Creepy - Soft Bellies Made of Flesh and Stone and Oodles of Love & The Fear Eater

Episode Date: September 28, 2023

Soft Bellies Made of Flesh and Stone and Oodles of Love***Written by: Christian Riley and Narrated by: DANIELLE HEWITT***The Fear Eater***Written by: Juan Cardenas and Narrated by: Megan McDuffee***Check out how to support the show and get rewarded 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.

Welcome to the bloody disgusting network. No. This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepy pastors 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 biocations. Silence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised.

Creepy presents. Soft bellies made of flesh and stone and oodles of love. Written by Christian Riley and narrated by Danielle Hewitt. Our first child. We named Hazel. She is sweet as clay. And when she cries, I hear distant thunder followed. by the displacement of moist gravel.

She cannot walk yet. But already she has learned to explore the world with her hands, and possibly her mind. I sense this in her actions, such as when she moves her body toward the east, as the morning sun rises, or when she laughs while playing throwing sand and pebbles high into the air. Her skin has the feel of chipped granite,

except for her stomach, which is soft as soapstone. This lovely child preceded our second and last child, Milo. In every way he is identical to his sister, excluding his cry, which is almost always sudden and distressing. It's as if Milo knows he's in constant threat of being crushed under the weight of the world, or under the weight of his own making. Both of my children were born faceless, save for a mouth. They have no eyes or nose, or even ears for that matter.

Nor do they have any hair. Their bodies are clean slates of stone, with soft, fleshy stomachs, a single characteristic that I still find puzzling. But what would life be without something to ponder? I tell myself this every day as I blindly brush my cheek against their soft bellies, and feel the warmth of their pulsing lives. I have come to learn that there is much to see when one has had their eyes sewn shut. Before my 13th birthday, I voluntarily did this. I used a fishbone needle and cat-gut thread, and I closed them up. I was tired of seeing the world spin around me, with me somehow in the center, the center of the universe, for all that did not matter.

The dizziness of my life was impossible to bear. It was stifling. I couldn't breathe. watching the world spin through the motions of its expectations kept me feeling suffocated and nauseous. So what else was I to do? I put an end to the madness, that's what I did. And only then did I find the beat to my heart. So then, does it really matter how we made our children? I am asked the same thing over and over.

How is it you made babies with that? They are words never left unsaid, insufferable words with insufferable tones, quick to make my ears bleed. Does it matter? I would reply. And then somewhere, an echo in the clouds, perhaps. Does it? Does anything matter when a bond is sealed by unadulterated affection? Does it matter when there is love between two separate yet consenting species? A love that is pressed together and cemented through the fissure of flesh and stone, of dust and blood. I had to learn how to walk again, blind and all. It's true what they say. Your other senses pick up the slack where your eyes had left off. I got real good at using my hands, my sense of touch. I felt my way into this world now,

my fingers and elbows and shoulders pushing and gliding a path through obstacles. The world feels different somehow. It has always felt this way, I suppose, but one never knows how anything truly feels when their eyes are holding them up, crutch-like. It's a strange sensation, a true perspective, when you have to rely on your feelings. And your feelings, well, they draw a path straight to your heart. Sure, I have my other senses, but Stone doesn't have much of an odor, and you certainly can't hear it. You can feel it, though, and you can taste it. Is it an acquired taste, one might ask?

I wouldn't know. I've been in love with the flavor since the moment I pressed my tongue onto it. But the world, it is different now from anything I have discovered. Of this, I am certain. And with this knowledge now buried under my skin, every day that passes is a blessed reaffirmed. reassurance, a confirmation of the day in which I closed the world up. I will never go back, content as I am. That said, there is a bitter agony that plays into my mind's eye,

and this agony is called memory. Memory in this case is the jaded images that my eyes have left me with. These orbs are relentless, so it seems. While left incapacitated, they still see. They have left their mark on me a thousand times over, and it is an endless war to defeat the impressions burned into my mind. Because of this, I almost let slip by all that is beautiful. My hands were the first to discover him, and I am thankful for that. Through my other senses, I had already gathered a clear understanding of the surrounding atmosphere.

I heard the chorus of songbirds, acquainted only with the quiet breast of solitude. I smelled a labyrinth of pine trees. With my skin I felt the rawness of land. I was on the outskirts, perhaps, or maybe deep in the wilderness. Does it matter? And when, perchance, my hands brushed across his chest,

chiseled muscles and the rough texture of such flesh, I became enthralled. With fingers I found his face, discovered its impressions and features, and his everlasting expression. With my body I explored his ankles and curves. I sensed his loneliness, too, and I immediately understood this is our first form of cohesion.

