The Antiquarium of Sinister Happenings - The Antiquarium of Sinister Happenings Presents: Skin Crawl

Episode Date: November 15, 2023

Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6Gkh9oHoC5I97m3ceridEn?si=69be26c46d0a4c3bSubscribe on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/skin-crawl/id1711070741We would like to introduce you to Skin Crawl, an anthology of psychedelic nightmares, otherworldly monsters, and tales of the macabre! Based on artist Skinner's comics of the same name, this podcast will have you tingling with terror! They also have some celeb cameos! You never know who will be stopping by the dreadful Skin Crawl podcast! This is the first episode of the series titled Welcome Back, it stars Workaholic’s Blake Anderson as The Hag. You can find the Skin Crawl podcast wherever you get your podcasts.On Halloween night, while out trick-or-treating, two young boys stumble upon the house ofan old Hag (played by Blake Anderson [Workaholics]), her opossum familiar, and some sortof...abomination. What will the boys find? A trick? A treat? Or a curse?Cast & CrewSkin Crawl was created by SkinnerWelcome Back was written by Seras NikitaStarring:Blake Anderson as The HagDanielle Hewitt as OrenNate DuFort as the AbominationElissa Park as Boy 1B. Narr as Boy 2Skinner as Rollie the RottenDialogue Editor - Brad ColbrookSound Design - Brad ColbrookMusic - Ryan HowzeShowrunner and Director - Shelby ScottCreative Director - SkinnerProducer - Pacific S. ObadiahExecutive Producers - Tom Owen & Brad MiskaPresented by Bloody FMwww.TheArtOfSkinner.com/www.Bloody-Disgusting.comTwitter: https://twitter.com/bloodyfmDiscord: https://discord.gg/tJEeNUzeZX Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello, friend. Always taking the time to pay me a visit, and let me tell you, I appreciate it more than you know. That said, I am terribly sorry, but due to some unforeseen circumstances, we had to close the store a bit early today. Get ourselves into a bit of a mess in the back that is fixing to take a good amount of time to clean up. Tell you what, though, my old friend Skinner just opened a comment. book shop a few doors down from here, and they're open for another few hours. He'd love to have you. He dropped off the latest terrifying issue of skin crawl, and wow, it is a good one indeed. For the inconvenience, I am passing it along to you. The antiquarium will open back up a bit later this week, and I have a couple of extraordinary consignments that I just know you'll be enchanted.

Bye. Till then, enjoy Skin Crawl. And stop on back here soon. Bloody FM Skin Crawl on Spotify, Apple, and wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Skin Crawl, a radio drama podcast. The greatest radio drama horror podcast of all time. Created by Skinner. It will scare the hell out of you.

You came back again, eh? Well, good news is, I have a lot to tell you. The bad news is, it's gonna scare the hell out of you. Just kidding. Maybe. I don't know. I guess it depends on how tough you are. What kind of insane trauma you've sustained

that may have prepared you for this tale. I guess, I don't, I really, I don't even know what's going on. I have confused myself again. Okay. Okay, okay, wait, now I remember. Okay, yeah, okay, here's the deal. You go hanging out in a swamp, you're bound to find out what the swamp has to offer.

And holy cripes, does the swamp have something to offer? Well, a couple of things, actually, but I'm not trying to spoil nothing. You're going to have to spoil it yourself. I mean, you just got, okay, listen, just chill back and listen, homie. You got to buckle down or buckle up. or whatever and absorb the fun.

This is a story I call. Welcome back. I'm coming. Hold your guts in there, chum. Oh, ha ha ha ha ha. Pardon me. I suppose in your case, chum is a bit too accurate, eh?

Get it? You didn't say? Trick-a-treat! Ha! Eh, the old college try, I guess. Come on in, you know the routine. Just don't get near the tow-headed one. That one's a biter.

Aren't you a biter? Aren't you just the bravest little sprig of human veal to ever be wrapped in the dime store? Power Rangers costume! Everyone, meet my old friend. He ain't much to look at, but boy, howdy is the old hunk of swapmeat reliable. Every Halloween, 9 p.m. on the nose. You can set a clock by him. Oh, fantastic.

