Creepy - The Ghost Maker & Abandoned Shipping Containers Can Be Goldmines

Episode Date: February 9, 2023

The Ghost Maker***Written by: No One of Consequence and Narrated by: Nate DuFort***Content Warning: Gun Violence***Abandoned Shipping Containers can be Goldmines***Written by: Edi Momčilović and Narrated by: Cole Burkhardt***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 biosephicions, Silence and explicit language.

Listener discretion is advised. Creepy presents. The Ghost Maker. Written by known of consequence and narrated by Native Fort. I was a United States deputy marshal for many years before I was forced to retire. In my last 10 years, I primarily worked fugitive cases. Retirement wasn't my idea. but they forced me out, and it had nothing to do with my age.

Breaking the record for shootings and armed conflicts where it was just me against the bad guys, that's what brought it on. Sure, I got shot up sometimes, but I always won in the end. The problem was I killed more fugitives than I brought in. It didn't matter that I hadn't set out to kill anyone, but I had one hard and fast rule. If I pulled my gun, I was going to shoot to kill. When I first started out, I did every kind of job the marshals were tasked with.

Prisoner transfer, acid forfeitures, witness relocation and security, and even protecting federal judges. It was two years of grunt work before I had the occasion to draw my weapon and put someone down. Some idiot tried to take a shot at a judge that just sentenced his dumbass brother to prison for the remainder of his life. I guess my small, unimposing stature made me invisible to him. But once I saw him pull that weapon, I put one in his chest before he could raise the revolver. At Glinkgo, they taught us to go for the heart. And that's what I did. Damn fool was dead before he hit the ground.

Security cameras caught the entire incident from a dozen angles. The shooting was justified. and the investigation into the incident lasted all of ten minutes and a trip to the range. What caught so much attention was my speed and accuracy with a shot from the hip. Normally, this is a big no-no. But to prove my skill to the investigator, we went to the shooting range. Nine out of ten times I drew and fired from the hip, hitting inside the ten ring. That one that didn't hit inside the ten ring,

It hit just outside the line. Even if that shot was put into a real person instead of a target, that person would be down for the count. After that, I was no longer a rookie, and I got to take on some of the more difficult tasks. Hunting fugitives was probably the most dangerous aspect of the job, but it had its boring moments. Have you ever sat in a surveillance van waiting for someone to come home

that you're not even sure is going to show up? Talk about mind-numbing boredom, but at least it's done in teams. That way, only one person has to watch the monitors at a time while the other takes a nap or does something to mentally recharge. I like to watch movies on my phone. You can only read over a fugitive file so many times before it drives you nuts. Same goes for doing puzzles. For a while, I tried reading textbooks to expand my mind,

but that's not how I learn best. The turning point in my career was a few years later during a prisoner transfer. I just collared a fugitive and threw them in the cell when our rookie brought in two prisoners. They were a couple of heavy hitters with some dumbass local mafia brought to the courthouse for hearings. Apparently the searches performed on them at the prison were half-assed because each of them had a shiv. The prison guards were overpowered embarrassingly easy. and more than half our office was out doing other things. Aside from me, there was the boss and the rookie.

Due to some difficulties bringing in my fugitive, I was down to three bullets in my backup piece and my sunny disposition. It was time to break out my gag gift. Some of my fellow marshals got together and purchased an antique revolver for me a while back. It was a 45-caliber cult peacemaker. supposedly used by a marshal back in the days of the Wild West.

