The NoSleep Podcast - NOSLEEP PODCAST PRESENTS THE NEW DECAYED EPISODE 03

Episode Date: January 19, 2020

It's episode 03 of The NoSleep Podcast presents: The New Decayed. On this week's show we investigate the truth behind unsettling urban legends and macabre modern monsters. Disclaimer: This is our first experimental miniseason. For this five-part series you’ll be joining Jessica McEvoy and Olivia White as they delve into the experimental, dark abyss of horror. Instead of taking an extended break during the European tour, we thought we’d try out something new. We’ll be taking this miniseason in directions outside of the usual mandate of The NoSleep Podcast. Some episodes of this miniseason are not for the faint of heart. Some are not for the squeamish. It’s not mandatory listening. If you choose to consider this a break and wait for Season 14, that’s fine. If you choose to join us, then brace yourselves. We’ll be taking you places. "The Blackdale Building" written by Henry Galley (Story starts around 0:08:32) Produced by: Phil Michalski Cast: Narrator – Matthew Bradford, Mom – Mary Murphy, RA – Kyle Akers "Original Prankster" written by Holly Dionis (Story starts around 0:24:09) TRIGGER WARNING! Produced by: Phil Michalski Cast: Narrator – Andrew Tate "Smile Dog" written by Michael Lutz & Olivia White (Story starts around 0:38:03) Produced by: Phil Michalski Cast: Sammy - Sammy Raynor, Michael - Kyle Akers, Jessica - Jessica McEvoy Click here to learn more about the voice actors on The NoSleep Podcast  Click here for tickets to our UK/EU Tour in January 2020  Click here to learn more about the Let's Not Meet Podcast  Read the original Smile Dog creepypasta here  Click here to learn more about Sammy Raynor's podcast Conspiracies & Cryptids  Click here to learn more about Sammy Raynor  Click here to learn more about Andrew Tate  Click here to learn more about Henry Galley  Click here to learn more about Michael Lutz  Executive Producer: David Cummings Host: Jessica McEvoy The New Decayed showrunner: Olivia White Musical score composed by: Brandon Boone "Smile Dog" illustration courtesy of Thea Arnman Audio program ©2019-2020 - Creative Reason Media Inc. - All Rights Reserved - No reproduction or use of this content is permitted without the express written consent of Creative Reason Media Inc. The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, I'm Jessica McAvoy. For the last couple of weeks, I've been hosting the New Decade, a mini-season under the No Sleep Podcast banner. In that mini-season, we've dealt with some very difficult topics. Trauma, mental health, cancer, sexual anxiety, and living with a neurodivergent brain in a society designed for neurotypicals. Many listeners have reached out to us, thanking us for dealing with us for dealing with with these topics.

And one thing's been clear throughout all of it. A lot of people welcome simply being listened to and acknowledged. We've been partnered with BetterHelp for some time now and vouch for the fact that if you need someone to talk to or just to listen, they're a great option. Better help will assess your needs and match you with your own licensed professional therapist. You can start communicating in under 24 hours. It's not a crisis line, it's not self-help.

It is professional counseling done securely online. There is a broad range of expertise in BetterHelp's counselor network, which may not be locally available in many areas. BetterHelp service is available for clients worldwide. It doesn't matter when you need help, day or night. You can log into your account anytime and send a message to your counselor. You'll get timely and thoughtful. responses. Plus, you can schedule weekly video or phone sessions, so you won't ever have to sit

in an uncomfortable waiting room. Plus, you can even chat or text with your therapist between sessions. BetterHelp is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches, so they make it easy and free to change counselors if needed. It's more affordable than traditional offline counseling, and financial aid is even available. So whenever you need some help, visit BetterHelp dot com slash no sleep and join the over 500,000 people taking charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced professional. No sleep listeners get 10% off your first month at betterhelp.com slash no sleep. So while the world may be terrifying, remember it's okay to want someone to listen, pay attention and focus on you. Services like BetterHelp can offer a helping hand to do just that.

So remember, reach out to that helping hand by visiting betterhelp.com slash no sleep to get 10% off your first month. To our experimental mini-season. For this five-part series, you'll be joining myself and Olivia White as we delve into the experimental dark abyss of horror. Instead of taking an extended break during the European tour, we thought we'd try out something new. We'll be taking this mini-season in directions outside of the usual mandate of the No Sleep podcast to see what lands and what doesn't. Some episodes of this mini-season are not for the faint of heart. Some are not for the squeamish. It's not mandatory listening.

Each episode has a theme revealed in the title. If that theme isn't for you, then please don't feel obliged to sit through it as you would a regular episode. Not every episode will plumb the darkest depths of horror, but some will. We will, as usual, provide trigger warnings for each of the stories. But again, we stress this mini-season is experimental. There's no shame in changing the channel and adjusting your sets. If you'd prefer to wait for service to resume as normal, then our next full season, season 14, will begin in February, and we'll see you then.

If you're still here and intend on joining us for this episode, then I'm Jessica McCavoy, and this is the new decade. Wake up! Now you're definitely sleepless. And here we are on episode three of five. Definitely five. There's not going to be some secret twist where a special sixth episode gets revealed at the end of the mini-season. Definitely not.