What the fuck is this thing? It reeks like an impacted bear colon. Listen, if you go. Going to imbue me with a magical gift of sentient awareness? Couldn't you do me a solid and turn down the volume and my sense of smell? Ugh. Have you met Orin? She's my newest familiar, although she's an opossum, so I suppose the O might be silent.

Wow. Never heard that one before. You should get out of the witching business and into comedy. Like, yesterday. Silence! Orin or Wren or Wren, whatever. And make room for our friend. Here you go, chum.

Take a load off on this stool. Mind you don't get too cozy with the cauldrons. Hot stuff happening in there. Can I offer you anything, chum? Tea, coffee, an opportunity for release from your curse of eternal suffering. All right, then. We're all here. Let's get down to business. Welcome, boys, to my humble home,

a shanty of magical discourse, a dwelling of unfathomable crossroads, the lights of which shall plume your very souls, and lead you to realizations, the depths of which you may scarcely comprehend. and yet shall linger forever in the psyche of your darkest dreams, a shattering of your... Good grief.

Such theatrics for a woman who had an absolute meltdown this morning when she couldn't find the corn cob holders. Those are heirlooms. Airlooms? From who, Moses? As I was saying, boys, there are many crossroads in these morning. lives of yours and you two seem to have trick or treated yourselves into one.

Kids these days, always expecting the treats, never the tricks. Before you are two cauldrons, each bubbling with a syrupy brew and further beholds the fruits of moral comeuppance. Each impaled with the saplings of a cursed tree, the exhaling of which... You're making candy apples? Aces. I've rummaged my share of them from the trash bins at the county fair. Crunchy.

Crunchy indeed. Now before the clock strikes midnight, each of you will make a choice. Shall you sample a convection from the cauldron on the right? Or shall your bite be lifted from the cauldron on that... Your choice shall change your future in ways you cannot comprehend. A confection is a delicacy prepared with sweet ingredients as opposed to savory, such as a candy or dessert. This is candy. Yeah, I know what the candy is.

Listen here, you flesh, maimid. I've been giving the same rigmarole each Halloween for years, and I'm not going back to the drawing board because flip phones and beanie babies have rotted your skulls to the point where you don't know, a confectionery from a cesspit. That's like an open-air bathroom. Let us now gaze into Cauldron the first. Boiling. Within this ancient vessel is an elixir prepared from the two of a thousand fairy circles.

Brewed with honey of the long extinct death-mill of was. Infused with ingredients so sacred, they must not be named by the tongue of... Cinnamon. It's cinnamon Yes, well Sacred and illustrious Cinnamon from the trenches of...

The corner store in town next to the vacuum repair place The components of the brew Aren't important, okay? What's important are the totalities Of their combined powers, okay? Now gaze upon chum here This foul wretch of suffering eternal, and allow me to regale you with the tale of how this abomination came to be. For it was, once a sprightly, adolescent much like yourselves, who sat before my ancestors as you sit before me,

and chose when presented this goblin to imbibe from this very cauldron. Chum, I bestow upon you the power of speech, but tis a temporary gift of speech, chum, before the spell of words ends from your throat. You know, when I had this option, I don't remember any candied apples. Rather, the concoction was boiled down into hardened, button-shaped wads, and there was certainly no cinnamon. Yes, boiled sweets, they were called. Kids are more particular about their candy nowadays. What a time to be alive, if you call this living. Gather around, young lads.

Oh, I suppose you can't gather much around tied to those chairs. I'll come closer Whoa there Sally That's enough gathering Oh There chum I've granted you the power of speech But be careful with that tongue

It's got a lot of mileage on it I remember it Like it was yesterday I was a lad of Merely 15 And for a fortnight He means two weeks. For a fortnight, throughout the village,

all hands worked busily to prepare for the arrival of all Hallows Eve. A day of merry-making and trickery enjoyed by the youngest babe to the eldest elder. Twas the kiss of autumn. Nights had become crisp. The woods round the village, cloaked with blanket of leaves and faveled. the color of winter gourds. In the windows of each hut and shopfront glowed the jolly continents of pumpkin jacks, warding us from ghouls and goblins that bade the full moon with their howls that shivered the spine.