And I knew it worked because they gave it to me while we were re-qualifying at the range, and I tested it out. Turned out, I was more accurate with the antique than I was with my modern piece, and that was saying something. The hostage situation in our office lasted at most an hour and only resulted in one fatality. Those transferred prisoners got my fugitive out of the same. of his cuffs, and he used a nightstick to beat a guard nearly to death. I say nearly because I

used the revolver to shoot him through a closed door, taking out his heart and scaring the prisoners into giving up. From that moment on, the antique became my primary weapon. I got a lot of flack from that shooting. It's against the rules to do what I did, but since it resolved the situation, the assistant U.S. attorney let it slide. And I gave him some bullshit about how I could place everyone in the room thanks to the fiber optic camera we had shoved through the air vent, but that's not what it was. Sure, we did have a camera in the vent and a monitor showing the entire room,

but I hadn't been looking at it. At the time, I didn't know how, but I knew exactly where to aim and when to fire. Honestly, I chalked it up to the room. instinct and decided not to think too hard about it. I did my job, the bad guys lost, and that was the end of it. At least, that's how I wanted it to be. I ended up taking a week vacation after the hostage situation, orders from the boss. During my pursuit of the fugitive, I ended up having to gun down four people that were determined to keep me from him. Five dead bodies in one day

is a lot. Work was pretty much my whole life. Work was pretty much my whole life. so I did what any workaholic does in their downtime. I went to a bar. While enjoying a few beers from the tap, I half watched some sports on the TVs, but that stuff never really interested me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a guy walk into the bar with a long coat on

and a troublesome demeanor wafting off him like bad cologne. Before he could pull the sawed-off shotgun under his coat, I kicked at his leg, ruining his balance, and slammed him into the bar. With my revolver at the back of his head, I pulled back the hammer and said, Give me a reason. I was staring at the dirtbag in the eyes by way of the large mirror behind the bar, and a feeling overcame me. Never have I set out to kill someone in my life, but for some reason,

I felt a compulsion to pull the trigger. Never mind the right or wrong of it. I wanted to paint the wall with this dipshit's brains, but it's not who I am. That's when I suddenly felt a present standing behind me. I knew better than to turn my attention away from the man I had at gunpoint, so I glanced behind me with the mirror, and there he was, standing right behind me,

blood on his white button-down shirt. Those dead eyes looked at me, with an expression of glee, but he couldn't be there. He was on a slab at the morgue, a hole in his chest from the same revolver I had to the back of this dirtbag's head. I'd killed him just the day before, so how could he be there? Dealing with the threat in front of me, I cuffed him and took his weapon away. When he was secured enough to take my eyes off him,

I glanced to see if my fugitive was still there. but he wasn't. Of course he hadn't been there. He was freaking dead. But I couldn't shake the feeling that he wasn't far. I swear I'd seen him several more times on my forced time off, but never for more than a moment and always in reflections. Since I was off duty,

I decided to stop carrying my primary weapon. With just my backup piece on me, I kept an eye out but didn't see him again. By the time I was back on duty, I'd convinced myself that I'd been seeing things and wrote the whole incident off. Before I could even sit at my desk, my boss put me on surveillance detail. For three days, I was stalking out some rich asshole's house in a van with the rookie. Didn't get much nap or puzzle time during that stint, had to keep my eye on the rookie. Things were rather uneventful until that last night.

The guy we were after was a money-launderer for some organized crime outfit, and we wanted him to turn on his employers. Problem is, the rich asshole had a lot of nice things, and some less than reputable types rolled up to the house, wearing ski masks while carrying crowbars. I could tell this wasn't a hit squad, partially because the jackass wasn't even home. These guys were just going to rob the house,

and of course we couldn't just stand by. As they were trying to break in through the back door, me and the rookie snuck up on them. One happened to spot us and pulled a gun. One of them took off as the rookie took down the gunman. The other two just held up their hands. With local police moving in to back us up and the rookie had the two guys,

I took off after the rabbit. After ten minutes of running in the woods, I stopped dead in my tracks. Something told me the fourth guy was close by, and he was armed. I put all my concentration into my ears, straining to hear anything other than the typical night noises of the woods. Before I knew what was happening, I pointed my revolver up and to the left,

firing a single shot. There was a crash, and I turned on my flashlight to see the guideman, chasing, laying on the ground, dead. He had what I thought was a compact pistol, but it turned out to be nothing more than a lighter. Whoever had the bright idea to make elaborate lighters that looked like pistols is a serious asshole. By that point, I was getting to be on a first-name basis with the assistant U.S. attorney. We started seeing each other so often since there has to be an investigation after every shooting.

