Dr. Creepen's Dungeon - S1 Ep16: Episode 16: You Should've Locked the Door

Episode Date: February 11, 2021

It is said that the oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. Tonight’s horrifying tales of terror put that to the test!   We begin with ‘Unlocked’ by J. D. Patric, shared with my via the Creepypasta Wiki and recorded here under the conditions of the CC-BY-SA license: https://creepypasta.fandom.com/wiki/Unlocked http://www.reddit.com/u/jdpatric   Today’s campfire classic story is ''The River Witch'', an original work by Carlos Pandiella, kindly shared directly with me for the express purpose of having me exclusively narrate it here for you all.  https://www.reddit.com/user/Panda_Tech_Support/ Today’s final tale of terror is ‘The Devil and Tom Walker’, a classic work by Washington Irving, a story in the public domain but recorded here under the conditions of the CC-BY-SA license:   https://creepypasta.fandom.com/wiki/The_Devil_and_Tom_Walker

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Book an initial session online or in person in Toronto at 790 Bay Street. Visit cfir.com. Welcome to Dr. Creepin's Dungeon. It is said that the oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear. And the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. As we will see in tonight's three horrifying tales of terror. You begin with Unlocked by J.D. Patrick. Then we move on to the River Witch by Carlos Pandeyer.

And we round off this evening with The Devil and Toys. Tom Walker, a classic work by Washington Irving. Now, as ever before we begin, a word of caution. Tonight's stories may contain strong language, as well as descriptions of violence and horrific imagery. If that sounds like your kind of thing, then let's begin. I have a routine at night. I need to do certain things before I can sleep. I lock the doors, set my alarms.

I'm a heavy sleeper, brush my teeth, and turn the TV. on a sleep timer. At least that's my routine when my wife's not home. I need some noise to sleep when it's just me. If she's in the room and I can hear something, I can attribute the noise to her. If not, then it keeps me up until I find the source of the noise. She had a meeting out of town for work and left yesterday morning, surely after I left for work. She also has the bad habit of leaving our front door unlocked. I know that if someone really wants to get in our hands, I know that if someone really wants to get in our house they can just bust a window to get in. Yeah, I get that, but I always feel safer with all the doors shut and locked. She texted me well after she'd left, saying that she was pretty sure she

forgot to lock the front door. I was still at work and made a mental note to just double-check it right when I got home. Well, one thing led to another. I ended up coming home from work nearly three hours late. Bad day. Too much crap to get done. Just wasn't moving very fast. I grabbed the mail and trudged inside knowing there'd be no one to greet me that. I tossed the mail on the counter and stuck a container of leftover chicken and rice in the microwave before changing into my PJs. It was already nearly 9pm, so I certainly wasn't going anywhere. I was munching some chips as chicken and rice didn't quite top me off when I thought for sure that I heard my wife walking down the hall from the bedrooms to the living room.

We have hardwood floors and our house is nearly 40 years old, so walking on them makes a very distinct creaking sound when someone approaches. The house also makes creaking sounds throughout the days as it warms and cools. I heard the noises as the sound approached the doorway and for half a second I expected to see my wife walk around the corner when I remembered that she wasn't home. As I sat there holding my breath, nothing happened. I realized that it must have just been the house cooling down as the temer. temperature had decreased with nightfall. I relaxed a little and continued to munch and watch TV.

But there was always that thought. The hair on the back of my neck was standing straight up and I was just tense. I decided to finish this episode and called it an early night. Well, I was exhausted anyways. I set my phone alarms while I was still sitting on the couch, waited patiently for my show to end as I finished the bag of chips, got up as the episode ended, and went into the bathroom to brush my teeth. I flipped the TV in the bedroom on and set the sleep timer for two hours. That had put it around 12.30 when the TV turned off. I crawled into bed and was seconds from sleep when I heard the sound again. This time it almost sounded like someone was right outside my door. Again I was completely frozen. Something wasn't right. My nightly routine felt off. I sat up in bed to hear bed.

and of course the bed made the loudest creaking sound imaginable. The noise in the hall suddenly stopped. My first thought was that if there was someone out there, they'd obviously heard me. I have an old pool cube beside my bed that's been my baseball back by the front door for years, even though I don't have a pool table anymore. It's only the bottom, thick part of the pool queue, as I'd misplaced the top part some years back. I reached over to my nightstand and grabbed it.

I went to inspect the hallway. Much to my relief, there was nothing in the hallway. But that's when it hit me. I hadn't checked the front door yet to make sure it was locked. I walked to the front door and looked at it from the hallway, about 15 feet away, and could clearly see that the door was indeed locked. I was flooded with relief.

If the door was locked, how could anyone have gotten inside? I didn't see any broken windows and every other door in the house hadn't been opened, garage aside. Well, in a few days, I was safe. I walked back to bed as the hair on the back of my neck returned to its normal position and the goosebumps faded from my arms. I looked at my phone and realised it was already 11.30 and I was wasting night time fast as I needed to be up in six hours to make it to work the next day.

