Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Behind the plaster were bones. In the cabinets, something squealed
like a pig. And in the witch House, when the
dead start to stir, they don't stop until you are
(00:21):
inside the walls with them.
Speaker 2 (00:25):
There's a shiell in the air. Must befall.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
Join me for.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
A tale of Halloween. You will experience tales over over ghosts,
and dam it is not recommended for the weak at heart.
(00:56):
Join me for a Tale of oul.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Is Weekly Spooky. Hello, my spookies, It's the second day
of October and Spooky season is rocking and rolling. So
(01:25):
what better way to get into the spirit of the
season then move in to the Witch House. But before
we get to that, I just want to say thank
you so much for spending a little bit of your
October with me. We hear at Weekly Spooky celebrate Halloween
all year long, but when the most wonderful time of
(01:49):
year comes around, well we go all out and we're
happy to have you. So make sure you're subscribed on
your favorite podcasting app. And while you're at it, why
not leave us a five star rating on Apple Podcasts
or Spotify. It truly helps the show by showing other
(02:09):
spookies they're in the right place, and if you want
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head to Weeklyspooky dot Com slash join and for as
little as one dollar a month, get two bonus shows
every single month, as well as five years of creepy
pasta readings and exclusive audiobooks at Weeklyspooky dot Com slash Join.
(02:32):
Head over there and join over ninety other spookies and
making sure we can keep bringing you the show for
another six years and beyond, and make sure to come
back tomorrow when Joe Solmo brings us a terrifying tale
of Tricker Treating and the murderous sickle Jack. But as
(02:54):
for tonight, what if the place you called home had
already been claimed the funeral parlor turned apartment building where
every wall hides carcasses, curses, and the restless dead. Freddy
thought he was just renovating a house until the whispers,
(03:15):
the shadows, and the thing in the cabinets reminded him
some doors should never be open. We go into the
witch House after this in The Witch House Walls by
David o'hanley. For months, Freddy had felt like he was
(03:39):
out of his mind. Now his mind was out of
him and dripping down the dry wall of the apartment.
The top of his head was missed in the air,
and chunks on the foe wood lamin it. One of
his molars had landed in the plastic pumpkin full of
(04:00):
fun sized candy bars. Pieces of his scalp clung to
the ceiling, turning the attached hair into black tinsel. The
shotgun at his feet had done everything he expected it
to except one. That fucking figure's Freddy's spirit said. Nine
(04:23):
months before giving his living room a fresh coat of
cranial Crylon Freddie had purchased the old Steinbeck funeral home
with the intent of converting it into several apartments, two
family units on the first floor, four single bed efficiency
units on the second, and a studio on the third.
(04:47):
It had been a painstaking project. The building had served
as Kuto Basin's only mortuary for almost thirty years. After
a terrible spat of deaths in nineteen forty five, Stuart
Steinbeck's mind broke and forced him to retire from his
macab occupation. The funeral parlor became his home. The horrible
(05:13):
things Stuart had seen during that year haunted every waking moment,
and he remained a recluse until his death in the
winter of fifty eight. Despite the home's dark origins, none
of the previous owners had ever experienced anything out of
(05:34):
the ordinary while living there. Freddie made sure he got
that part in writing he wasn't about to have tenants
breaking leases over Poltergeist's. After all, the property had been
in surprisingly good condition by the time Freddie purchased it.
(05:54):
None of the previous owners had bothered renovating outside of
a few minor comforts and a large in ground pool.
If they had, maybe they could have saved him a
small fortune and eventually his fucking life. He'd planned on
having the unit available by summer to use the pool
(06:16):
as a selling point, but he realized that wasn't going
to happen. As he tore down the first wall, Desiccated
animal carcasses hung behind the century old plaster, wrapped in
rotting cloth, like mummies of the hundred acre wood. Alongside
(06:38):
them were clusters of dried whorehound and sage. Every room
the contractors tore into they found more of the same. Squirrels, raccoons, cats,
and even a pair of piglets had been extracted from
within the spaces. Freddy was loose, using money on his
(07:01):
investment with each new discovery, but he was also losing
his mind with each one they removed. And it wasn't
just him either. Fewer workers returned to the job site
with each passing week. At first they complained of noxious smells,
(07:22):
missing tools, and whispered voices in empty rooms. Then they
started getting sick. His foreman had vomited blood and maggots
across the new kitchen a day after finishing the first
downstairs apartment. By July, Freddie and his girlfriend O Dallas
(07:46):
had moved into the house to finish the work themselves.
