Creepy - The Scavenger & St. Spider's Day

Episode Date: January 23, 2025

The Scavenger***Written by: Mia LaBianca and Narrated by: Alicia Atkins***St. Spider's Day***Written by: K. Marvin Bruce and Narrated by: Cole Burkhardt***Support the show at patreon.com/creepypod***Sound design by: Pacific Obadiah***Title music by: Alex Aldea Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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

Written by Mia La Bianca and narrated by Alicia Atkins. Once there was a very poor little girl who lived in a large city. She stayed in a shelter with her mother and attended school. But the school was miles away, and the girl found the loud rattling trains confusing. Her mother didn't have ten. time to help her, since she was looking for a job, so often the girl would not go to school. Instead, she wandered the subway stations, picking up change or selling old candy bars her mother had bought. One such day, after the girl had slipped under the bars at the turnstile, she was wandering

the station when she found a section blocked by yellow tape. Curious, she ducked under and explored. She found the station empty, and the rails quiet, with paper signs taped to the columns saying that the train was broken. The girl missed school. She liked knowing things, and had always wondered what was down the dark tunnel when it was empty of trains. She decided to jump down and see for herself. Carefully avoiding the third rail, the girl crept down the tunnel, listening for the roar of the train. The tunnel was very dark and long, and no sound or lights came other than the shuffle of rats which scurried by her feet. The girl grew very frightened, for the tunnel was longer than she had thought, and she was worried that she would not be able to get back.

She was just about to turn around when she noticed a stairwell on the side of the tunnel. It led to a black door in the wall, with a red bulb buzzing over it. Drawn by the light of the bulb, the girl climbed the stairs and knocked on the door. the door. The door opened slowly and revealed a small room with machines the girl had never seen before. The red bulb made the whole room look red. The girl walked inside and saw rusted metal and cracked glass of what looked like small TV screens. And she gasped, for at the back of the room there was a skeleton. It lay slumped against the corner, with an awful grin and black, black eye pits. In fear of the skeleton, the girl turned to leave, but before she could,

vermin came crawling over her feet. First ants, then roaches, then large heavy rat scurried over her sneakers and over to the skeleton. They filled its rib cage, wove pads in and out of its cavities, and slowly began to form a body. The skeleton now had imitations of muscles and sinew. The consisting of pulsing masses of ever-moving beetles and rats. Insect wings fluttered at its neck like a delicate collar, and ants spilled from the top of its head before climbing up again to form hair. The skeleton slowly stood and looked at the girl, and when he did so, the bulb above her head turned green.

I am the scavenger, said the skeleton, and in its eye-sockets two jewel-green teeth. and scarab's wings flickered. What do you seek? Money, said the girl, trembling. Or food or something to sell. I can find you these things, said the skeleton with a lurch, drawing nearer to the girl.

And I can find you so much more. Would you waste your time on items such as these. Its voice hissed as ants spilled from its jaw. What else can you offer me? Asked the girl, for she didn't want to anger the skeleton. I can offer you protection. The skeleton replied.

Hunger eats at your soul, little girl. But I can make hunger. weapon. Then he held out his hand. It burst into cold green flame, and the rats which swarmed around its bones stared into the eyes of the little girl. Promise me, he said, that you will never eat, and in return, I will make sure you are never hungry. Promise me that every bit of food will go untouched, and I will ensure the pit in your stomach will always stay full. Everything you want, everything you think you want, and everything you don't yet know you want. I can make it all come true.

If you promise never to eat again. The girl stared at his hand, disgusting and burning as it was, and was very, very hungry. She extended her hand, and his engulfed her own. They shook once, and the flames embraced her body. The girl felt a cold chill. The skeleton said, The deal is made. And the flames went out.

