Speaker 1: Welcome to you Stuff you Should Know from HowStuffWorks dot Com.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the Podcast from Hell. I'm Josh Clark,
Speaker 2: and there's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and Jerry's over there.
Speaker 2: So that makes the Stuff you Should Know the podcast
Speaker 2: special Halloween Bonus Episode twenty sixteen. This sequel.
Speaker 1: I think we've called this something different every year, from
Speaker 1: Spooctober to spectacular Spectacular.
Speaker 2: That was a good one.
Speaker 1: I think you're going to probably title this one so
Speaker 1: I just I can't wait to see myself.
Speaker 2: Uh yeah, I'm gonna have to give it some real thought.
Speaker 1: How about Live from Hell?
Speaker 2: From Hell.
Speaker 1: Speak for yourself.
Speaker 2: You're feeling good about this one?
Speaker 1: I always feel good. I've got my traditional Halloween hot toddy.
Speaker 2: Oh nice, made with candy corn sprinkle on.
Speaker 1: Top, candy corn and corn whiskey. It goes well to go.
Speaker 2: Heat it up.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you heat it up with some with some margarine.
Speaker 2: Oh man, you're making me cry.
Speaker 1: Here some pine nuts.
Speaker 2: It's delicious, straight out of a Georgia mom's kitchen. I
Speaker 2: wish man, you would get arrested if you tried to
Speaker 2: give that out to trick or treaters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, rightfully, yeah.
Speaker 2: So, Chuck, we have as we usually do, this is
Speaker 2: a this is a special bonus episode. It's an extra episode. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so it can come out on Halloween. It's beautiful. It's
Speaker 2: a gift from us. I guess you could say, as
Speaker 2: we do every year, and what we like to do
Speaker 2: is read a couple of short stories, scary stories, classic
Speaker 2: core fiction usually, but this year we're doing something different.
Speaker 2: We're doing something contemporary, like you like your story last year.
Speaker 2: And the other little land yap to that is that
Speaker 2: this year's first story comes from the Grabster.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the great Ed Grabanowski, who has written many many
Speaker 1: of the house stuff Works articles over the years that
Speaker 1: we've based our episodes on, and we've met ed he's uh,
Speaker 1: he's in Buffalo, right, Yeah, he's in Buffalo, and he
Speaker 1: wrote a great story. And I just want to warn.
Speaker 1: I feel like we need to warn this year. Yeah, parents,
Speaker 1: this one is pretty legit, scary, yeah, and creepy. So
Speaker 1: you know, maybe you might want to listen before you
Speaker 1: round your kids around the fire.
Speaker 2: To enjoy a Halloween hot hottie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a pretty good one.
Speaker 2: Again, I think the Department of Family and Children's Services
Speaker 2: should come to your house if you're giving your kids
Speaker 2: Halloween hot toddies.
Speaker 1: Yes, and just as a preview too. After this, we
Speaker 1: did something else a little different. We saw some two
Speaker 1: sentence horror stories from listeners the other day and it
Speaker 1: was a thing that I found is a thing like
Speaker 1: the two sentence story. How creative can you be? Creepy
Speaker 1: can you be? In two sentences? And we picked out
Speaker 1: twenty of the best ones, and so big thanks already
Speaker 1: to everyone who contributed, and sorry to the ones who
Speaker 1: did not get picked because a lot of more jokes,
Speaker 1: all right, we appreciated those, Yeah, but we tried to
Speaker 1: keep it real and creepy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like we want to scare the pants off of
Speaker 2: people this Halloween.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So that's the plan for the next what forty
Speaker 1: minutes something like that, probably not even yeah around there
Speaker 1: we make no time promises.
Speaker 2: So without further ado, we're going to start with the
Speaker 2: first story by Ed grab Anowski. It's called Extraneous Invocat.
Speaker 2: None of these little incidents meant anything to me at first.
Speaker 2: I drew no connections. It started in the middle of
Speaker 2: a fall afternoon, sunny and crisp. We were packing up
Speaker 2: the apartment to move after two years in the same
Speaker 2: tiny space, we were making a little more money and
Speaker 2: moving to a slightly nicer neighborhood. The living room was
Speaker 2: a maze of cardboard boxes, stacked and taped and labeled
Speaker 2: or hanging open, half filled with the bits and pieces
Speaker 2: of life we collected over our few years together. I
Speaker 2: walked in from one of the two bedrooms with an
Speaker 2: armload of winter scarves and hats. Should keep these outer,
Speaker 2: or do you think we'll manage to find them before
Speaker 2: it gets too cold out? I looked at Laura, who
Speaker 2: has bent over a box with her back to me.
Speaker 2: Sun shone through the wide front windows onto her long,
Speaker 2: dark hair. She shuddered. Then, not a physical shutder, not
Speaker 2: like a seizure, or like the twitch you see when
Speaker 2: the film is about to break at a movie theater.