Don't even consider that. Just like there's absolutely nothing special about this episode either. No hidden surprises, no unexpected twists, just three tales for episode three that are absolutely, totally normal. The good news, and this part is true, is that this episode isn't quite as explosively booby as episode two. Instead, the theme for episode three is looking back over your shoulder, looking back because you're missing the place you just left,

or because someone's following you, or because you're glancing back at a beloved horror classic from yesteryear. And so we're calling this the new decayed episode three in the past. As of the release of this episode, our tour team should have left, left the UK for Amsterdam. Here's hoping they haven't left behind anything important, like the scripts, or their laptops, or Brandon, like that one time at a desert gas station during Halloween.

Also, at the time of writing this, episode two hasn't dropped fully yet. But however episode two was received, we hope you enjoy this one. Like I said, there's nothing surprising at all. So on, To the stories. In our first tale, we meet a guy who's a bit of a wet blanket, a mama's boy.

It's his first night away from home. His first night in dorms at college. And he really misses his mom. Like, a lot. And that's okay. Some people struggle by themselves. But in this tale, shared with us by author Henry Galley, you wouldn't be unfair for thinking this guy could toughen up a bit,

although the walls are very thin, and he can hear the slightest noise from his dorm mates. And the floorboards creak every time someone walks down the hall. So I guess we should cut him some slack. Performing this tale are Matthew Bradford and Mary Murphy and Kyle Akers. And it's not long before we learn that perhaps this guy had every right, to be a little nervous after all. You see, when your precious moms all the way across the country,

it is a little odd to hear her voice outside your dorm room door, asking if you're okay. It's odd, unless you're staying in the Blackdale building. Confession time. I've never slept away from home. At least not without my parents. It's something I felt insecure about. my whole life, this weird phobia of getting comfortable in alien places. Mom says it's because I'm

too housebroken. I wouldn't know how to survive without her cooking my meals and doing my laundry. My greatest fear is that she's probably right. When I was in middle school, it was just kind of a quirk. Like, no point inviting Lewis to your sleepover. He'll always chicken out and call his mom to come pick him up before the night is out. I got teased about it, sure, but it didn't feel like a real point of insecurity until the final weeks of high school. I come from a small town, i.e. not somewhere you can go to college, and the ideal placement for my psychology degree was a university of few cities over. This meant that facing my worst fear went from a likelihood to an inevitability. I had to move out and live independently on campus. It seems stupid, I know,

But when you're someone in your late teens with a confidence rating in the negatives, stuff like this feels on par with the end of the world as we know it. I remember my mom saying, while driving me in the grand majority of my worldly possessions to our new home. You can always come back on weekends, sweetie. You can take the train. I've heard tickets aren't as expensive for students. I watched familiar territory flashed by outside as we entered the unknown. If you ever think it's not for you, we're only a phone call away. There's no shame in it. God, how I wish I could make myself believe that. My dorm, some cursory online research taught me,

was one of the oldest parts of the campus, the Blackdale building, constructed in 1865. From the pictures online, seemed like one of those buildings that truly warranted the use of the word edifice, with all the trappings of a Gothic mansion, safer gargoyles and a perpetual storm cloud lingering above. And in person, it was even more imposing. Standing in the shadow of the Blackdale building with my suitcases on my first day of living there was the coldest I'd ever felt.

Mom's words echoed through my head. If you ever think it's not for you, we're only a phone call away. It took the better part of that frigid September day to unpack the rest of my things, and organized the resulting chaos of clothes, notebooks, textbooks, and knick-knacks into some pale semblance of home comfort. And by the time I was done, I was too physically and mentally exhausted to even boil the water to make pot raiment. Already, in the belly of the Blackdale building,

I was starting to feel homesick. Here's some more fun facts about the Blackdale building. See, not only was it the oldest building on campus, the rest of the university kind of kind of congealed around it, like a pearl around a grain of sand. It was named after the founder, Ernest Blackdale, who was, on account of being a slave owner who almost likely beat his wife, a huge asshole. The Blackdale building was so old that it creaked audibly with every movement, in or out of the rooms. If one of my dorm mates, none of whom I'd met at this point, due to being too tired and socially awkward, came walking down the hallway, I'd know they were coming five minutes before they even arrived. It was like a retro home alarm system for the cheap and the paranoid.

A great environment, real conducive to studying. The thin walls were great for the same reason. A real dream for voyeurs and exhibitionists. The moment I knew that I had no privacy in the Blackdale building came an hour into the first night when I heard my neighbor eating cereal. How did I know they were eating cereal? Well, because I heard their spoon scraping against the bowl whenever they dunked it in for another spoonful, and I could also hear the milk dripping from said spoonful as they lifted it up to their mouth. I was cold, hungry, homesick, lonely,

and suddenly aware that everyone around me could hear exactly what I was doing at any given moment. I mean, if you'll forgive me some melodrama, I felt like Andy Duprain on his first night in Shawshank Prison. It was while I was lying in bed, watching YouTube videos with my headphones in to try to distract me from the anxiety of all of this. I heard a muffled voice behind me.