first names were just the natural progression. Honestly, the only reason he started looking so hard into my shootings was because there were so many. Every single one of the deaths had been justified, but my body count was getting awfully high. It helped that I occasionally brought someone in alive, not necessarily without injury, but some things can't be avoided. Things progressed and only seemed to be able. get stranger. Chasing fugitives got easier for me, and it didn't have anything to do with skill or luck. I started to know where to find the bad guys, where to shoot, and when the best opportunities

to get them were. There's no way for one person to be able, as I'd become, to track people down. Something was at work that I couldn't understand, but I knew it had something to do with the revolver. Every time I drew down on someone with it, I felt that compulsion I'd felt at the bar, the urge to pull the trigger. Sometimes I did. Sometimes I didn't. What was really starting to worry me,

I was pulling the trigger more and more as time went on. On top of that, I was also seeing more dead people in reflections. Everyone I killed was lurking about, and the only way to avoid seeing them was not to look into reflections. For a while, I tried to go back to using a modern peace, but I was never as good with them as I was with the peacemaker. Using it became an addiction. Seeing dead people in reflections did freak me out in the beginning. However, they never seemed to want to harm me.

If anything, they were encouraging me, wanting me to kill and make more ghosts. Then, something unexpected happened. I was running down a fugitive one day, but he had a hit squad after him. Apparently, he stole a sizable amount of drugs from his associates, and they didn't take kindly to that. I ended up killing all seven of them before cuffing my fugitive. The last guy I killed? I didn't use the revolver, but my backup.

His ghost never showed up. Only those I killed with the antique were haunting the reflections. I probably should have gotten curious about the antique's history before this point, but I hadn't. There was only one marshal left in the office that had been in on getting me the revolver, but she didn't know where it came from. Took a few weeks to get a hold of the marshal that actually purchased it, and he turned me on to the store he got it from, a place called Pandora's. The woman that runs the place now wasn't there when the antique was sold,

and it took her a few days to sift through the records. She couldn't tell me where it came from, but she knew a lot about the revolver itself. My first clue to that was when she asked me if I'd seen the ghosts. In the old days, famous gunfighters and hunters, had a tendency to name their guns. Davy Crockett had a rifle named old Betsy, Buffalo Bill Cody named his rifle Lucretia Borgia, and Wyatt Earp's pistol was known as peacemaker.

My pistol didn't come from a famous gunfighter or hunter, but turns out that it did have a name. The Ghostmaker, according to the shop's owners' records, the pistol was passed around between long, men back in the Old West. No one held on to it for more than a year, save for one Marshal. She didn't have much else to say on the matter, just a piece of advice regarding proper maintenance. Her suggestion was that even the inside of the handle should be cleaned from time to time. It was more the way she said it rather than her words.

So, I took off the handle plates and found an anomaly. A crystal pulsing with a low, ominous blue glow. The moment I'd touch the crystal, I found myself no longer in my living room, but another time and place. I'm no historian, but I've seen enough westerns to know what a primitive jail looks like. A man sat behind the desk, and one look at me told him exactly who I was. The man was Marshal Nathaniel Zane. the last man to use the ghostmaker.

The shop owner put me in touch with the only person who could tell me what was going on. Marshall Zane explained that the pistol gives the wielder an almost supernatural ability to track down the unlawful and eliminate them with extreme prejudice. After using it a number of times, there comes an almost uncontrollable compulsion to use it. Not only that,

the user can never miss their target, even if they wanted to. It can only be used by someone in law enforcement and simply won't fire for anyone that doesn't lawfully hold a badge. Everyone killed by the revolver will become a ghost, but only seen in reflections. Back in Zane's day, that wasn't such a big deal. There weren't that many reflective surfaces. He didn't realize the army of ghosts. that were following him, until they'd already reached a critical mass.