Speaker 2: She flickered. I blinked, thinking some thing was in my eye,
Speaker 2: but she was silent and oddly still crouching low over
Speaker 2: the box. Then I noticed her hair. Just a second ago,
Speaker 2: it had been swept sleekily across her neck and shoulders,
Speaker 2: soft and curled, but now it hung in thick, wet strings,
Speaker 2: hiding her face from my view entirely. It was all
Speaker 2: so strange. It happened so quickly. I don't really remember
Speaker 2: what I was thinking. Mostly I was mildly irritated that
Speaker 2: she hadn't answered my question. But a numbness crept up
Speaker 2: my spine as I realized something was not right. Laura
Speaker 2: louder this time. Perhaps she moved slightly, I wasn't sure,
Speaker 2: but she remained silent, and my vague feelings of strangeness
Speaker 2: escalated quickly. A note of panic crept into my voice.
Speaker 2: Is something wrong? She let out a sound that I
Speaker 2: hesitate even to think about. The closest I can come
Speaker 2: to describing it as a sort of clicking sigh. At
Speaker 2: that moment, she shuddered, twitched again, and it seemed as
Speaker 2: though the room brightened. Without realizing there had been a change,
Speaker 2: I saw that her hair looked as it had before,
Speaker 2: and she was busily wrapping glasses in tissue paper and
Speaker 2: lining them up in a cardboard carton. My rising wave
Speaker 2: of dread crested then, and when I called her name again,
Speaker 2: she mistook the note of urgency for anger. She turned,
Speaker 2: frowning and snapped what I think. I just stood there,
Speaker 2: blinking stupidly at her for a moment and already my
Speaker 2: mind had rejected the entire experience. I just zoned out
Speaker 2: there for a minute. Sorry, I said, should we pack these?
Speaker 1: A few days later I called her at work. One
Speaker 1: of the other women in the office answered, no, Laura
Speaker 1: wasn't in. Yes, she was a little late coming back
Speaker 1: from lunch. No, they didn't know where she'd gone. She
Speaker 1: didn't usually leave the office for lunch, and she was
Speaker 1: hardly ever late for anything. But I didn't think twice
Speaker 1: about it at the time. Later that week, I happened
Speaker 1: to thumb through a local newspaper and a small article
Speaker 1: in the city news section caught my eye. Witness claim
Speaker 1: stranger walks downtown streets. A homeless man was attacked on
Speaker 1: the city's west side yesterday afternoon, although police are having
Speaker 1: trouble getting a description of the attacker. Hail Thomas Donovan,
Speaker 1: fifty two, of no permanent address, reported the attack at
Speaker 1: one thirty pm after passers by found him huddled on
Speaker 1: Dearborn Street near the Cray Island Railroad bridge. He was
Speaker 1: yelling incoherently and was quote visibly terrified end quote. According
Speaker 1: to the police report, he was treated for trauma and
Speaker 1: released from sisters of Mercy Medical Center, although witnesses believed
Speaker 1: the man was not physically injured. In his statement to police,
Speaker 1: Donovan only said that he quote met a stranger end
Speaker 1: quote under the bridge. Police confirmed that they received two
Speaker 1: other reports that day of a quote strange person end
Speaker 1: quote on the city's west side. Nice thank you.
Speaker 2: The apartment was mostly packed up at that point. We
Speaker 2: were living on frozen pizza, eating off of paper plates
Speaker 2: for the next few days. Every night we went to bed,
Speaker 2: exhausted from ping and lugging boxes around. That night, I
Speaker 2: read in bed for a short while as Laura fell
Speaker 2: asleep beside me. She lay on her side, her back
Speaker 2: to me. When I set down my book and turned
Speaker 2: out the light, I leaned forward to kiss her good night.
Speaker 2: She made a soft, happy sound and snuggled back into me. Briefly.
Speaker 2: I was soon as sound asleep as she was. When
Speaker 2: I awoke, I had no idea what time it was.
Speaker 2: Our alarm clock had long since been packed, and Laura
Speaker 2: was using her watch alarm to wake up for work
Speaker 2: in the morning. It was still extremely dark. The only
Speaker 2: light of feeble blue glow from the street light outside,
Speaker 2: filtered through shade and curtains. Guessing it was about three AM.
Speaker 2: I stretched sleep stiff muscles and turned over to face Laura.
Speaker 2: She still had her back to me, sound asleep on
Speaker 2: her side. In the dim light, I could see the slow,
Speaker 2: shallow rising and falling of her breath. I reached out
Speaker 2: to gently stroke her hair until I fell back asleep.
Speaker 2: It was ice cold and soaking wet. Oh boy, I
Speaker 2: frozen place, body instantly rigid as the memory of the
Speaker 2: afternoon packing incident flooded me with terror. My throat was
Speaker 2: tight and dry, adrenaline surging through me as I tried
Speaker 2: to keep my hands still, plotting how to withdraw without
Speaker 2: letting her know I was awake. I pulled my hand
Speaker 2: from that clammy mass as slowly as I could, fighting
Speaker 2: the urge to recoil in a panic. My fingers were
Speaker 2: tingling from fear, in another stronger numbness that spread down
Speaker 2: my arm as I tried to pull it back beneath
Speaker 2: the cover silently. Just then she made that chittering sound again.
Speaker 2: This time I realized what it was. She was laughing.
Speaker 2: I pressed myself hard against the wall on my side
Speaker 2: of the bed, heart slamming and skittering. Arms pressed tight
Speaker 2: to my sides My eyes were wide open, glaring into
Speaker 2: the darkness, watching the shape and the bed beside me
Speaker 2: for any kind of movement. I didn't know what was
Speaker 2: lying less than two feet from me. I remained that way,
Speaker 2: rigid with terror, for quite some time. I didn't sleep.