I crawled into bed and fell asleep almost instantly. Sometime after my TV had shut off, something woke me. Well, I'd been having a nightmare, of course, related to someone breaking into my house. I was suddenly awake in my bedroom with no lights on and no TV whatsoever. I briefly tried to fall back to sleep, till I realized that I was too creeped out by the fact that I thought someone was inside the house earlier. I was about to roll over and grab the remote when I heard it. breathing

not my own time stopped I was motionless and I think I didn't breathe for about five minutes I listened but sure enough I could hear the slightest hint of someone else breathing right under my bed I don't have a dog

don't have a pet it should have just been me in the house I finally decided my next move I was going to roll over quickly, grab my phone and the pool queue, turn the light on and shine the phone flashlight under my bed, while swinging the pool queue wildly at whatever was down there. Well, things don't always work out like you planned them. I rolled over and grabbed at my phone, clumsily knocked the lamp off my lightstand, barely held onto the pool queue and promptly fell off the bed. The room was dark except for my phone. Once I had the flashlight on

I backed away from the bed and quickly scanned the area in case the noise wasn't coming from under the bed. Nothing. I quickly looked under the bed and saw only the usual crap that was under there, a few shoeboxes, an old golf bag, shoes, some clothes that should have been in the washer, and junk in general. Nothing seemed the slightest bit out of place,

except that it seemed like it was darker than it should have been with my flashlight on. maybe the bulb was starting to die I poked a few things with the pool queue and was about to give up when I saw two eyes open I freaked out and tried to back away but they were so close

that crawled halfway out and grabbed me I couldn't see anything except for black and it was pulling me under the bed I struggled tried to swing with a pool cue but again my hands were clumsy I just ended up pounding the mattress over and over again, draining my strength. I couldn't seem to hit whatever was grabbing me, and I was still sliding towards the bed.

Finally, I robbed my arm's tree and kicked back to the wall, and it grabbed my feet and dragged me half way under. I grabbed onto the mattress, but I wasn't strong enough. Nothing I grabbed a hold of seemed to work, and I slid under the bed completely. And then I woke up I'd been dreaming that I was awake I could hear no breathing The TV was off and it was four in the morning

I turned the TV back on This time no sleep timer I rolled over to go back to sleep It took a few minutes I was drenched in sweat Terrified and probably should have gotten up right there and then But I wanted my five more minutes which was actually an hour and a half at that point.

Finally, sleep took me again, and just as quickly my alarm was ringing. I dragged myself out of bed and into the shower. As I showered, I thought I heard the door to my bedroom open. It was difficult to tell, and any other day I'd have just ignored it. But after the previous night, I was already really on edge and didn't want any more surprises. I tried to finish my shower as quickly as I could.

But after shampooing my hair, I looked up and saw a black-clad figure through the shower curtain standing by the sink. I tripped backwards and caught the towel bar just as I would have fallen completely to the wet floor. I rubbed my eyes, and there was nothing there. The door was open just a crack, right where I'd left it, otherwise the steam would completely fog the mirror. I quickly rinsed and stepped out of the shower. no one was in the bathroom except for me I got ready for work with every light in the house on it's still dark at 6am

and I was at the end of my nerves I was almost out the door when I remember that we thought the front door had been unlocked even though I'd checked it the night before well I stuck my head around the corner to check it again and I could see that the knob was still in the lock position I grabbed the mail off the counter and stuffed it in my brief can

and jumped in my truck. I wanted to look through the mail, as I'm expecting our tax return any day now, and we've got a pretty good one this year. I went through the mail a few minutes ago, and found a piece of yellow notebook paper that had been folded and was mixed in with the rest of the advertisements and junk mail. I sorted through everything as I didn't want to accidentally toss a large check. It was folded in thirds, like it was meant to be inside a letter or something.

so at first I figured it was a note from one of my neighbours or something but upon opening it my heart stopped the note reads you should clean under your bed sometime doors can be locked from the inside too the police have already called me back to inform me that they check my house and the blinds appear to be drawn on most of the windows but that there's no sign of any forced entry

They can't really see inside the house except through the kitchen where we don't have blinds. The doors and windows are all tightly locked. These are challenging times for each and every one of us, the time in which we maybe feel we want to try something new to challenge ourselves, but perhaps there's something interfering with our happiness or preventing us from achieving our goals. Maybe it's simple as needing someone to talk to. Better help will assess your needs. and match you with your own licensed professional therapist,

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with the help of an experienced online professional. One more time, that's betterh-l-p.com slash creep. So what are you waiting for? Get that help you need today. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp and Dr. Creepin's dungeon listeners get 10% of their first month at BetterHelp.com slash creep. So from the supposed safety of the home in our first story,

we now go down to the river with a work by Carlos Pandella entitled The River Whip Ah, people always come around to ask the same questions Wanting to understand something about the missing Shreveport girl Some kind of fools always want a new angle A new lead But no matter how many times you tell people the story

That's all it remains to people And it should be something more But people are not listening for a war morning, right. You want to know about her. They want to know about the river witch, eh? All right, if you feel you need to know, then I guess you need to know. It's a funny thing how when such things and believe in such things don't always go hand in hand. Now, I'll tell you all I know and all I believe, but no matter what you end up thinking or believing, no No, it won't change her thing.

She's real. Damn, real. Well, where to start this thing? Yeah, the dip. It was at the restaurant. That's where I first saw her. That's where she met the devil. The restaurant was just so in name, you see.

Nothing more than in a shanty, open bar near the riverside where a good old boy. stopping them for some good home-cooked meals. The place was always crowded with the trucks and boats on either side. Old lady by the name of Nina worked it with her two sons, Ray and Thomas. They called it the Midnight Dip. It was over in Southern Placmines Parish. It was a happy place. Good food.

Good people. Good times. Yeah, it had its share of fights or incidents, but nothing more than dumb drum. for angry wives looking for their men. Ah, good times. Well, getting back to it. It happened in July, roughly two years ago. Madison, one of the new fellows working on the pipeline,

he came by with his wife to be. Myra was a name. Nice girl. Come out of Shreveport, if I remember correctly. Well, she took sweet on Madison since he wasn't from around the low parts. Come from up north, Montana, you see. Anyhow, when the pipeline was brought down through these parts, she left Shreveport and moved to New Orleans to be closer. She'd come down on every other weekend to spend time with him. A real sweet thing they had. It was what my mother would have called a glass romance, though. Wasn't long to last under any kind of pressure.