In the fields, scarecrow stuffed with straw and manure kept watch, banishing unholy spirits from the fruits of our labors and the grains of prosperity. Bonefire stood ready, their pyres reaching towards the sky in preparation. I said what I meant, and I find myself unimpressed by the efficacy of these gags. Stay where you are, or you'll be far more impressed by our gagging. And you'll need a mop. No need to be hurtful. You tree rat, don't smell as a metal lark yourself.

On this day, I had returned from my morning slopping of the hogs, when the window neath, one grey-facked roof, aways apart from the village, what I'd not yet noticed in the past. What did I see peering at me through the frost-laced panes, but the gaze of a buxom lass, her eyes drawn in a fashion, as if to say, Come hither, lad.

Myself, being a young, gentlemen of some honor, I did not leer, but merely returned her wink, tipped my hat, and again hurried upon my way. But her countenance would not leave my mind. The soft glimmer in her eyes, the warmth of her smile, the cascading of her gleaming hair. From that brief glimpse, she haunted my dreams, both waking and in slumber, and all thoughts of other schoolyard lasses flew from my mind.

I saw her smile in the grinning pumpkin jacks, her shadow in the loomings of our scarecrow guardians, and in the twigs of the holy bonefires I saw the gentle beckoning of her elegant finger bating me, come hither, boy, come hither. Oh, you charmer. Oh, give me a break. The only glimmer you're conjuring these days is when you pass gas too close to the fireplace.

The next night seized a sudden and irresistible draw. I rose from my bed in the dark of night. Still in my bedclothes, I stole through the cobblestone streets of the village and beyond, into the whispering woods and found myself standing in the moon, night upon the very sight where I was certain the thatched hut once stood. But what was this? No hut could be found. Only a crumbling foundation where perhaps a hut once stood.

Grown over with roots and fallen logs, to my knees I sank, and in my misery, I buried my head in my hands and cried out. Oh, shall I never again lay eyes or, upon the creature of my dreams. People were very dramatic back then. We didn't have a lot happening on the entertainment front. Mm-hmm. Not even one of those hoops with a stick, huh? Rough. When there, a glow fell upon the earth beneath my knees,

as if an angel had descended from the heavens. I raised my eyes to find the beautiful maiden. Despite the late hour, the sweet chirping of songbirds filled my ears, and my soul danced with the music of her smile. Laughing as she took my hands, she helped me as I stood and hugged me to her bosom. She whispered into my ear, how strong your embrace, my darling, for I have yearned to feel your touch since our glances last crossed. To her I replied, and I have yearned for yours. Then her eyes became sad, and she said, But alas, I am afraid.

I murmured, what have you to fear, dear maiden? It is the totems and wards of the village, cried she. The grinning pumpkins with demon flame leaping within their bellies, the fearsome scarecrow's like crows. crucified corpses, the pyres set to roar alight in foul smoke of elm and bones. I lie awake in the night, unable to find peace or slumber. Will you help me, my prince? Will you help me rid our fair village of these pagan blights, so that we may find serenity in each other's arms? But darling, I replied, these talismans are not.

for us to dread in our god-fearing hearts. They are friendly to us, mere precautions against the haunts and spirits that may emerge in the chill of the harvest moon, to dance amongst our crops and wreak havoc upon the prosperity of our village. They are guards to us, protectors. Surely you may fear them not. The maiden held me closer to her bosom. We're okay. We got it out of our systems. Keep going, Smelly. Oh, strong boy of the village, but they do haunt me. Their twisted forms torment me, and scarce can I find a moment of serenity with which to pursue thoughts else. Thoughts of love or passion, or a moment to bathe my skin in perfumed bath,

or to remove my night clothes in order to launder them properly. Will you not come to my aid dearest And help me purge these evil vestiges from our township What could I say but agree to help My head swam with the spell of her I was but a puppet in her hands You could have played dead I find that playing dead resolves most awkward social situations

Quiet, rodent Another interruption and you won't need to play. She led me through the still woods. So swiftly I was awed that we did not stumble upon the roots or rocks, almost as if our feet did not touch the ground. The glowing face of the autumn moon illuminated our steps by some strange trickery of the light, such that I could scarcely see her shadow upon the ground, but only my own.

