CRYPT CLIPS: Spooky Stories for Pumpkin Carving

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
I'm Edward October. The sound you hear is a razor
sharp knife ripping through flesh, pumpkin flesh. This is the
start of October.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Pog.

Speaker 1 (00:35):
Well, here we are in the beating heart of the
Halloween season, and I'm delighted that you've decided to join
me for my little pumpkin carving party. When you hear this,
it will be the prime time for purchasing the pumpkins
that will be carved into jack o' lanterns this Halloween.
The sun has started to set more swiftly, the nights

(00:56):
are noticeably longer, and the air is smoky smelling beneath
ash gray clouds in the gathering twilight. You don't want
to go pumpkin shopping too early while it still feels
like summer. But you also don't want to get there
too late when all the best pumpkins have already been
bought up. Now, in my family, we've made pumpkin shopping

(01:19):
into a two part ritual. Step one reconnaissance. We'll pick
a nice, cool, sunny day in late September or early
October to scope out all the best pumpkin patches in
the area. There are three or four good ones near
us that we always like to check out. We'll throw
our latest Halloween playlist in the car stereo and go

(01:41):
on a mini road trip to each pumpkin patch, usually
a farmer's market or a garden supply store that sells
pumpkins in the fall, Christmas trees in the winter, and
seeds and flowers the rest of the year round. We
have a checklist which we use to rate each one
on the following criteria using a five point grading system.

(02:03):
Pumpkin quality. This includes size, cleanliness, and freshness. Believe me,
if you've ever sliced into a pumpkin that was rotten inside,
you'll not want to repeat that mistake twice. Pumpkin variety.
Do they only have carving pumpkins or do they also
have a selection of sugar pies, turbine squash, jack Belittle's,

(02:25):
fairy tales, cinderellas, baby boos, goose necks, and baby goblins
on hand as well non pumpkin products. Maybe you're also
in the market for carving tools, tea lights or scented candles,
or fall fruits and vegetables. Farmers market goods like apple butter,
pumpkin butter, apple ciders, cider, doughnuts, local cherry blossom honey

(02:48):
or moonshine jelly. And finally, we grate on overall atmosphere.
Does this pumpkin patch only sell pumpkins or do they
also have lots of fun decore up? Is there a
corn maize, a bouncy castle or other activities for the kids?
What about a big bonfire for roasting s'mores or complimentary

(03:09):
mulled cider. All of these factors go into consideration when
making our final ratings, and then, having settled on the
highest scoring pumpkin patch, the hard work is already done,
and therefore step two is simply returning one afternoon usually
the next day, drew the winning pumpkin patch and picking

(03:31):
out our pumpkins and any other seasonal supplies we may
need to stock up on. Well. As you can imagine,
I have some pumpkin shopping to do while I'm away
at the pumpkin patch. Why don't you listen to these
spooky stories to set the mood for our pumpkin carving adventure.

(03:51):
I'll be back during the intermission to share some of
my favorite pumpkin carving hacks.

Speaker 3 (04:02):
Keep it right here, Monster putt Rally a listener submitted
true story narrated by Amelia, co host of Pitney and
Amelia's Bitch and Boutique. Whenever money was tight, or if

(04:24):
I was between jobs, I'd work at the miniature golf
course my parents owned as a sort of side gig.
I'd work there off and on for over a decade
before discovering firsthand that it's very haunted. It's called Forbidden
Island Miniature Golf, located just off the strip in Mill Beach.

(04:46):
The building is shaped like a volcano, with red and
orange lights to make the waterfall look like lava. That
housed two eighteen hole courses, an outdoor course and an
indoor course. The outdoor course, which wound its way around
the base of the volcano, was Tiki themed, bright and happy,

(05:08):
with lots of tropical music playing over the stereo speakers
hidden throughout the course. The indoor course was a bit spookier.
It was themed like a cave filled with bloodthirsty pirates, treasure,
and a few monsters. The music here was a rip
off of the Pirates of the Caribbean soundtrack, but there

(05:30):
were also drippy, echoey ambient cave sounds. This course was
our bread and butter attraction on rainy summer days, or
in the off season when that was the only course
we'd open. This thing I'm about to tell you happened
in the off season. I don't know if you've ever

(05:52):
been to a beach town in the off season, but
it can be rather creepy, especially at night. Buildings that
are usually brightly lit are dark, the roads that are
usually clogged are empty, and places where you'd normally only
hear the bustle of commerce and tourism are now quiet

(06:14):
enough that you can hear distant crashing waves. Usually there'd
be two of us working, but on this night I
was closing by myself because everyone else had gone home early.
I rushed through the clean up and closed down routine
at the sales counter and in the lobby to the

(06:35):
indoor course. Now, the first task when closing up is
making sure all customers are out of the building and
that all doors are locked, which I did. I was
alone in the building and there was no way anyone
else could have gotten in. As soon as I'd finished
closing out the register, I heard a loud crash, crash.

(06:59):
Somewhere in the pirate cave. There was a back exit
on the eleventh hole of that course. It was a
glass door that we blacked out with some kind of
tinting film so that the daylight wouldn't affect the cave
light ambiance. And my heart started pounding because it sounded
exactly as if the glass on that door had been

(07:20):
shattered by someone breaking in. I got my brother on
the phone and had him FaceTime with me while I
crept out onto the pirate course to see what had happened.
For some reason, I didn't think to turn on the
big overhead floodlights, so I walked onto the course while
it was dimly lit with stage lights lots of red

(07:43):
and purple gels on everything, the perfect lighting for investigating
a break in or spooks. Needless to say, I was
terrified as I crept across the putting greens, especially the
ones that had dummies of murderous pirates, ghost pirates, and
fish monsters. I can't imagine how scared I'd have been

(08:06):
without my brother on the phone. There was no one
else on the course, and the back door that I
thought had been smashed in appeared to be intact. I
instantly felt both relieved and foolish, and turned my phone
around so that my brother and I were speaking face
to face. I was surprised that he didn't take this
opportunity to make fun of me for being a scaredy cat. Instead,

(08:30):
he told me to finish up as fast as possible
and to call him back when I got to my car,
so I switched off all of the lights and the
pumps to our indoor water features and locked up. It
was funny. Even though I was still relieved that nothing
had happened, I couldn't shake an eerie feeling, almost like

(08:50):
a faint sensation of raspy breathing on the back of
my neck. It made me jump once or twice. I'm
not gonna lie. I finally got everything locked up and
went out to my car to call my brother back.
As I promised. He was acting kind of funny on
the phone. He said, listen, I didn't want to scare

(09:11):
you back there, but I did see something. I asked
him what he meant, and he said that when we
were facetiming and I turned my phone around, he could
see a figure off in the distance, hanging by the
neck from a rope. He said it was the silhouette
of a girl backlit by a blood red floodlight. Fun fact.