Speaker 2: I don't think I even blinked. I never noticed change,
Speaker 2: But at some point I heard a soft snoring, a
Speaker 2: familiar Laura sound. I relaxed somewhat, but a few minutes later,
Speaker 2: when she stirred and rolled over, my every muscle pulled
Speaker 2: taut with apprehension. But it was just Laura, peaceful in sleep.
Speaker 2: My fear ebbed away, and in the absence of adrenaline,
Speaker 2: my eyes refused to stay open. Although I slept soundly,
Speaker 2: I woke with stiff, sore muscles. My shoulders ached, and
Speaker 2: I remembered vaguely that I dreamt of being chased through
Speaker 2: my childhood neighborhood, desperately hopping fences and cutting through yards
Speaker 2: to escape some unseen pursuer. Laura came back into the
Speaker 2: bedroom just before she left for work. She looked down
Speaker 2: at me with a look of concern. Did you sleep okay?
Speaker 2: She asked, You look pale? She reached out a hand
Speaker 2: to touch my cheek, and I flinched, looking confused and hurt.
Speaker 2: Laura's stepped back. What she smelled the sleep of her shirt?
Speaker 2: Do I smell bad? What's wrong? The unconscious jolt of
Speaker 2: fear brought the previous night's encounter back to the forefront
Speaker 2: of my mind. But already the defensive mechanis some of
Speaker 2: the human psyche where at work, diffusing the memory as
Speaker 2: I convinced myself it was part of my dream. No,
Speaker 2: it's not you. I think I was having a nightmare
Speaker 2: when I woke up, and I'm still a little foggy.
Speaker 2: She gave a half smile and leaned down to kiss
Speaker 2: me goodbye. I reached up to give her a quick hug,
Speaker 2: feeling the warmth of her body and her soft skin
Speaker 2: against my face, and she was gone.
Speaker 1: All right, bad things are happening in this relationship starting
Speaker 1: to pick up, isn't it. Yeah? It's uh every dan's
Speaker 1: worst nightmare. The wife becomes a shape shifting ghoul right
Speaker 1: with wet hair that you can't get your hand out of.
Speaker 2: They don't call ed the Grabster coma master of terror
Speaker 2: for nothing.
Speaker 1: All right, here we go. That night, Laura left for
Speaker 1: a two day conference in Memphis. I dropped her off
Speaker 1: at the airport and got back to the apartment around
Speaker 1: nine at night. There wasn't much to do, since most
Speaker 1: of the packing was finished and we were just waiting
Speaker 1: for the occupants of our new apartment to move out.
Speaker 1: I had a TV in the couch, everything else was
Speaker 1: sealed in boxes. I ordered a pizza and settled in
Speaker 1: to watch a baseball game. At about one am, I
Speaker 1: woke up with a stiff neck. I'd fallen asleep at
Speaker 1: an odd angle on the couch. The game was long over.
Speaker 1: An infomercial bathed the room and flickering bluish light, but
Speaker 1: I turned the volume very low so I couldn't hear
Speaker 1: what they were selling, some kind of exercise equipment. It
Speaker 1: wasn't the infomercial or sore neck that awakened me, however,
Speaker 1: it was the early autumn chill that pervaded the apartment.
Speaker 1: Puzzled and still groggy, I sat up and realized that
Speaker 1: the door of the apartment was open. Not good at
Speaker 1: that moment. I also noticed a foul odor, like rotted meat.
Speaker 1: Very bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, who wants that?
Speaker 1: I walked to the door, seeing that the outer door
Speaker 1: was also hanging ajar. It was gusty out and the
Speaker 1: night air was blowing straight down the hall. I closed
Speaker 1: both doors, certain that I hadn't forgotten to latch them
Speaker 1: shut earlier, but I could come up with no other explain.
Speaker 1: Neither could I find any source for the smell, which
Speaker 1: was fading quickly. There was literally no other food in
Speaker 1: the house, and the garbage was outside in the dumpster.
Speaker 1: My two am sleuthing skills exhausted, I gave up and
Speaker 1: went to bed. The night's sleep was uneventful. Maybe he farted.
Speaker 2: I think that's the subtext of the whole story. I
Speaker 2: think so they were both just farting on each other.
Speaker 2: On Saturday morning, I picked Laura up at the airport.
Speaker 2: That night was to be our last at the apartment,
Speaker 2: but we were still in limbo. Everything packed, nothing to
Speaker 2: do but wait. Even the cable had been shut off.
Speaker 2: We spent the afternoon and evening seeing a movie and
Speaker 2: having dinner at a nearby restaurant. The televisions over the bar,
Speaker 2: usually tuned to a ballgame, were buzzing with news about
Speaker 2: a recent murder. An old woman had been found mutilated
Speaker 2: in her home. They kept showing footage of a man
Speaker 2: in a suit, a detective, I guess, walking out of
Speaker 2: the house with his hand over his mouth, his eyes
Speaker 2: wide with shock. Our spirits were subdued when we got
Speaker 2: back home, and before long we went to bed. That night,
Speaker 2: that unbearable, unthinkable night, started out much like before. Something
Speaker 2: woke me in the deepest hours. I had no sense
Speaker 2: of time, but it was very dark. I immediately knew
Speaker 2: something was wrong. I'd been having tense and disturbing dreams,
Speaker 2: partly from the news stories about the murder, faceless men
Speaker 2: in suits knocking at my door, walking around the house,
Speaker 2: peering into the windows. But something other than a nightmare
Speaker 2: was contributing to my malaise. She made the sound, that laughter,
Speaker 2: that hideous, mind wrenching sound no human could make. My
Speaker 2: body went numb with terror, and I gasped out loud again.
