently for trick-or-treaters.

As she sat, mused, thinking that this was about the first time she had relaxed for many months. She and her husband, Jack, had been quite busy. Why, they hadn't even kept up on what was going on in their world. We need to renew our newspaper subscription again, Pearl thought to herself. But first things first, Halloween is here. She loved any holiday, parade or party. Pearl lived life to the fullest, as is often the case with someone that takes what should be serious, well, seriously.

But Poo Poo's life's lesser annoyances. She was a willing joiner in the hilarity, celebrations and feasts. Pearl was one to make Mary, and make sure everyone around her was making Mary too. While she was hanging the cornstalk, Pearl's husband Jack was inside, hollering from the kitchen, begging her to come on and eat dinner. She told Jack to go ahead and eat That she was going to be busy handing out candy To the goblins in which is outside

She also told him to listen for the baby's cries Just in case they woke with All the scurrying noises on the porch and shouts of trick-or-treat That she knew would soon prevail A few hours later Pearl realized she must have passed out hundreds of pieces of candy And heard trick-or-treat just as many times. She hadn't even had much time to sit on the porch swing. Finally, the last costume masses

had come and gone, making her think that she should probably call it a night. As she leaned over to blow out the candle on the second jack-o-lantern, she heard footsteps, approaching the porch from their sidewalk. Glancing up, she became aware of a dark figure advancing towards her. With the porch light illuminating the figure, she began to notice that masked shape was much taller than her usual Halloween visitor. Her heart started beating faster, squinting. She tried hard to figure out this costume. She realized the figure was that of a young man. Looking further, she saw that he wasn't wearing a costume at all.

But he was wearing a mask. while holding a white pillowcase. She shuddered for a moment as she imagined the pillowcase enveloping her head while she strolled for breath. But she wasn't the type to run inside the house and cower. So she studied his clueling, just in case she would later have to describe them to the authorities.

That is, if she lived to testify to his crime, she committed to memory of the genes that he wore, They were a popular brand for the time. Levi's. Yes, that's what they were. Rolled at the cuff. She noted his white t-shirt and some type of heavy necklace hanging under a black leather jacket. The necklace bore an Irish Celtic cross on it.

Attached above the cross was a large bead of amethyst. The young man's hair was dark and had that rolled, jellied, sleek shirt. shiny, large hair curl at the top. A pompadour. Is that what they call it? Pearl almost laughed out loud at her questioning thoughts. She knew she would be on her guard, out on the porch alone in the dark, with a stranger carrying a pillowcase he could use against her. But she began to relax, as she noticed the mask, a howdy-duty face that boasted a huge grin from ear to ear. To others the stranger might have looked downright eerie, but to her, he looked comical and somehow endearing. As she gathered herself and straightened up away from the jack-o-lantern, the stranger held out the white pillow case and said trick-or-treat.

Breathing a sigh of relief, she then realized that she had run out of candy. She held out one finger and then smiled and ran into the house to find something to give him. She glanced at the pecan bowl just inside the living room. Jack always had pecans to crack and eat as he watched television. She turned back to the screen door and hollered through at the stranger to just wait a minute. She'd be right back. Pearl grabbed huge handfuls of pecans and carried them in her apron. Opening the screen door was difficult with her hands clutching the bounty held in her apron.

As she walked out onto the porch, she said out loud, here you go, into the night air. For the stranger had left. She ran into the front yard of the house, looked both ways up and down the street. But he was gone. Halloween passed that year, as did Thanksgiving and Christmas. The babies grew, and became those little monsters as everyone describes as toddlers in the throes of the terrible twos. Summer months were spent at the town swimming pool. Pearl became acquainted with the other mothers and picked up bridge playing.

Summer melted into fall, and soon it was time to bring out the jackalantrons onto the porch once again. Pearl hadn't forgotten about her strange visitor last Halloween. She had told Jack about him in great detail. So as the leaves started turning, she began to wonder if he might reappear. She really didn't think he would, that he was probably now pretty busy with girls and sports and whatnot. But all the same, she was hoping that he might just surprise her. Again, Jack ate dinner without her. She was too engrossed in handing out Halloween candy.