They worked day and night, and by the middle of
September they had gotten three second floor us ready, plus
the one downstairs opposite their own. They lowered the rent,
(08:08):
they waived the application fees, yet no one was applying.
The construction workers had told everyone about what they had
found inside his walls. The locals had begun whispering, and
over the months they'd given it a name. No one
(08:28):
wanted to live in the Witch House, or maybe they do,
O Dallas said from across the kitchen island. Both of
them were covered in drywall dust from the last of
the high efficiency units. The next day, o dallas would
start painting it while he began work in the attic.
(08:51):
The studio was the last thing to do before Freddy
could finally say he'd conquered the nightmare that had won
once been his dream. He didn't even see a point anymore, though.
Kuto Basin was full of ghost stories, and nobody was
going to move into an apartment that might turn them
(09:13):
into one. The stacks of applications we don't have, says otherwise.
Freddie picked the sesame seed from the big mac bun.
We're going to have to torch the place for insurance
while we can still fucking afford to pay for it. Baby,
it's almost Halloween, she'd said, conspiratorially. People want things to
(09:36):
make sense. They want to get what they're promised. Lean
into it, sure, Freddie forced himself to say he didn't
realize what day it was. Lean into it. We can
decorate all the apartments, o'dallas continued. We throw a Halloween
(09:57):
party as an open house. He will scare the shit
out of them and they'll love us for it. There's
no way that'll work. Freddie pushed the value meal into
the trash with everything else. He hadn't eaten that week. Tomorrow,
I'll get matches, Freddie, we can do this. Oh, Dallas
(10:19):
took his hand. Despite the grit of dry wall and plaster,
they were still soft. Her one hundred dollars nail job
was wrecked, but she was smiling. Those two goddamn cute
dimples told him he was wrong about everything. Freddie hadn't
slept good in weeks. He'd lost almost twenty pounds in
(10:43):
the last month, and every single part of him ached.
He was racking up his credit cards so Odallas wouldn't
see how fast they were running out of money. But
those dimples and that smile with her slightly bucked teeth
gave him enough hope to work. One more day. She'd
(11:05):
always done that, given him the one more day that
turned into one more week, one more month. Everything he'd
accomplished in the last five years had been because of
her smile. Remodeling the Witch House was no different. He
would have given up in the summer, but O'dallas had
(11:27):
smiled and promised him they could make it work. That's
just who she was, his sweet smiling guide straight into hell.
You're not safe yet, weekly Spooky will be right back
(11:48):
The next day, Freddie began work in the attic. The
floorboards thrumbed beneath his sneakers from whatever Odallas was blasting
on the bluetooth speaker. He thought about going to get
the other one from their bedroom, but two flights of
stairs could fuck right off. It was going to be
(12:09):
a hard enough day. The attic had been cleared of junk,
and the basic framework of the bathroom and kitchenette had
been finished by the contractors before they flaked out. Freddy
would need to hire a real plumber and electrician before
he could make the loft available to renters, but he
(12:32):
could finish the demo and get the insulations and drywall installed.
He tapped the crowbar against the rear wall, listening to
the hollow echo from the space beyond. Freddy wasn't sure
what Stuart Steinbeck had used the attic for in his lifetime,
but it certainly hadn't been storage. There were stories, of course,
(12:57):
The basin was full of stories. Freddy used the bar
to scratch away a pealing flap of half century old
wallpaper of carousel ponies. Someone had lived in the space
once upon a time. Someone's going to live here again.
Freddy said, cocking the crowbar over his shoulder. Someone with
(13:23):
better fucking taste. His first swing did little more than
stir up a cloud of dust and dislodge some more
wallpaper fragments. The second went straight through the plaster, as
did the third. He shoved the hook end inside the
hole and jerked back with everything his emaciated body had
(13:45):
in it. A fissure split down the wall, racing along
its length in a widening spider's web of cracks. Freddy
started to scream. As the dust cleared. He gagged, but
didn't have anything in his stomach to actually throw up.