Speaker 2: I shrunk to the far wall, pressed against it, my
Speaker 2: eyes frantically scanning the blackness for movement. I couldn't imagine
Speaker 2: passing another night like that, straining to hear, praying that
Speaker 2: nothing happened. But I felt the bed shift. A of
Speaker 2: cold air, reeking of rot bathed my face. The shape
Speaker 2: in the bed beside me rolled over. Yeah, this guy's good.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: If I live for a thousand years, I will never
Speaker 2: forget that face. It was my wife's face, but corrupted,
Speaker 2: as though my wife was being worn by something that
Speaker 2: was not the same shape as her. The mouth was
Speaker 2: stretched in a wide rictus, literally from ear to ear.
Speaker 2: An inner set of black, oily lips curled back in
Speaker 2: a manic smile, uncovering a row of impossibly large teeth.
Speaker 2: I could see things caught in those teeth. The eyes
Speaker 2: were huge, glistening black, no iris or pupil. The nose
Speaker 2: was distorted in a thin ridge bone with narrow slits.
Speaker 2: The scalp and hair seemed to hang loosely, as if
Speaker 2: partially detached from the skull beneath. And yet the model
Speaker 2: gray skin of a thin neck disappeared into my wife's
Speaker 2: pale blue night shirt. It was an obscenity. It crawled
Speaker 2: across the bed toward me, unnaturally agile. Those eyes widened,
Speaker 2: the grin somehow stretching the jaw working at a bizarre speed. Still,
Speaker 2: that sound issued from its throat. I tried to scream,
Speaker 2: but my throat was clenched in terror. A hand gripped
Speaker 2: my shoulder, terrifyingly strong and cold as ice. Its face
Speaker 2: was inches from mine now, the mouth opening wide, it screamed.
Speaker 2: It was a shrill, screeching roar of deafening volumes, so
Speaker 2: loud it made my eyes hurt. As it screamed, it
Speaker 2: shook violently. Its cold, wet hair flailed and fell in
Speaker 2: thick ropes across the face, But the cold, black eyes
Speaker 2: stayed focused on mind.
Speaker 1: Boy, it really paints a picture.
Speaker 2: It's gonna take a lot of corn, whiskey and candy
Speaker 2: corn to wipe this one from everybody's mind. Wow, But
Speaker 2: we can try.
Speaker 1: Can't we. We met Ed's wife or girlfriend, wife, lovely woman.
Speaker 2: Yes, she's My hair's totally dry and of the normal temperature.
Speaker 1: And my husband's crazy, crazy talented. All right, here we go.
Speaker 1: When I awoke, the room was flooded with sun. I
Speaker 1: have no idea what happened. I can only assume that
Speaker 1: I passed out from sheer terror. Laura was already up showering.
Speaker 1: I went to the other bathroom to wash a strange
Speaker 1: chemical taste out of my mouth. In the mirror, I
Speaker 1: noticed that thin trails of blood had seeped from the
Speaker 1: corners of my eyes then dried. Somehow I got through
Speaker 1: that day. I stayed busy with loading the moving van,
Speaker 1: unloading at the new apartment. Unpacking, I avoided Laura. I
Speaker 1: didn't know what to think or what to do. I
Speaker 1: finally convinced myself that whatever had happened was probably related
Speaker 1: to the apartment itself, since we were moving, I was
Speaker 1: escaping whatever it was. But I woke up in the
Speaker 1: middle of the night again. We were sleeping on the
Speaker 1: mattress on the floor, surrounded by boxes. My heart was
Speaker 1: slamming in my chest. As I looked at Laura. She
Speaker 1: seemed to be sleeping peacefully, lying on her side, facing
Speaker 1: away from me. That made it even more of a
Speaker 1: shock when I heard the sound the laughter again. It
Speaker 1: seemed so loud though I tried to get up, get
Speaker 1: out of bed, and away, but I could not move
Speaker 1: my limbs. The clicking laugh sound came again. At this
Speaker 1: time I felt it. I felt it come from my
Speaker 1: own throat. My limbs began moving then, but I was
Speaker 1: not in control. I was a passenger. I put my
Speaker 1: hand on Laura's shoulder, squeezing hard. It was my hand,
Speaker 1: but not my hand, gray skinned and clawed. It woke
Speaker 1: her up. Hey ow. As she rolled over and I
Speaker 1: began to pull at her shoulder, opened her eyes and screamed.
Speaker 1: Just as her arm toward breathe. I could see clearly
Speaker 1: her eyes had gone glassy with terror and pain. Underscreen
Speaker 1: was soon cut short. I can only hope she went
Speaker 1: into shock before most of what came next. I was
Speaker 1: not in control, but I watched it all happen.
Speaker 2: Wow, the end, all right? That is extraneous invocat by
Speaker 2: the great ed Grebanowski and.