There have been no words spoken between us. Such beauty therein lies. And I refrain from hauling this stone masterpiece home with me, more out of respect than as a statement of complication. He does not even have a name. But every day I am with this piece of earth, and every day they come and watch as we admire our creations. Nothing about any of this has been simple,

despite my sometimes euphoric tone. It is difficult to seal away one's vision, and it is more difficult to transpire among a world while left sightless. Even worse is the effort to overcome the inherent stigmas that have risen against my bold actions. Apparently, not one soul has understood my true, choice to close my eyes against the world. And, as yet, so it seems, no one has embraced a marriage between the animate and inanimate. Most of the world remains perplexed, roaming with their deceitful eyes,

speechless, albeit curious over the oddities of my life. The irony is that those who have been closest to me are the ones who accept my choice as the least. Strangers who are quick to lie out such wide distances, at once become symbolic of the acknowledgement of my marriage, for better or for worse. But my family calls me a freak. They announce my relationship as an act of blasphemy. And our children? Abominations. How can you treat me this way? I had once asked. How can you treat them like this? Does it matter? Now that you're dead to us? Was their reply? As dead as that rock you profess to love? As dead as those lumps of mud you hold dearly?

Does it matter? At first I tried to change their minds. I tried to make them understand. I said listen to their small voices. Listen to them cry. And then I tried to make them feel. I pushed my children into their arms and said, Here, hold them.

Hold your family against your chest. Feel their heartbeats. feel their soft stomachs, which lift and drop the same as yours. Feel them. Feel their lives. At first I tried. But eventually their rejections brought pain to my children. Around such family, Hazel would become stiff as her father, immobilized for want of self-preservation, perhaps.

I would hold her, and she would sit in my lap and wait. Her body positioned outward, as if she could see, and hear. and even smell the anger working the air around her. But I knew she could feel it. And then Milo. He would just cry. His panicked whimper would grow louder, more piercing, until it became a rift of thunder into my ears,

tearing at the fabric of space. It was painful to hear and feel my children in this state. When I understood how they reacted to such hatred, to the words spoken between adults, I was at once reminded of why I closed my eyes against the world. And, like I had done before, with ritualistic fervor, I took desperate measure into my hands, and I smeared its yellow intros all over my face and across my chest,

into my mouth and ears, and then I murdered my family, the same as they did to me. It might be true that the most staggering form of punishment is to withhold one's love, especially when the subject of this punishment is accustomed to such a reward. This was the poison I used to kill my family, and theirs was a slow in agonizing death.

I will not say that this brought joy to my life, only that it was instrumental in lifting away so much weight. Killing them worked. I achieved my objective, and for now, my children are safe. For now, Hazel laughs much like she ever did. did. And Milo's cries are less painful to hear. But under this volume of silence, which always succeeds in death, I am again reminded of those insufferable words I still hear every day. And like

always, I answer the same question with another. Does it matter? Does it? The truth of it is no, it doesn't matter. None of anything matters. Now that I've reached this final resonating point in life, the nadir of my existence, as others might suggest, or the pinnacle of triumph, as I so proudly declare. And that pride is what the people shall see, what they do see. I convincingly tell myself, as I press my children deep against my bosom, wrap them tightly with cloth, then blindly fold my arms around our stone pillar, and hold our world closely until we can last embrace, the impending warmth of darkness. Creepy presents.

The Fear Eater. Written by Juan Cardenas. And narrated by Megan McGuffie. A letter arrived via Courier tonight, exactly 20 years after the death of my grandmother. She passed in her sleep under mysterious circumstances. What follows is the letter in its entirety. Young one, I write to you specifically because I know that when you are reading this, I will be long gone.

I wonder what you are like and what you think of me. As of now, I know you trust and listen to me, and that is all I ask. This is an account of when I first encountered the Fear-Eater. It was years ago when I was barely eight years old. I was hiding among the rubble in Warsaw. At this point in my life, I had found myself alone. sleeping where I could, eating incredibly little and living in constant fear. Every sound from the bullets whizzing by, the sounds of tanks rolling,

the roar of a passing plane's engine, the stout footsteps of the soldiers, it all plagued me, unnerved me. If I was to survive, then I had to adapt. I entered a period of necessary numbness. The younger me, the me that was disguised as a young German girl by mom, the younger me that learned to hide in plain sight, that me didn't survive. The new me drank rainwater and slept atop gravel and glass. The new me didn't even notice the sharp pains in my stomach anymore.

It was the new me, sticking to the shadows of hollowed out buildings and slowly starving, that found the fear-eater. My mind always remembers the fear-eater as being a male, but honestly, I don't know it's bound by that. He didn't approach me, but he seemed to know how to stay in my line of sight. He was tall, almost unnaturally so, or maybe the top hat made him seem too tall, and his face was pale, almost paper-white. He had a face that looked almost drawn by a child, with thick, crude features, big teeth, big eyes with a single dot pupil, big uneven ears and hair that was gnarled and unkempt, in coarse chunks that stuck out from under his hat.