A smell of barbecue was strong in the air that evening The stars were shiny sweet And the gumbo was just about dark Cold beers sit in the cooler It was to be a good night A normal night Some of the boys were going to launch a few fireworks of their own On the far side of the riverbank

It's going to be a hell of a show, I thought A drunk some fireworks, you know Well was about nine or so and the fresh catfish was just coming off the grill we had a dartbought getting set up on the side of a tree went to throw the first round

when I got a rude interruption there was a woman's scream cutting over all the noise of the nights scared the hell out of me I'll tell you sounded something painful and it turns out it was you see

that sweet girl Myra gone down to the truck to get something or other, and found the Madison fella getting real intimate with a local bush named Jesse. Well, it broke her hard on the spot. Poor thing. Sharing right down onto the road, into the dark. Madison ran down after her, spouting a heap of lives about how his conal intentions with another woman wasn't what it seemed, all the while struggling to get his pants back on. soon he was lost into the darkness of the road too Madison came back around an hour later and got his truck

didn't say anything just got the truck and left another hour or so passes and he comes on down again to get a beer Nina wouldn't serve him as he took nasty lip with her not that he needed it the man came in smelling like race car fuel

he jumped in his truck and passed out before you even got the keys in. Which for the better, we thought. No need driving that drunk around here. Could end up in the river, dark waters. Nothing would find you there. Nothing good anyways. Around the tip of 1 a.m., Nina and her boy started getting the place cleaned up and ready for clothes.

Lights were going off and plates were going up. Remember finishing off my bit of beer and fish as we got ready to leave. left my tip got my stuff for the boat right home with my buddy rent as I walked outside saw something

saw something staggering just out of the corner of my eye down the road it was a dirty sloppy mess of rags damn thing looked like it had just walked right up out of the river mud and moss all over

as it got a bit closer I saw it was that mire ago nasty mesh she was. I'll tell you, it was like she'd walked through mud, sewage, and a jungle all at once. Well, I ran over to her as best as a lickered up old man could. I called out to Nina and Redd. The two boys, Ray and Thomas, came first. They saw how she was and picked her up and brought her inside into the cabin. Nina brought out some warm towels in the clean blankets. Red and I just out of the bar and watched. Doing our best to do it.

stay out of the way. Yeah, it was damn near frozen from what they said. Took about a good 20 minutes or so, but they got her warmed up and covered. She wasn't saying a word at first, but Nina got her talking a little bit, and then a lot. A lot of it was cursing, mind you, mainly about that Madison fella. When she calmed down again, she told Nina something horrid. Oh, she started crying again. softer this time.

She started telling Nina about how she was walking down the road. Madison came up on behind her, started to gag her and beat her. It's hard to make out through the tears, but I think she said that Jesse girl was with him. She said that after the beating, Madison dragged her by the hair to someplace cold and wet. Someplace evil. She actually said the word evil. Back then I didn't know. Well, you could tell that some place was evil, though we all learned fast soon enough.

She said she couldn't remember more than that. After that, she just broke down again inside this time. You could just know it by looking at her. Oh, poor thing just sat there looking like a half-drowned cat. Remember Nina was cussing up a bit under her breath now. She went on about how she never liked that Madison man. and that she should have buckshot his rear the moment he walked up to the dip. Oh, I hate to be the guy who gets in another man's life,

but if the girl was telling the truth, then Madison was a real-deal scumback who broke a pretty girl. Anyway, Red came back in and told me he'd call Sheriff Hornings. I got up to tell Nina that Red and I were heading out as it was late and all, but I got off the bar store. I saw Myra get up, too. Well, they called me off guard as it was so quick. I'll tell you, that girl's legs didn't push her up.

It was like she was yanked up off of the floor. She started walking out right away, walking with her purpose. I caught out to her and she paid no attention. She just kept walking. One of Nina's boys, Ray, taken sweet on the girl and tried to see what was going on. She ignored him too. When he tried to hold her hand, he pulled it back quick like something burned or shocked him. He fell to the ground with a cry of pain as he cradled his hand.

She opened the back door and sat outside in the tall grass by the riverbank. She just sat there, didn't move or say anything. Damn, it was just creepy. I remember we took a look at Ray's hand and it was red, hot. His mama was putting an ice pack on it while his brother helped. Red was looking over and said he saw bite marks on the hand. Nina put Ray's hand to the light and noticed that he sure did have two small bite marks on him. Nina checked it out and sure enough, there was something on him.

He kind of looked like a weird snake bite. Just the fangs were too far apart and there seemed to be two sets of them. Ray started to run hot water all over and He said he felt sick. He said that his head was killing. Thomas had asked me to get the first aid kit from the back of the bar. Well, I'd been there enough years to need it once or twice myself, so I knew my way around.

As I poked on back behind the bar, I saw Myra. Still sitting in the tall grass. She had her head tilted up, talking to someone. Couldn't see who, though. Well, I tossed the kid over to Red and stepped out back again. and that's oh, that's when I saw him. He was tall,

a good eight foot on him at least. He stood there in the tall grass talking to Myra. I did my best to put him together in my eyes. It was almost like my mind couldn't keep him in direct sight. It was like looking at a moving ink spot. It was all dark and wispy-like. I tell you, I know it's hard to believe. Yeah, considering the drinking, but I tell you, I knew that what I was looking at wasn't something men was supposed to see.

Not rightly anyways. It was a deep feeling. Something inside was telling me to get away, to close my eyes. I don't know if it was instincts or something else, but I could feel the danger and maybe even the evil. Think about your health for a second. Are your eyes the first thing that come to mind? Probably not. But our eyes go through a lot,

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Visit Spexsavers.ca to learn more. As I watched Myra talking to the thing, it raised its arm, I think, and wrapped a whole head in that same inky cloud, lifted her straight up. I thought it was choking her to death. I called out to her. At least I tried. You see, before I even opened my mouth, I was dropped to the mud with a brutal thought. You couldn't move a muscle. Couldn't even scream. I could hear the commotion inside the dip. They were helping young Ray with his arm. Nina was yelling, cursing, crying all the same time. Thomas was doing his best to help his brother and mother deal.