She keeps my pace, my gestures, even the cadence of my footsteps. I thought to myself as if we are garments cut from the same cloth. What a fortunate lad I am, having found such a match and such a beauty. We crept through the cobblestone streets until we came upon the rows of shops in the square of town. Festive gourds and harvest tableaux lined the, shop fronts. Cinnamon-scented brooms and pumpkin jacks, tallow candles with black-singed wicks, still smelling of some from the evening's burnings. See how they mock us with their grins? Breathe the mysterious beauty. But milady, I said.

You did not. You did not say milady. Listen, I get half an hour a year with the power to say anything other than gr-and-gr-and-gr-h. What do you think I do in yonder swamp for the other 364 days and 23 hours, except practice telling this tale? Knit sweaters, pick my nose? Well, obviously not that, as there's so little nose left to pick. Come on, cut a goul a little slack, won't you? When you put it like that, by all means, chum, my snout is sealed.

Regale us. But milady, I said. They're just fruits of our fanciful superstitions. Look, the candles within have been damped, and they no longer even glow. Surely now you can see how little you've to fear. See them there? Nothing but so much pie fodder in Hulk feed. She clutched my hands in hers and cried,

Oh, do away with them. Please, rid us of their jestful smiles. What could I do, boys, but oblige. One by one I russed the pumpkins from the shipfront and smash them upon the worn cobblestones. I snapped the candles over my knee and tossed them upon the heap of broken fruit. We moved from shop to shop, leaving messes of pumpkin gore in our wakes, mangled smiles of the pumpkin jacks, gazing woefully from their deathbeds. As we reached the last shop, I extended a jack,

toward the maiden. The last of them, miss. Would you care for the honors? She recoiled as if I had offered a fistful of white-hot coals. And I noticed something curious as I looked into her fearful face, though it may have been the glancing shadows in the moonlight. It seemed the maiden I had seen in the window and encountered in the woods, now looked wizened, as of the past hours had aged her some dozen years, where once I would have placed her at years matching my own, she now looked older, with lines creasing her eyes, a missus of perhaps 30 years, although still a fabulous beauty. Upon smashing the final pumpkin, she held my face in her hands, gazing into my soul with those fierce and beautiful eyes.

Now the scarecrow's, she exclaimed Giddily. Hand in hand, we flew through the streets, though it seemed her pace a bit slower than before, and scrambled over the piled limestone fences that marked the boundaries of Farmer Jacob's fields. Rows of corn, peas and wheat brushed past our weights and loomed over our heads as we were, pushed through the stalks until we came upon the first of the scarecrow's ruined shirt and

trouser stuffed bulbous with chaff burlap sack heads full of corncobs rested upon each misshapen body dull black buttons stitched to the faces and frightful ripped maws how hideous they are exclaimed the maiden in my dreams they wake and stumble toward us in the dark gnashing their corncob teeth Please, my darling, destroy them, and calm my heart. They towered over us, standing vigilant against crow and crone alike. I seized the sturdy post and heaved my body against it, but how sturdily farmer Jacob had planted it in the soil. I heaved again, but hardly it budged,

as a stone pillar set into poured cement. I turned to my lovely companion, Miss, said I, I don't believe even a strong man could manage to overturn this post. Really, you have nothing to fear. See, around the edges of the scarecrow circle? You can see how apple cores and clay marbles have been strewn. Children come here to hide and play during the daylight hours, and they do not fear. I have not heard a breath of any harm coming to. to any child.