The room was dark once more, and when she stepped out of it, the tunnel was empty. Over the next few days, the girl did not eat any meals. When her mother asked why she wasn't eating, the girl would say she'd eaten at school. Food tempted her still, but she turned her nose to it and soon found that she wasn't hungry. She remembered the taste of an apple,

longed for the crunched beneath her teeth, but for food itself she had no desire. She had just as much energy as before. No, more, and had far more time to help her mother and finish her schoolwork. But she wondered how the skeleton was meant to protect her, for she wasn't in danger and the skeleton never showed up anyhow. Then one day, when she'd brought some money to school for the book fair, a rougher, older boy cornered her against the wall. He ate school lunch, like her, and wore hand-me-downs from his brothers. He gripped the collar of her shirt and told her to give him her money.

At this the girl's heart sank, for the boy was quite a bit taller than her and far more powerful. And she knew she would have to give up the money. But she had wanted a book so badly, and hadn't even had time to pick one out. Just as she reached into her pocket, she felt something brush her shoe and looked down. So too did the boy, and he shrieked. A rat! He screamed, and he was right. A massive black rat had scurried over their feet and was by the boy's leg.

His grip slackened, and the girl kicked him away. While the kids laughed at the boy's fear and how he'd just been beaten by a little girl, she bought her book from the nice woman at the stand and read it all the way home. The girl grew older. As time went on, she liked school more and more, and stayed long after to finish work or speak with teachers. Her mother finally found a permanent job, and soon she and the girl moved into a small apartment.

The girl passed a test to get into a special high school and began four long, grueling years during which she earned straight A's and got into top-ranked university. And in the midst of all the mess and success and prosperity, no one noticed the girl hadn't eaten a single morsel of food. Over time, the girl grew to see the skeleton as a friend. The girl became a woman, but the skeletons stayed the same, only visible in the flicker of a rat's tail, or the scuttle of a cockroach.

At the corner of her eye the skeleton was always there, at debates, auditions, job applications. When the woman was almost robbed on the street at night, the skeleton was there as a bat which flew at the attacker's face. and when the woman got accepted into law school, the skeleton was there as a beetle, which crawled over her computer screen before scurrying away. The woman started to feel neither fear nor excitement at the sight of the vermin, but relief.

Some were dead and some were living, but all were a sign of good fortune. And good fortune she did receive. The woman grew to become a well-known lawyer. She was known for her fiery tongue and her, her victories, client after client after client. The woman's ability soared above any of her colleagues who whispered about the hunger in her face and the passion in her eyes. But they didn't whisper about the home she had bought for her mother, or the early retirement her mother had taken. They didn't murmur

about the peace the woman's mother now felt, something she was sure she'd never have. And they certainly did not whisper about the occasionally gaunt, skeletal look on the judge's face when the woman argued. The woman married. She and her husband formed an intimidating pair, and soon headed an even more intimidating practice. The woman bought an apartment for herself in the middle of the city, and in her free time dedicated herself to decorating it to her taste. She had no children, and donated to charities regularly. She never took the train anymore. And after many years, the woman stopped seeing the skeleton. Her life continued to be prosperous, as well as the lives of those she cared for.

But vermin, whether rats, beetles, bats, or roaches, slowly disappeared from her life. The woman found herself missing them, but found the missing itself childish. It occurred to her every now and then to go looking for the vermin, but the thought would always flit away. It was after a Christmas party when the woman finally saw the skeleton again. She and her husband had hosted it at their apartment. And when all the guests had gone away and her husband had gone to bed, she still puttered around the dining room. She retained a need for motion and activity into her adulthood. A trembling anxiety would fill her at the thought of sitting still.

Yet doing nothing was the situation she found herself in, for everything really was clean, especially with the help they'd hired. The kitchen was clean and smooth, and the industrial lights were dimmed over the marble island. The woman stood at the counter and thought again of the skeleton, of vermin. She couldn't even remember the last time she'd seen a pigeon. Then the thought flitted away, as it always did, for she caught sight of an apple.