I took out one earbud and listened. Lewis? Sweetie, do you want any dinner? It was my mom, and her voice was coming from behind the door. Okay, Mom. Can I get a... Suddenly, I caught myself, trapped so far in routine that I didn't even realize

that my mom's voice had no earthly reason to be coming from behind the door. the door of my dorm room while she, presumably, sat at home with my dad several cities away. There was silence for a second, so I made the reasonable assumption I was just hearing things because I was nervous. Are you okay in there, Lewis? And with that, reasonable assumptions went out the window. Come open the door, Lewis.

I want to make sure you're okay. Slowly, I rose out of bed, trying to post. what exactly was going on. For some subconscious reason, I didn't want to give anyone the impression that I was even in here, so I didn't breathe a word. Lewis, come on, this isn't fair.

You're starting to worry your poor mother. I quietly grabbed my phone from the desk, open contacts, and clicked Mom. I just wanted to make you dinner, Lewis. Keeping one eye on the door, I shot off a quick text. Hey, Mom, did you get home safe? The voice outside, muffled in a way that made it seem as though whoever the voice was coming from,

had their face pressed right up against the door, was undeterred. I'm worried about you, Lewis. I don't know if you're going to be safe on your own. My phone buzzed in my hand. One new message. I opened it and saw Mom's text. Got home just fine. Dad and I are settling.

down for bed. Very proud of you. And that proved it definitively. Whatever was out there sure sounded like my mom. I mean, hell, it was completely and utterly identical. But it was most definitely not her. You must be getting hungry, Lewis. Open the door. I can help. With the phone clenched so tightly in my hand that I felt as though I might crush it, I tiptoed towards the door. It was fitted with a peephole. Maybe it was stupid of me, but I just had to see whoever or whatever was out there. The unanswered question would haunt me for far longer than the sight of the thing behind the door. The hardest part was trying to avoid creaking on the approach.

Open the door, Lewis. I'm asking you nicely. When I reached the door, it took more effort than I expected to displace the peephole cover. It felt like it was glued down almost. When I eventually forced it, I felt lucky that it didn't break or make a tell-tale noise. First time I'd felt lucky all day. And even then, trying to actually build up the courage to look into the P-Pole was like trying to get two matching magnetic poles to touch. With every inch closer that my face got, I could feel the dread mounting.

Not fear, but dread. That kind of animal dread that works on a lower level. level than thought, the part of your brain that keeps you alive when sheer terror has put your conscious mind out of commission. Mommy loves you. Despite the fact that this thing was using my mom's exact voice, the fact it looked exactly like her, too, was still somehow shocking to me. She was just standing there on the other side of the door, face too close to the people, like she was trying to kiss it. She was smiling, with wide, frantic eyes. Get the hell out of here.

I know you're not my goddamn mothers, so get the hell out, or I'm going to call the cops. She just stood there, smiling, still staring into the peephole. I said, get the fuck out. The thing behind the door took a step back and calmly walked down the hall until I couldn't see it anymore. A detail that lingers with. with me still is that the floor didn't creak once as she left. The next morning, after a night of paranoia and practically no sleep, I met with my RA for a preliminary meeting. For a few minutes, I sat through his briefing about house rules and regulations, emergency numbers and emails,

the weekly fire drills, and more. Once his spiel was done, I told him about the voice behind the door. I expected him to not believe me and think I was insane, or be just as terrified as I was. And somehow, the third option that never even occurred to me was worse. Yeah, that happens sometimes. It's an old building, after all. There's a lot we can't explain. Which family member did it imitate? My mom. I see. That's a pretty common one. It was my brother when I first started living here. It can be a little scary, I know, but you'll be safe, as long as you follow the rules.

Naturally, I asked him exactly what the rules were. He said that there were only two rules you had to follow as far as a thing behind the door was concerned. The first was that you should never look at it. It's while the peephole covers are glued down. With a painful cringe, I told him that precaution hadn't stopped me. I told him I'd looked at it. With this, a little concern seemed to register on his face, but he maintained composure. The RA even told me that would be basically harmless as long as I hadn't talked to it.

You didn't talk to it, did you? For some reason, I lied and said no. The RA found relief in that lie. I did not. So what happens if you look at it and talk to it out of curiosity? The RA told me I didn't want to know. That night, as I lay in bed, body racked with nerves. I waited and listened.

Listened for the voice. As it turned out, if you don't look at it and don't talk to it on that first night, it never even comes back. You'll never have to hear the voice again. However, the same is also true for people who do look at it and talk to it. just for different reasons. I found this out myself. I shouldn't have been listening for the voice that second night.

I should have been listening for the soft click of tumblers in a lock turning and falling carefully into place as it opened the door and let itself in. As we kick off the new year, it's time to pay our respects to some things that we won't be bringing into 2020. Things like Game of Thrones, Naruto running into Area 51, Disney movies on Netflix, the No Sleep Podcast Season 13.

And last but not least, my old wireless plan and insane monthly bill. I will definitely not miss that because I switched over to Mint Mobile. Mint Mobile can cut your bill down to 15 bucks a month. Seriously, it's the easiest decision you'll make all year. My old wireless contract was ridiculous. Each monthly bill was a horror story and one I'd consider too scary to run on the podcast. Switching to Mint Mobile was like giving my phone an exorcism, only without the backward spider-walking. Compared to my old bill, the amount I pay now is incredible.