The babies were asleep after going earlier with their father to only a few of the neighbor's houses. Pearl handed out even more candy than last year, and was pretty tired when the last of the trick-or-treaters were gone. Two-year-old twins can wear a person down, she thought. She opened the door to take her candy bowl in and heard footsteps, turning around, and she saw the boy. He was dressed the same as last year. Jeans, a large chain necklace danging on his white t-shirt,

the leather jacket. His hair still had that rolled pompadour, and he wore the howdy-duty mask. She smiled at him. As he stuck his pillowcase out at the same time, he uttered trick-or-treat. I have something for you. Do not go away, she told him. She ran in to get Jack who was sitting in his recliner.

The light from the television illuminating his face. She couldn't believe it, she told him. But how do you do these back? Come see. She grabbed the pecan she had stashed in the kitchen just for the occasion and ran. out to the porch. He wasn't there, but she saw him heading down the house's sidewalk towards the street. She pointed at him in a nervous fester while looking at Jack.

Jack shrugged, telling her he didn't see anything. She ran down the porch and steps again in either direction, but he was gone. She ran down the porch steps, looking again in either direction, but he was gone. The next year she was prepared. Jack and the girls were tuckered out. The girl's in bed and Jack again in his recliner asleep in front of the TV. All the trick-or-treaters had gone home, but she sat on the porch swing and waited. Just when she decided that it was getting late, and she should go in, she heard footsteps coming up the porch stairs.

And there he was. Howdy-Duty. Mask in place. A pillowcase stretched out. Trick-a-treat, he said. Here you go, Pearl told him and gave him pecans that she had wrapped up in cellophane. I think you'll like these, she told him. They're my husband's favorite treat.

And as a young man, you might want a little more than chocolate. He thanked her and left, walking down their sidewalk and onto the street. She started to yell at Jack, but knew that it would be hopeless. Her trick-or-treater would be gone by the time he'd woke up enough to come out onto the porch and look. The years rolled by. Jack's hair thin. Pearl found a part-time job at the local library. The twins became involved in school activities, went on dates, and volunteered at the local pet shelter.

Children of the neighborhood grew up. The sound of cars honking and the radio's blam replaced the sound of children playing. Pearl didn't buy as much Halloween candy as she used to because of the small amount of trick-or-treaters. But how do you do that he didn't miss his annual visit? After the last of the trick-or-treaters had filled their own plastic pumpkins, up with the candy he came. Pearl always learned to have some pecans ready at the porch for him so that he wouldn't leave before he got his treat. To contain the pecans, she would use plastic wrap at first, then sandwiched pecan. bags tied with orange ribbon. She didn't dare go into the house early. She always waited.

Seasons came and went, and with them, years of Halloween trick-or-treaters. Each year at the end of the night, after all the Spider-Man Wonder Woman, and later vampires and zombies had gotten their fair share of candy, Howdy-Duty would show up. She grew accustomed to the fact that no one else saw him. Not Jack or later, her daughters. A few times when he visited, he would be right up on the porch, standing right there next to Pearl, but they couldn't see him. She would drop the bag of pecans in a sack, but girls or Jack would tell her she might have dropped them in her pocket for all she knew. She would pat her pockets in anywhere else she could have hidden them, to demonstrate. The treats

couldn't possibly be anywhere else but that stranger's bag. She even asked her Bridge Club, since they were also her neighbors, if they ever had a teenage boy sporting a howdy duty mask, trick-or-treating at their houses. They always told her no, as they glanced at her with questioning eyes. She eventually stopped speaking of him, since her family would just stare at her like she was as nutty as the pecans.

But with great anticipation, she waited each Halloween for him to show and smiled with delight when she heard his footsteps, Mount her stage. The routine was always the same. He would utter the words trick-a-treat while extending his pillowcase out, then stand pivoting from one foot to the other while Pearl handed them the pecans. He would say thanks, and then run down the steps.

The first few years, Pearl tried to get him to talk. She would ask him who he was, or even desperately on one of his later visits. She asked how he managed to always look the same. After all, years had passed since that first night. He could look at her through the mask and then dashed down the porch steps. Pearl tried to follow him more than once, but as he left her yard, he would somehow disappear. She gave up on that, too. As time passed, each of the girls married, one not soon after college, and the other a little later.

They both had babies and settled with their families in Pearl's town. Pearl made sure the grandbabies visit it often. But on Halloween, she would oo and awe over their costumes and then shoe them on home, after a while just so she could get ready, get her pecans ready for her special visitor. As the grandbabies grew and Jack retired, Pearl decided that the two of them would travel. Again, no matter how far they were from home, They were always back in time for Halloween. It wouldn't seem right not to be there to hand out candy.