They had a bowl of them on the counter. It was part of the woman's decorating scheme. She and her husband rarely had time to sit down for a meal, but he always had time to grab fruit. So the bowl of apples was eternally filled and refilled. As she stared at the apples, shining in red and full, she wondered at how all her life no one had ever noticed that she never ate. Then it occurred to her that she did not remember what apples tasted like. She wasn't hungry. She hadn't been hungry since she was eight.

but in the soft, shadowy atmosphere of her own kitchen late at night. She felt as if she were eight once more. She felt as if she were not in her own home, but stealing into places which she did not belong, taking things which were not hers. The children at school had called her homeless. The woman stared at the apples and thought, Why not?

Why shouldn't I? She reached for one and picked it up. In the dark night, of the kitchen, her brown hand seemed almost pale against the deep red of the apple. The more she stared at it, the more she thought how unfair it was. Why shouldn't she eat the apple now? And she worked hard enough? She smoothed the surface with her thumb, looked and saw her own face in the reflection.

In that moment, she realized that all her life she was not feeling fullness, but emptiness. It was the feeling of being so desperately hungry That one no longer wanted food Felt sick at the thought The woman had always starved Why shouldn't she eat now? Hunger flared in her stomach and heat She opened her jaw

And with one vicious bite She sunk her teeth deep into the apple and began chewing It was good It was sweet but not too sweet. The woman opened her eyes and looked at the inside of the apple, pale and yellow. Then there was a small sound like scratching. The woman stared at the apple and watched as a small beetle emerged from the inside of the apple,

black with twitching legs and antennae. It looked at her. Then the apple bursts into blue-green flame. The woman yelled and dropped the apple. It fell onto the counter, rotting rapidly as insects swarmed from the hole in its core. Cockroaches and worms, lanternflies and crickets and water bugs in a stream of black legs all swarming towards her. She stumbled back and found rats crawling out of the trash can, their teeth gnashing and their fur matted. The vermin climbed onto her, biting at her exposed arms, crawling under the hem of the hem of the hem of the

of her dress and swarming her limbs. She cried out and ran to the window, throwing it open and trying to toss the insects off the side of her high-rise. Then there was an awful squawk, and she looked to see a small flock of pigeons, with severed toes and stumped legs swarm her. They pecked at her eyes, forcing her back into the apartment and onto the floor.

She screamed then, for the rats had begun sinking their teeth into her arm. They pulled off chunks of her flesh, into which insects poured and began decomposing her body. The pigeons pulled at her hair, scratched off strips of her skin, and the woman felt a beak close around her eye. She screamed loud and long, as the eye was ripped from her skull.

And when the blood began to pour from her new orifice, Scarabs of every color and size filled it. Every bit of her was torn and taken and emptied, and every hole created was filled with insects. Worms, rats, meat. Her cries echoed through the lovely apartment. Her husband slept soundly in their room. But if he were awake, he might have heard the excited chittering of rats.

and the crackle of fire as a beautiful blue-green flame gently consumed the woman. He might have poked his head into the kitchen to see what was going on. And when he did, he might have turned away. Eventually the sound stopped. The kitchen was quiet. Like waves on a beach, the vermin pulled back from the woman's body. She sat up and found herself naked. Her dress was gone.

and so were her skin and muscles. She held up her hands and examined the yellowing bone. When she stood, it was awkward and clambering. Her joints clacked together. And when she raised her arms, the vermin swarmed again. They filled her rib cage, wove paths in and out of her cavities, and began to form a body.

Now she had imitations of muscle and sinew. consisting of pulsing masses of ever-moving beetles and rats. Insect wings fluttered at her neck like a delicate collar. An ant spilled from the top of her head before climbing up again to form her long hair. Into her eye sockets climbed two green scarabs. A man was woken from slumber when his train screeched to a stop. When he saw someone standing before him, he first thought it was a cop, telling him he couldn't sleep on the train.