From what I gathered, Ray had started going pale and cold. Red was yelling at me. He was asking me to come back inside. I wanted to say something, but it was useless. I was pinned down. Don't rightly know what happened, but I was sure that the devil thing out. decided Samoile done it to me.

I managed to move my head a bit, and then just a bit more. Little by little, I was able to move again. As I finally managed to stand, I looked for the girl and that thing. I was equal, pass relieved, and terrified to not see either of them. I stumbled my way back into the restaurant and stared at Red for a solid minute or so. Well, he asked me what was wrong. I couldn't say a word. I didn't know how to begin.

My own internal debates as to what to say were cut short by an ugly grinding sound, booming outside. Red went out back first, and he could hear them letting loose all sorts of curses. A horrible, deep wailing started to come from outside now. Thomas and Nina stayed focused on Ray, where the screaming was getting to them. This was a man scream, a terrified scream. I thought it was red at first, but he came back in with a face as pale as poor rays. He gave me one deep look, and I knew that he'd seen the devil outside as I had. Well, I don't know what made me do it.

Maybe part stupid or just curious. I took a few steps toward the door. Red looked at me with a look that was pleading me not to go outside. He may even have been saying it, too. I couldn't tell. I opened the door and saw a damn horrible sight You see, in all the commotion We'd forgotten about that bastard Madison

He was still outside, passed out in the truck When I saw him, though He was wide up, sober and terrified Myra had it Now you can all judge and spit in my story But I tell you that's what I saw It just still seemed so out of reach, yet it was real. I know it. Maro was there with a nasty look in her eyes.

It was a mix of a hungry gator and a scared deer. Well, that's the best I can describe it. Totally inhuman, really. She was still wearing the heavy blanket that Nina had draped over. With one arm on the grill of the truck and feet digging into the mud, she was pulling Madison towards the river. Madison was trying his damnedest to break the windows or open the doors, and nothing weren't.

That same black garbage that I saw earlier, he was swimming all over the truck. He screamed, he cussed, he cried like a little kid, and I could do nothing but watch. I knew that Madison was going to have something bad happened to him, no matter what I did. Well, I tell you, I look to Myra, and she seemed to be dripping with that blackness all over. It was that devil stuff.

It was coming out of her ears, her eyes, her mouth, and her nose. It was covering the truck with more and more. Oh, that little Myra, she pulled the whole truck from the lot to the river without breaking stride. Myro, whatever it was inside her, the devil I say, it had to be. When I stared at her too long, she started to break up in my eyes. Just the devil thing before me. She wasn't part of the world anymore. No, she was lost.

I just knew that somehow. She got to the edge of the river. She let go of the truck. His front wheels were already in the water. She stepped back to the side and screamed out some crazy noise. Oh, it hurt all over just to hear it. I can't help but imagine it's what being inside a microwave was feel like. Arms, legs, all of it, felt like they were about to pop and burn.

It was over quickly, though. Then she fell to the floor and started puking up gallons of that evil black stone. I heard Madison calling out, crying for help. He'd finally broken a piece of the windshield and got his foot stuck. God, it was like watching a rabbit dog in a kennel. Then I heard the wailing noise again. The blackness swirling around the truck stopped and seemed to pour to the ground like water.

It was dark out, and the stuff itself was darker than anything. But I tell you, I watched it drain all to the river. Myra was still just sitting there bent over by the riverbank. More and more of that stuff just kept coming out of her. God, it was coming out like a dammit broken inside of her. And the wailing noise came back for a moment and then faded. We could hear Madison calling out to Myra to help him. He was going on about how much he loved her.

Oh, and how she needed him. How he could help her. comfort her. And if she heard him, she didn't show any reaction at all. It was a big splash in the river. Madison noticed it too. He stopped his noise and looked straight ahead. It felt like hours had gone by while we stared at that river. And then he came out. The thing that finally killed Madison. It was a hand. Massive, though, seemed to be made out of twigs, logs, mud and rock. It was twice the size of the truck.

Oh, I tell you, it was like the skeleton of the river. Damn crazy it was. It clawed its way to the shore and I could make out a long, nasty arm of sorts, trailing behind it. Well, Madison started to scream again, but not for long. The monstrosity of a hand, reached. the truck and grabbed it home. I could see more of that black ink dripping from it. It happened so quickly. I couldn't even really believe what I was watching. It crushed the truck like it can. No way I could see Madison now. But I knew the man was dead. If he wasn't, then I hoped

he'd die soon as out of mercy. And the hand sank back into the river water as quickly as it come. Maru was still there, bent over the riverbank. And I'm not ashamed to say that I went nowhere near her. I'd seen enough to know that whatever she was dealing with wasn't for God-fearing men to interfere with. I kept watching her, though. She didn't move one bit. I kept watching her, though. She didn't move one bit. she had a stillness that was just so unnatural nothing about her mood not even her hair

just about that point a strong wind was picking up let me tell you this was a whole other thing this wind red was outside with me now didn't know how long he'd been at my side I looked at him and saw he could tell

this wind was something really bad though really bad a strange kind of bad I could feel it not like a gust of cold wind across your face but inside me

oh it was ugly nasty stuff it chilled me from the inside out when it hit the river's edge sorry it take foam or something like a foam I don't know exactly what it was I saw but I felt like it watched me

These strange eyes kind of peering out from the dark. I know it's hard to imagine, so it's even harder to talk about, but it was there watching. Almost like a snake's eyes, I thought. It was just so hard to look at. It pulled more and more of that blackness to the river edge and started to suck it down into the water. Soon there was none of that stuff left on the muddy banks. As, whatever it was, started to put itself to the waters.