Their neighborhood had changed out bringing in young families and many trick-a-treaters. Pearl grew tired easily than in the past, but that didn't stop her from waiting for her visitor. And as always, she had to wait until after the last trick-or-treater showed. Jack passed away. Pearl couldn't leave their house. it wouldn't feel right. So five times since Jack died, she alone gave out candy on Halloween. And five times, she gave bags of pecans to howdy-duty.

At 94 years old, Pearl's daughters became adamant that her age, she had to come live with them. They would have to take turns having her. Pearl stared at the for-sale sign, puncturing. her yard outside on her last Halloween at the old house. Oh well, Pearl thought. Grandchildren are grown and have families of their own. Maybe it will be good for all of us. The doorbell rang and Pearl cautiously handed out candy from her bowl simultaneously leaning

on her now ever-present cane. She smiled at each tiny face as she doted and admired the costumes and the regalia. As the sunlight faded and darkness began, the trick-or-treaters started to dwindle until after many minutes she knew they were done. She sat on her old swing holding her bag of pecans and peered out into the night. After what seemed like a long time, she heard footsteps and saw the broad smile sitting perched at the top of a black leather jacket. Daddy-duty climbed up the stairs with ease as always.

He pocketed the bag of pecans as Pearl handed them to him, smiling, with tears in her eyes. He took them saying his usual thank you. Then he glanced out into the yard. He turned back to her, fishing in his gene pockets. I have something to give you, he said as he slipped something into her. worn, gnarled hand. Pearl smiled back at him in acknowledgement. Happy Halloween, he said.

Then turned and walked down the stairs, out into the yard, and faded as he entered the street. Over the next four years, Pearl alternated between daughters' houses. One year here, the next year there, as her body began to decline, and related aches and pains took over. She would think about how grateful she was for all the years she had. Over and over, she validated her life.

She was grateful for all the time she had with Jack, her daughters, and her grandchildren. Grateful for her friends and grateful for her time in her not-so-big house with its welcoming front porch. After Pearl died, the girls gathered her things, things, jewelry, clothes, mementos, and for the most part, either divided them between themselves, donated or sold them. They kept all the photos, of course, and her wedding ring. They kept the Nutcracker Jack used to use for his pecans, and they kept another memento, a heavy, unique

necklace. They had no idea why, but their mother always wore it from the day she moved out of their childhood home. A few years later, the daughters decided to hold a joint Halloween party. One of them volunteered her house for the celebration. So on Halloween night, party voices, music, and laughter could be heard all over the block. Being quite a bit older themselves now, they and their guests grew tired, began to settle down around the fireplace. One of the guests started a ghost story. Before too long, others were telling theirs.

The usual campfire stories, creepy dolls, things heard in the night, their grandparents' farm, seance tales. When all the tales were exhausted, the partiers sat in silence, because it was so quiet, no one seemed to want to leave yet. One of the daughters decided to tell her story of Pearl's Howdy Duty. She told them that neither her nor her sister could see him.

As her sister nodded her head in agreement, she told me that her mother would give the trick-or-treater or treat, always a bag of pecans. After the daughter was finished with her story, one of the guests remarked that he remembered seeing an article in the newspaper a few weeks ago. The newspaper was featuring Halloween stories from years gone by. This particular story had to do with a boy and a howdy duty mask.

He quickly got out his phone and started searching. The sister that hosted the party disappeared into the room. The guests found the article and started paraphrasing it out loud to the others. He told them that this particular article sights another from the story of the newspaper archives dated in Halloween 1955. Family had died in a car accident on Halloween night as they were coming home from a party, and mom and dad and their three children. The oldest son was driving. Per witnesses, the car rounded the curve that brought their vehicle to the street. A car headed in the opposite

direction swerved only for a moment. The young driver must have panicked because he ran off the road and into a long ravine. Rolling several times, the car landed upright. The ambulance driver and police officer on scene later described the car occupants as looking as if they were on a nice car ride. The quote read that they were all sitting upright and dead. Everyone grew quiet.

The other sister came in. to the room. She was holding something in her hand. This was our mothers, the sister said. She wore it all the time for the last few years before she died. She started wearing it about the time she moved from our childhood home. She said that they moved her the day after Halloween, and both she and her sister always wondered if her wearing it had something to do with the Halloween visitor. The sister dangled the necklace from her hand. The necklace had an Irish Celtic cross on it.