(09:34):
After speaking to him, I figured he must have seen
this figure somewhere on the twelfth or thirteenth hole. There's
no red lighting on that part of the course. I said,
oh my god, let me hang up and call the cops.
And he was like, I think you're a little late
for that. That was just Nancy. We've all seen her.

(09:55):
She was hanged at the end of the Civil War.
Apparently everyone else in my family, including all the other
workers at Forbidden Island Minigolf, had encountered Nancy's ghost, and
nobody thought to tell me about it. Typical. I'm always
the last person to find out about anything in this family.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
A Haunting in Nola a true story narrated by Tara,
co host of the podcasts Three Spooked Girls and Social
Sounds Society.

Speaker 4 (10:29):
A few years ago, I was traveling alone on business,
teaching a corporate ethics course for a bunch of our
offices in the Deep South. I had a few days
to spare while I was in Louisiana and decided to
spend some time in New Orleans. I booked myself a
room in one of the city's many historic hotels. I've

(10:50):
been asked not to name it. Though the room was
one level below the top floor, it had a great
view and looked super comfy. After a long shower, I
walked to the Garden District for dinner. I think that's
the prettiest side of Nola, far removed from the beads
in the booze of Bourbon Street and just beautiful, oak
shaded streets with historic homes, all lined with intricate wrought

(11:12):
iron gates and fences.

Speaker 5 (11:14):
Magical.

Speaker 4 (11:16):
When I got back to my room, my television was on,
although I had thought I had turned it off. No
big deal. I switched channels to a true crime documentary
and set out the beignet I had brought back from
the cafe for late night snacking. The ice bucket was dry,
so I stepped out of the room to go fill
it with fresh eyes. When I stepped inside, it was
dark and silent. Both the overhead light and the night

(11:38):
side lamps were off, as was the TV. There had
been rumbles of distant thunder all night, so I figured
it was just a little power search. I put the
lights back on, turned the TV back on, but no
channels were coming in. They were all blue screens. So
I switched it off, turned my bignet, and read a
few chapters of a book before calling it a night.

(11:58):
I turned off the overhead lights and left the bedside
lamp on the lowest setting, and readily fell asleep. I
woke up in the middle of the night to the
crash of thunder and lightning overhead. Since I was awake,
I quickly used the restroom and then headed back to bed.
In the short time I had been out of it,
all of the linens had been rolled off my bed
and now lay on the floor at the base, including

(12:19):
the fitted sheet, all rolled together, not simply thrown in layers.
I was only half awake at this point, so I
told myself that I must have done all of this
when I was getting out of bed. Groggy as I was,
it seemed plausible that I could have done that and
not remembered. My TV was still off, my door was
still closed and locked, and even the nightstand light was
still on. I was frustrated because I certainly didn't feel

(12:43):
like remaking a king sized bed in the middle of
the night, but shy of any other good option, it
appeared I would be I painstakingly remade the bed folded
the heavy comforter at the bottom, since I embarrassingly worked
up a little bit of a sweat from the task
and laid under the shit sheets. At this point I
was awake enough to try the TV, but I wouldn't

(13:04):
turn on. This was weird since my light was still on,
as was my little alarm clock. But see above whatever.
I closed my eyes just long enough to doze when
a strong fragrance startled me. It was so intense it
felt like it was in my nose and in my mouth.
It was vaguely floral, but artificial, and all but nauseating.

(13:26):
I sat up with my nose wrinkled and cut my
hand over it, trying to figure out what it was
and where it was coming from. And as I did,
I watched the heavy folded comforter get pulled at a
slight angle and fall completely off the foot of the bed.
I immediately crawled after it and went as far as

(13:47):
to extend a hand to try to grab it before
it hit the ground. It was too late, as it
was crumpled to the carpet, and from underneath I saw
long golden brown curls stretched across the floor as well.
I one hundred percent raced backwards crab style to the
top of the bed and plastered myself against the headboard,

(14:08):
not breathing, still surrounded by that sickening smell, and seriously
thought I might die from the unexpected sight. I didn't,
but I nearly did again one second lighter when the
thunder rolled and lightning flashed outside my window in the alley. Again,
my light stayed on, thank God, but I did scream.

(14:33):
There was one last small power surge. My light flickered
but didn't go out, and my television turned on to
the same blue screen as before. But in the second
the lamp and TV flickered, I swore I saw a
shadow of a woman hair down dress, facing away from me,
just at the foot of the bed. After several minutes,

(14:56):
the blue screen of the TV changed back to the
cable footage, and I I heard the rain slow then stop.
I leaned over to the other side of my bed,
the presumably unhaunted side, and turned on that lamp too.
It was three in the morning, and I had the
TV blaring and two lamps on, and that's how I
stayed until about six am. Two spooked to close my eyes.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
Encounter at Terrytown a listener submitted true story narrated by
Edward October. All this happened in nineteen ninety three. I
was just twenty one years old, getting ready to graduate
with my bachelor's. Back in those days, me and my

(15:49):
friends used to go on weekend road trips to haunted locations.
We took trips to the bunny Man Bridge, the Happy
Birthday House, the Monroeville Mall, and the Graveyard to the
Living Dead. My birthdays in late October, so the gang
thought it'd be a gas to celebrate my twenty first
at one of the bars in Terrytown, New York. Terrytown,

(16:11):
as you probably know, really plays up this sleepy hollow
business for the tourists. They go all out with Halloween
decorations and there's headless horsemen shit everywhere. We had a
late supper and we're headed to the bar at about
ten o'clock. Now this is important. What happened next happened
before we started drinking. It was me, my roommate Campbell,

(16:36):
his girlfriend Denise, and my girlfriend Elliott. Now this was
a long time ago, so the town's probably changed a
lot since then. But on this night, the restaurant we
ate at was across a bridge from the bar we
were headed to. I don't remember the name of the bar,
but it had a pumpkin headed horseman on the sign.