Speaker 1: Chill bumps literally on my arms.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder what that thing's gonna do with the
Speaker 2: rest of its day, what comes after that?
Speaker 1: And by the way, mister protagonist, it's not the apartment.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, that was wishful thinking.
Speaker 1: I was moving with you to the new apartment.
Speaker 2: He's like, it's a it's fine, yeah, stay, the pure
Speaker 2: dark evil will just stay behind in this apartment for
Speaker 2: the next tenant to deal with.
Speaker 1: I'm sure it's just this crappy studio, This two bedroom
Speaker 1: we're moving into will be great, right.
Speaker 2: And what is the spear that stabbed Jesus Christ and
Speaker 2: the ribs doing under the bed?
Speaker 1: So, by the way, we're gonna get into our two
Speaker 1: sentence horror stories. But something jumped out at me. If
Speaker 1: you're into this two sentence thing, an interset of black,
Speaker 1: oily lips curled back in a manic smile, uncovering a
Speaker 1: row of impossibly large teeth. I could see things caught
Speaker 1: in those teeth. That's how you do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, uh yeah, I thought it might even be unfair
Speaker 2: to be like Grabster, you got a two sentence yeah story.
Speaker 1: He'd say, pick out any two sentences of anything else
Speaker 1: I've ever written and light a cigar. Oh wow, boy,
Speaker 1: that was a good one.
Speaker 2: That was a good one. Man. I'm pretty pretty psyched
Speaker 2: we use that one.
Speaker 1: Does he have a lot of these?
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's he's a One of the things he does
Speaker 2: is right horror.
Speaker 1: Well, he might just become our guy next year. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna I'm not sure if it's gonna work. But I
Speaker 1: found out that Stephen King has something called his dollar Babies.
Speaker 1: Have you heard of this? No, he has a list
Speaker 1: of stories, short stories, like probably twenty of them on
Speaker 1: his website called his dollar Babies that have not ever
Speaker 1: been optioned for anything. And if you submit, and you know,
Speaker 1: apparently it takes like a month to get responded to.
Speaker 1: So we didn't have time. But if you submit and say, like, hey,
Speaker 1: I'm a student filmmaker, I'd like to make this as
Speaker 1: a project, He'll say, fine, give me a dollar and
Speaker 1: have at it.
Speaker 2: That's awesome.
Speaker 1: So I might see if we can do a legit
Speaker 1: Stephen kingwin next year for a buck. That is really
Speaker 1: cool man, And we'll see. That's just neat that he
Speaker 1: does that though. Yeah, dollar babies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's pretty cool. It's like weird Al Yankovic tweeting
Speaker 2: the phone number the payphon he's standing by. You know,
Speaker 2: it's along the same vein.
Speaker 1: When did he do that in the eighties?
Speaker 2: No, No, not too long ago. He tweeted it and
Speaker 2: then whoever called first, he just sat and talked with
Speaker 2: us for like twenty minutes while he's waiting for a flight.
Speaker 1: That's pretty cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's a cool guy. If there's one thing that
Speaker 2: everybody knows about weird Al, it's that he is deeply cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah. All right, So, like we said, we're going to
Speaker 1: finish up today with twenty two sentence stories that people
Speaker 1: sent in, and we appreciate the creativity these are. We're
Speaker 1: probably gonna critique them as we go because we're us. Sure,
Speaker 1: but I think everyone left the name for the most
Speaker 1: part and where they were from.
Speaker 2: But some are abbreviated, yeah, sure, some have the pronunciation
Speaker 2: even Yeah.
Speaker 1: And we tried to read a bunch of these on subreddits,
Speaker 1: and I tried to weed out the ones that were plagiarized.
Speaker 1: So if any of these turn out to be plagiarized,
Speaker 1: and shame on you, and I'm sorry to the original authors.
Speaker 2: Yeah, nice, Chuck, how's that that's pretty good? A little shaming, Yeah,
Speaker 2: pre shaming, and I believe you've not been found out yet,
Speaker 2: but shame on you.
Speaker 1: So I believe we're also going to have a little
Speaker 1: creepy bed of ambient sounds here as well.
Speaker 2: If there's one thing Jerry does, it's it's horror.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I see here in the corner, and now she's
Speaker 1: cranking up the ambient horrorse.
Speaker 2: There's a monkey with the cymbals, but it's a real monkey,
Speaker 2: but it's dead.
Speaker 1: It's weird. All right, you can go ahead and take
Speaker 1: the first one there.
Speaker 2: Okay, this one comes from Jamie Clark. No relation as
Speaker 2: far as I know, from only Texas. Not related to
Speaker 2: that town either. Jenny walked into her home to see
Speaker 2: flowers on the dinner table with the note I love
Speaker 2: to watch you sleep. She called to thank her husband,
Speaker 2: but was interrupted by the masked man's reflection in the base.
Speaker 1: Pretty good, boom. I just thought it was creepy enough
Speaker 1: that her husband would say I love to watch you sleep.
Speaker 2: Yeah, apparently they're into that kind of thing, though. They've
Speaker 2: got that in there, like a whole fetish of pretending
Speaker 2: you're sleeping or dead and then like that you're revived
Speaker 2: by the person who you're having conjugation with. I'm sure
Speaker 2: that's the thing, conjugation that this is what it's called,
Speaker 2: all right.