I saw Myra start to crack and crumble. Like dust in the wind. I'm telling you, it was surreal. It was nothing but a few seconds, and then she was gone. Nothing left of her. Then it was quiet again. No noise at all. Red damn near killed me when he put his hand on my back.

My heart felt like he was stopping right there. I caught Thomas peeking through the backroom windows to me. They both had the look that I must have been wearing. That look that says we're not alone and we are afraid. I forced my legs to take me inside. Poor Nina. She sat there with her boy, Ray. I could tell by his face that he was gone,

glassy eyes and all. She cried about him for a good old wife. Well, as any mother would. When the sheriff showed up, we had nothing to tell it. We all just sat there staring at each other. The sheriff, he knew something that was up, but left it as a lover's quarrel and left. He said that if Myra or Madison showed up to bring them by the station, we all nodded, knowing well that we would never see that girl's face again,

or rather we hoped we never would. He did his best to talk to Nina, but with a son dead on the floor, she had nothing to say. We told him he got a snake bite, best we could tell. Harrison looked at us, and he could tell another story was sitting there. But he let it be. Red and I decided to walk home that night instead of taking the river. I myself have never been back on the river. the water since. Can't even eat fish now, you know. Neither cried herself to death about a month after.

Poor lady just couldn't cope with any of it. Thomas still runs the dip, but nobody much goes there now. The whole area has kind of taken a negative die. Since that night, other people have said that they've seen some really crazy things down on the river. I used to brush them off, but now, well, now I take notes. I know better than to ignore all the stories, and yet I also know well enough to leave them alone, too. As for that Jessie girl, no one has seen nor heard from her since. She used to have a little place on the edge of the river. Well, it was not a surprise that. no one can find the trailer anymore, just a dirt lot where it used to be. Some say she moved, but being that close to the water, I just don't know.

I don't really have much else to tell you about that night. I recommend that you keep your mind open for what can be out there. Oh, and you try and get more out of my story than just a laugh at an old drunk. Farewell, friend. Remember, stay clear of the river. There are worse things than gators in those waters. Oh, one more thing. Pay the tab for me, if you would.

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Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BenMGEM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. It always pains me so much to say this. But now we arrive at our final tale of terror. A classic work by Washington Irving entitled The Devil and Tom Walker. A few miles from Boston.

In Massachusetts, there is a deep inlet winding several miles into the interior of the country from Charles Bay, and terminating a thickly wooded swamp or morass. On one side of this inlet is a beautiful dark grove. On the opposite side, the land rises abruptly from the water's edge, into a high ridge on which grow a few scattered oaks of great age and immense size. Under one of these gigantic trees, according to old stories, there was a great amount of treasure buried by Kid the Pirate. The inlet allowed a facility to bring the money in a boat secretly and at night to the very

foot of the hill. The elevation of the place permitted a good lookout to be kept, that no one was at hand while the remarkable trees formed good landmarks by which the place might easily be found again. The old stories add, moreover, that the devil presided at the hiding of the money and took it under his guardianship, but this, it is well known, he always does with buried treasure, particularly when it has been ill-gotten. Be that as it may, Kit never returned to recover his wealth, being shortly after seized at Boston, sent out to England, and there hanged for a pirate.

About the year 1727, just at the time when earthquakes were prevalent in New England, and shook many tall sinners down upon their knees. They lived near this place a meagre miserly fellow of the name of Tom Walker. He had a wife as miserly as himself. They were so miserly that they even conspired to cheat each other. Whatever the woman could lay her hands on, she hid away. Her hand could not cackle before she was on the alert to secure the new laid egg. Her husband was continually prying about to detect.

her secret hordes, and many and fierce were the conflicts that took place about what ought to have been common property. They lived in a forlorn-looking house that stood alone and had an air of starvation. A few straggling savantries, emblems of sterility grew near it. No smoke ever curled from its chimney, no traveller stopped at its door. A miserable horse whose ribs were as articulate as the bars of a grid-up. stalked about a field where a thin carpet of moss, scarcely covering the ragged beds of pudding stone, tantalized and balked its hunger.

And sometimes he would lean his face over the fence, looked piteously at the passerby, and seemed to petition deliverance from this land of famine. The house and its inmates had altogether a bad name. Tom's wife was a tall termagant, fierce of temper, loud of tongue and strong of arms. Her voice was often heard in wordy warfare with her husband, and his face sometimes showed signs that their conflicts were not confined to words. No one ventured, however, to interfere between them. The lonely wayfarer shrunk within himself at the horrid clamor and clapper clawing.

I'd the den of discord a scour, and hurried on his way, rejoicing if a bachelor in his celibacy. One day that Tom Walker had been to a distant part of the neighbourhood. He took what he considered a shortcut homewards through the swamp. Like most shortcuts, it was an ill-chosen route. The swamp was thickly grown with great gloomy pines and hemlocks, some of them ninety feet high, which made it dark at noon day and a retreat for all the hours of the neighbourhood. It was full of pits and quagmires, partly covered with weeds. and mosses, where the green surface often betrayed the traveller into a gulf of black smothering mud. There were also dark and stagnant pools, the abodes of the tadpole, the bullfrog,

and the water-snake, and where trunks of pines and hemlocks lay half drowned. Half rotting, looking like alligators, sleeping in the mire. Tom had been picking his way cautiously through the treacherous forest, stepping from tough to tuft of rushes and roots, which afforded precarious footholes among deep sloughs, or pacing carefully, like a cat, along the prostrate trunks of trees, startled now and then by the sudden screaming of the bitteren, or the quacking of a wild duck,

rising on the wing from some solitary pool. At length he arrived at a piece of firm ground, which ran out like a peninsula into the deep bosom of the swamp. It had been one of the strongholds of the Indians during their war, wars with the first colonists. Here they'd thrown up a kind of fort which they had looked upon as almost impregnable and had used as a place of refuge for their squaws and children. Nothing remained of the Indian fort but a few embankments gradually sinking to the level of the surrounding earth, and already overgrown in part by oaks and other forest trees, the foliage

of which formed a contrast to the dark pines and hemlocks of the swamp. It was late in the dusk of evening that Tom Walker reached the old fort, and he paused there for a while to rest himself. Anyone but he would have felt unwilling to linger in this lonely, melancholic place, for the common people had a bad opinion of it from the stories handed down from the time of the Indian Wars, when it was asserted that the savages held incantations here and made sacrifices to the evil spirit. Tom Walker, however, was not a man to be troubled with any fears of that kind. He reposed himself for some time on the trunk of a fallen hemlock, listening to the boding cry of the tree-toed, and delving with his walking staff into a mound of black mold at his feet.