Attached above the cross was a large beat of amethyst. As everyone examined the necklace, the original guest searched his phone again and relayed to the small gathering that there was a picture of the accident online. This guest remarked, if I zoom in, I could see the driver of the car, his mask, his hair. And there, can you see it? He asked the guest sitting next to him, who first put on their glasses and then gasped. One of the sisters grabbed the phone. Photo of the wreck glared back at her.

Caption of the photo quoted the attending officer as saying they were all sitting upright and dead. Behind the steering wheel sat a figure in a howdy duty mask, wearing a t-shirt, jacket, and necklace. a necklace with an Irish Celtic cross on it, and a large amethyst bead, gleaming from above. As the narrator of this Halloween tale, I have the privilege of insight. I can tell you, thoughtful reader, for instance, that the young boy's favorite holiday was Halloween. I can tell you that he loved trick-or-treating, but his parents had told him for that year, this one year, they were all going to a party instead. They told them that he was too old to go trick-or-treating,

that his sister and brother didn't like going as much as he did, and they wanted to go to the party. The boy wanted to tell his parents that he was sick of growing up. He wanted to tell them that growing up meant that he had to do all kinds of things that he didn't feel ready for, like getting a job and preparing for college and a career, and then picking the right girl and having a family. Geez.

Can't he have this one night to go back to being a kid before he had to grow up and figure everything out on his own? But his parents were not going to waver. Not this time. So getting into the car after the party, he decided he should drive. His mom and dad had quite a bit to drink. and although it was the 50s and everybody drove wasted. He didn't want to be that asshole that so totally had his driver's license

and didn't go full adult on his parents so that he could prevent the precious fury from becoming involved in some kind of fenderbender. After he explained this to his parents, everyone situated themselves in the car. He drove off, his hands on the steering wheel and his dad beside him. Mom in the back with his two siblings. Although he decided to keep his mask on, just for a little while longer, he was proud of himself. Maybe this was the day that he started acting adult. Maybe he didn't need to trick-or-treat any longer.

Man up. Isn't that what his dad kept telling him? So, okay. I drove the family home, he thought, as he came up to the bend. in the road. Time to grow up. As for Pearl, you ask. How did she see Howdy Duty when no one else did?

Pearl and Howdy Duty shared an enviable attribute. Few people know what it's like to have a purely uncontaminated view of the world. Oh, people like Pearl and Howdy Duty can see the horror humankind has brought about. They know injustice and equality. But they also know clean optimism and unadulterated joy at life. They see things we cynics and skeptics will never visualize. They can see it in a young kid in a howdy-duty mask, just wanting a special indulgence.

If only for one night of the year, Pearl could see it because she lived her life that way. Howdy-duty? Well, because he never got the chance. Creepy presents. The madness is spreading, written by known of consequence, and narrated by Daniel Hewitt. My name is Emma Jones, and I've been a private investigator since I left my family's orchard a year ago. It's not that I chose this vocation because I wanted to, but more is a way to pay the bills.

No. Becoming a private investigator came about because I've been looking for my missing twin sister. My parents blame me for what happened to Erica, mostly because there wasn't anyone else to blame. The government covered up any wrongdoing on their part and pointed the finger at us for trespassing. They wouldn't even tell my parents what happened that day, only that it was classified. died. Twenty, heavily armed soldiers died as a result of what we did, what I did. The memory of that day still haunts me. I've spent every day of my life since then trying to find Erica, and sure of what happened to her. By the time I got back to the surface, there were dead bodies everywhere, but no sign of my sister. The creature I was duped into letting loose had taken her. I lay awake at night

wondering why it hadn't taken me. I was the one that heard its beautiful song. I was the one that had released it from prison after so many years. Maybe it was because Erica was the stronger of us. I may never know. Looking for my sister gained me a unique set of skills for tracking people down. It was my only marketable skill. So I used those skills to further my search by finding people who didn't want to be found. Most of the time I'm a little more than a bounty hunter, but on occasion I get hired to find people that aren't mail jumpers. It used to be rare, but those clients tend to be well to do,

and I can get away with charging them more. More and more of those clients have been showing up on my doorstep, and often tie into my own investigation. My most recent paying gig is searching for a spoiled rich kid named Tony. Until recently, he was a college student at an Ivy League university studying psychology. The last anyone saw of him was when he got into a violent confrontation with his psychology professor. Students that witnessed the event said that Tony was babbling insane things about a religious cult, talking horseshoe crabs, and the world burning.