(16:56):
It was a nice but chilly night, so we left
our cars at the restaurant and just walked across the bridge.
Now I know you're probably thinking of one of those
old covered bridges, like the one with a Ichabod cartoon.
It was nothing so romantic, just an overpass really, two
lanes of traffic with a narrow sidewalk that crossed over

(17:18):
a little wooded park and a creek. It was a
cold night, even for that time of year. It wasn't
any traffic except for the leaves blowing down the hill.
We started out for the bar, and we were just
about to step up onto the sidewalk portion of the
bridge when Campbell and I bumped into a woman. She

(17:41):
was climbing a set of stairs that led up from
the little park. She was wearing wire rim glasses and
dressed in a frilly colonial era costume. We didn't find
her appearance remarkable because this was, after all, sleepy Hollow.
It was a Halloween town in late October, and we're
always doing some sort of historical recreation or other. In fact,

(18:05):
there's at least one historical building with a tavern in
it where the waitresses wear period costume. Anyway, we bump
into this lady and Campbell says something like excuse me
or oh, I'm sorry. The girls are by now way
ahead of us, and Elliot looked back and said, who
are you guys talking to? We said this lady, but

(18:26):
when we looked, she was gone. No possible way she
could have sneaked off without us seeing her. Well, we
didn't think much of it, so across the bridge to
catch up with the girls on the other side. Me
and Campbell looked back at the spot on the bridge
where we'd bumped into the colonial lady, and there was
now a tall, slender figure who was wearing a black

(18:50):
hood and looked very much like the Grim Reaper. Couldn't
see its face, but it had glowing red eyes. Looked
straight at Campbell and pointed, well, how we got out
of there. We grabbed the girls by the arm and
ran the rest of the way to the bar. We

(19:12):
sat until closing and got much drunk. As Denise used
to say, I think we ran up the biggest bar
tab of my life that night still as much fun
as we had. Me and Campbell couldn't get the sight
of that grimm reaper out of our heads. Exactly one

(19:33):
week to the hour after that encounter, in Tarrytown, Campbell
was in a car accident. He was driving home from
his job at the coffee shop when a wah wah
truck swerved into oncoming traffic and smacked right into Campbell's car.
They say he died instantly. I believe the thing on

(19:55):
the bridge was a warning. I wonder if Campbell's I
saw it again the night he died. I wonder. I
wonder if one night I'll see it again too.

Speaker 6 (20:17):
I used to go fishing with my daddy just about
every weekend. I never caught anything. Mostly I just hold
my rod. Sometimes I didn't even bother to bait my
hook and just enjoy being outside with my dad. One morning,
I guess I was in middle school at the time.
We got up before the birds and drove out deep
into a hauler to fish a hole. A guy from
Dady's work told him about conditions for land, and some

(20:40):
big ones were ideal, and there wasn't anyone around for
miles probably, but for whatever reason, we didn't get so
much as a nibble all morning. Daddy got frustrated and
suggested we go for a short hike to stretch our
legs a bit.

Speaker 1 (21:00):
Grasshoppers, narrated by Autumn create oor host of Autumn's oddities.

Speaker 6 (21:11):
We weren't too far down the trail when Daddy stopped
and put a finger.

Speaker 3 (21:14):
To his lips.

Speaker 6 (21:16):
You hear that, he asked. I strained to try to
pick out the sound he was talking about, and then
I heard a hushed, wooshing sound, like a mess of
cicadas hollering in the distance. Daddy said, I believe him
were grasshoppers. We hiked a little ways deeper into the
brush until we came across a small clearing that was
nothing but high weeds and wildflowers. In hindsight, it was

(21:38):
a good place to get snake bit, but we weren't
thinking about that because all we could see was a giant,
swirling green cloud of swarming grasshoppers. So we ran back
to the truck.

Speaker 7 (21:49):
To get some fishing nets because Daddy wanted to catch
a mess of them for bait. Now, usually a fishing
net wouldn't be sufficient for catching grasshoppers, but there were
so many of them that we'd just had to wave
the net in the air and it'd probably fill him
up real quick. I think Daddy could see I was
scared to wade into the big cloud, and so he
told me to stay at the edge of the clearing

(22:10):
and he'd be back after he filled his nets.

Speaker 6 (22:13):
And then he disappeared into the cloud. That's how thick
it was.

Speaker 2 (22:17):
They were everywhere, and once inside the swarm, you'd probably
have about maybe five feet of visibility.

Speaker 6 (22:24):
Daddy was taking a long time, and I got worried,
so I went in after him. When I got close.

Speaker 2 (22:28):
To the swarm and it was loud in there, I
could tell that these weren't any kind of grasshoppers I'd
ever seen. They were a lot bigger and spike heer,
with big, deep red eyes, and when they landed on you,
those mothers could bite anyway. When I got to the
edge of the swarm, I could see Daddy silhouetted in

(22:49):
the center of it, just standing there. I ran in
to get him, but just when I was about a
foot away from him, I could see that this figure
wasn't my daddy. He was tall and covered with grasshoppers
landing and crawling all over him. He didn't even try
to swap them away. He was all black, like a shadow,
except for his eyes. His eyes stared down at me

(23:11):
and they were wide and white, with tiny black pupils
at the center. I was about to scream, and then
I fell to hand grip my elbow.

Speaker 6 (23:19):
This time it was Daddy, and he pulled me back
to the edge of the clearing.

Speaker 2 (23:24):
I told him what I saw, and he said there
wasn't anybody else around for miles and miles. He told
me I was probably a little creeped out by the swarm,
and that my eyes were playing tricks on me.

Speaker 6 (23:34):
It seemed awful real though the sight of the shadowy
man still keeps me up at night if I think
about him too much. Anyways, we fished with those weird
grasshoppers we caught for the rest of the summer, best
bait I ever fished with. Really. Daddy used them and
caught a bass so huge that he had it mounted.
It's hanging up in the living room to this day.

Speaker 1 (23:57):
Happy Birthday House adapted for Ogtood by John Eiger, based
upon true accounts narrated by Sarah, host of Freaky af podcast.