Speaker 1: This one is from Canam true Ax or true traw
Speaker 1: t r u a X Saint Cloud, Minnesota Truaw.
Speaker 2: That's a great name, Canum Truaw.
Speaker 1: And this one's is wonderful because it's nice and concise.
Speaker 1: Only part of my wife came back. I wish I
Speaker 1: hadn't stopped payment on the check.
Speaker 2: Boom.
Speaker 1: Not bad.
Speaker 2: A lot of violence against women in horror. Have you
Speaker 2: ever noticed that?
Speaker 1: H Yeah, it's a saying, don't say, yeah, let's let's
Speaker 1: kill some husbands, how about it? Right?
Speaker 2: You're ready?
Speaker 1: Sure?
Speaker 2: This one comes from Murph. Oh, buddy, Tyler Murphy from
Speaker 2: Rapid City, South Dakota. Murph, a great guy, by the way,
Speaker 2: who we also met at the Denver show.
Speaker 1: Yeah. He gave me a right home from the Denver
Speaker 1: show man, drove me all the way to Atlanta.
Speaker 2: And then took a left and went up to South Dakota. Okay,
Speaker 2: you're yeah. As I sat there feasting upon my freshly
Speaker 2: made ham sandwich, it struck me as odd that I
Speaker 2: had no other name for it. I mean, it tastes
Speaker 2: like ham, But by what other name would I refer
Speaker 2: to the flesh of my mother? Woman? Violence against woman?
Speaker 1: That's right, Tyler Murphy, school teacher, putt putt golf worker
Speaker 1: for now, all right? This one is from Sophie Court
Speaker 1: and Waterford, Oireland, And here we go. Sophie, she's been
Speaker 1: sitting in the same spot for three years. I dress
Speaker 1: her up and we mourn her anniversary together.
Speaker 2: Nice. Well, so far, that one's my favorite.
Speaker 1: That's pretty good.
Speaker 2: All of them have been great. You did good job
Speaker 2: curating these on That one's a good one.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that. Well, I didn't write it, soph He
Speaker 1: appreciates that.
Speaker 2: This one comes from Donovan Stone from Sydney, Australia. But
Speaker 2: he includes the caveat that he wrote this well on
Speaker 2: holiday in Kyoto. And then we should add the caveat
Speaker 2: that holiday means vacation.
Speaker 1: Right, and that on holiday means hopped up on sake
Speaker 1: in Tokyo or.
Speaker 2: Kyoto kyoto saki and tofu you ready? Yep, mom, what's
Speaker 2: that noise? Your mother's not coming home? The voice replied,
Speaker 2: thought of that on vacation, man, you know dark days demented?
Speaker 1: Right. This one is from Scott w of unknown origin.
Speaker 2: Who may or may not exist.
Speaker 1: Frankly, Yeah, the creepy clown eagerly fulfilled my request to
Speaker 1: make me a balloon animal. Then suddenly his face broadened
Speaker 1: with a sinister grin and did a swift motion his
Speaker 1: razorlike teeth burst my latex skin. Nice scared a balloon animal?
Speaker 2: Right? He managed to insert a joke in there, but
Speaker 2: it remained scary. Still.
Speaker 1: What was the joke that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, he wanted to be made in made a balloon animal,
Speaker 2: and it made him into a balloon animal.
Speaker 1: And find that funny?
Speaker 2: That's jokey? Sure, okay, okay. This one comes from Raimi
Speaker 2: Fights from Indiana, great name. Nowhere, in particular in Indiana,
Speaker 2: Just Indiana. They are reproducing faster than anticipated with teeth
Speaker 2: fully formed. Unusual. Indeed great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like a lab notebook. All right. This is
Speaker 1: from Mary Abel in Houston, Texas. I woke with a start,
Speaker 1: and my eye scanned the room for the source of
Speaker 1: the crash. A man crouched in the corner, and although
Speaker 1: his mouth was stitched clothes, I clearly heard him hiss, run,
Speaker 1: hm hmm.
Speaker 2: Indeed, yeah, that was good. Good voice acting too, Chuck,
Speaker 2: appreciate that this one is from Krista coryvo. We got
Speaker 2: the pronunciation included from Montreal, Quebec, Canada, currently occupied kneeling
Speaker 2: on the platform before my family and friends. I heard
Speaker 2: the sound of the guillotine descending and I closed my eyes,
Speaker 2: bracing for impact. I feel no pain, and I'm relieved
Speaker 2: there was a malfunction. However, as I breathe a sigh
Speaker 2: of relief, I slowly opened my eyes and see the
Speaker 2: bloody stump of a neck where my head used to be.
Speaker 1: That one art podcast on that sure very topic.
Speaker 2: What was it? A do you stay conscious at your decapitation?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Apparently Christa thinks so a lot.
Speaker 2: Of commas in that one. Yeah, managed to extend it
Speaker 2: quite a bit. That's right, way to go, Krista.
Speaker 1: All right, this for Andrew Butler of unknown origin. I'm
Speaker 1: so sorry, he said, as he released pressure from her
Speaker 1: neck wound. Thanks to the blood loss, she was gone
Speaker 1: before the stake entered her art.
Speaker 2: I like how you made him sound almost sarcastic.