Another of Steinbeck's stuffed animals hung there, twisting on its noose.
(14:11):
The empty eye socket stared at him as it turned.
Dried sage protruded from between the shriveled lips and dingy
yellow teeth. You sick, motherfucker, Freddy wheezed, covering his mouth.
He tossed the crowbar at the wall. The entire structure
(14:34):
pulsed at the blow. The plaster began to fall in pieces,
clacking and knocking onto the wooden floor like hailstones ahead
of a tornado. Freddy backed away slowly, never taking his
eyes off the desiccated lamb. The plaster came down in
(14:56):
an avalanche, spilling out across the floor to meet him.
He coughed and fanned at the air. As the dust settled,
he saw the animal was not alone. Freddy sank to
his knees, trying to catch his breath. Since construction began,
(15:18):
he was sure he had seen every animal in Ohio
in its mummified form, every animal except for one. Hidden
behind the wall. Were six lambs, three on either side
of the withered, leathery thing that occupied the middle. Unlike
(15:40):
the farm animals that hung from the neck, this one
had its limbs bound tightly. Freddy didn't know how, but
he knew that meant the child had been alive when
the wall went up. Baby, come back to bed, oh,
(16:07):
Dallas grumbled sleepily. I am in bed, Freddie said bleakly.
He stared at the ceiling, wondering what time it was.
He hadn't told her what he found in the attic,
aside from saying it was more of Steinbeck's voodoo shit.
(16:27):
Once he'd ripped down the rest of the walls to
make sure there were no more human remains, he'd stuffed
the carcasses in thick black trash bags and hefted them
into the open topped dumpster out back. That was so weird. Oh,
Dallas yawned, rolled over and draped her arm across him.
(16:51):
I thought you were in the closet. Freddie kissed the
top of her head. The leaven conditioner was oily on
his lips, and the floral scent made him want to sneeze.
His eyes fell on the closet. Maybe it was one
of his coats hanging just right, but it did look
(17:15):
like someone was there. Freddy returned to his vigil, staring
straight through the textured ceiling and into that damned attic.
He'd given the dead kid its own trash bag. That
was the best he could do as far as a
proper burial goes. Reporting it was out of the question.
(17:40):
The kid had been there since the fifties. They probably
would have died of old age already, so it was
unlikely anyone was still around that would care that he'd
tossed the body into the dumpster with all the other
dead things. Freddie sighed as O'dallas started to snore. He
(18:01):
assumed it was all the paint messing up her sinuses,
because she even snored cute on a normal day. This
wasn't cute. It was more like snorting. Freddy worked to
emancipate himself from Odallas's slender body without waking her. He
(18:22):
eased off the bed and glanced back at the closet. Jesus,
that is creepy, he admitted, reconsidering his choice of opaque
frontages on the twin doors. Watching o'dallas sleep, it became
clear that she wasn't the source of the sound. Freddie
(18:46):
followed the noise, tracking it by volume until he'd isolated
it to the kitchen. Freddie flipped the light switch. His
eyes stung and blurred from the assaul. The shadows stretching
across the walls looked disturbingly human. As the organs adjusted
(19:08):
to the brightness, he rubbed at them with his palms.
Everything appeared once he'd finished. The noise had also ceased.
As Freddy turned to leave a guttural snort once more.
He spun on a bare heel, looking for the source.
(19:31):
The cabinet under the sink tapped once, then again. He
watched it move on the hinges as if something were
trying to open it from the inside, but wasn't quite
strong enough, it tapped and tapped, the efforts growing more frantic.
(19:54):
The animalistic grunting grew frustrated. Oh away, weakly, spooky, will
be right back. Rats. It can't be rats, Freddy whispered.