Speaker 8 (24:08):
In My Hometown When I was growing up. We didn't
have Bloody Mary. I mean, that just wasn't a story
anyone ever told. But we did have something similar. We
had Carrie and Kathy. They call her carrion Kathy because
as a ghost she kind of looks a bit like

(24:28):
roadkill or rotten meat. Fun fact. One of October POD's
earliest episodes was inspired by this legend. Kathy's backstory is
kind of stupid. She lived in a niceish house with
her asshole parents, you know, real corporate ladder climbers. The
story goes that Kathy's birthday was either on Halloween or

(24:52):
Friday the thirteenth. I could never keep it straight anyways.
One year, her asshole parents for her birthday, her sweet
sixteen Kathy, who wasn't all there mentally, flew into a rage.
She killed her whole family with her dead shotgun and
then slit her wrists with a razor. She bled out

(25:16):
and died on the couch right next to her dead parents,
but not before writing happy fucking Birthday to me on
the bathroom mirror in her own blood. The house was abandoned,
but it still stands mostly and everybody calls it the
Happy Birthday House. Now, legend has it that if you

(25:38):
go to the Happy Birthday House and look in that
bathroom mirror and chance happy Birthday to me five times,
Carrie and Kathy will appear right behind you in the
mirror and either kill you or drag you to hell. Allegedly, so,
on Halloween night during our senior year, me and my

(25:58):
friends thought it a good idea to find the house
and summon Kathy. The house was creepy af and looked
just the way you'd expect. It had two bathrooms and
the mirrors, and both had been broken. However, kids had
spray painted Happy fucking Birthday on every wall of the house.

(26:23):
At the time, I thought the story was a lot
of horseshit, so I volunteered to be the one to
look in the mirror. We knew the mirrors and the
house would be broken, so we brought our own. It
was just past midnight and there were no lights other
than a weak flashlight we'd brought. I propped the mirror

(26:44):
against the bathroom sink and staid the words five times,
and of course nothing happened. We all went home that
night feeling a little foolish and a little disappointed, but
very Stone Oops, I guess I forgot to tell you
that part. Weird things started to happen. The next day,

(27:08):
I got out of the shower and got the shock
of my life when I saw the reflection of a
girl standing right behind me in the bathroom mirror. Her
skin was gray and her hair was matted, and she
was looking at me with these black eyes filled with hate,
and her face Jesus Christ. I can't even describe it,

(27:33):
but it looked like the personification of death and decay.
I rolled around, but there was no one there. I
saw her again the next day in the rear view
mirror of my car as I was backing out of
the driveway. She must have been close enough to touch

(27:54):
my bumper. That night, I caught sight of her in
a big mirror behind the dining room table. She was
staring at me from the four year at the bottom
of the stairs. I saw her at least once every
day for the next week, Each time she was a

(28:15):
little farther away, until the day she didn't appear at
all when I went home to college. She had appeared
to me whenever I went home for holidays or between semesters.

Speaker 1 (28:29):
I got so.

Speaker 8 (28:30):
Bad that I started covering the mirrors in my room
and bathroom. To this day, I still see her sometimes
and always whenever I visit my parents' house. It scares
me every time. I don't think I'll ever get used

(28:50):
to staying her face.

Speaker 5 (28:53):
I've told this story before, but here it is again.

Speaker 1 (28:58):
Camping Retreat a truce story narrated by jt co host
of the podcasts Brew Crime and Ghost Bites.

Speaker 5 (29:07):
A coworker of mine invited me to get out of
the city one weekend and go camping with him and
a few other guys. The idea was that we'd drive
out to a hunting lease park the truck night a
little ways down the trail, with a few cases of
liquor and beer and get drunk in the woods. After

(29:27):
a few drinks, we got bored. One of the guys
said that there was a clearing a little ways off
where you could see for miles. It was a clear
night and you could even see the lights of the city.
We were about halfway up to the top when we
all started to smell something rotten. It was pitch black

(29:49):
except for the beams of our headlamps, but they didn't
offer too much visibility. Just what was straight ahead, we
looked along the ground for a dead animal, maybe a
your carcass. Even more creepy, when the breeze kicked up,
we could hear a faint, squeaking noise. We assumed this

(30:10):
was just the noise as trees make when they sway
in the wind, but it was unnerving. It didn't bother
us enough to turn back. We were full of liquid courage,
after all, so we kept going. The view turned out
to be awesome, and we sat up there nursing beers

(30:31):
until the sun started coming up. When we turned to
hike back, we could see the woods in the morning light.
The smell of rot was still there on the same
stretch of the trail, and now that we could see
where we were going, we again started looking for the
source of the smell, and then we saw it, hanging

(30:57):
by a rope, about two or three meters off the trail.
It chills me to think we had walked so close
to it in the pitch black of the night. Who
was a man in a dark business suit? Suicide? We

(31:18):
called the police, and when they got there, they said
that judging from the state of him, he must have
been hanging there for three days. Three days at least.

Speaker 1 (31:33):
Box Sola's Mansion written for October pod by John Iger,
narrated by YouTube's Lady Vengeance.

Speaker 9 (31:45):
Gladys was a husky teen who was always taking dares
because she wanted to prove that she was just as
tough and courageous as all of the boys. One day,
they dared her to spend a night alone in baux
soola mansion. Oh that's easy, she said, like taking candy

(32:05):
from a baby. What'll I get in return if I
do it? The boys conferred on the matter and said
they'd give her Albert's new Scout knife, the one with
extra blades and a can opener. Gladys agreed, but Albert
and the other boys wanted proof and said that if
she wanted the Scout Knife, she'd have to explore six

(32:26):
rooms and bring back a trophy from each room. Gladys
agreed and made plans to meet up with Albert and
the boys the next morning to exchange her six objects
for the Scout knife box. Sola's Mansion wasn't really a mansion.
It was actually an ugly, dilapidated hotel on the edge

(32:46):
of town, and it hadn't seen visitors or rather paying
customers for as long as anyone could remember, box Sola
was a circus clown. He juggled, did magic tricks, and
could throw his voice, who came into a generous legacy
and retired to buy and run his tiny little hotel.
But what no one knew was that box Sola the

(33:09):
clown was a depraved killer. According to local legend, he
had used the hotel to trap his victims and murder
them in the wine cellar. Gladys had heard the story
from Albert, and Albert swore up and down on a
stack of bibles that his grandfather, who was chief of
police while Bo Solo was alive, had unearthed dozens of

(33:31):
bodies buried in the rose garden or hidden inside the walls.
But Gladys didn't believe most of the stories people told.
In fact, she thought it was all a lot of
superstitious nonsense. The sun was just starting to set when
Gladys made her way to the mansion. It looked like
a black mountain peak rising up from the dense tangle

