Creepy - The Hungry Slide & Natural Instincts

Episode Date: November 30, 2023

The Hungry Slide***Written By: Jules Rowlen and Narrated By: Alicia Atkins***Content Warning: Children Death, Mentions Of Cannibalism***Natural Instincts***Written by: Courtenay Gillett and Narrated by: Michelle Kane***Support the show at patreon.com/creepypod***Title music by: Alex Aldea Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

No. This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepy pastures and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened or are simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. which listener discretion is advised. Creepy presents. The Hungry Slide.

Written by Jules Rowland and narrated by Alicia Atkins. My brother Travis Ferguson was a hero. He was also a bully. Not my bully. He let me trail in the footsteps of his worn sneakers and threatened kids with purple nurples if they dared to tease me about my glasses and freckles.

He was a good brother, but a bad kid. The kind you avoided if you were anyone but me. He was a villain in the seventh grade, but a hero in this story about The Hungry Slide. Have you ever heard of it? The Hungry Slide? No, probably not. In some places the lore has spun into a cautionary tale

for children to mind their parents, but in the small town of Mayus' Unus'Urard. Oklahoma, where I grew up. The truth about the hungry slide is far more horrifying than any rumor. I should know. I was there when it ate its last meal. The slide was part of the holiday park. Yes, that holiday park. Name for the notorious holiday family in the ruins of their mansion that the playground was built upon. Reports of the gruesome murders flooded the news back in 2004 when the truth came out. I was only seven, so I don't remember more than a few flashes on TV and conversations

between my parents and their friends about the bodies. Since then, since my brother, I've done my research. Any unfortunate traveler who ventured too close to the holiday home got caught in its sticky, blood-soaked web. The home was searched, and the holidays were questioned many times. But nothing was found and, No arrests were made. Grandfather Holiday and his son Raymond were avid hunters,

so their freezers were always full of carefully wrapped cuts of meat. Some say the police were too distracted by Grandma Holiday's homemade meat pies and unctuous stews. All secret family recipes, if anyone asked, to notice that the rack of ribs and the refrigerator wasn't from an elk. The heart didn't come from last winter's bear, and the hindquarters didn't belong to any deer. The holidays might still be snatching prey, always young people and always from out of town,

if it wasn't for the determined backpacker who, after watching his partner being drawn and quartered, decided he'd rather risk death on his own terms than become the centerpiece of Thanksgiving dinner, and set a fire that spread through the mansion, killing the eldest members of the holiday family, and revealing their deepest, darkest secrets buried within the walls. Behind the plaster in nearly every room were bones stacked the top bones. Femers and phalanges and skull caps covered in nicks and cuts from steak knives and the insistent canines that gnawed through flesh and grizzle. At least 20 individual bodies were identified within the ruins of the holiday home.

I've heard some people say the number is closer to a hundred, but I don't believe that. 20 is horrible enough. Holiday Park opened one year after the fire. Building a playground on a site of so much death was a hard cell, passing the city council by a margin of one vote on the hopeful, albeit naive, promised that the town could wash away one family's sins with the innocent laughter of children, replacing screams of terror with shouts of joy.

No expense was spared from the top-of-the-line materials to the famous playground architecture hired to design the bridges, tunnels, rock walls, and climbing ropes that my brother and I couldn't wait to get our grubby hands on. But the park's most impressive features were the slides, each different, each magnificent in their own right. There was the eight-foot slide, nearly straight down with low slides, my mother's nightmare, she'd said, and my wildest dream. A giant 20-foot slide with three runs side-by-side for racing, and a winding slide, the tallest of all, with a full 100 feet of twisty peppermint-colored tubing that spit you out cross-eyed and dizzy.

Then there was another that didn't spit you out at all. The smallest of all the slides at Holiday Park, and perhaps the most unassuming at a glance, what has become known as the hungry slide, was tucked at the toddler. end of the playground, a short red tube with no twists or turns. You could look up from the bottom and see clearly out of the top. Nowhere to get lost or stuck. And yet? It was two years to the day after the fire that destroyed the holiday home, about one year after the playground itself was built, that the hungry slide ate its first meal. Many of the parents and Mayas warned their children not to play there, but we didn't listen.