He went to the sink and grabbed a glass from
(20:16):
the drying rack to catch the intruder. He knelt in
front of the cabinet, chewing his bottom lip nervously. As
the animal's attempts escalated. He debated not looking. There was
no point seeing the vermin if he wasn't seeing the
income to deal with them. Let the little bastards be
(20:39):
until we get some tenants, he told himself that just
wouldn't do. However, they were just another problem on the
ever growing list of shit that was bleeding him dry.
At least he could kill this problem. That might make
him feel a little better. Dead rats aren't an issue
(21:03):
like that kid. Dead is gone and gone isn't a problem.
Freddie hesitated, thinking once more about the child's corpse he
dropped in the dumpster. What the hell is wrong with me?
This place is eating my fucking brain. That's what I
should have called the cops. I should have said to
(21:24):
hell with money. I should have done anything other than that.
He gripped the cabinet door and turned the glass over
to catch the past. You didn't do something else, though,
did you? Freddy? The animal had stopped trying to escape.
A sudden pig like squeal tore through the kitchen. The
(21:48):
glass slipped from his hand and shattered. The plaintive primal
cries grew louder and louder still, until he thought his
ears would bleed. The cabinet resumed its banging. Others joined
in on the symphony. Freddy crawled backwards across the floor
(22:10):
until he ran into the island. He slapped his hands
over his ears. The cabinet flew open, and the noises stopped.
Freddy pulled himself up, never looking away from the darkened
space beneath the sink. Eyes shined in the blackness. Freddy
(22:32):
crawled towards them. His curiosity overrode the urge to flee.
The thing beneath the sink snorted again, then oinked softly.
It moved forward, coming to the edge of the light,
but not into it. What's going on, oh, Dallas asked groggily.
(22:58):
She ran a hand through bed battered hair. It's late, baby,
we have a lot of decorating to do tomorrow. Freddie,
still on all fours, glanced back at her. I think
we have a rat or something. That's not a three
in the morning problem, she said, moving to him. Yeah,
(23:23):
you're right. Freddy looked back at the cabinet, only to
find it was closed. He sat up on his knees,
pulled himself up by the sink. There's nothing we can
do about it this early. You know what is a
three in the morning problem? Odalus let her hand slither
(23:45):
up his thigh and then walked her fingers to the
open fly of his boxers until they crawled inside to
grasp him. I'm not really, it's not a good time,
he stammered. I can change your mind. Odalas sank to
the floor. Fredy heard the broken glass crunch as her
(24:09):
knees settled on to the shards. He started to speak,
but was cut off by the sudden, warm, wetness of
her mouth engulfing him. Despite the nightmare fuel of the
previous few moments, he swelled inside her mouth. He had
barely rose to the occasion when he convulsed with the
(24:32):
first orgasm he'd had in months. O Dalas didn't let
his climax stop her as she moved a hand to
the base of his shaft and worked it in unison.
She moaned, grasping his ass with her free hand until
he felt skin breaking beneath the thin fabric. To his surprise,
(24:56):
he stayed hard. His eyes rolled back in his head
as she brought him to another body shaking ejaculation. Freddy's
ecstatic squeal matched the thing beneath the sink. As Odallas
finally let him slip from her mouth, his thoughts returned
(25:17):
to that terrifying thing he hadn't seen. Now, will you
come back to bed? Odallas didn't wait for his answer
as she walked away. Freddie stared at the shape of
her ass, barely concealed beneath one of his t shirts.
Then he noticed the blood rivlets of it running down
(25:42):
her calves from the cuts on her knees. Spots led
back to him and the puddle around the broken glass. Babe,
he called, but she had already left. He tucked his
deflating dick into his underwear and rushed to the bedroom,
(26:03):
needing to check on her. The drops got fatter wetter
as he followed her path. He pushed the door open
fully to their room and almost screamed. Odallas was sound
asleep just as he'd left her. A pig squealed somewhere
(26:27):
in the house.
Speaker 2 (26:30):
More scarce to come weekly, Spooky will be right back.
Speaker 1 (26:38):
Freddy said nothing about the previous night as they decorated
stolen glances at Odalas. While she showered showed no signs
of the cuts she'd gotten in the kitchen. He was
convinced he'd dreamt the whole thing. His inability to get
a heart on when she tried to instigate a morning
(27:00):
quickie had all but confirmed that for him he was
financially and morally broke, and now his cock didn't work either.