Instead, it was a flickering figure, buzzing and horrible. The man felt a sense of dread as his vision focused on the thing before him. What are you? he asked. I am the scavenger, it answered. Its eye socket's glittered. What do you seek? Creepy presents Saint Spider's Day

Written by K. Marvin Bruce And narrated by Cole Burkart I glanced down What was that in the folds of my pajamas? Maybe a short black, unclipped thread? I gave a hasty swipe, but it didn't come off. Distracted from my book, I plucked at it and pulled out a startled wolf spider,

reaching its seven free legs up for my hand. No time to think, I threw it into the open basket can with a shutter. It could just climb out, I thought, jumping from my bed. That's the thing about spiders. They can climb anything. I was shaking in my terror. Sitting in bed again, the place where it happened was unthinkable. I didn't even want to stay.

in the room. Let the wolf spider have it. I had to get away. Downstairs, I settled into my favorite chair and trembled. Now, I didn't mind small spiders. Zebra jumping spiders are even kind of cute. But there's a size limit, a parameter beyond which fear enraps a human in a mist of congealing dread. That spider had been on me, on my body. I turned to my book to calm back down. I pulled

my feet up onto the chair, just in case. Then I saw it. A high-stepping arachnid was inching its way across the floor. I ran for one of the many empty peanut butter jars I kept for

such an occasion, sliding a thin piece of cardboard under the jar mouth, I lifted the intruder, then realized I needed another hand to open the door to release it outside. It was at that moment that I realized it was St. Spider's Day again. St. Spider's Day comes every year, sometimes in August, but mostly in September, when nights begin to cool dramatically, as if the pale moon was sucking the very warm. warmth from the atmosphere, and the mornings stop being pleasantly cool and nip with winter's baby teeth. The spiders come indoors, seeking a sheltered place. I don't kill spiders. It's not a

superstition, but you might call it karma. Spiders aren't trying to be offensive or scary. Like me, they're just attempting to survive. One person living alone. in this old house, I can't be active enough in every room every day to keep them at bay. So, I never throw away peanut butter jars. I have them by the dozens, scattered around the house, ready to return spiders and buds to nature, just as mom taught me. Now, I'll ignore the little ones, like the one I named Octavia. She lived under the bar top that runs along the counter behind the kitchen sink.

She resides there all summer and learns not to run when I come close. I greet her each morning and say good night after washing the supper dishes. She's so small that she poses no threat. Now, the big wolf and grass spiders, well, they get taken outdoors right away. Big enough to bite with scrambling. legs that define terror. I keep the empty jars in each room just in case. When I was young, I looked through insect and spider identification books. My mom didn't know if Black Widows lived around here, and I wanted to be able to identify them without having to get beneath to look for the famed

hourglass. I would come to the Arakhanid section with page after glossy page of photos of fear. mom would find me paralyzed as if bitten, take the book from my hands, and forbid me from looking again, until next time. St. Spider's Day is when I find at least three new, large spiders inside on the same day. I was already up to two, and I hadn't even started my Saturday chores. I make it sound light because I live in mortal fear of this day each year. It's as if the spiders know, as if they have it all planned out. I noticed, observed, St. Spider's Day only after I inherited Mom's House. I'd shuffled around from apartment to apartment, moving when the rent got too high.

I'm one of those remote workers, so flexibility was my middle name. name. Then, mom left me this place. She bought it only after I went to college, so I didn't grow up here. She wanted an older house, one with a place for books, she said. These modern houses, they don't have room for books. I kept her library. In fact, that's what the neighbors called her house, the library. Keeping her books was like, keeping her. her alive. Besides, I couldn't afford to sell the place. But I dread St. Spider's Day. It's growing more intense. Mom never complained of spiders. She'd lived here alone for years, and I don't recall seeing peanut butter jars. Even on the laundry visits over the holidays, when she insisted I

sleep in her guest room, as if I was still a child, I never saw spiders. She kept a neater house than I do, but still. I awoke early, an unfortunate lifelong habit, this St. Spider's Day, and started to read before that spider came. My downstairs reading chair was next to one of Mom's many bookshelves. I hadn't gone through them all. I sometimes did wonder what would become of them, of her, if I died without children. The spider upstairs frightened me out of my book. I look over mom's shelves.

I haven't sorted them all yet, not by long shot. Handling books is a calming activity. I have to get a stepstool to reach the upper shelves. It's here I find a book with a plain back spine. I give it a tug. It is a blank book, or was. A new kind of emotion. rains down over me.