The ghostmaker kept being passed between lawmen because they all eventually felt that compulsion to use it. Once they felt they couldn't fight it off anymore, they handed it off so they wouldn't become addicted, and they usually gave the new owner a warning. The lawmen that gave it to Zane did so during a gunfight. Having been fatally wounded, he never got the chance to give the warning. Zane found himself in a lot of bad situations,

but by the time the compulsion surfaced, he was already battle-worn and wrote it off as something completely different. What it really was was the ghost's influence. They wanted him to kill more and make the army bigger. It's true that misery loves company, and the ghosts were awfully lonely. When he retired from the law, the ghosts caught up to him. Marshall Nathaniel Zane died peacefully in his sleep

the day after he turned in his star. There were no autopsies in those days, so it was written off as death by natural causes. The truth of the matter is that the ghosts pulled his soul out and the body died of heart failure. Zane's soul is trapped inside the hidden crystal, fueling the supernatural abilities given to the user to be a better lawman. The army of ghosts following me is three times the size that claimed Zane. He claims that once my soul is taken by the army, his will be released to wherever souls go.

By now, you've probably heard that I died in my sleep after turning in my badge. You also now understand why I left my antique revolver in your desk. I've written this letter to give you a more informed warning than anyone else has ever gotten. No one should go into something like this without the full facts, and I've given you all that I can. I guess the question is, will you use the ghostmaker or pass it on? to someone else. Creepy presents.

Abandoned shipping containers can be gold mines. Written by Eddie Momtelevich and narrated by Cole Burkart. The life of a sailor is seen as a monotonous or boring line of work as seen by most people. Many have a fear of the ocean. It is understandable, seeing as how vast the oceans of our world are. Personally, I've always loved the sea. It was in my blood, after all. Most of my ancestors were sailors.

I worked on a cargo ship, as did my father. His father before him was in the Navy, and his father before him was a fisherman. My mother's side is no different. The job can be boring, at times, I have to admit, but there is a routine when you're on the high seas that keep your sanity intact. And the ocean is much more active and filled with humans than there were even a hundred years ago.

Communications are quick and efficient, and there is little danger. Well, little danger compared to the previous generations, but I wouldn't call the job safe. It still comes with its own dangers in the 21st century. Of all the dangers that are feared, it is not so much storms or any tangible threats that are realistic to occur, as are the legends and myths that float around the crew, despite us all living in the modern age, surrounded by all sorts of modern technological marvels that would make sailors of ages past envious or downright awestruck,

as well as having almost the entirety of all human knowledge freely available at our fingertips, we are still a superstitious bunch. All sorts of stories are told of sea monsters, aliens, ghost ships, or strange things that can't be explained rationally. The old-timers especially. I could describe those guys as being a cargo ship full of stories. The crap those guys saw and experienced is insane.

If it's true, that is. My job on the ship is as a watchman on the bridge. Essentially, I keep an eye out for other ships and anything that could pose a threat to the vessel. In other words, I watch a lot of water with an occasional ship or two in the distance. I work two four-hour shifts. The first shift is from 12 a.m. to 4 p.m. and the second is from 12 p.m. to 4 a.m. There is a third shift, though. That is used to help with other matters, such as checking if the containers are secured and cleaning duty. The rest of the day is reserved for rest and leisure,

and it's not much, might I add. Despite all of that, I love my job. Well, loved my job is a better way of putting it. I'm no longer in the industry. Why? Well, I have a very good reason. Well, I see it as a good reason, at least. It all began with one of the stories I heard from one of my crewmates