While attacking the professor, he kept shouting, Will you embrace the madness? The police reports his parents provided me with said little else. Tony simply disappeared after that. No credit card activity, ATM withdrawals, or any sort of traceable bank activity. I asked them if they could think of a reason why their son may have been targeted by a cult,

but they couldn't come up with a reason. The mother is nothing more than a socialite that sits on the board of numerous charities and functions. The father is a big wig for a nationwide grocery store chain. There might be something to that, but he doesn't have anything to do with the acquisitions for the seafood department. Other than that, he wouldn't say what he does for the company.

To me, that seems suspect. But that doesn't necessarily mean anything. The rich and well-to-do like to play things close to their chest and won't give information that they think is irrelevant. I'd have better luck squeezing blood from a stone. My profession breeds a certain level of paranoia. And often when I arrive in a new city, I catch sights of black suits.

It's not uncommon for business types to wear them, but the black suits I'm referring to are different. They hold themselves differently the most people, like a cat waiting to pounce. I can sense contained energy in their stances, as if they're ready for a fight. Putting them out of my mind isn't much of an option, not with as often as I've seen them.

However, without directly confronting one of them, I'll likely never know who they are, though the odds of them actually telling me anything if they are really tracking me are slim to none. I continue to make notes of them in a notebook, with dates, times, locations, and as detailed descriptions as I can manage. So far, I haven't seen the same one twice.

And that's the only reason I have doubts. After getting my rental car, I head straight for Tony's University. I have an interview set up with his friends and then a meeting with the head of the university's security. A strange adult can't just enter a missing student's dorm room without raising a few eyebrows. And the last thing I want is to have the cops called on me. Police detest private investigators, especially when they're working on one of their cases. Unfortunately, I have first-hand experience with that sort of thing.

I meet up with Tony's friends at the university main courtyard. The four of them sit on one side of a stone picnic table and I take the other side. As I pull out a spiral notebook and pen, they make odd comments about my hair, saying things like, I like the color, and it looks so natural. This kicks off the questioning, but in a way I hadn't expected. Immediately I put the spiral back in my bag and pull out a red notebook. My first questions are about who they think I am, because I'm fairly certain I've never met. any of them before.

Several weeks ago, Tony had been seen chatting with a woman that looks exactly like me but with darker hair. She'd been around the university speaking with some odd-looking youths handing out flyers about some kind of religious group. Well, ordering them around by the sounds of it. Tony's major may have been psychology, but his focus had been on the group mentality of organized religions. Naturally, he wanted to talk to them.

Not so much about their religion, but what brought them to it. They wouldn't say much, but promise that their collective promotes unity, enlightenment, and new world order. By the sounds of it, these youths were promoting a cult. Things started getting weird with Tony when the woman that looks like me showed up. Some days she'd be wearing an expensive suit, others just blue jeans and sweaters. Tony started skipping classes when she came around so he could talk with her for hours. In no time he started talking about Embrace like it was the answer to all questions. None of the students I'm speaking with our believers,

so they mostly ignored Tony's new fanatical talk. He would get angry with them, call them ignorant and blind, then refused to acknowledge their existence. Tony hadn't been a believer in a higher power either, but he bought Embrace's gospel hook, line, and sinker. The day he had the violent altercation with Professor Clemens was the last time anyone saw the cultist, the woman, and Tony. I thanked them for speaking with me, giving them all a business card.

I asked them to let me know if they can think of anything else I should know. My meeting with the head of security is straightforward once we get past the part where I look like a woman that was ordering around the cultists. I show him documentation of my employment with Tony's parents, and their permission to access the missing student's property. In short order, he escorts me to the dorm, unlocks it, and stays outside the door until I'm done. Good thing, too. This place is a fucking mess.

College students aren't known for being tidy, but this goes way beyond that stereotype. Dirty clothes and rotten food containers are what you'd expect to find in a university student's dorm after they've gone missing. But I find none of that. Instead, I see mad scribblings covering the walls. religious books torn apart and littering the floor with red writing covering the pages. The word lies, painting whole pages. What was once a stereo and laptop have been smashed to tiny pieces in a pile against one corner of the room. Computer discs, thumb drives, and external hard drives have all been broken apart and tossed into the same pile of plastic and circuit boards.