I didn't know Mom kept a diary. More of a journal. How much do I want to know about her? How much dare I know? Mom always struck me as kind and gentle. She taught me to catch insects in peanut butter jars and let them go outside. I didn't realize that didn't apply to spiders for her.

They bothered her so much that she journaled about them. Suddenly, the years stretch out before me like an unrolling scroll. All these years living alone in this spider-infested house, so many spiders killed. The juncture where her fear overcame her compassion, like a frenzied soldier shooting and shooting, and shooting. She would kill them in any way possible. This shocked me because she always seemed to be at one with nature, like an aging hippie. We didn't even own a fly swatter. What had happened to her

after I left home? She acted the same as always when I visited, the house free of spiders. It never occurred to me that she'd been stomping on them, her heel like the very boot of God descending from heaven, that she had a pair of stilettos that she wore for spiking unwary arachnids. She was a serial killer among this entire class of arthropods. In private, her arachnophobia defined her. I mean, how well can we really know another human being? My married friends tell me they even act differently when their husbands are in the room than when they do when they're alone. What hope do we have of anyone really understanding us? We're all marbles in a jar, only touching on this point or that.

It's a good thing spiders don't have a higher consciousness. They didn't know, as a class, that they were being wiped out without compunction in this house. class aside. I lay down the journal and feel like I've been swept away from reality for an hour. And that reality is another spider. It's officially St. Spider's Day. I dutifully catch and release it, but now I'm wondering about mother. What other secrets might she have kept? Meanwhile, it's time for breakfast. I'm a cold cereal kind of person. Cooking is a necessity. Cooking is a necessity. for later in the day. I grab my box of Cheerios from the top of the fridge and one of mom's bowls from the cupboard. As I'm pouring, a spider tumbles out. I drop the box, scattering

o's all over the kitchen counter, rolling down to the floor. I confess, I swore, as I quickly grabbed a peanut butter jar and caught the bugger. I would be glad when St. Spider's Day was over. It was still early, and there'd already been four. I decided to have Wheaties instead. I was beginning to feel that shuddering insecurity that comes with entering a cobwebbed room full of your most intimate phobias. Did spiders really celebrate St. Spider's Day? When their martyrs were recalled in some million-legged mass,

Did they actually have higher consciousness? No, my lifelong education had told me, but four in one day? I'm still in the cleaning and exploring stage of mom's house on weekends. Houses are such personal things. They embody their occupants. Mom didn't have antiques, just books. I avoid the basement.

Just after I moved in, I had to go down there. If you've never experienced what are called spricots around here, then you've never had nightmares. Spider crickets are actually the latter, but they look like the former. They love damp places like basements. And unlike spiders, they are aggressive. They leap at a person hundreds of times their size, coming unseen from some dark corner.

When one landed on my hand, reaching to turn on a bare light, I screamed, smashed my hand against the bulb, and swore I'd never go down there again. I always slept in mom's guest room when I visited. Once I looked in the closet only to discover boxes of my stuff. Stuff I wanted to keep, but couldn't lug from apartment to apartment. Boxes' memories. I should probably sort through them.

I sat on the desk bed and pulled one out. I heard something hit the floor. Flipping on my phone light, I stuck my head in through the clothes hanging above my boxes. It was a fly swatter with residue on it. Mom had sworn off such things. She called them execution stets. Turn in my head to pull it out of the blouses hanging there, my light glints on something above. I extract myself and part the clothes like Moses before a fabric red sea.

Fly swatters, at least a dozen of them, all used. From one of them dangle's a spider. Maybe I should just go back to my book. put off sorting until it isn't St. Spider's Day. My book is back down on my reading chair where I left it. I'm almost afraid to look. In all my life, I've never found a spider inside a book. I sit with a shaking sigh.

When I open it, it's as if the words are moving across the page. What's that in the gutter? Is it a leg? A spider breaches the fold. Then they pour out. Thousands of them. As they crawl up my arms towards my face, I know why they're here.

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