And coverage is fantastic too. I'm basically never stuck without signal wherever I go. Imagine the savings you're going to bank when you switch to Mint Mobile and pay just 15 bucks a month. Every plan comes with unlimited nationwide talking text, plus crazy fast 4GLTE. Use your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan and keep your same phone number along with all your existing contacts. And if you're not 100% satisfied, Mint Mobile has you covered with their seven-day money-back guarantee. kick off the new year the right way and switch to Mint Mobile. To get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month and get the plan shipped to your door for free,

go to mintmobile.com slash no sleep. That's mintmobile.com slash no sleep. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com slash no sleep. In our next tale, we meet a guy who perhaps, Perhaps you'd rather not. Meet, that is. In fact, if you did encounter him, you might end up posting on the Let's Not Meet subreddit

about how you hope to never do so again. And that's his intention, you see. He's a YouTube prankster whose idea of a good jape is to make people, especially women, uncomfortable and scared in public. But in this tale, shared with us by author,

author Olivia White, it's okay. This guy's not a proper threat like those real stalkers. Performing this tale is someone who's all too familiar with the folks who stalk and harass in this way. We're proud to welcome special guest narrator Andrew Tate of the Let's Not Meet podcast. So let's join Andrew on the other side of the mirror as we take a look at someone we'd rather not meet who considers themselves an original prankster. In my last couple of years of high school,

by the time I realized I wasn't one of the cool kids and wasn't getting laid. I became the class clown. Even my yearbook said so. Back then, you could actually do funny shit without people getting all up in arms about it. It wasn't sexual assault if you put your hand on a girl's seat

before she sat down. Nobody labeled you, a sexual harasser. if you stood by the girl's locker room every day for two weeks, just glaring at them with a wild grin. Jokes actually used to be taken for what they were, just a bit of fun. Okay, I'll grant you that some of the pranks that I used to play after high school, when I worked at Walmart, were towing the line. The company had just started selling a selection of sex toys,

so I had weighed until an ancient-looking granny had her back turned and tuck one of our massagers in amongst her great-es. nut cereal and sardines. Or another time, I saw this dottering old couple browsing and stuck a huge box of extra large Trojan condoms in their cart. You should have seen their faces when they got to the checkout completely unaware. Actually, maybe you did see their face. That video went viral because, of course, I filmed all of this, looking to make my YouTube break. And make my break, I did. I also lost my job at Walmart, but that didn't stop me from playing pranks in the store after I was let go. I think my favorite was slipping a huge cucumber into a condom and hiding it in this old fellow's cart.

People loved this shit. I kept my identity private, though, and I became one of the original pranksters from the YouTube prank genre. It wasn't all fun in games in those early years, though. Something that's important to note about me is I've always worked alone. Always have, always will. Sure, I had a manager for a while, and I was signed to an influencer team, but part of the agreement there was that I kept my identity private, and my content was entirely my own.

My manager had no scruples, which suited me fine, but working with someone directly would have been a pain in the ass. This way, I got to be completely unfiltered, nobody telling me if something was a bad idea, or maybe that I shouldn't do that. I was what the Paul brothers could be if they didn't have any other folks keeping them in line. And I was there first. There were, however, a couple of downsides to working alone.

Once I pulled off a prank where I dumped manure all over the convertible of this other bougie YouTube fuck. I hid in the bushes and got it all on my GoPro. But somehow, one of his clout chasing pals spotted me and a group of them, and let me stress, they were fucking gulf. gaming YouTubers. They should have been panty-ass weaklings. Well, they jumped me and beat

the absolute shit out of me. On the other hand, I was smart enough to set up a second camera so that I got all of this caught on video. You've probably seen that as well. It's another one of my videos that went viral, beating an all. And let's just say

that in the eyes of the law, a prank is a lot less serious than grievous bodily harm. So the broken wrist and leg that I received also got that one YouTuber canceled. And trust me, I was there celebrating the Zammals over party hashtag like everyone else. But then I managed to get myself canceled, which means shit, by the way, after I pulled a prank on this one guy. A couple of years ago, he'd been all over the news for like fucking a body pillow filled with funnel web spiders and losing his brother, half his

arm, and his legs in the process. He'd been a complete laughing stock all over Twitter. So I thought, hey, why not do a throwback episode? I tracked him down to the day-release therapy center he was attending and just hurled this entire box of plastic spiders at him. I thought people would love it, seeing his prosthetics go flying. It was legitimately hilarious, but apparently it was cruel and heartless, and I was canceled. So I took some time off, decided to rethink. My plan was to go over some old videos and study algorithms. rhythms and shit, and work out why some of the videos landed and some didn't.