Wordlessly, she pulled from her frock a match. I struck it against my thumbnail and held the flame to the scarecrow's trousers. They took to the light right away and roared of the straw-stuffed body until only the burlack sack head remained, fire leaping about its button eyes as the rest disintegrated into flaming ashes. The post creaked and cracked. then collapsed. Suddenly I cried out.

The field is a flame. And indeed it was. The stalks of corn danced with fire. Funnels of thick smoke, hurried skyward. What have we done? I grasped the maiden's hand and gasped. No longer the lithe porcelain skin of a young maiden. I held the hand of a woman much older.

The knuckles, strong and bony, curled around my wrist like a talon. I looked into her face and beheld her spotted cheeks and wisps of coarse gray hair. Miss, what has become of you? What has happened? Is this a dream?

Is this a waking dream? I spun around in the midst of the flaming field, the vital harvest of our entire village as it wasted into ash. I must wake up. Please, pinch me. Free me from this nightmare. But the woman held tightly to my arm and pulled me closer.

Instead of sweet perfume, I smelled only dust and rotting teeth as she hissed. It's too late, child. This is a dream from which you shall not awake. And with incredible strength, she pulled me by the wrist through the forest. Somehow she seemed to glide easily over the rough terrain, as my ankles snared each gnarled root and fallen log that crossed our paths. Whereas the moonlight had felt like a glowing embrace, now it seemed as though the moon looked down on us with malice,

an enormous eye unblinking in the inky sky. At last we reached the outskirts of our settlement, where a ring of holy bonfires had been set to light on the eve of the harvest moon. The bleached bones of butchered swine and cattle were set into pires, below which satchels of herbs and holy statuettes waited to be set alight. Their sacred smoke banishing spirits and scourges and all manner of foul fortunes from the village. My knees buckled and a chill, eerie wind rushed through me. No, I whimpered. Please let them stand

They are merely playthings Meant to make festive an evening of peasant's revelry Please let us return to the village But from her frock As if by magic She pulled a heavy axe With a wooden handle

Its blade so sharp It appeared to glow with a blue light She placed it in my hand And my digits tinkled I felt my hands become the hands of another Like a puppet with invisible strings. I approached the first pyre

and swung the axe across as if it were a creature I sought to behead. The bones and totem scattered and I felt myself moving to the next as if compelled by some unholy force. Such was the grip of her spell. I scarcely noticed the host of foul creatures that began to descend from the sky,

one after another, until all the holy bonfires lay destroyed at my feet. Sweating and shivering, with the cold and the spell and the fear of my own evil-doing, I lifted my head and found myself surrounded by a ring of hellish ghouls. Half-men, half-beasts stood with rage in their animal eyes, fur clotted with gore, enormous snakes with human tongues, twisted from the branches of trees, hissing clouds of poison and shaking rattles that echoed with the cries of dying men. Two-headed crocodiles pulled themselves across the ground on their bellies, oozing sores with postules that boiled and spat.

More and more of these hell spawn appeared from the darkness until they had surrounded me in a circle. I covered my eyes and sank to my knees. What have I done? What have I done? I wept. The hag who had once been a maiden emerged from the circle of horrors. Her once fair skin now hung upon her skull like yellow dough. Her nails twisted into horned corkscrews. She bent upon her cane so that the hump upon her spine revealed itself like a second head.

And the few tufts of hair, her mottled skull seemed to rise. in the moonlight like maggots. The devilish hag of my undoing. The hag you see before you now. Hey, Hag. That's you. I swear, Karen. They said the possums are stupid.

Wait, who says that? You know, they. Them, people. Hags stepped into the circle. Boy, know not what you've done this night. What you have wagered in your game of lust? She turned toward her ring of companions. Ghouls, goblins, monsters and devils.