(33:53):
of briars and thistles on the unkempt lot. A grand
staircase greeted her when she opened the front door, and
on either side of it sat the dainty furniture of
the former lobby, draped in rotting white cloth like little ghosts.
There were three guest rooms on the second floor, two
guest rooms on the third floor, and one guest room

(34:15):
the presidential suite in the attic. Gladys decided to start
at the top floor and work her way down, collecting
an item from each of the six guest rooms before
it became too dark to see. On the top floor.
In the presidential suite, Gladys was surprised to see all
of the furniture had been removed. All that was left

(34:36):
in the stately room was a clown costume on a
seamstress dummy. The costume looked half a hundred years old.
It was white with red and blue dots, pink pom
palms up the chest, a frilly pink collar, and red
and blue ruffles at the cuffs. Box. Sola's name was
written on a tag inside the collar. Gladys thought this

(34:59):
would be an excellent trophy to exchange for the Scout knife,
and so she took it off the dummy and stuffed
it into her knapsack. On the third floor, she found
two identical guest rooms in each room stood a bed,
a nightstand, a dressing table with a mirror and washbasin,
a rocking chair, and an old claw foot bathtub hidden

(35:20):
behind a folding screen. On the dressing table of room
three oh one, she found a makeup kit and a
tube of pure white grease paint. Gladys thought this would
be an excellent trophy to exchange for the scout knife,
and stuffed the tube of grease paint in her knapsack.
Inside room three oh two, Gladis saw that the old

(35:41):
claw foot bathtub was filled with hair human hair, blonde hair,
red hair, jet black hair, hair from a brunette. Some
was braided, some tied with a bow, some snipped off
with scissors, and some ripped out by the roots. Gladys
reached in and took a lock of braided golden hair

(36:02):
and stuffed it into her knapsack as a trophy. The
three rooms on the second floor were finished and furnished
exactly like the ones on the third floor, only a
little smaller. Each had its own claw foot bath tub,
and each tub was filled with something awful. The tub
in room two oh one was filled with skin, human

(36:24):
skin dried and tanned like sheets of leather and lying
in loose folds. The tub in room two o two
was filled with bones, human bones, jawbones, tibias, femurs, and skulls,
and the tub in room two oh three was filled
with blood, thick red human blood, crawling with flies and maggots.

(36:49):
Gladys thought these would make excellent trophies to exchange for
the scout knife, so she stuffed her knapsack the sheet
of skin and a skull, and a corked bottle that
she'd fed with the blood. And so, with her trophies collected,
she lit a candle for the sun had already fallen
below the horizon, and returned to the lobby. She chose

(37:12):
the sofa closest to the door to be her bed
for the night. She stretched out on it, and, using
her knapsack as a pillow, went to sleep. Around midnight,
she would awaken feeling something stirring beneath her. The next morning.
Albert and the other boys waited around for more than
an hour for Gladys to return, but she never did.

(37:36):
In fact, Gladys was never seen or heard from again,
but if anyone was brave enough, they might have found
pieces of her somewhere inside Boxla's mansion, stuffed inside the walls,
or floating in an old claw foot bathtub.

Speaker 1 (37:57):
Monsters do have their place in the zoo, in your nightmares,
in the deep, in your favorite horror movies, but not
on your phone. During an ad break, Politically motivated interests
are seeking to influence you through the ads placed on
this podcast. Hi, I'm your host, Edward October, reminding you

(38:20):
that we have very limited control over the ads you
hear on October Pod. Please remember that only the ads
and promos I read with my own voice carry the
endorsement of Edward October and October Pod. Furthermore, I and
the makers of October Pod repudiate any entity advertised which

(38:40):
seeks to promote hatred, anti American or anti democratic sentiments,
or the spread of misinformation. Now with that in mind,
October Pod will return after this brief ad break. It's
seventeen ninety one. Do you know where the Headless Horseman is?

(39:04):
Welcome to Tarrytown, a peaceful New York hamlet with one exception.
It's located only a mile away from the most haunted
place in America, Sleepy Hollow. They said it was safe
to venture into the Hollow at Night they were wrong.

(39:27):
October Pod presents The Brides of Sleepy Hollow, a shocking,
all new, all original sequel to the Ultimate Halloween Ghost Story,
The Legend of a Sleepy Hollow, written by Amber Jordan Whitney,
Zahar Jane knightshe Dan b. Fierce, from an original idm

(39:49):
by Edward October, starring Ari Shay, Karen Rayner of chick
Lit Podcast, Tom O'Connor of Madison on the Air, Chauncey K. Robinson,
host of YouTube production Tales from Hell, and Edward October.
The Bribes of Sleepy Hollow coming to October Pod AM
and October Pod Home Video on the Tuesday before Halloween,

(40:13):
October twenty seven. This time you may lose more than
your head. October Pody. It's intermission time, folks. I'm your host,
mister Edward October, and between the acts of October Pod,

(40:37):
I'm going to give you the straight dope on carving
and lighting at Jack o' lantern this Halloween. Now, I'm
going to assume that you're listening to this around the
first or second of October, and you've just returned from
the pumpkin patch and you're all ready to carve right wrong.
If you carve your pumpkins now, they'll be rotten nat

(41:00):
infested orange blobs slowly gooifying on your front stoop. Yes,
I've heard about rubbing petroleum jelly on the cut edges
to preserve them. Some people may have luck with that strategy,
but I am not one of them. There's nothing wrong
about picking your pumpkins out early. Gotta snatch them up
before the best ones are gone. But after that, let

(41:24):
them chill out for a while. If they're dusty, just
wipe them with a damp cloth and let them sit
in the house somewhere cool and dry. We usually place
hours in front of the fireplace. We never use return
to your carving pumpkins just before Halloween, about a week
before the big day at the very earliest. But I

(41:44):
prefer carving them on the night before Halloween, especially if
hot or wet weather is predicted for that week. Now,
what equipment to use this will depend largely upon what
sort of design you intend to carve. Intricate designs and
exactly liking effects will require more equipment. But I'm a traditionalist.