But first, I had a vacation. And during that vacation, I discovered Let's Not Meet. It's a subreddit and also a podcast, in which people share their near misses with creepy, weird, and unsettling people. All of them are absolutely bullshit, though. People looking for internet karma, like that kind of clout means anything. But I was hooked on it, and I was still hooked on it when I began to end. analyze my videos, and I discovered something. It was the pranks that I played on women, especially

younger women, that got most of the attention. And I was on a let's not meet trip, so the answer was obvious. The new direction of my channel would be to fake let's not meet encounters. Study the type of things that creeped women out, but did them no harm, and take the audience behind the curtain to laugh about how freaked out they got despite the real lack of danger. bonus points if they posted about it on the subreddit. And some did. A few girls got really mad when my fan base pointed them to my videos, threatening to sue in all sorts.

Nothing ever came of it, though. Here's a few that I'm really proud of. One time I followed a pretty brunette woman for literally ten blocks. I stopped whenever she did. I kept up my pace with her, always at the same distance behind. If she turned to look at me, I give her a wide, sinister smile. In the end, she ducked into an Arby's and trust me when I say that she didn't look like she was dressed for Arby's. Another time, I caught two women swimming at a lake. I hid in the

bushes and set up a device on the other bank that kept making odd whistling sounds with the occasional bit of heavy breathing. To their credit, they eventually went over to investigate. When they were on the other bank, I grabbed their clothes and shouted at the that they'd been pranked. I always wear a full head-covering plastic paintball mask for these types of things. I yelled at them to be more careful in case I had been a real predator. They hadn't even made it across the lake by the time I was flooring it in my Tesla, hidden away from view.

I sold all their clothes on my merch store and goddamn people were prepared to pay a lot. Another one I liked was the time I found a chick who worked nights at a hotel. I kept calling the front desk with increasingly bizarre requests, asking her to do star jumps or check beneath the couch seats for a surprise, or claimed I was a cop who needed to do a strip search from my hidden location somewhere in the hotel. She stopped playing along after that, and I saw her go for the desk phone, so I fled. It's the moment they get scared that people really like, and the hope that maybe one of them will play along right to the end.

They never do, though. It all went wrong when I remembered this one urban legend from when I was a kid. There was this whole thing about how gang members would hide under cars in mall parking lots. And I can't remember if they were alleged to slice people's Achilles' tendons or just grab their ankles. Obviously, I wasn't going to do any slicing of tendons. But the idea for a prank was one that I had had since I was a teen. Back then, if I had had friends to do it with, I might have done it. They couldn't have been more perfect.

A chick I'd went to high school with, Carla Tracy, had just moved to L.A. I had seen her around and I recognized her. I remember her being the jumpy sort, one of those girls who'd get freaked out when I pranked them in high school. I followed her for a while, learned her routine. Unfortunately, she didn't have much of one, so I had to spend a couple of weeks just to telling her until she went to the mall at the right time. It was getting dark, and I made sure nobody was around. Fuck security cameras.

I'm always masked, like I said. I slid under her car. I had my GoPro positioned on my head just perfectly, so it would capture everything I saw. I waited a while, a fair while, and then she came back out, laden with shopping bags. I heard her put them into the trunk

and crept closer to the driver's side. and my arm stretched out, ready to grab her. And then she was there, in her pumps and tights, and opening the door. Now was my chance. I'd reach out, grab her, tug her to the ground, then roll out from under the car and run off into the night while she screamed bloody murder.

Carla opened the driver's door and had one foot inside. I reached out to grab the other one. I was so close. I missed. My fingertips brushed the sole of her shoe, and she climbed into the car and started the engine. For a moment, all I could do was sit there and laugh. By the time I realized my arm was sticking out beyond the back of the front wheel. She had already began driving forward.

The agony was so intense I couldn't even scream. I thought it was impossible to feel this much pain. My left arm was a squashed mess of tire tracks, and my hand, where it had to be reaching to grab her, had been compressed into itself, destroying all of the bones in my palm, bursting my fingers. I could see my index finger, crushed to a pulp, an inch away from the rest of the mess. In my unthinking stupor, I used my feet in good arm to drag myself towards my severed finger, refusing to accept that there was no one. no salvaging it. Something I'd noticed about Carla during my following of her was that she was incredibly unconfident when it came to driving, and she was especially bad at parking. I barely noticed that her back tire was still inches away from where my hand had been, where my head now was.

Carla, for whatever reason, maybe another car was driving past, who knows, began to reverse. Except, instead of reversing over my arm, because I had moved, she reversed over my head. The doctors said I'm lucky that it was the full head paintball mask I wear that held my face and skull together long enough for them to staple it back together, piece by piece. They also said that if Carla hadn't been driving a Prius, if she had been driving a heavier vehicle, I'd be dead by now. I heard one of them muttering that it might have been kinder on me if I was. They didn't save much. One eye had burst from its socket and promptly been squished by Carla's tire. One of my cheeks had been torn so badly by the mask that it's now a mess of saggy scar tissue.

My bottom left lip is permanently decimated, and it took a long time to learn how to talk again. My face is a patchwork of flesh, scars, and staple marks. And they think it's the best it'll ever get. And of course, I lost my left arm up to my elbow. They never did ask why I was under the car. I think they decided that I had suffered enough. But you know what? I'm an opportunist.