Speaker 1: Oh did I?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Okay, so sorry, Okay, I'm up. This is from
Speaker 2: Thomas Berdino from Hutchinson, Kansas. After singing Happy Birthday, I
Speaker 2: told my five year old daughter to blow out the
Speaker 2: candles and make a wish. She sat frozen, unblinking as
Speaker 2: she stared emotionlessly at the candle flames, and finally she whispered,
Speaker 2: I wished for gasoline.
Speaker 1: I like that, kid, Oh you do?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 1: Firestarter?
Speaker 2: All right?
Speaker 1: Lauren Hellman from Montgomeryville, Pennsylvania nice. Her eyes fluttered, and
Speaker 1: the smell of earth pulled her further into consciousness. A
Speaker 1: scream welled in her throat as she realized that her
Speaker 1: arms were pinned beside her in the blackness and the
Speaker 1: air would not last. Hey, nothing like a good buried
Speaker 1: alive story.
Speaker 2: Nope, And it was a her. I like that one.
Speaker 2: Do you ever see that they remade Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Speaker 2: in the eighties? Did you watch it?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Oh? Man, it was great. It was fantastic, right. And
Speaker 2: one of the ones that I remember more than any
Speaker 2: other was it was one where this these two prisoners
Speaker 2: had this deal where one of them would pretend like
Speaker 2: he was dead. No, he was going to climb into
Speaker 2: the casket of a dead prisoner, get get transferred out
Speaker 2: of the prison buried, and then the other prisoner, who
Speaker 2: was in charge of like I guess yard keeping or whatever,
Speaker 2: would come dig him up like a half hour later,
Speaker 2: and then he would be set free. Right. Well, the
Speaker 2: the plan goes according to everything's going according to playing.
Speaker 2: The guy crawls into the casket and encloses it, and
Speaker 2: then he gets buried, and he's got like one match
Speaker 2: or something, and when he lights the match, he sees
Speaker 2: that he's in the casket with the man who's supposed
Speaker 2: to dig him up.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I love it, that old trick. Yeah, all right, uh,
Speaker 1: now you're up.
Speaker 2: I think I just used the term with that anecdote,
Speaker 2: don't you go ahead? Okay? This one's from Dan Lewis
Speaker 2: l from Grand Rapids, Michigan. Jones's heart was still racing,
Speaker 2: but as she jolted back to consciousness, she became aware
Speaker 2: that her feeling of sickening dread, of trying to get
Speaker 2: away from an evil unseen force was nothing but a
Speaker 2: terrible dream. She was relieved for a full second before
Speaker 2: she realized the sound that jarred her awake was the
Speaker 2: sound of card makes as it breaks through a rickety
Speaker 2: guardrail before she drove off the side of the cliff
Speaker 2: sleep drive in quite a twist.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't see that coming. I didn't either. Well,
Speaker 1: themb on Louise's action.
Speaker 2: I've never seen that movie. Is it good?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's terrific.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'll check it out.
Speaker 1: We'll talk about ahead of its time. Sure, it's a
Speaker 1: feminist fantasy.
Speaker 2: Nice, all right?
Speaker 1: Moving on? Uh this is from Oh, this is from
Speaker 1: Hilary losar Our Buddy Low's in Montana. Oh yeah, with
Speaker 1: the flat heeadlike cheese loses. Yeah, the cheese in the
Speaker 1: mic los ars mm hmm.
Speaker 2: The whole lozar client.
Speaker 1: Find people also a teacher with a dark side.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 1: Here we go with a horrible feeling of dread and
Speaker 1: a wretched, lighthearted tinkling sound. I fumbled for what seemed
Speaker 1: to be an eternity, finally dropping the primitive key I'd
Speaker 1: worked so hard for weeks to fabricate outside my cell door,
Speaker 1: to be snatched and dragged down the drain by the
Speaker 1: hordes of rats waiting below. My execution is tomorrow at dawn.
Speaker 1: A bit of a run on Low's, but well crafted.
Speaker 2: Plus I'd appreciated her word tinkling. Yeah, yeah, it's the
Speaker 2: brain going. Sure does that's a one of those words
Speaker 2: that does that.
Speaker 1: Did you know that? Oh? That like literally has an
Speaker 1: effect on your brain? Well, in my opinion, Yeah, okay.
Speaker 2: This is from Brian Coe of Lake Stephens, Washington. The
Speaker 2: monster Hunter stared in shock as the swarm of Ghoul's
Speaker 2: race past him, each bearing a look of horror. As
Speaker 2: they vanished into the murky night, He slowly turned to
Speaker 2: face what had terrified them.
Speaker 1: I like that one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's good stuff.
Speaker 1: Scary things are scared of something else.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's not good, not good. That's not one
Speaker 2: of those situations where the enemy of your enemy is
Speaker 2: your friend. I think it's your toast is the ultimate outcome.
Speaker 1: You know what my brother used to do to me.
Speaker 1: We always hear great stories about Scott. This was how
Speaker 1: he tormented me. I think he still does this occasionally
Speaker 1: when he remembers. I would be like our bedrooms were upstairs.
Speaker 1: We had a Jack and Jill scene up there, and
Speaker 1: when I you know, Jack and Jill bathroom bedroom situation.