How could we resist a place full of such color and wonder? With delightful contraptions we'd never seen before that made the other local playground look cheap and run down by comparison, promising splinters and scrapes, and exactly the same fun we'd had at every other summer? The free rangers, like Travis and me, latchkey kids with parents who worked and couldn't afford babysitters, flooded Holiday Park,

where my brother became an unlikely hero from his perch atop the hungry slide, where he refused the small children. Even me, much to my surprise, access to the small red tube. How many lives he unwittingly saved? We simply cannot know. But my brother wasn't at the playground when a family from two towns over hosted a 50th anniversary party at Holiday Park. While the adults congratulated Ma and Paul Williams for five decades of marital bliss,

the children ran and played with the reckless abandonment of youth. Among these children were five-year-old Seamus Williams, grandchild to Ma and Paul Williams, who wasn't the first to fling himself down the hungry slide, but on that day, he certainly was the last. His parents heard the gurgled scream, a horrifying wail that was suddenly cut off as if the sound was swallowed by a cavernous throat.

When everyone realized he was missing, one of the older cousins claimed they saw Seamus enter the slide. His parents climbed the length of the small red tube, even though their son clearly wasn't inside. Every slide and tunnel were diligently searched, and the Mayas police were called. Shamis' mom and dad were inconsolable, as they explained what little they knew of their son's disappearance to the Mayas sheriff.

Nothing, other than the boy's blue baseball cap that plopped out of the bottom of the hungry slide, covered in some kind of unidentified clear slime was ever found. A few weeks later, a couple passing through town who hadn't heard the stories of the holiday family or the recent disappearance of young Seamus Williams, stopped to stretch their legs and let their two-year-old daughter, Cassidy Baker, enjoyed the elaborate playground. Cassidy's mother, wild with hysteria, would tell the police that she only looked away for a second

when her little girl waved from the top of the hungry slide. When she looked back, Cassidy was gone, her small pink barrette dropping to the ground at her mother's feet. As with Seamus Williams, searchers combed the park in surrounding woods for any sign of the toddler, whose short legs couldn't have carried her very far. The only curious clue was found beneath the hungry slide. Carved into the red plastic tube were the letters S.W.

and beside the SW were the letters C-B. Once this detail circulated around town, people came, teenagers in particular, to take pictures of the letters. Some, teenagers in particular, tried carving their own initials into the plastic, but it didn't matter how sharp their knives were or how hard they scraped. The slide would not accept any additional carvings.

Even attempted graffiti bubbled up and slothed, off without a stain. The slide quickly became a place of myth and legend. Who would dare go down the hungry slide? There's a rumor that the youngest victim was no more than a few hours old. Many years after the playground was tore down, I heard about 16-year-old Maisie Hoffman, who was nine months pregnant when she went out for a drive one Friday afternoon. But when she came back two days later, she wasn't pregnant anymore. Some people say she gave the baby up for adoption. Others, the most malicious gossips, claimed she chucked the newborn down the hungry slide.

We can't ask Maisie directly anymore, because she killed herself a few months later. But to add fuel to the vicious rumors, the letters, B.H, appeared beside the C.B. underneath the hungry slide. Some thought for Baby Hoffman, who no one in Mayus ever saw with their own eyes. The legend of the hungry slide spread.

brothers threatened to throw their sisters down the slide. Parents, who didn't really believe there was anything sinister about the slide, used it to get their children to clean their rooms or do their homework, lest they become the hungry slides next meal. Twisted, though it was. I think everyone was just trying to make light of the darkness that continued to cloud the town. The playground remained open, despite the rumors, because the children who disappeared weren't from Mayus.