No longer must we cower behind the invisible fences that have so long prevented us from feasting on the flesh and souls of this miserable township. Tonight, we glut upon the souls in the hearts of these peasants, whose flimsy totems have been destroyed by this boy, so easily bought with a whisper and a glimpse of a bosom. The circle tightened around me, the drooling jaws, the gashing teeth, the miasma of hell closed in, and I readied my soul for death. In the distance, I could hear the screams of the townspeople, as they were pulled from their beds by these terrible apparitions, ripped apart by the army of Lucifer, I had unwittingly invited into our circle of protection.

I could feel their hot breaths upon me. I could taste their bloodthirsty rage in my mouth. But then, the hag said... Wait! No deed to the creatures of hell goes unrewarded, but neither does it go unpunished. The tricks and the treats of the darkness shall never be withheld. According to the laws of our dark legion.

So to you, boy, I offer you a choice. The same choice I offer to these two boys now who I came upon this Halloween night smashing pumpkins and egging foreign sedans destroying the rituals that have long kept the spirits of the night from raining with the havoc of a thousand years. It's from this candied apple, and you shall not die tonight but live forever. Guys, it's not what you're thinking. You'll live forever, but your body still abides by the natural law.

This swamp from which I lurch is the only place I find peace from the horrible taunts of the living world. The muds ease my pain, but the creatures of the bog nibble upon my flesh and gorge upon my entrails. My only company is on this night, Halloween night, when I emerge to reunite with the witch that damned me, and pray that one of you will choose the apple of immortality and take my place in this torment. The only thing that will release me from my ear, eternal, rotting, misery. Wow, you're really selling it, chum. If the misery of my situation

strikes fear in your hearts, boys, pray listen to the alternative. I chose my way once with the knowledge I impart you now and would do so again if brought back in time to that moment. From this, candied apple,

and you shall take my place on this mortal coil, you will find your profession to lure the young and impetuous into the destruction of the fairy things that keep mankind safe from the army of demons you shall helm. Men shall perish in agony at your word. Women shall be torn from their children. The suffering of the ages shall be forever upon your heads.

The ugliness of the magic you will. Will shall be equaled only by the ugliness of the form you will take. Body, face, and heart. So grotesque that you shall never know the loving touch or kind word of another soul, in that you find yourself acquiring sass-mouth, beady-eyed familiars for the small comfort that is beating heart and a human voice within your world. world of loneliness and isolation. Aw, really?

You think I'm beady-eyed? Shucks, that's real sweet of you. So, boys, what will it be? The fruit of eternity or the fruit of power? Oh, sorry. Here you go. What happens if we don't eat either of them? That's not really an option.

But, yeah, what if we don't? Oh, I don't know. I'll probably conjure up some sort of eel creature to devour your gullet from the inside. Or maybe some sort of pox that rupture spiders. You know, something boring like that. I've seen people try to use that loophole, boys. And trust me, you don't want to try it. So, boys, tell me which will it be?

Which trick? Which treat? Which gift? and which curse. I hold them now before you. What shall you choose? Ooh, the Power Rangers going for it. I told you I'm Iron Man.

Good choice. Good choice, boys. Good choice. Very good choice. Oh? Did you like it when the dude came back? I know, it's always like, I thought you laughed, dude.

You forgot something? Why are you here? Yeah, that's what I say. If you're going to come back, please try not to drip gore all over my... house, man. I run a tight ship. I try to keep it nice. You need to pick up after yourself, even if it is yourself.

He-he-he-he. Get it? Ah, yeah. Oh, duck. Anyway. I'll see you next week, I guess. Get out of go! Written by Sarah Stikina,

starring Blake Anderson as the hat. Danielle Hewitt as Orange. Nate Dufort as The Abomination. Alyssa Park as Boy 1 and B. NAR as Boy 2. And Skinner as Raleigh. Dialogue Editor and Sound Design, Brad Colbrook. Music, Brian Howes. Showrunner and Director, Shelby Scott.

Creative Director, Skinner. Producer, Pacific S. Obadiah. Executive Producer Tom Owen and Brad Miska. This is a bloody FM show. For more information, visit bloody.fm. Bye.