I don't need to wear a mask anymore because nobody will recognize me anyway. There's so many pranks that I can pull based on who I've become. I'm the hook-handed man. I'm the creepy, lumbering figure that you see from a distance whose face looks impossibly distorted, with a smile impossibly wide. I'm a living, breathing, urban legend. I'm the kind of guy you write let's not meetposts about, and I plan to embrace it,

Because in all the destruction, the chaos, the shattering of my own skull, there was one miracle that occurred that showed me that I should keep doing this. The GoPro remained completely undamaged. How's that for fate? For our final tale, we were sent an unusual recording. And I have nothing to say about it. No authors, no performers. No blurb. I'm adding it to the episode because I felt compelled to help spread the word. Please listen. We all need you too.

Episode one of Behind the Creepy Pasta. A new podcast by Sammy Rayner. First section. Okay, it's running. Good. Hi, guys. If you already know me, hi. If you don't, then I'm the host of Conspiracies Encryptids. But you might also recognize me as,

as the narrator of Pen Pal and other stories on The No Sleep podcast. I loved my time on that podcast, and I love the podcast I do now, so I thought, hey, Sammy, why not do a second podcast that combines both? So here we are for the first episode of Behind the Creepy Pasta. Basically, what I'll be doing each episode is reading you the creepy pasta like a horror narration, and then the second half will be dedicated into looking deeper into why the story was written, who wrote it, etc. sort of like a main feature and then a DVD extra.

You know, before everything was streaming on Netflix and we actually had behind the scenes documentaries on disc with the movies. And that's a perfect segue because today we're looking at a story that dates back from all the way back in 2009. But it's one that stuck around and its antagonist is still an iconic creepy pasta villain to this day. He's got more fleas than Jeff the Killer and less ability to communicate than Slender Man.

That's right. We're talking about smile dog I first met in person with Mary E. in the summer of 2007. I had arranged with her husband of 15 years, Terrence, to see her for an interview. Mary had initially agreed, since I was not a newsman, but rather an amateur writer,

gathering information for a few early college assignments and, if all went according to plan, some pieces of fiction. We scheduled the interview for a particular weekend when I was in Chicago on unrelated business, but at the last moment, Mary changed her mind and locked herself in the couple's bedroom, refusing to meet with me. For half an hour, I sat with Terrence

as we camped outside the bedroom door, eye listening and taking notes, while he attempted fruitlessly to calm his wife. The things Mary said made little sense but fit with the pattern I was expecting. Though I could not see her, I could tell from her voice that she was crying, and more often than not,

her objections to speaking with me centered around an incoherent diatribe on her dreams, her nightmares. Terence apologized profusely when we cease the exercise, and I did my best to take it in stride. Recall that I wasn't a reporter in search of a story, but merely a curious young man in search of information. Besides, I thought at the time,

I could perhaps find another similar case if I put my mind and resources to it. Mary E. was the SISOP for a small, Chicago-based bulletin board system in 1992 when she first encountered smile.jpeg and her life changed forever. She and Terrence had been married for only five months. Mary was one of an estimated 400 people who saw the image when it was posted as a hyperlink on the BBS,

though she is the only one who has spoken openly about the experience. The rest have remained anonymous or are perhaps dead. In 2005, when I was only in 10th grade, Smile.JPEG was first brought to my attention by my burgeoning interest in web-based phenomena. Mary was the most often cited victim of what is sometimes referred to as smile. The being smile.jpg is reputed to display. What caught my interest, other than the obvious macabre elements of the cyber legend and my proclivity toward such things, was the sheer lack of information, usually to the point that

people don't believe it even exists other than as a rumor or hoax. It is unique because, though the entire phenomenon centers on a picture file, that file is nowhere to be found on the internet. Certainly, many photomanipulated simulacra litter the web, showing up with the most frequency on sites such as the imageboard 4chan, particularly the slash-x-slash-focused paranormal subboard. It is suspected these are fakes because they do not have the effect the true smile.jpeg is believed to have,

namely sudden onset temporal lobe epilepsy and acute anxiety. This purported reaction to the viewer is one of the reasons the phantom-like smile.jpeg is regarded with such disdain, since it is patently absurd, though depending on whom you ask, the reluctance to acknowledge smile.jpeg's existence might be just as much out of fear as it is out of disbelief. Neither smile.jpeg nor smile.dog is mentioned anywhere on Wikipedia, though the website features articles on such other, perhaps more scandalous shock sites as hello.jpeg or two-girls one cup. Any attempt to create a page pertaining to smile.jpeg is summarily deleted by any of the encyclopedia

as many admins. Encounters with smile.jpeg are the stuff of internet legend. Mary E's story is not unique. There are even unverified rumors of smile.jpeg showing up in the early days of Usenet and even one persistent tale that in 2002, a hacker flooded the forums of humor and satire website something awful with a deluge of smile.combed dog pictures, rendering almost half of the forums users at the time epileptic. It is also said that in the mid to late 9,000,

that smile.jpeg circulated on Usenet and as an attachment of a chain email with the subject line, Smile, God loves you. Yet despite the huge exposure these stunts would generate, there are very few people who admit to having experienced any of them, and no trace of the file or any link has ever been discovered. Those who claim to have seen smile.jpeg often weekly joke that they were far too busy to save a copy of the picture to their hard drive. However, all alleged victims offer the same description of the photo.