And it was just a slide, after all. Besides, as most parents later claimed, local children, their children, didn't play at Holiday Park. Except we did. The last victim of the hungry slide was the very bully that saved so many other children from the same fate. Travis Ferguson, my brother, threw himself down the hungry slide one Tuesday afternoon on a dare.

He hated looking weak and far. of the other kids. Our dad was a bastard back then, always so hard on Travis, always making sure my brother felt like he never measured up. The surest way to prove his worth to the other kids and himself was to survive the hungry slide, coming out the other end on his feet with a triumphant, shit-eating grin. Only he didn't. I stood at the top of the slide with a few other kids who wanted a front row seat. Others waited at the bottom. All of them taunted and egged him on, but I...

I fought back tears as I begged my brother not to go. I didn't care if they teased him or called him a wussy or that he'd have to give about a dozen knuckle sandwiches just to save face. It wasn't worth the risk. He gave my shoulder a shove to keep me away from the slide and told me to stop being such a tit baby, a tit baby. Exactly what our dad called him when he fell out of our tree house and started crying before we realized he'd broken his arm.

I knew I couldn't stop him then. He winked at me, like it would all be okay, flipped the other kids the bird with both hands, and flung himself down. A second passed, then two. In eternity for me, waiting for my brother to come out the other end. He must have braced himself inside to give everyone a scare, to make everyone pay for taunting him. I walked up to the opening and saw something. Something I couldn't explain, but something I can't forget.

Then I locked eyes with the slack-jawed children looking up from the bottom. My brother was gone. The other kid scattered, most leaving the park white-faced and screaming. I didn't move from the top of the slide until that evening when my parents, having heard that something had happened at the park that day, even if they didn't know what, came to collect me. I couldn't tell them what I'd seen, that Travis had gone into the slide with a wink and the bird and had gotten lost on the way down. Other kids told their versions to the police. This time there was no refuting the evidence since 12-year-old Kathy Lutz had captured the whole. whole thing on her father's digital camera. The video was grainy, but showed Travis enter the

slide at the top, and his shoes, a pair of ratty Nike sneakers from a second-hand store, fall out of the bottom. The whole town searched for Travis, efforts that dwarfed the searches for Seamus Williams and Cassidy Baker. He wasn't found. Some claim his initials appeared beneath the hungry slide, beside B.H. But no pictures exist to prove him. and the slide, along with the entire playground, was dismantled a short time after Travis disappeared. The sound at the end of Kathy Lutz video sealed the playground's fate. It's a detail no one who watched the video can explain, but that those of us who were there clearly heard. That I still hear at night when I think about my brother and can't fall asleep.

When he didn't come out of the other end of the hungry slide, the kids at the bottom stuck their heads in, and as they did, the slide lit out a giant, satisfied belch. And if that wasn't enough of a nightmare, what I saw when I looked in the tube flashes before my eyes every time I close them. My therapist says it helps to put things on paper, so I'm writing this story. I haven't actually spoken since that day on the playground 17 years ago. I can't. Not after seeing what I now draw on construction paper, post-it notes, the fog on the bathroom mirror after a shower, and up and down the sidewalks and colored chalk at the institution

for disturbed adults that I call home. There isn't a wall that surrounds me that isn't covered in the horrific scratchings from my memory from when I peered into the hungry slide, black, cavernous holes at the bottom of swollen in red throats. Pink shreds of flesh stuck between sharp pointed teeth. And briefly, so quick that it might have been my imagination. My brother's face, frozen in a silent scream. Creepy presents, natural instincts, written by Courtney Gillette, and narrated by Michelle Kane. I've been a Northwest Arkansas transplant for close to a year now. Moving here wasn't much of a jump from my home state of Kansas,

but it's far enough away from everything I swore I'd run from back home to make me feel comfortable, and that fact alone made it seem like as good a place as any to settle. Plus, Arkansas is known as the natural state, with many different outdoor hidden gems available to explore, and I've always felt right at home in nature, so I count it as a win-win. There's just something about being surrounded by trees that speaks to a deeper and more primal force inside me. Being outside with plants and animals is one of the only places I've ever felt truly secure. And the fact that swathes of Ozark Forest are so easily accessible from most of the metropolitan areas,