They worked all day to get the house ready. Purple
and orange string lights, fake spiderwebs, and foam jack o'
lanterns were the first things up. O'dallas strategically placed the
(27:25):
skeletons in corners and hung rubber bats from the ceilings
in all of the apartments. Freddie couldn't help much there.
Every time he tried to move the plastic corpses, he
remembered the mummified child and how its limbs had snapped
dryly as he forced them into the trash bag. He
(27:48):
offered to take care of the outside decor instead. Getting
out of the house would do him some good. Once
the basics were out of the way, he moved on
to harving a few real pumpkins. Odalas's plans seemed to
be working. Cars were slowing down to read the yard
sign promising a big party. Pedestrians were actually taking the
(28:14):
risk of walking on to the witch house lawn. People
seemed excited. Some even waved at him. Some even waved
at him and asked if they should wear a costume.
Freddie felt invigorated. Someone might actually rent one of his
damn apartments? Or is it damned apartments? He wondered, thinking
(28:39):
again about all the strange occurrences since they'd bought it,
Thinking again about the dead things in the walls, the sickness,
the accidents, the sulfurous smells, the sounds, thinking about the
doppelganger in the kitchen, a special about her. Oh, now
(29:03):
you fucking work again. Freddie stared at the bulge in
his jeans and decided it was time for a break.
Odalas must have had the same idea. He just started
up the stairs to the second floor when she ambushed
him on the landing. She took the carving knife from
(29:23):
his hand. Freddy's eyes froze on the sticky blade, positive
that he had left it stuck in the pumpkin on
the porch. He gasped as Odalas used it to cut
open his shirt. The knife fell from her hand, stabbing
into the floor beside their feet. Freddie grabbed her shoulders
(29:46):
and turned her around, pushing her against the guard rail.
He jerked her leggings down to her thighs, drawing excited
giggles from her. He tore at his zipper, finally wrestling
himself free and thrust inside her. He grunted as she
slammed herself back to match his efforts. His fingers squeezed
(30:10):
deeply into her hips. What the fuck, Freddy, Oh Dallas
shouted from downstairs. Freddie looked down at her with equal confusion,
His hand still pumped wildly on his shaft until he
realized what he was doing. He choked on the words
(30:30):
he was trying to say. Oh Dallas stood there, holding
the pizza she'd brought home for dinner. Freddie looked from
her to the last bit of light coming from the
front door. It had been midday when he came inside.
Are you serious right now? She asked, You weren't in
(30:51):
the mood this morning, but I go get food in
your What are you doing christening the fucking house? She
threw down the peace zza and stormed into their apartment.
Freddy slumped to the floor, cradling his head in his hands.
O'dallas slammed the door. Nothing made sense anymore. He heard
(31:13):
the pig rutting around in the attic. A breeze coming
from one of the apartments carried the same musty stench
as all the dead things he'd pulled from the walls.
He pried the knife from the floor and went to
look for the open window that was letting the odor
in from the dumpster. Then he'd go kill that fucking
(31:38):
pig rat or whatever it was. He wandered through unit
two o three, carefully eyeing Odallas's decorations. The bats seemed
to flap their wings as the outside air blew in.
She'd done such a great job. He didn't know what
(31:59):
the hell was wrong with him, but he wasn't going
to let it ruin things with her. They were going
to have their party, and after that, finances be damned.
He was going to find a therapist. It was a
nervous breakdown. The stress had finally put too much weight
on him. Simple as that, who the fuck wouldn't break
(32:21):
in the witch house. Freddie closed the window and a
cabinet banged open in the kitchen. Freddie looked into the
eyes that hid within. You're not real, he whispered, You're
not there at all. The animal moved deliberately. Strands of
(32:42):
brown hair dangled over the precipice of the cabinet. The
child leaned its head back, glaring at Freddy with its bruised,
pale face, and smiled with broken and missing teeth. She
unfolded herself from the space, descending like a spider down
(33:03):
the counter and on to the floor. Freddy's hand tightened
around the knife. Someone knocked on the door, and he
turned to see Odallas standing in the entryway, naked and
bleeding from open cuts on her knees. She opened her
(33:24):
mouth to speak. Her voice was no longer the sweet,
soft sound of reassurance. It was a pig squeal. Stay back,
goddamn it, He sliced and stabbed at the air. You're
not real, You're not fucking real. The child sprang onto
(33:45):
his back. Her cold, withered arms wrapped around his neck.