Speaker 3: Right right, but that scene, yeah, yeah, And I would
Speaker 3: when I would be going up the stairs, he would
Speaker 3: like be at the top of the stairs and he
Speaker 3: would look in horror.
Speaker 1: At something behind me, and I would bolt so fast
Speaker 1: up the stairs, scared out of my mind. And I
Speaker 1: wouldn't even look back. And he did that to me
Speaker 1: a lot.
Speaker 2: And you never caught on, huh, or you just weren't
Speaker 2: willing to take the risk.
Speaker 1: Now, one time it was true a good it scared me.
Speaker 2: That's hilarious, man, Man, Scott is the bomb.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it makes you like it even more. Uh. Where
Speaker 1: are we.
Speaker 2: Here, Matt Saylor?
Speaker 1: All right, sallyar is it mine?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Okay, yes, Matt Salor from Southwest Kansas. Doesn't matter where
Speaker 1: you are in Southwest Kansas.
Speaker 2: That's all the same, one giant town.
Speaker 1: They get it wrong. You know. The greatest trick I
Speaker 1: the devil ever really pulled was convincing the world that
Speaker 1: God exists. The undulating amiba of despair and madness made
Speaker 1: what amounted to a cackle before it reached forward, and
Speaker 1: I succumbed to the dark.
Speaker 2: Nice, Okay, I'm up, I'm up. This is Taylor from Iowa,
Speaker 2: as generic as it comes. Uh. It wasn't the fact
Speaker 2: that he ate the meat that surprised Harold, who knew
Speaker 2: that any other man would, upon finding himself in such
Speaker 2: a sorry state of affairs, also find himself fustly tempted. Now,
Speaker 2: it was the fact that he enjoyed it that surprised
Speaker 2: him that moonless winter night behind the medical lab. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's where you get meat if you're a sick.
Speaker 1: Oh, Jess g in Pittsburgh, and I think Pittsburgh had
Speaker 1: a deleted it, but it had an exclamation point. Even
Speaker 1: you deleted it's from Pittsburgh. I thought it might ruin
Speaker 1: the vibe. But we've already done that.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, long ago.
Speaker 1: All right, here we go. It didn't matter how fast
Speaker 1: or how far he ran, he always woke up in
Speaker 1: the same place, in the same skin, in the same nightmare.
Speaker 2: Mm h, good's it's appropriately vague. Nice, this is from
Speaker 2: Jacob Riley Graves, who is either an author or a
Speaker 2: serial killer from Wellsville, New York. Another day, my pockmarked
Speaker 2: teenage face behind a faint blue monitor, reveling in the
Speaker 2: joys of the Internet, safe and unaffected in my periphery,
Speaker 2: the wall warps and let's out of pain, scream. My
Speaker 2: sense of reality is torn asunder and I am broken.
Speaker 2: And clever use of colon's there instead of periods, it's like,
Speaker 2: don't put a period, just put another dot ahead of
Speaker 2: it and it's not a period.
Speaker 1: That was good. I like it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, way to go, JR.
Speaker 1: All right, we're gonna wrap it up here with Michael
Speaker 1: McGuire in Northampton, Massachusetts. Every year on the day, the
Speaker 1: whole town would gather to hear the song and the well,
Speaker 1: and every year on the day, the song would grow shorter,
Speaker 1: the girl's voice fainter, boom, sad.
Speaker 2: That is an amazing two sentence story. I think, Michael McGuire,
Speaker 2: did you purposely end with is arguably the.
Speaker 1: Best of all That was rando.
Speaker 2: That was really good. Nice choice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very sad too, And I agree with you, Josh.
Speaker 1: Too many women and girls getting punished here. Yeah, let's
Speaker 1: work on that and start cutting off arms of men.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, it's true. The thing is, though, is I
Speaker 2: mean like it is a recurring theme in horror violence
Speaker 2: against women? Yeah? Usually, though you can make the case
Speaker 2: that it is only a woman that survives any given
Speaker 2: horror movie.
Speaker 1: Too true.
Speaker 2: You know, look what happened to Kevin Bacon Skeward true?
Speaker 2: And what was that Friday the Thirteenth Part three?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, And let's not even talk about what they
Speaker 1: do in minorities in horror movies. That's almost not almost,
Speaker 1: that's a trope beyond tropes at this point.
Speaker 2: Right exactly, So the yeah, we should say the white
Speaker 2: woman survives?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Crazy? Yeah. Well, if you if you have an explanation
Speaker 2: for this, we want to hear it. You can tweet
Speaker 2: to us at s YSK podcast. You can hang out
Speaker 2: with me at joshuam Clark, and you can hang out
Speaker 2: with Chuck on Facebook at Charles W. Chuck Bryant. You
Speaker 2: can hang out with Stuff you Should Know on Facebook
Speaker 2: at Facebook dot com. Slast you should do send us
Speaker 2: an email to Stuff Podcast at HowStuffWorks dot com. And
Speaker 2: I guess before we sign off, Chuck, we should say
Speaker 2: happy Halloween, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have a safe Halloween, be careful out there,
Speaker 1: and can't wait to do this again next year.
Speaker 2: Yep, we'll see you out there on Halloween at our
Speaker 2: luxurious home. On the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com.
Speaker 1: For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
Speaker 1: HowStuffWorks dot com