in the northern part of the state, made Arkansas an obvious choice. It's just by luck that the offices where I landed a job are located right along a large state-maintained trailhead to encourage workers to get out and get active, which I frequently take advantage of. This main trailhead branches off into a large network of smaller local trailways that people use for activities like biking and hiking

and everything in between. Almost every day after work, I take some time to myself to hike the trails. I usually stick to one trail in particular. It's become my favorite, thanks to the beautiful foliage, multiple waterfalls, and cave systems scattered all along it. It's also one of the more moderately difficult trails to traverse, which keeps the general public at bay

and opens it up for me to use as a sort of retreat from the hustle and bustle of daily life. Today, I've planned a more extensive hike for myself that I've taken a couple of times in the past when the weather allows. It's extensive enough that I'll need to set out first thing when I finish my workday and to make sure I have enough time to make it to one of the further hidden waterfalls on the trail and back to my vehicle before nightfall.

I like to keep my own personal curfew for safety and never stay out after the sun goes down. So when it's finally time for me to leave work for the day, I've already changed into my hiking clothes and have my back of gear ready to go. I should have just about four hours until dark once I hit the trailhead, more than enough time to make it to the waterfall and back. I'm sure that I'm quite a sight

as I make my way across the corporate campus through throngs of sharply dressed professionals with my large pack strapped to my back and wide-brim sun hat securely fastened to my head. Some people give me sideways glances, but most are so used to the extreme outdoor lifestyleses that permeate our state, I mostly go unnoticed. On most days, I cross paths with a certain security guard whose last posting stations him around the area of the corporate campus closest to the trails. He isn't in his usual spot today, though, which is honestly somewhat of a relief because he is quite the talker. There have even been days while on my way out that I've attempted to avoid conversation,

but he always manages to nab and ply me with the worst kind of small talk. Today, there's no time for that. As I take the gentle downhill slope away from the office buildings, I get a whiff of cigarette smoke in the air. and only have to glance around for a moment before quickly spotting the source. Apparently, the small-talking security guard is in fact here today. Just in a different spot, must have decided to take a new smoke break time. He notices me and gives me a wave with the hand not holding the cigarette.

I give a half-hearted hand-flot back before continuing on my way to the trailhead. Once I make it past the main trail entrance and onto my favorite side path, a feeling of exhilaration washes over me. I can't hear any other people, only the birds and the wind through the trees, and it makes me feel the calmest I've been all day. It's like I've been holding my breath until this moment. I take some time to soak it all in, readying myself for the journey ahead before setting off with a focused determination.

The going is relatively easy to. day because of my lightened mood and the gorgeous spring weather. I'm making better time than I expected. I'm about three-fourths of the way to the waterfall when the light hits the trail in just the right way for me to take special notice of a clearing that I've passed many times before on previous excursions. It's a sort of dell that's usually nothing more than a plain blanket of field grass. But today, I find it absolutely covered in close. and wildflowers. The fine weather conditions must have given it the right opportunity to flourish, and create a kaleidoscope oasis among the trees. When I press into the clearing,

I feel as if I'm experiencing something that isn't meant for me, and a voice inside tells me to tread lightly. So I remove my shoes, pack, and hat before I make my way to the center of the where I lay back on a bed of clover to soak up the sun's rays pouring onto the earth like warm honey. As I become comfortable in my position, listening to the drone of bees around me gathering their pollen, my eyelids grow heavy and I begin to float in a space between dreaming and awake. Nothing else exists but this moment. This feeling of oneness with the natural world around me, how it seems to cradle me in a protective embrace and I let myself drift away.