(42:05):
I see the jack a lantern and the title sequence
of John Carpenter's Halloween as the pinnacle of the gourd
carving arts, and so the following tricks and tips apply
for very basic designs, think triangle eyes and noses. Taking
inspiration from that same film, I used to carve pumpkins

(42:26):
with what I affectionately referred to as our Michael Meyer's knife. This, however,
was ill advised, and so after years of trial and error,
here's the equipment I use to carve a pumpkin with
minimal mess and maximum efficiency. Here's what you'll need. A

(42:46):
deep kitchen sink with a garbage disposal. Now, if there's
none available, I suppose a big washtub and pitcher of
water for occasional rinsing. Will do. A pumpkin knife, the
cheap looking kind you get at the pumpkin patch, with
a serrated blade and a plastic handle. You can get
them in a variety of sizes for precision cuts if

(43:07):
you want. There was a time when I look down
at these knives. They do look very rinky dink, but
they're well suited for their intended purpose. Hint, they're a
lot safer than my Michael Myer's kitchen knife. A heavy
ice cream scoop. Now, the one I use is a
single hunk of metal with a weighted handle and no

(43:28):
moving parts. A cheap, flimsy scoop with moving parts unlike
the ones that open like scissors, for example, simply will
not do for this job. And don't even think of
using a plastic If you don't have a scoop like mind,
then I suppose you can use a metal spoon that's
sturdy enough that the handle won't bend under pressure, a

(43:50):
large salad bowl lined with a plastic grocery bag. Have
spare bags and perhaps a trash bin on hand to
deposit filled bags into. Finally, you'll need a TV, a
high Fi or a streaming device for playing spooky movies
or your Halloween playlist in the background while you work. Now,

(44:13):
most folks will start by slicing the pumpkin open from
the top, or rather the stem side, like doctor Frankenstein
prepping a fresh noggin for brain surgery. This is a
rookie mistake. For one, this mars the smooth appearance and
clean lines of the pumpkins top. Sure, it forms a
lid for the pumpkin, and the stem serves as a

(44:35):
convenient handle. But unless you're a really clever carver, you
may have a hard time getting the lid you formed
from fitting on just right. And what's more, after several
nights of being lit and losing moisture, that pumpkin's gonna
start to shrink or sag or otherwise change its shape,
and that lid you carved out of the top will

(44:58):
become increasingly ill fitting. What I do is place the
pumpkin in the kitchen sink with the stem sticking down
into the garbage disposal. Just make sure there's no risk
of it being switched on, and then carve from the bottom.
This way, you can place your jack a lantern on
a pie plate or paving tile and not even worry

(45:20):
about a lid. This preserves your lovingly selected pumpkins good
looks on the top and makes for easy access when
lighting candles, and we'll get to that later. What's more,
you can discard the bottom piece after you've sliced it off.
The next step is to start scooping. It's probably easiest

(45:40):
to use your hands to scoop out the pumpkin guts
at first. Be sure to discard them in your aligned
salad bowl. I like to get my pumpkins really clean
on the inside with no stringy, residual pulp or inner rind.
That's where the ice cream scoop comes in. I use
this to really dig into the pumpkin rind from the inside,

(46:04):
scraping the inner walls of my pumpkin to get it
as smooth and free of debris as possible. This is
where the sink comes in handy. You can fill your
pumpkin up with water and all the rind scrapings and
remaining seeds and pulp will float to the top where
they can be easily skimmed off. Once the pumpkin is

(46:25):
cleaned and gutted to your liking, it's time to carve
your design. I don't have a whole lot to say
about this part, because, as I said earlier, I'm a
traditionalist and always carve a face with the classic triangle
eyes look. But if you're going to make a more
complicated design, one that you can't just freehand with your

(46:45):
carving knife, then by all means, do not use a marker.
The outer rind of the pumpkin will act like a
dry erase board, easily smudging the ink. Some folks recommend
planning out your image by scraping or pricking it into
the surface of the pumpkin with a thumbtack. And when
you do finally carve your design, remember that you want

(47:07):
light to be able to shine through the holes. Be
sure to carve out the edges enough that a generous
amount of light can pass through. All right, now it's
time to light your beautiful work of pumpkin art. Before
I light my jack lantern, I make sure to dry
it off inside and out using a paper towel. Then

(47:29):
I like to do something that I learned from one
of those Martha's Hewart Halloween magazines. I stud the inside
of the pumpkin with whole cloves. Just jam them into
the inner flesh of the pumpkin like needles in pin
head's face, and don't forget to stick some in the
ceiling of the pumpkin. Then rub a handful of cinnamon, nutmeg,

(47:51):
and your favorite other warm aromatic autumnal spices on the
inside of the gourd. Then when you light your jack lantern,
the heat from the candles will warm up these spices
and give your jack lantern a pleasant pumpkin spice scent
while it's lit. Now, let's talk about illumination. Go into

(48:13):
your glass recycling and grab an empty jelly jar, pasta
sauce jar, or any empty glass container that's small enough
to fit inside your pumpkin but large enough to accommodate
a few tea lights. Wash out your glass container and
remove the labels before placing them on an old pie plate,
pie tin, or paving tile big enough to set your

(48:35):
jack lantern on. Now, take as many tea lights as
you can and place them with the wix standing up
inside your jar. I can usually fit two or three
lights inside a prego jar and then light them with
a long fireplace match. Be sure to keep a lot
of these matches on hand to re light as needed
throughout the night. Putting the tea lights in the glass

(48:58):
container will reflect the light of the flames and give
your pumpkin a brighter, more fairy tale glow. If you
have more tea lights left over and your pumpkin's wide enough,
light more tea lights and place them in a ring
around your glass jar. Then place your pumpkin, which you

(49:18):
will recall should have an opening on the bottom, over
top of your jar, and candles like a hat. And
there you have it. A bright, fragrant and beautifully carved
jack O lantern to last all through the night. Well,
that's plenty of pumpkin business for one intermission. While you

(49:38):
carve your own pumpkin, We've got more spooky tails lined
up to keep you in a Halloween frame of mind.
That's right, friends. Act two of October pod starts now,

(49:59):
I'll never see my ghost in the mirror with my
eyes closed. Adapted from the true stories submitted by Ghost
Coffee Shop and Amy Coto, narrated by Nicky Young of
the Cereal Knapper podcast.