He was in all black with a pale face. He was somewhat camouflaged in all this gray and dark part of the city. I hid here. At first glance, I thought he was a crude drawing on the wall and paid him no mind until he twitched. I nearly screamed. The creature instantly was upon me. It looked like it was going to pounce on me.

It stopped just in front of me. and held up a hand to my face. I felt a chill down my spine and the feeling like I had just vomited on the ground, but nothing had come out. Sour little grape, I sense fear but something more. Pain, numbness, bitterness,

not too tasty. It growled out of its toothy mouth. I stayed quiet, staring at this abomination in the middle of a war zone. It slinked closer and closer to me. I backed away from it until I was up against the wall. Sour little grape, you are afraid, but so desperate too. Do you want this?

He reached out with once empty. He reached out with a once empty hand to reveal a small roll of bread and a little pat of butter wrapped up in some linen. I remember I could almost taste them. They were so close to my face. I didn't have a chance to react when suddenly the two items disappeared. His smile was so gnarled and long on his face. He went from a round head to an oval one with his toothy smile.

He explained to me that I ate if he ate, and I shied away, instinctively feeling like I was to be his meal. I shook his head, though. He wanted stronger fear. The big fellows, with the boots and the rifles, they are all afraid, and they are looking for you. Lure one to this alley, run on those little feet of yours to this location, and let me have one little soldier, and I'll let you have this butter and bread. I didn't say anything for a long time, looking past him, hoping for someone to come to save me. No one would. I asked why he needed me to get him his food. He said he could get his food whenever he wanted, but rarely did he have a chance to savor it. Rarely did he find someone on their own during these times. Wouldn't I help him? We would both benefit. What would happen if I didn't help him? I asked. Then he turned gravely serious. That smile dropped into a small-mouthed grimace, his bulging teeth grinding under his full.

pale cheeks. I guess I could have myself a sour grape instead. I went out. I knew where the guards patrolled. I saw one of the guards. He was tall. I could tell he was young. He looked like my brother, like my brother used to look, with the pimples and the scraggly beard coming in patches. He was turned around, relieving himself on the side of a building. I tossed a pebble at him. He quickly finished and looked towards me. His first reaction was surprise, and anger. He called out to me to surrender myself. His voice was shaky.

His arm trembled when he gestured towards me. I ran. I ran the three blocks back to the alley. I felt a pang of guilt in my stomach. Or maybe it was hunger. Or maybe it was the fear of the creature I had encountered there. When I rounded the corner, I ran to the end of the alley, back up against the wall. The soldier approached me. I felt the fear grow in me. The creature had lied to me. It had abandoned me to this soldier who might put a bullet in me or send me to a camp. I wish it had. The soldier was two paces from me when the fear eater creeped out of the long shadows or materialized. I couldn't really tell. It just showed its frightening visage and opened its gnarled toothy mouth so wide the soldiers had neatly fit in it.

to it. It continuously chewed on the skull as muffled screams resounded out of its head. His eyes rolled back in ecstasy as it devoured the soldier's head, then sucked his neck like a straw. Specks of bone, blood, and hair fell on me like a light spritz of death. The fear-eater looked satisfied. His mouth was wryly smiling as his hand produced the bread and butter. I want to say I felt guilty, but at that moment I was so hungry, and the bread was warm, as warm as the flex of flesh on my cheek. I cleaned that off after I ate. I had this feeling that the food would somehow disappear again. Before he disappeared, he told me he would give me more if I met him here again, alone, and told no one of ordeal. I molded over. I had my first restful sleep on a full stomach, and in the morning I felt a clarity

about the whole situation. The soldiers were going to kill me or arrest me if they saw me anyway. This deal would ensure I ate. I didn't know that the Red Army was only weeks from invading. I didn't know that the Germans were on the verge of defeat. As far as I was concerned, this was going to be my life from now on. I guess, in many ways, it was. I lured another soldier to the alley the next night, and the night after. Each time he had me watch. He had me see what he was capable of before he rewarded me, both with my life and a meal. He was like my father, my provider, my protector, but he was also my jailer, my curse.