Gel pens were snapped in half and used to smear the phrase. Embrace the madness across one wall. The desk is covered in crude drawings of a humanoid squid monster. One drawing I find is of an obelisk of sorts. An odd curved thing with symbols etched into it. The obelisk itself looks like a warped crab claw, but the bottom part of the pincher is missing. I've never seen anything like it.

Underneath that drawing is a much better one, more detailed and less crude. The woman is beautiful, almost angelic in the way Tony drew her. I could be looking at a drawing of myself, but I know it's the woman his friends told me about. I have absolutely no doubt now that it was my sister. Beneath the drawing is a flyer, probably one of the ones the cultists were handing out all over campus. There are a lot of words on it,

but when you boil it down, they don't really say much. Unity, faith, community, enlightenment, old ways, and new world order. Definitely literature of a cult. A symbol catches my attention at the top of the page. What appears to be a company logo, but looks like a postage stamp version of the obelisk. I put the two drawings and flyer in my bag before continuing to look. The man waiting outside told me not to take anything.

But these things seem important to my investigation, and what he doesn't know won't hurt none. Besides, the police have picked through this room already and it's gotten them nowhere. Going through the drawers reveals more crude drawings, but these are far more disturbing than the ones I've stashed away. Images of cities on fire, people hanging from trees, piles of bones. One drawing has a likeness of Tony holding some kind of long-bladed weapon. There are multiple people on their knees bound and gagged. They are forced to watch as a girl is tied to a large block. Her face upturned in horror, as the weapon in Tony's hands is in a downward strike.

It's hard to make out, but I'd swear the girl about to get her head cut off is one of the students I talked to earlier. In fact, the chopping blocks she's tied to is one of the stone benches we had been sitting on, if I'm not mistaken. That cult got to Tony in a big way. I take a few dozen pictures of the crazy shit I find. The last draw I get into is the thin one in the center, directly underneath the desktop. I expect to find more insane drawings of violence and destruction, but they're on. aren't any. Instead, I find a few markers, pencils, pens that haven't been destroyed, and something rather unusual. It's a finger-thick tentacle, twice as long as my index finger and hollow. The thing

looks like it's made out of rubber, and doesn't smell fishy at all. A tentative touch lets me know it's smooth and cold. Considering what happened last time I saw my sister, I decided to put it in a Ziploc bag and stow it with the other things I'm not supposed to take. Tenicles. Insanity. A cult. And my sister. This has subject L.C. written all over it. A while back, I managed to track my sister down to a fishing town on the East Coast. The entire town had become overrun with hideous sea monsters that allegedly started off as normal people.

A local shrimp boat was bringing in the most unusual catch. shrimp so large that the typical jumbo shrimp were half their size. As the locals continued to eat these oddities, their bodies grew deformed and monstrous. After a few months, they were unrecognizable, until one day they all simply disappeared. The shrimp boat captain moved on, and I've had difficulty tracking her down.

She pops up all over the place with no discernible pattern. What little I could find out was who brought up her hall. and even that was a challenge. No one wanted to talk about the transaction and fear that it would stop the unsteady supply. Honestly, the only real confirmation I could get about the purchases was seeing the insanely large shrimp in the store. Despite the monstrous outcome of eating too many of those shrimp,

people were far too eager to gobble them up. Apparently they are the most delicious shrimp anyone has ever tasted, no matter how they're prepared. I wouldn't know anything about the taste of shrimp. The nasty little things have always looked like bugs to me, and I refuse to touch them. Seafood is still my main source of protein, but I did finally give in to the temptation that is bacon. After checking into my hotel, I break out my laptop and get into my protected files. My hard copies are all back at the office, but I keep a digital backup on my laptop,

and another is stashed in a safety security box. There's one of those classroom-sized maps of the U.S. on my office wall, covered in colored thumb tacks. Each represents a confirmed sighting of Erica, and the different colors have different meanings. Red tacks are sightings where she's been recruiting for the Embrace Cult, hence the red notebook I started using to take notes in Tony's case. Blue are typically along the coasts where she's posed as an executive

for the Eldridge conglomerate. In these incidents, she works to recruit commercial fishermen to operate under the conglomerate's umbrella. Green tacks are more inland and represent fishermen. farms that she's been instrumental in appropriating for Eldridge. Black Tacs also appear along the coast. They are for small towns that have suffered mass disappearances, usually accompanied by a report of odd deformities and the like. One of the constants in all of the Black Tac cases is mention of a place called Shadow Cove.