I spend more time in the clover and wildflower-covered clearing than I originally intended. By the time I shake myself from my meditative catnap, the sky above is turning cotton-candy pink and new bruised purple. I gather my things as quickly as possible and make my way back to the path. and as I crest the first hill leaving the clearing, I look to the horizon to see that the sun is quickly making its descent into darkness. I'd become too engulfed in the senses of calm that the forest brings, letting it lull me into a false sense of security and allowing time to get away from me.

There's no way I'm going to make it to the waterfall and back before it gets dark. I curse myself, wrestling with the idea of taking a chance and continuing. on before my anxiety gets the better of me and I turn back on the trail. I can come back another day, better safe than sorry after all, right? It's just as this thought crosses my mind and I've started on my way back to civilization that I see a rather large shape ahead of me scramble into a thick gathering of trees and brush to one side of the trail. My senses switch to high alert and my eyes stay trained on the area of the scrub that the shape disappeared into, watching for any kind of movement. My heartbeat thunders in my ears and adrenaline rushes

through my body as I scan the wall of greenery. I hold taut, not wanting to make any noise, and a thin sheen of sweat forms on my skin as the sun continues to sec. But the longer I look, the more my mind reassures that there's nothing amiss and I don't sense any movement. A few more quiet moments pass, save for the thrumming in my head, and a more logical train of thought barrels its way into my brain, questioning if I actually saw anything in the first place. The safety and rationality tempts me, and I accept the sense of order. I begin to reason that even if I had in fact seen something,

it was most likely just some sort of animal, probably just a deer. I convince myself that it's safe to continue on and remind myself that the longer I stand here considering things, the closer I am to the world going dark around me, which is a much scarier concept than an imaginary boogeyman on the trail. Digging deep for courage, I tighten the straps on my bag and forge ahead. although admittedly walking just a little bit faster when I passed the spot where I thought I saw the shape disappear. As soon as I clear the area, I began to relax again, leaving the spot behind me and laughing to myself at how jumpy I had been just moments ago. That's when I hear it. A sharp snap of a stick or branch comes from very close behind me.

I spin around as quickly as possible and see the foliage on the right side of the trail nearest to. me stirring, almost like there's something inside trying to decide whether or not to stay hidden. I consider this for only a fleeting second before turning back around and starting to jog down the path. Courage be damned. That's when I hear more movement behind me. Something, someone has emerged from the bushes and fear crackles like lightning through my mind. The sound of whistle Whistling reaches my ears, distinctly human, and made even more ominous by the dying light of the day as it waths over the trees. Panic rises in my throat. This can't be happening.

I think as a figure moves toward me, but another whistle reaches me, more taunting this time. And I know that it is. Oh, yes, it is in fact happening. It's all real. I drop my pack from my shoulders. It can all be replaced and start to move even faster down the trail. The figure follows. Whoever they are, they're just as fast as I am, but not nearly as nimble.

And I truly believe for a moment that I'm going to get away. I'm hitting breakneck speed when something shifts and an aching cramp begins to form in one of my calves, making me falter. Not now, please, not now. I beg the empty universe around me. But it doesn't matter. The ache spreads. It's a burn I can't ignore,

and my leg turns into dead weight that I can't carry. I trip and fall flying splayed across the trail. The figure sees this and slows behind me. The intense physical output tunnels, my vision, and the oppressive darkness has begun to creep through the trees makes it almost impossible for me to see clearly. I can hear just fine, though. I can hear when the figure begins to chuckle. A deep man's chuckle as he realizes I can't get away. It was a nice try to get away, he says. But it looks like. your sweet little body, just couldn't hold out for you. The voice sounds stilted but familiar. And as he moves near me, I recognize him. It's the small-talking security guard from my office.

I fight through the aching feeling now running up my opposite leg, leaving it just as useless as the first, to stay focused on his face. Now I've been waiting for this for months, just watching you, and learning your habits. He tells me while stepping closer, circling me. And you made it so easy because we both know what a creature of habit you are. Hikes in the woods damn near every day, all on your lonesome. What did you think was going to happen? I shake my head vigorously and use my palms to push myself out of the center of his circle to put my back against a large rock formation to one side of the trail. If he's really planning to attack me, then at least I'll be able to see it coming from this position. I knew you were taken along when all geared up like you were.