The fourth victim, that one really stuck with me, because when he cornered me, he spoke to me and told me not to be a friend. afraid that he could take me to safety. I almost wanted to warn him. Maybe it was a lie. Maybe it was a trap. Maybe. But what did happen, though, was that the fear eater ate him slower than usual. He was like a boa constrictor this time, wrapping his now flexible body around the man, and slowly, agonizingly sipping the innards of this man. He would speak to me when he did this, that he was almost a Somalié of fear, he said, that these men had a consistent, brewing fear of death that came from the war. They were like a fierce champagne, he said, bubbling, dry, and delicious. He still called me his little grape. He left the body on the ground and made sure I looked

at the dead eyes before handing me an entire bowl of dried fruit and preserved meat. He promised me the most fabulous feast if I helped him one life. last time, that he needed only to feast once more to then get some rest for a few decades. He didn't wait for a reply. He just disappeared. I almost didn't go back to the alley. I almost marched to the nearest barracks and gave myself in, but I didn't. My stomach had gotten used to being full. That night he laid out for me what he wanted. He sensed a truly delicious fear-ridden man, but he was too enclosed, too far for him to reach. He was. Too far for him to retrieve him. He showed me the man on the second floor of a residential building, reading by the

candlelight. He was bearded, tall, and noble-looking. My orders were simple. Get him downstairs, tell him whatever he needed to hear. I nodded. I went to the building, crept slowly and quietly up the stairs. When I was upstairs, I heard the man muttering to himself and writing something down in a notebook. I was at the doorway when the man, quick as a whip, was in front of me, pistol drawn. I wasn't afraid. I was... I was pitying him. He seemed relieved to see me. He holstered the weapon and asked me who I was, in Polish. I answered that my family had all but disappeared, and I noticed him upstairs and came to investigate. He offered me help, a place to stay. He was kind, and I could see that he was no soldier. He was something else. I saw out of the corner of my eye a map of the city with lines, figures drawn. He looked like he had been considering it, planning something. I would never know exactly what, but from the little interaction we had, I knew he was not in the business of arresting little girls. Then I said it. I said my little brother was hurt down in an alley nearby. Could he come to help me?

I still regret that to this day. He did. I saw him take a swig of something out of a flask, and he trepidaciously came with me to the alley, sticking to the shadows, quiet as mice as we skittered into the snake's lair. Once I got to the alley, I felt like I was the monster, I was the beast, I was the insatiable creature. I didn't even know what to say when he started to question me. I remember every other. detail. The shadows peering out and engulfing him, the screaming, the struggle, the look in the man's eyes as he stared at me, doing nothing to help him. Then the fear eater did something I'd never seen him do before. He momentarily let the man go. He was mangled, barely still human shape. His limbs were torn half off, his fluids oozing out of every pore.

He crawled towards me, shouting something incomprehensible. As he reached for me, I felt the man's fear. The fear of being caught by his enemies. The fear that he was in a losing battle. The fear he felt now a primal fear. This feast of fear in all its facets, it was the fear eater's final delight before he rested. The fear eater was true to his word.

That night I ate a whole, cooked chicken, vegetables, and potatoes. I chewed without passion. It was filling, and I needed it, but there was something gone in me, something dead. Then Poland was liberated. The war was over very quickly after this. I felt like a leaf carried by a mighty river. I drifted, I wandered, I sank. I eventually found myself among a foster family that sought to leave Europe for the Americas, and after a few years I boarded a vessel heading there. Once I got to the States, I started to draw him constantly. He became my obsession, my caregiver, my tormentor, my savior, my damnation all rolled into one horrible figure. I drew him obsessively, and these became the

basis for the graphic novel I published. Like any good capitalist, I monetized my trauma. From this, I made my livelihood. He fed me yet again. He fed my children and then my children's children. But I never spoke to anyone about the real story. This is the only time I've revealed the full story. Please listen to me. I have left the rights to the Fear Eater in your name. Don't let anyone republish the books or let the character be developed for any TV series or film. Let the character die with me. It is only now with hindsight that I see what it was saying when he called me a sour grape. It let me see what it could do. He let me live with that fear. He let that fear grow, ripen and ferment in me. The years of nightmares, the broken relationships, the flashbacks, all of that is

within me, rotting away at me. And he's come back, like a vintner coming to their prized wine cask. I know it's the fear eater It has been floating around my peripheral That thing has been teasing me with his return I know I only have a few days left at most Please don't let it loose on the world Let everyone forget it Let him starve

I'm counting on you Do not be afraid for me I won't lie What he does to me will hurt But it is worth it to see an end to my fears Goodbye Hi, and when you think of me, think of the good times. I'm sorry.

She signed her name, and true enough, I quickly found out the rights to the Fear Eater comic strip, and all related, created characters were to be reverted to me as Grandma's sole heir. The studio was already contacting me about the possibility of a film. I let the call go to voicemail and tried to calm myself down, because I thought I saw a tall man in a top hat. at the corner of my eye. For more information on this podcast, including how to submit your own story for consideration, please visit creepypod.com.

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