The frustrating thing about the cove is that I haven't been able to locate it, or anyone that could tell me where it is. My sister started out as just a missing person's case. and I prepared myself to find her dead. I mean, she was taken by some unkillable sea monster. It took a couple years to realize there was more to it than that. Erica was always the braver of us, pushing me to do things that I wanted to do, but was too scared.

She pushed me to be more than just a bookworm. And I guess that ended up being her downfall. Well, that's how I think of it anyway. I've seen numerous pictures and stolen surveillance footage of her in expensive suits. and being driven around by luxurious car services. Trying to use the car services as a lead always came to a dead end. Financially, she seemed to be well off. But there's nothing good about the work she's been doing.

Not if it involves that nightmarish creature. I added a new red dot to the digital map and a brief description of the case. Tony hadn't been the only student that disappeared from campus at that time. He just happened to make the splashiest exit. It appears that Embrace managed to recruit, another dozen or so impressionable young adults before vanishing. I upload the pictures I took of his dorm room, the last one being of that weird tentacle that's now in my bag.

Something looks oddly familiar about it, more than simply identifying it as a tentacle. On a hunch, I access an old video file and watch the recording I made when Eric and I went into the abandoned government facility. It's been a while since I last watched this, but I've seen it a hundred times since that day. I scrolled to the end of the video At the few frames of subjects L.C.'s prison cell.

The glass that separated us from the next room had been thick and dusty, but it was clear enough to see some of the cell. It was a large cylindrical tank and glowed with an eerie blue light. I freeze the video one second before the footage ends. The thing inside that tank was man-shaped and big. Details are hard to make out as I remember, but you can see the general shape.

Tree trunk legs, two long and thick tentacles for arms, with a mass of wavy hair. Only it hadn't been hair. In this moment of the video, I began to hear a melancholy music that reminded me of whale songs. It was so beautiful and sad.

I don't remember doing it, but I released that monster. Erica tried to get me out. But the master wanted me to stay with him. I shoved my sister out the door and slammed it in her face because I hadn't wanted to share my master with her. Then it all went wrong. Somehow the master could sense that men were coming.

And if he didn't act fast, they would imprison him again. He tore through the steel doors, crashed through every barrier between him and freedom, and killed anything in his. his way. I slowly followed after him until I heard the gunfire and screams. His hypnotic hold on me was broken with the fight, but it only lasted a minute. The destruction he caused in the lower level caused an electrical fire to break out. And I managed to get myself out of there with the red file. When he ran past me, I caught a glimpse of his face, just enough to know what he looked like. and in that moment

he was beautiful his hair was like a giant sea an enemy and his facial hair were baby tentacles that's what the tentacle from Tony's desk looks like a piece of the master's beard maybe they fall off and regrow like human hair does Erica could have been giving them to new recruits as a momento from the master

before being taken to wherever the cult congregates I pulled the tentacle out of my bag and examine it more closely. Octopus and squidskin naturally looks rubbery, but being detached from the body this lung would bring some decay and smell. Then again, that monster was abandoned in that facility for more than 70 years and hadn't died. No one had been down there to feed it in all that time. So maybe it doesn't die and decay after all. Taking it out of the bag, I immediately regret touching it again.

While under the master's hypnotic influence, I thought it beautiful and awe-inspiring. Now, all I think is that it was grotesque and monstrous. A bad dream that took my sister away with the same lies it tried to get me to believe. Had the soldiers not come? I think it would still have me. Sometimes when I'm out on my sister's trail, I swear I can still hear the master's song. In fact, I think I hear it now. Without realizing what I'm doing, my index finger slips inside the tentacle, and the damn thing comes alive.

I can't control my hand as it grabs up a red pen and begins scribbling on the closest sheet of paper. Thankfully, it was a blank page I hadn't begun to take notes on yet. In the same angry block letters that were all over Tony's dorm room, a message forms that has my eyes grow wide with shock. I never got the chance to thank you for releasing me, Emma. Our time together was cut short by those that wish to stop me from what I have planned. I know you have been searching. And if you wish to rejoin us, you will be welcome with loving arms. Your sister has missed you dearly, but fears you may oppose us.

So I thank you for my release and ask. Will you embrace the madness? I regain control of my hand and tear the tentacle off my finger. The nerve of that bastard. 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 Shera-Lite licensing,

or with written consent from the authors. No portion of this podcast may be rebroadcast or otherwise distributed without the express written consent of the creepy podcast production team and the stories author.