when we were doing the route from New York, United States, to Bergen, Norway. It was a short route, comparatively speaking, but I remember it just because of that story. Jackson, the 50-something chain-smoking sailor, who probably had over 30 years of experience, was on watch with me. He never told me his age. I never got around to ask him, to be honest. Anyways, it was a cold and dark night in the middle of the northern Atlanta, Atlantic Ocean. The lights on the bridge were dim, so our eyes were well adjusted to the dark so that we could see well outside. The faint sound of rock and roll could be heard emanating from the small DVD player we had on the bridge. Jackson was probably on his second pack for

the evening, when he started telling me the story. His raspy and deep voice complimented the atmosphere. Hey, did I ever tell you the story of the lost container? He began. Nope. First time hearing it, I replied. Well, stands to reason I should explain what this is all about. You know that sometimes containers fall off the ship, right? He said. Either incompetence or bad luck, if you ask me, I replied. He let out a chuckle.

Ha, ha. He let out a chuckle, followed by the iconic smokers' cough. When he got himself together, he continued. Ah, anyway. When a container falls off and cannot be retrieved, the company is compensated for the loss and doesn't lose too much financially. It is more costly to bring it back, if anything. As for the container itself, they leave it to be adrift until someone finds it. If someone finds it, it is essentially theirs, finders keepers, he told me.

That seems stupid. Why leave a container to drift? on the ocean, I said. Money and time, I guess. I don't think much of the laws anyways. They're beyond me, to be honest. If anything, there is treasure floating around. Never found one myself, but I have a few friends who have, he said.

What they find, I said. One guy, he was sailing on the Indian Ocean when they found a container with a convenient hole on the side. It was filled with premium cigarettes. They managed it close enough to pitch something. some of them up. They either smoked them or sold them for a good price when they were in port, he said. Damn, that's a jackpot if you asked me. Though some designer clothes or electronics would be great if it would ever survive the sea that is. What about the other guy? I asked.

Yeah, well, the other guy, he was on a ship somewhere off the coast of Brazil. They were sailing towards Rio. They stumbled on one of the containers floating about. It was on March, but they were just curious. They also heard of the stories of goodies being in there, but there wasn't a hole on it. Somehow, I can't remember exactly how. They managed to drag it along with the ship, then open it up. He said, his tone growing more stressed. What did they find? I asked.

Bodies. They found bodies. Rotting corpses of people, dozens of them. It is presumed that one of the cartels somewhere else, up north that filled it up and just dropped it in the ocean. It found its way down south along the coast of Brazil. He said, somberly, Jesus, that's fucked up, majorly fucked up. I said, not really sure if there's anything else to say to that.

Kid, it's a fucked up world out there, filled with all kinds of people. We travel the world, and yet we only see but a glimpse, touch the surface of what's actually there. He spoke the truth. We can barely see the full picture of the world. As sailors, we can barely see what's beneath the waves, a whole other world beneath our feet. Even though I believed him, I always had my doubts. I had my doubts until I experienced something way worse than what his friend experienced off the coast of Brazil. By that time, Jackson was no longer with us, losing the battle to cancer. The years of chain smoking finally. came back to bite him. We were in the Pacific this time, on our way to San Francisco. I just started my night shift on the bridge when I spotted a silhouette of something floating up ahead.

I called in to inform the captain and the rest of the crew of the situation. Quickly, we went into action. We managed to shine a light onto the objects, only to find it was just a road container. The reactions were mixed. Some were indifferent, and some were curious. Some were curious. as to what was inside, and others were pissed off that they were awoken from the brief time of sleep that they had. Though it had any discernible marks or logos on it, we couldn't rate it either way, so we just went back to our other duties. The container was right in front of us, and we didn't really have time to steer away from it. The worst that could happen is that it would scrape off some of the paint off the ship, so we kept the course as is. I remembered the story Jackson told me as we

slowly approached the small container. A sense of dread consumed every fiber of my being. I knew something was amiss, but my rational side kept me at bay. We hit the container, and the sound of metal-on-metal scraping could be heard piercing the mostly silent night. Then there was complete silence. The sound of ripping metal pierced the silence this time. I jumped off my chair fearing the worst. I ran out to the deck to inspect what made that noise, as did the others. I was surprised and relieved to see that the ship was indeed intact and that there was no damage. But what made me really worry was the container.