As he turned up the soil unconsciously, his staff struck against something hard. He raked it out of the vegetable mould, and, lo, a cloven skull with an Indian tomahawk buried deep in it lay before him. The rust on the weapon showed the time that had elapsed since this death blow had been given. It was a dreary momentum of the fierce struggle that had taken place in this last foothold of the Indian warriors. "'Humph!' said Tom Walker, as he gave the skull a kick to shake the dirt from it. "'Let that skull alone,' said a gruff voice.

Tom lifted up his eyes and beheld a great black man, seated direct. directly opposite him on the stump of a tree. He was exceedingly surprised, having neither seen nor heard anyone approach, and he was still more perplexed on observing as well as the gathering gloom would permit that the stranger was neither negro nor Indian. It is true he was dressed in a rude half-Indian garb and had a red belt or sash swathed around his body, but his face was neither black nor copper-colour, but rather swarthy and dingy and begrimed with soot as if he'd been accustomed to toil among fires and forges. He had a shock of coarse black hair that stood out from his head in all directions and bore an axe on his shoulder. He scowled for a moment

at Tom with a pair of great red eyes. "'What are you doing on my grounds?' said the black man with a hoarse, growling voice. "'Your grounds,' said Tom with a sneer. No more your grounds than mine. They belong to Deacon Peabody. Deacon Peabody. Be dead, said the stranger. As I flatter myself, he will be, if he does not look more to his own sins

and less to his neighbours. Look yonder and see how Deacon Peabody is fairing. Tom looked in the direction that the stranger pointed and beheld one of the great trees, fair and flourishing without. but rotten at the core, and saw that it had been nearly hewned through, so that the first high wind was likely to blow it down. On the bark of the tree was scored the name of Deacon Peabody. He now looked round and found most of the tall trees marked with the name of some great men of the

colony, and all more or less scored by the axe. The one on which he'd been seated, and which had evidently just been hewn down, bore the name of crowning shield. and he recollected a mighty rich man of that name who made a vulgar display of wealth, which he was whispered he'd acquired by buccaneering. He's just ready for burning, said the black man with a growl of triumph. You see, I'm likely to have a good stock of firewood for winter. But what right have you? said Tom, to cut down Deacon Peabody's timber. The right of prior claim, said the other.

this woodland belonged to me long before one of your white-faced race put foot upon this soil and pray who are you if i may be so bold said to oh i go by various names i'm the wild huntsman in some countries the black miner in others in this neighborhood i am known by the name of the black woodsman i am he to whom the red men devoted this pardon and now and then roasted a white man by way of sweet smell and sacrifice. Since the red men have been exterminated by you white savages, I amuse myself by presiding at the persecutions of Quakers and Anabaptists. I am the great patron, prompter of slave dealers, and the grandmaster of the Salem witches. The upshot of all witches that, if I mistake not, said Tom sturdily,

You are he commonly called Old Scratch. The same at your service, replied the black man, with a half-civil nod. Such was the opening of this interview, according to the old story, though it has almost too familiar an air to be credited. One would think that to meet with such a singular personage in this wild, lonely place, would have shaken any man's nerves. But Tom was a hard-minded fellow, not easily daunted, and he lived so long with a termagant wife that he did not even fear the devil.

It is said that after this commencement, they had a long and earnest conversation together, as Tom returned homewards. The black man told him of great sums of money which had been buried by Kid the Pirate, under the oak trees on the high ridge not far from the morass. All these were under his command and protected by his power, so that none could find them, such as propitiated his favour. These he offered to place within Tom Walker's reach, having conceived in his special kindness for him, but they were only to be had on certain conditions.

What these conditions were may easily be surmised, though Tom never disclosed them publicly. They must have been very hard for he required time to think of them, and he was not a man to stick at trifles where money was in view. when they'd reach the edge of the swamp the stranger paused what proof have i that all you've been telling me is true asked tom there is my signature said the black man pressing his finger on tom's forehead so saying he turned off among the thickets of the swamp and seemed as tom said to go down down down into the earth until nothing but his head and shoulders could be seen and so on until he totally disappeared. When Tom reached home he found the black print of a finger burnt, as it were, into his forehead, which nothing could obliterate.

The first news his wife had to tell him was the sudden death of Absalom Crowning Shield, the rich buccaneer. It was announced in the papers with the usual flourish that a great man had fallen in Israel. Tom recollected the tree which his black friend had just tuned down, and which was ready for burning. Let the free Buddha roast, said Tom. Who cares? He now felt convinced that all he had heard and seen was no illusion.

He was not prone to let his wife into his confidence, but as this was an uneasy secret, he willingly shared it with her. All her avarice was awakened at the mention of hidden gold, and she urged her husband to comply with the black man's terms and secure what would make them wealthy for life. However Tom might have felt disposed to sell himself to the devil, he was determined not to do so to oblige his wife, so he flatly refused out of the mere spirit of contradiction.