A dog-like creature, usually described as appearing similar to a Siberian husky, illuminated by the flash of the camera, sits in a dim room, the only background detail that is visible being a human hand extending from the darkness near the left side of the frame. The hand is empty, but is usually described as beckoning. Of course, most attention is given to the dog, or dog creature, as some victim, are more certain than others about what they claim to have seen. The muzzle of the beast is reputedly split in a wide grin,

revealing two rows of very white, very straight, very sharp, very human-looking teeth. This is, of course, not a description given immediately after viewing the picture, but rather a recollection of the victims who claim to have seen the picture endlessly repeated in their mind's eye during the time they are, in reality, having epileptic fits. These fits are reported to continue indeterminably, often while the victim's sleep, resulting in very vivid and disturbing nightmares. These may be treated with medication, though in some cases it is more effective than others. Mary E., I assumed, was not on an effective medication.

That was why, after my visit to her apartment in 2007, I sent out feelers to several folklore and urban legend-oriented news groups, websites, and mailing lists, hoping to find the name of a supposed victim of Smile.JPEG who felt more interested in talking about his experiences. For a time, nothing happened, and at length I forgot completely about my pursuits since I had begun my freshman year of college and was quite busy.

Mary contacted me via email, however, near the beginning of March 2008. To JML at Redacted.com from Marye atredacted.net. Subject. Last Summer's interview. Dear Mr. L, I am incredibly sorry about my behavior last summer when you came to interview me. I hope you understand that it was no fault of yours, but rather my own problems that led me to act out as I did.

I realized that I could have handled the situation more decorously, however, I hope you will forgive me. At the time, I was afraid. You see, for 15 years, I've been haunted by Smile.jpeg. smile dot dog comes to me in my sleep every night i know that sounds silly but it's true there is an ineffable quality about my dreams my nightmares that makes them completely unlike any real dreams i have ever had i do not move and do not speak i simply look ahead and the only thing ahead of me is the scene from that horrible picture i see the beckoning hand and i see smile dot dog it talks to me It is not a dog, of course, though I'm not quite sure what it really is.

It tells me it will leave me alone if only I do as it asks. All I must do, it says, is spread the word. That is how it phrases its demands, and I know exactly what it means. It wants me to show it to someone else. And I could. The week after my incident, I received in the mail a manila envelope with no return address. Inside was only a three and a half inch floppy diskette. Without having to check, I knew precisely what was on it.

I thought for a long time about my options. I could show it to a stranger, a coworker. I could even show it to Terrence as much as the idea disgusted me. And what would happen then? Well, if Smile. Dot Dog kept its word, I could sleep. Yet if it lied, what would I do? and who was to say something worse would not come for me if I did as the creature asked. So I did nothing for 15 years, though I kept the discat hidden among my things.

Every night, for 15 years, Smile.Dog has come to me in my sleep and demanded that I spread the word. For 15 years, I have stood strong, though there have been hard times. Many of my fellow victims on the BBS board where I first encountered Smile.JPEG stopped posting. I heard some of them committed suicide. Others remain completely silent, simply disappearing off the face of the web. They are the ones I worry about the most. I sincerely hope you will forgive me, Mr. L., but last summer, when you contacted me and my husband about an interview,

I was near the breaking point. I decided I was going to give you the floppy disket. I did not care if Smile.org was lying or not. I wanted it to end. You were a stranger, someone I had no connection with, and I thought I would not feel sorrow when you took the discette as part of your research and sealed your fate. Before you arrived, I realized what I was doing, was plotting to ruin your life. I could not stand the thought, and in fact, I still cannot.

I am ashamed, Mr. L, and I hope that this warning will dissuade you from further investigation of smile.jpeg. You may, in time, encounter someone who is, if not weaker than I, than wholly more depraved, someone who will not hesitate to follow Smile. Dot Dog's orders. Stop while you are still whole. Sincerely, Mary E. Terence contacted me later that month with the news that his wife had killed herself. While cleaning up the various things she'd left behind, closing email accounts and the like, he happened upon the above message.

He was a man in shambles. He wept as he told me to listen to his wife's advice. He found the discette, he revealed, and burned it until it was nothing but a stinking pile of blackened plastic. The part that most disturbed him, however, was how the discette had hissed as it melted. Like some sort of animal, he said. I will admit that I was a little uncertain about how to respond to this.

At first, I thought, Perhaps it was a joke, with the couple belatedly playing with the situation in order to get a rise out of me. A quick check of several Chicago newspapers' online obituaries, however, proved that Mary E. was indeed dead. There was, of course, no mention of suicide in the article. I decided that, for a time at least, I would not further pursue the subject of smile.jpeg, especially since I had finals coming up at the end of May. But the world has odd ways of testing us. Almost a full year after I'd returned from my disastrous interview with Mary E, I received another email.

To jML at redacted.com from El Zahir 82 at redacted.com. Subject, Smile. Hello. I found your email address through a mailing list your profile said you are interested in Smile Dog. I have saw it. It is not as bad as everyone says. I have sent it to you here, just spreading the word, smiley face. The final line chilled me to the bone.