Speaker 10 (50:15):
Cameron, my current boyfriend, is someone that I've known all
my life. His parents and my parents were friends who
would offer to trade babysitting duties, so play dates and
sleepovers were common for us during elementary school. When I
was seven, my family was super poor. My dad worked

(50:36):
a swing shift factory job, and my mom had to
work two jobs just to make ends meet. There was
often no one around to watch me, so that meant
lots of nights sleeping at Cameron's house. I remember that
I would always beg his parents to let us sleep
in their room. They never let us, but I remember

(50:57):
many nights we'd get up in the middle of the
night and we'd drag our sleeping bags into the hall
so that we could sleep outside their door. Cameron didn't
care one way or the other, but I remember always
wanting to be as close to the grown ups as
I could whenever I was in that house, especially at night.

(51:19):
During those sleepovers with Cameron's family, I'd always have a
most eft up nightmares. It's weird because I'm not someone
who normally remembers her dreams, and yet those nightmares have
stuck with me for more than twenty years. In one
of the nightmares, I was hiding in a laundry basket,

(51:40):
which was a favorite hiding place for me during games
of hide and seek, and it was totally dark in
the room except for a sliver of light coming from
the bathroom at the end of the hall. This is
important later. I remember being totally alone and completely terrified,
but I I didn't remember why. I remember trying to

(52:03):
run away, but I couldn't because I felt stuck. All
I knew was there was something grotesque waiting for me
in that bathroom. My dream self never opened the bathroom door,
but I kept seeing flashes of a decaying old woman.
It scared the snot out of me after having that nightmare,

(52:26):
I'd never use that bathroom at Cameron's house, the one
at the end of the hall across from his parents' room.
I remember sometimes I'd wait until my mom came to
pick me up and drive me home to use the potty.
Well years past, Cameron and I grew apart until we
met up again in college and we started dating. His

(52:49):
parents were tired and started taking lots of trips. Now
Cameron and I share a small apartment in Rochester, though
we always jump at opportunities to drive out to his
big childhood home to house sit for his parents while
they're traveling, sometimes for weeks at a time. Two or
three years ago, I was house sitting for Cameron's parents.

(53:11):
Cameron was at work, so I was just there alone
with my dog, Hazelnut. We were watching TV alone in
the living room and I heard a door slam upstairs,
so I went up to see what was going on.
Every door upstairs was open except the one to the bathroom,

(53:32):
the one at the end of the hall across from
his parents' room. I opened the bathroom door, don't ask
me why, and turned on the light, along with just
about every other light upstairs. I went back down to
the living room and heard the door slam again. But
I tried to tell myself that the noise might be

(53:54):
something outside, maybe the neighbors, so I kind of ignored it.
Then the radio in the living room came on extremely loud.
It was playing that song dead By They might be giants.
I switched off the radio and checked to make sure
if there wasn't an alarm or some other setting on

(54:15):
it that would cause it to turn back on. Then
the bathroom door slammed again. Remember this is the second
time I heard it slam after the one time I
went upstairs to open it, So if it slammed once before,
shouldn't it already be closed this time? I took Hazel
upstairs with me because I needed some backup. When I

(54:38):
got to the top of the stairs, I saw that
most of the lights were turned on except for the bathroom.
All the doors which had been opened last time were
now closed, except for the bathroom, the one at the
end of the hall across from the master bedroom. Then,
without warning, the bathroom light fled back on. I say

(55:01):
flicked because I heard the clicking noise as if a
finger had flicked the switch. About that point, Hazel wriggled
out of my arms and ran back downstairs, barking and whimpering.
Now what I did next was stupid. I don't know
why I did it, but something compelled me to go
up and turn the bathroom light back on. Believe me,

(55:25):
I did this very quickly, because I couldn't bear to
even get my whole body into the doorway. When I
switched the light back on, two things seemed to happen
all at once. The first thing was the radio came
screaming back to light, even louder than before, if that's possible,
and it was playing the same song again dead by

(55:46):
They might be giants. The second thing was the mirror.
When I switched the light back off and the radio
came back on, I jumped and ran back downstairs. But
as I turned away from the bathroom, the lights switched
on again, and I caught a glimpse of my reflection
in the mirror. Except that I didn't see my own

(56:08):
reflection at all. I saw the reflection of the woman
from my childhood nightmares. Oddly, the woman reflected in the
mirror was standing in the exact spot where I was standing.
It was standing in a spot that would have been
just over my shoulder. And remember, my image wasn't being

(56:31):
reflected in the mirror as if it had been erased.

Speaker 11 (56:35):
I was so.

Speaker 10 (56:36):
Scared that I left the house to stay the night
with my sister. I even left the radio playing. I
called my boyfriend in a panic. I was in tears,
and I asked him if anyone had ever died in
that house. Cameron said, that's strange, because he was just
talking to his dad a couple of weeks earlier and
the subject of the house's previous tenants came up. His

(56:59):
dad had told him that before they lived there, an
old lady had died in the bathroom, the one at
the end of the hall across from the master bedroom.
In fact, if it wasn't for that death, Cameron's family
might not have been able to afford such a large house. Apparently,
the caretaker that the old lady had been living with

(57:21):
took all of the old lady's money and then left
the body in the bathroom to rot. Cameron said that
she'd been dead for days before anyone ever found her.
I tried to avoid staying in that house alone anymore.
The last time I did, I heard the door slamming,
but I didn't stick around long enough to see if

(57:43):
the radio came on. I'm now convinced that my childhood
nightmare wasn't a dream at all. I believe that I
saw the ghost of the old lady, and I just
rationalized to myself that I was dreaming because my dad.

Speaker 1 (58:00):
A true story narrated by Cord, co host of Mission
Spooky podcast.

Speaker 12 (58:06):
I run a convenience store on the road leading up
to a lake that is popular with local anglers. Because
so many folks are passing through for a weekend of fishing.
I make sure that the store is well stocked with
everything that you need or want for your fishing trip.
That means plenty of bags of talkies, every kind of
beer you can imagine, and live bait. Now, I'm not

(58:28):
one of those guys that goes out with a shovel
after it rains to dig up and package my own worms.
I've got a distributor that supplies me with all the
live bait I sell. I always keep nightcrawlers, blood worms,
meal worms, and waxworms in stock and keep them in
a big refrigerator case up front. Most of my customers,

(58:48):
as I've said, are just passing through on the way
to the lake. They might come once every summer, or
I might not see them again in my life. Regardless,
I'm not used to having regulars, except for this guy
we called roly Poly. He was a short, pudgy feller
with a greasy bowl haircut like mow from the Three Stooges,

(59:10):
and the palest, waxiest looking skin I've ever seen, so
white that it almost looked blue. He came in at
least once a week or more, always wearing a tank
top or sleeveless shirt and stained cargo shorts and flip flops.
And whenever he was in the store, the only thing
he'd look at and the only thing he'd buy was worms.