So I took my opportunity. Of course, you didn't go as far down the trail as I'd hoped, but your stop-off at the clearing gave me time to catch up. He purrs, almost like you wanted me to make it to you, as if you knew I was coming. Was that true? I wondered, was there something inside me that wanted this all along? Agony rocks my core as a cramp ripples its way at my midsection. This cramp is so strong it feels like it's going to split me in two, and all my questions are thrown to the side to put my focus into staying present through the same. the ache. He sees a flash of this concealed pain cross my face, and it makes his eyes shine in the dwindling twilight. This is exciting him. Please, you don't want to do this. I plead with him.

Well, this isn't personal. He counters. Deep down, we're all only animals, and you've just happened to cross paths with a predator, a predator who's very hungry. He looks. He looks at you. He looks. He licks his lips as I let out a volley of wimper's. Inferno, hot pain is searing its way of both my arms now. A tearing noise echoes out of the silence of the forest. It sounds like someone is firmly ripping thick fabric in two, but he only seems to notice my cries. Well, there's no reason to get yourself so upset. He says, it'll all be over soon, and you can be part of the forest you seem to enjoy so much. I let out a pain, twisted chuckle. No, no, you're right. It'll all be over soon, because it's just like you said. I spit at him as another tearing spasm rips along my spine

and brings tears to my eyes. Who are all just animals. right. My last few words came out as a growl that morphs into a howl. I lose control of my mouth and slobber pores onto the forest floor in front of me, as my jaw cracks, shifts, and elongates into a fanged maw. What the hell? He questions as he steps closer to investigate, unable to fully see my face in the shadows. My body contorts. to let forth claws, hair, and predatory muscles. My skin sloughs off as if I've only been wearing some sort of costume, putting on a masquerade this entire time, to contain the nightmare cleverly concealed beneath the surface. Full dark has arrived,

and there's nothing I can do to stop myself from turning. There's always something about the pain that occurs during a turning, that is sickly exquisite. I almost lose myself in it every time. It hurts to have so much power ripping its way to fruition from inside myself. But the relief of such a release is greater than the pain could ever be. The man looks on in horror. As my body transforms and releases the beast inside, he releases his bladder.

The smell he's put into the air Tickles my natural instincts And I know there's no point in fighting it anymore I relinquish control to the animal that's torn its way out of me And I feel like I'm watching what happens next From the best seat in a theater I'm involved but not actively participating As the beast howls and puts its powerful body into motion

The man has tried to run back down the path but it's a futile struggle, and it takes no time for the creature to overtake him. The animal's great jaws close around the man's right foot and ankle as he tries to flee, screeching, and fear. With one small twist of its head, the creature detaches each of the joints in the man's leg with a loud pop, not unlike the sound one might hear when taking the leg from a rotissory chicken. The creature continues to twist in the man's femur, fractures, splinters and pushes its way through his thigh skin, with such force that a spray of blood covers the tree canopy above. Now he's unable to run away, unable to use that brute force he was so

proudly wielding only moments ago. With newly found time to spare, the beast starts to crunch on the morsel it's torn from the man's body. All the while, the man screams and tries to pull himself away from his fate. He yanks at the underbrush and kicks at the ground with his remaining leg, trying to propel himself forward, but he doesn't make it far. Soon the animal has finished its appetizer and is standing back over him, holding him in place with its outstanding weight. Please! He screams an elastish effort to save his life. Please, you don't want to do this. But the beast doesn't understand. How could it? This isn't personal. The man just happened to cross paths with a predator. A predator whose hunger is deeper and older than a mortal man could ever begin to comprehend.

And so, the creature does only what it knows. Its razor-blade tongue snakes from its mouth. To languidly lick the man's skin off, layer by a layer, savoring each and every taste in the peace of the darkened forest. 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. common share-a-like 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.