It was completely ripped apart from the inside out. I looked onward. I saw faint blue light beneath the waves. It moved in circles rapidly. Then, as it appeared, it vanished beneath the waves. Me and my crewmates looked at each other confused and bewildered to what just happened. What the hell was that? Someone said.

Before anyone could even respond, we heard something heavy drop behind us. We all turned in unison. All of us were silent and frankly too terrified to even make a move or sound. We shone flashlights in the general direction from where the sound originated. The sound of waves was everything that we did hear for a few moments. Then the sound of heavy footsteps emanated from the starboard of the ship. It closed in slowly, then it picked up the pace. One of my crewmates started running.

Fuck this! he shouted as he started to go back inside. The footsteps stopped at that moment. We still couldn't find what produced them. A sound akin to that of some kind of clicking or growling animal was heard by all of us. The guy who was just opening the sliding door to enter the bridge stopped. Then, the lights on the bridge, as dim as they were, failed. At that moment we heard something jump to the bridge. It was quickly followed by more of the clicking sound and visceral streams of our crewmates,

alongside the tearing of flesh and bone. We panicked and started running for our lives. I managed it to another entrance to get below the deck with the intention to barricade myself with a few others if we could make it. As I opened the door, I saw the captain, an old grizzled veteran of Vietnam. He had a rifle in his hands. Get your asses inside!

He shouted at us as we quickly funneled inside. I was the last to enter. I saw the silhouette of whatever got on our ship. That horrible clicking sound is as close as ever. It was a massive, bipedal creature. Its eyes had a faint blue hue. It shrieked into the sky, a deafening primal roar. Get off my ship, you fucking hell spawn!

The captain shouted as he took aim and fired a shot into the creature. It connected, though the sound made from the impact of the bullet was like it ricocheted, as if it was made of titanium or something. As I closed the thick metal door, I tried it to tell the captain to get inside, but he just ignored me and kept shooting at the thing, shouting obscenities at its way all the way through. I saw that the thing's eyes turned red and some kind of slits of its neck lit up in red as well. At that moment the door was finally closed and secure, and I made my way down.

We managed to get out an SOS signal, but there was no reply. The next few hours were tense. We did hear the sound of grinding metal and the ship straining from whatever was happening on deck. I couldn't sleep. Finally, in the early hours of morning, the sounds stopped, and not too long after, help arrived. When we went outside, we could see that up on the entrance of the bridge, there was a pool of blood and viscera scattered. The body of our crewmate was gone, but so was the captain. When we came ashore, we were all questioned as to what happened. When we relayed what we witnessed, we were questioned further by men from the government. We were told not to tell anyone what we had experienced. All footage from the cameras on the ship was deleted, and the ship itself was salvaged. Years had now passed since that event.

I kept in contact with some of my crewmates who were present on that harrowing night. Many of them became train wrecks of men, and a few of them committed suicide right after, or a few years after. All of us suffer from some type of addiction. I'm no longer in contact with any of them. I don't know what happened to any of the ones remaining. I can only tell you that I have nothing left to live for. That experience destroyed my life, so I don't give a single flying fuck about what those agents told me.

They can kill me for all I care. They're doing me a favor. We don't know what roams the oceans. So if you ever find yourself in a situation where you see a road container, ship or anything floating in the middle of the ocean, no matter what is on it, don't touch it, or at the very least, be careful. Curiosity killed the cat. As for what happened, I can't really tell if it was reckless or that it happened inevitably.

As for what happened, I can't really tell if it was reckless or that it happened inevitably. It doesn't matter anymore. It's behind me now. Godspeed and watch out for any monsters in containers. 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 share a light, 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 story's author.