Many and bitter were the quarrels they had on the subject, but the more she talked, the more resolute was Tom not to be damned to please her. At length she determined to drive the bargain on her own account, and if she succeeded to keep all the gain to herself. Being of the same fearless temper as her husband, she set off the old Indian fort towards the close of a summer's day. She was many hours absent, but when she came back, she was reserved and sullen in her replies.

She spoke something of a black man whom she'd met about twilight, hewing at the root of a tall tree. He was sulky, however, and would not come to terms. She was to go again with a propitiatory offering, but what it was she forbore to say. The next evening she set off again for the swamp, with her apron heavily laden.

Tom waited and waited for her, but in vain. Midnight came, but she did not make her appearance. Morning, noon, night returned, but she still did not come. Tom now grew uneasy for her safety, especially as he found she carried off in her apron and silver teapot and spoons and every portable article of value. Another night elapsed, another morning came, but no wife. In a word, she was never heard of more. What was her real fate? Nobody knows.

In consequence of so many pretending to know. It's one of those facts that have become confounded by a variety of historians. Some asserted that she lost her way among the tangled mazes of the swamp and sunk into some pit or slough. Others, more uncharitable, hinted that she had eloped with the household booty and made off to some other province, while others assert that the tempter had decoyed her into a dismal quagmire on top of which her hat was found lying. In confirmation of this, it was said a great black man with an axe on his shoulder was seen late that very evening coming out of the swamp, carrying a bundle tied in a check apron with an air of surly triumph. The most current and improbable story, however, observed that Tom Walker grew so anxious about the fate of his wife and his property that he set out at length to seek them both at the Indian Fort. During a long summer's afternoon, he searched about the gloomy place, but no wife was to be seen.

He called her name repeatedly, but she was nowhere to be heard. The Bittern alone responded to his voice, as he flew screaming by, while the bullfrog croaked dolefully from a neighbouring pool. At length, it is said, just in the brown hour of twilight, when the owls began to hoot and the bats to flit about. His attention was attracted by the clamour of carrying crows that were hovering about a cypress tree. He looked and beheld a bundle tied in a check apron and hanging in the branches of the tree, with a great vulture perched hard by, as if keeping watch upon it. Well, he leaped with joy for he recognised his wife's apron and supposed it to contain the household valuables. Let us get

hold of the property, said he, consolingly to himself, and we will endeavor to do without the woman. As he scrambled up the tree, the vulture spread its wide wings and sailed off, screaming into the deep shadows of the forest. Tom seized the check apron butt, woeful sight, found nothing but a heart and liver tied up in it. Such, according to the most authentic old story, was all that was all that to be found of Tom's wife. She'd probably attempted to deal with the black man as she'd been accustomed to dealing with her husband, but though a female scold is generally considered a match for the devil, yet in this instance she appears to have had the worst of it. She must have died game, however, for it is said Tom noticed many prints of cloven feet deeply stamped about the tree,

and several handfuls of hair that looked as if it had been plucked from the coarse black shock of the woodsman. Tom knew his wife's prowess by experience. He shrugged his shoulders as he looked at the signs of a fierce clapper gloring. He got, he said to himself, old scratch must have had a tough time of it. Tom consoled himself for the loss of his property with the loss of his wife, for he was a man of fortitude. He even felt something like gratitude towards the black woodsman who he considered had done him a kindness. He sought, therefore, to cultivate a further acquaintance with him, but for some time without success.

The old black legs played shy for whatever people may think he's not always to be had for calling for. He knows how to play his cards when pretty sure of his game. At length, it is said, when Delay had whetted Tom's eagerness to the quick and prepared him to agree to anything rather than not gain the promised treasure. He met the black man one evening in his usual woodman dress, with his axe on his shoulder, sauntering along the edge of the swamp and humming a tune. He affected to receive Tom's advance with great indifference, made brief replies, and went on humming his tune. By degrees, however, Tom brought him to business, and they began to haggle about the terms on which the former

was to have the pirate's treasure. There was one condition which need not be mentioned, being generally understood in all cases where the devil grants favours, but there were others about which, though of less importance, he was inflexibly obstinate. He insisted that the money found through his means should be employed in his service. He proposed, therefore, that Tom should employ it in the black traffic, that is to say that he would fit out a slave ship.

This, however, Tom resolutely refused. He was bad enough in all conscience, but the devil himself could not tempt him to turn slave-dealer. Finding Tom so squeamish on this point, he did not insist upon it, but proposed instead that he should turn Huzur, the devil being extremely anxious for the increase of Azurus, looking upon them as his peculiar people. To this no objections were made, for it was. was just to Tom's taste. You shall open a broker's shop in Boston next month, said the black man. I'll do it tomorrow, if you wish, said Tom Walker.

You shall lend money at 2% a month. I'll charge four, replied Tom Walker. You shall extort bonds, foreclosed mortgages, drive the merchant to bankruptcy. I'll drive him to the... cried Tom Walker eagerly. You are the azure for my money, said the black legs with delight. So when will you want the rile?

This very night, duh, said the devil. Duh, said Tom Walker. So they shook hands and struck a bargain. A few days' time saw Tom Walker seated behind his desk in a counting house in Boston. His reputation for a ready-moneyed man, who would lend money out for a good consideration, soon spread abroad. Everybody remembers the days of Governor Belcher, when money was particularly scarce. It was a time of paper credit.