Her legs seized him around the waist. Teeth scraped open
his scalp, and Odallas stalked towards him. Freddy tossed wildly,
trying to break free of the tangle of wet sheets.
(34:08):
They clung to him. As he fell over the side
of the bed. He forced himself to stand and peel
away the jersey knit skin. The blood staining his body
looked black in the darkness. The bathroom door squeaked open,
spilling its light onto the bed. The chef's knife laid
(34:32):
on the soggy pillow. Oh, Dallas wasn't there, or maybe
she was. Freddie reached for the leaking trash bag on
her side of the bed, but couldn't bring himself to look.
He already knew what was inside. It wasn't the first
(34:53):
body he'd shoved in one, after all. Freddy went to
the closet. It still looked like someone was in there.
He hoped there was. He prayed for some maniac to
jump out and kill him too, to cut him into
pieces and stuff him in a trash bag right next
(35:14):
to Odallas. At least if that happened, it would mean
the other thing hadn't. No one waited behind the door, however,
he retrieved the shotgun from the top shelf. Things got
rough in the old neighborhood. He swore he'd get rid
of it. Once they got the apartments up and running.
(35:36):
They wouldn't need it anymore, he told Odallas. He told
her he'd take care of her, and that they'd never
live in a place like that. Ever again, he hadn't lied. Indeed,
they wouldn't be going back to the old neighborhood ever again.
(36:03):
Freddie's spirit lingered in the living room. Not even suicide
had gone as planned. The cabinets banged and tapped and
opened in unison. He floated into the kitchen, leaving his
dead husk behind. Eyes watched him for their hiding places.
(36:24):
A rotting, bloodied o'dalus looked at him from across the island.
Maggots wriggled from between her lips. A tiny hand grasped his,
and he glanced down at the child leprous piglets with
their flesh falling off their bones, sat at her feet.
(36:46):
Something growled on one of the floors above him. The
echo shook the foundations of the former funeral home. Freddie
had always believed death was the end in the witch House,
it was only the second act, and that, my Spookies,
(37:11):
is the witch House where the walls whisper, the dead
still breathe, and the nightmare never truly ends. But don't
get too comfortable, because this is only night two of
our thirty one shows in thirty one days all October
(37:32):
long on Weekly Spooky. Every single day a new scare
is waiting for you. Tomorrow we ride out into the
crisp autumn streets with a group of boys looking for
mischief on Halloween Night, but instead of tricks, they'll stumble
into the legend of sickle Jack, the harvester of souls,
(37:56):
a pumpkinheaded terror with a blade as sharp as the
midnight win and a harvest no one escapes. So keep
your jack o'lantern's lit and your bicycles close by, because
tomorrow night, sickle Jack comes calling. And I want to
say an extra thank you to our Patreon podcast boosters.
(38:16):
Folks who head to Weekly Spooky dot com slash join
and sign up at the fifteen dollars er higher tier
to hear their name at the end of the show,
and they are Johnny Nicks, Kate and Lulu, Jessica Fuller,
Mike Ascuey, Jenny Green, Amber Hansford, Karen we Met, Jack
Kerr and Craig Cohen. Thank you all so much, and
(38:36):
if you want to hear your name in my silky
spooky voice, head toweeklyspooky dot com slash join and sign
up to help the show keep going and going well
past another six years and beyond. But now it's time
for me to get back to work, because I'll be
seeing you guys right here tomorrow to share the terror
tale of sickle Jack. So for myself, for my executive
(39:00):
producers Rob Fields and Bobotopia dot Com, my producer Dan Wilder,
and my composer Ray Mattis, be careful what you find
in the walls of your home. Trust me on that one.
I'll talk at you later. Thank you for listening to me.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Make sure to find your way back next week week.
But for now you are safe. Trust me,