According to my email client, there was one file attachment called, Naturally, Smile.JPEG. I considered downloading it for some time. It was most likely a fake, I imagined, and even if it weren't, I was never wholly convinced of Smile. dot jpeg's peculiar powers. Mary E's account had shaken me, yes, but she was probably mentally unbalanced anyway.

After all, how could a simple image do what smile.jpeg was said to accomplish? What sort of creature was it that could break one's mind with only the power of the eye? And if such things were patently absurd, then why did the legend exist at all? If I downloaded the image, if I looked at it, and if Mary turned out to be correct,

if Smile. Dog came to me in my dreams demanding I spread the word, what would I do? Would I live my life as Mary had, fighting the urge to give in until I died, or would I simply spread the word, eager to be put to rest? And if I choose the latter route, how could I do it? Whom would I burden in turn? If I went through with my earlier intention to write a short article about smile.jpeg, I decided, I could attach it as evidence.

And anyone who read the article, anyone who took interest, would be affected. And even assuming the smile.jpeg attached to the email was genuine, would I be capricious enough to save myself in that manner? Could I spread the word? Yes. Yes, I could. Pasta, a new podcast by Sammy Raynor. Second section.

Vocal note to remind myself to add a plug for conspiracies and cryptids in here. Okay, so the next bit will follow the ad read. And welcome back, folks. So, whether you're a first-time smiler or a seasoned dog walker, the story of Smile Dog likely still sends chills down your spine. I know it did mine just reading it. In a moment, we're going to be lucky enough to have a call with the original author. Michael Lutz, who for years now is cited on sites like creepypasta.com as author unknown.

But Michael was able to prove to us beyond a shadow of a doubt that he wrote this creepy pasta. So it's going to be extremely exciting to hear from him. But first, a little backstory to how the legend has evolved. Most of you, when you picture Smile Dog, see the famous image of the husky-type animal with the wide grin. We're unsure of when that picture became associated with the legend, but that is not a little bit of not the original smile dog. The original smile.jepag Michael posted with the story is much more horrifying. If you've seen it, it looks more like a vampire pig skull than a dog,

but it's most definitely smiling. All the images mentioned, including the picture of the floppy disk, and a rather difficult to decipher archive of the original 4chan post, will be available in the show notes, along with a rather amusing video I found of someone calling Smile Dog on Skype at 3am. Right. It's the time Michael asked me to call him, so here goes. I hope he's remembered our date. Hello?

Are you there, dude? I can barely see you. I think there's some movement. I'm not... I'm here. Jesus Christ, man, you gave me a scare. Okay, okay. So, as you know, we're here to talk about Smile Dog.

Why do people... Hey, man, it's one of the Internet's most beloved creepypastas. I understand wanting to distance yourself from things you wrote when you were younger, but you... You have no idea. No idea. That thing has haunted me. But I thought you were largely credited as anonymous. Care to explain to our listeners how it's affected you?

I don't. Fucking idiot. I mean smile. Dot dog. Smile. Not JPEG. I'm confused. Are you not doing well?

Are you okay, man? I'll keep it simple. It is not a horror story. I made it into one. Fuck out of the internet, bro. 11 years. That's what people haven't been dying in their droves. Okay, so you're saying that every word of that story is true apart from the final four. Yes, yes, I could. They should actually be, no, no, I couldn't.

Basically, yeah. And I thought making light of it and, but then whispers of spread the word. And did you? Spread the word, I mean? I didn't. For 11 years, I've acted me. What do you mean? Sammy, wasn't it? Yeah. What the fuck? What the fuck was that? What? Episode one of Behind the Creepy Pasta.

A new podcast by Sammy Rayner. Outro and credits. What the fuck? What the fuck do I do? What the fuck do? Why did he show me that? That's... That's not like the creepy pasta images. That's not like anything. My head's tearing itself apart. I need help.

David. I need to speak to David. Okay, okay. I'm going to email you a link to a sound recording. I need you to listen to it, then call me back. Here's the link. JPEG 2. What?

No, no, I didn't attach a JPEG. I didn't. What's it called? It's called, who's smiling now? Don't open it. Don't open it. Don't open it. Don't... Weird. We don't hear from Sammy in years, and then this? I'll check out the recording. But I'm so curious about this image. It's the exact dimensions of our cover art, too. Maybe if it's creepy, we can use it for an episode. Maybe it'll help spread the word.

3 is done. For our final tale, we'd like to offer massive thanks to author Michael Lutz, creator of the original beloved online horror story, for granting us permission to use the story and assets in this extra special adaptation of Smile Dog, featuring additional material by Olivia White. And of course, it's our great pleasure to welcome back Sammy Rayner, who was with us in seasons 1 to 5 and was responsible for performing another beloved internet horror classic, Penpal, which can be found in the show notes along with all the smile dog material discussed in the story.

And if you too feel compelled to spread the word, then don't hold back. Tell all your friends about smile.jpeg and about us. I've been Jessica McAvoy, and this has been the New Decade episode three, in the past. This audio production is copyrighted, 2020 by Creative Reason Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors. No duplication or reproduction of this audio program is permitted without the written consent of Creative Reason Media, Inc.