The country had been delus with government bills. The famous land bank had been established. There had been a rage for speculating. The people had run mad with schemes for new settlements, for building cities in the wilderness. Land-jobbers went about with maps of grants and townships and Eldoradoes, lying nobody knew where but which everybody was ready to purchase. In a word, the great speculating fever, which breaks out every now and then in the country, had raged to an alarming degree and everybody was dreaming of making sudden fortunes from nothing.

as usual the fever had subsided the dream had gone off and the imaginary fortunes with it the patients were left in doleful plight and the whole country resounded with the consequent cry of hard times at this propitious time of public distress did tom walker set up as an azura in boston his door was soon thronged by customers the needy and the adventurous the gambling speculator, the dreaming land jobber, the thriftless tradesman, the merchant with crack credit. In short, everyone driven to raise money by desperate means and desperate sacrifices, hurried to Tom Walker. Thus, Tom was the universal friend of the needy, and he acted like a friend in need. That is to say, he always exacted good pay and good security. In proportion to the distress of the applicant was the hardness of his. his terms. He accumulated bonds and mortgages, gradually squeezed his customers closer and closer,

and sent them at length dry as a sponge from his door. In this way he made money hand over hand, became a rich and mighty man and exalted his cocked hat upon change. He built himself, as usual, a vast house, out of ostentation, but left the greater part of it unfinished. and unfurnished out of parsimony. He even set up a carriage in the fullness of his vain glory, though he nearly starved the horses which drew it. And as the ungreased wheels groaned and screeched on the axle trees, you would have thought you heard the souls of the poor debtors he was squeezing.

As Tom waxed old, however, he grew thoughtful. Having secured the good things of this world, he began to feel anxious about those of the next. He thought, with regret, on the bargain he'd made with his black friend and set his wits to work to cheat him out of the conditions. He became, therefore, all of a sudden, a violent churchgoer. He prayed loudly and strenuously as if heaven were to be taken by force of lungs. Indeed, one might always tell when he'd sinned most during the week by the clamour of his Sunday devotion. The quiet Christians who had been modestly and steadfastly travelling Zionward

were struck with self-reproach at seeing themselves so suddenly outstripped in their career by this new-made convert. Tom was as rigid in religious as in money matters. He was a stern supervisor and censor of his neighbours and seemed to think every sin entered up to their account became a credit on his own side of the page. He even talked of the first. expediency of reviving the persecution of Quakers and Anabaptists. In a word, Tom Zeal became as notorious as his riches. Still, in spite of all his strenuous attention to forms,

Tom had a lurking dread that the devil, after all, would have his due. But he might not be taken unawares, therefore, it is said he always carried a small Bible in his coat pocket. it. He had also a great folio Bible on his counting-house desk that would frequently be found reading it when people called on business. On such occasions he would lay his green spectacles on the book to mark the place while he turned round to drive some usurious bargain. Some say that Tom grew a little crack-brained in his old days, and that fancying his end approaching, he had his horse new shod, saddled and bridled, and buried with his feet uppermost, because he supposed that at the last day the world would be turned upside down,

in which case he should find his horse standing ready for mounting, and he was determined, at the worst, to give his old friend a run for it. This, however, is probably a mere old wife's fable. If he really did take such a precaution, he was totally superfluous. At least so says the authentic old legend which closes his story in the following manner. On one hot afternoon in the dog days, just as a terrible black thunder gust was coming up, Tom Sadden his counting house in his white linen cap and India's silk morning gown. He was on the point of foreclosing a mortgage, by which he would complete the ruin of an unlucky land speculator for whom he had professed the greatest friendship.

The poor land job had begged him to grant a fortune. few months indulgence. Tom had grown testy and irritated and refused another day. My family will be ruined and brought upon the parish, said the Lange of her. Charity begins at home, replied Tom. I must take care of myself in these hard times. You've made so much money out of me, said the speculator. Tom lost his patience and his piety. "'Let the devil take me,' said he, "'if I have made a farthing.' "'Just then there were three loud knocks at the street door.

"'He stepped out to see who was there. "'A black man was holding a black horse "'which neighed and stamped with impatience. "'Tom, you're a calm for,' said the black fellow gruffly. "'Tom shrunk back, but too late, he had left his little Bible at the bottom of his coat pocket and his big Bible on the desk buried under the mortgage he was about to foreclose never was a sinner taken more unawares

the black man whisked him like a child astride the horse and away he galloped in the midst of a thunderstorm the clerk stuck their pens behind their ears and stared after him from the windows away went tom walker dashing down the street his white cap bobbing up and down, his morning gown fluttering in the wind, and his steed striking fire out of the pavement at every bound. When the clerk's turn to look for the black man, he had disappeared. Tom Walker never returned to foreclose the mortgage. A countryman who lived on the borders of the swamp reported that, in the height of the thunder gust,

he'd heard a great clattering of hooves and a howling along the road, and that, when he ran to the window he just caught sight of a figure such as I have described on a horse that galloped like mad across the fields over the hills and down into the black hemlock swamp towards the old Indian fort and that shortly after a thunderbolt fell in that direction which seemed to have set the whole forest in a blaze the good people of Boston shook their heads and shrugged their shoulders but had been so much accustomed to witches and goblins and of the devil in all kinds of shapes from the first settlement of the colony that they were not so much horror-struck as might have been expected. Trustees were appointed to take charge of Tom's

effects. There was nothing, however, to administer upon. On searching his coffers, all his bonds and mortgages were found reduced to cinders. In place of golden silver, his iron chest was filled with chips and shavings. Two skeletons lay in his stable instead of his half-starved horses, and the very next day his great house took fire and was burnt to the ground. Such was the end of Tom Walker and his ill-god and wealth. Let all griping money brokers lay this story to heart. The truth of it is not to be doubted. The very hole under the oak trees from whence he dug kids money is to be seen to this day, and the neighbouring swamp and old Indian fort is often haunted in story nights

by a figure on horseback, in a morning gown and white cap, which is doubtless the troubled spirit of the azure. In fact, the story has resolved itself into a proverb, and is the origin of that popular saying prevalent throughout New England of the devil and Tom Walker. And so we come to the end of tonight's podcast. I hope you enjoyed those three stories by J.D. Patrick, Carlos Pandiela and Washington Irvin. And remember, we're back again this time, next week, same time, same place.

Until then, very, very sweet dreams and above.