(59:33):
I don't know if he was a fisherman or not.
He never bought any bait other than worms, and never
bought any other fishing supplies. Hell, he didn't even buy
so much as a bottle of water off of us.
Only worms, all the different variety of worms we carried,
and in massive quantities. If we ever saw roly Poly

(59:54):
walking in and we were low or out of stock
of worms, we knew we'd be sold out by the
time he left. And if he ever did by all
of our remaining stock. He'd asked when we'd get more in,
and every time he'd ask, we'd say our distributor always
delivered on Tuesday, and we'd restop that one Tuesday after
a particularly busy weekend. Might have been fourth of July

(01:00:17):
Memorial Day, I can't remember. We'd sold out at everything
and could see clear to the bottom of the refrigerator case,
except on this particular Tuesday, the delivery never came in
spite of the fact that I'd gotten notifications that the
delivery had been made. It was a big messk and
everything sorted out with the distributor and ordering and scheduling

(01:00:40):
another drop off, and after that day, roly Poly stopped
coming in. About a week later, the police contacted me
and told me that they'd located a shipment of bait
that was meant for me. They said that it looked
like my shipment had been stolen by a local man
whose name I didn't recognize. I'd later find out that

(01:01:01):
this was roly Poly's real name. The policeman who spoke
to me wasn't forthcoming with the details. He only said
that they'd found my worms, that the shipman had been
overturned and quote spoiled, and that roly Poly had been
found dead at the scene, though there was no evidence
that he'd been the victim of foul plat. And that's

(01:01:23):
all he'd told me, just enough to get me to
verify that, yes, I had had a shipment of bait
go missing, and yes, the bait they found at the
crime scene appeared to match what I'd order. As you
can imagine, this raised more questions in my mind. I
asked a friend who was a paramedic who knew a
guy that worked at the Sheriff's office, and I found

(01:01:44):
out unofficially that they'd found roly Polly's corpse inside a
shed behind his house. They said it looked like he'd
cracked open every container of worms that he presumably had
stolen from me and dumped them on the moist dit
of the shed. He died of a heart attack while
rolling or bathing or doing something else in that pile

(01:02:08):
of live worms. He was naked, naked except for some
sort of tight fitting PVC mask, laying face down in
the dirt and worms. He'd been dead for several days,
and the worms had gotten everywhere. They said that when
the coroner cut the PVC mask off his head. Well,
they said it wasn't a pretty side under there.

Speaker 13 (01:02:33):
When I was ten, we lived in a house in Holland, PA,
a little town in Bucks County. It's an old part
of the country. The air is thick with history everywhere
you go. The house was a multi story brick home
with dark wood accents throughout and was about one hundred
years old.

Speaker 1 (01:02:53):
Tea party from a true eyewitness account by Amber Jordan,
co host of which is Tarot narrated by m J McAdams.

Speaker 13 (01:03:04):
In this house there was a mother in law suite.
I had never known of such a thing and was
immensely overjoyed when I found out. It was like a
studio apartment located inside the house. There was a little
kitchenette area with a sink, stoved oven, a tiny couch
for visitors, even a brass framed bed. I was so young,

(01:03:29):
I honestly thought it was made of gold, and oh
how my parents laughed at that one. The furniture in
this room had all come with the house, which was
not something I thought of before, but definitely after. I
wanted to live in this room, but my parents said

(01:03:52):
it wasn't fair for any of us three children to
get that room. It was to be our playroom that
we shared. Luckily for me, my older sister was too
old for playing with toys and my brother was more
interested in Nintendo, so the mother in law Sweet became
my place. Ever since I was a child, I've been sensitive,

(01:04:19):
sensitive to the presence of spirits and other emptities. I
was used to being alone in a room yet still
hearing an unseen mouth whispering my name. This was the
sort of thing that was always happening to me, always,
except for those times when I was playing in that

(01:04:40):
playroom the mother in law Sweet. It was unusually quiet
in there. As a child, I just enjoyed the quiet
solitude when you have my gift, that is something you
just don't get. My favorite way to play in that

(01:05:03):
room was to have tea time. I had a special
tea set for playing. It was white, with pastel flowers
and gold accents on the rims, lids, and handles of
the dishes. The set seems so grown up to me.
I loved pretending I was hosting a ladies tea party
with the finest ladies around, all decked out in white lace,

(01:05:27):
with those little gloves on, you know, the kind. They
make no sense to us now, but in the past,
we're all the rage for dainty girls and fine women.

Speaker 3 (01:05:37):
That's what I was doing.

Speaker 13 (01:05:39):
The time I met her. I was in my nightgown.
It was Saturday evening in the fall. The wind outside
was perfectly crisp. With the apples and our cider, fallen
leaves caught the wind with their brittle edges and skittered
against the windows of our house, sounding off a countdown

(01:06:01):
to winter. It was the perfect weather for a tea party,
I suppose, and with that thought, spurred on by the
weather outside, I made my way down to my apartment.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary as I set up
my tea party. I gathered the cups and saucers, setting

(01:06:22):
them where they belonged on the table. I pretended that
the teapot had started whistling and said teas on, ladies.
Then I heard a brittle voice say, oh lovely in
response to me. I tensed up. My back was to

(01:06:43):
the bed, and it sounded like the voice had come
from behind me. I was used to hearing things, mind you,
that are nowhere to be seen, but this was different.
This was a voice I hadn't heard before. This was
clearly spoke. This was to me, not just around me.

(01:07:06):
This was my quiet place. Nothing ever talked to me
in here that I couldn't see. But not only could
I hear her, I felt her now. She was behind me,
sitting on the bed. I felt her eyes on me
as I lifted the pod off the stove and carried
it to the table. I kept my back to the bed.

(01:07:29):
I was terrified to look behind me. I knew this
must have been her apartment, not mine. I kept moving
through my routine. I poured tea in each cup, carefully, slowly,
so as not to spill. I was okay as long
as I kept moving. I got to the third cup,

(01:07:52):
the one in front of the bed, just a wee
bit more. Dear, I'm terribly cold, she said to me,
as I poured the water into her cup. So I
poured a little more. She sighed gratefully behind me. She

(01:08:12):
was ready to warm her cold bones with my hot tea.
Except this it was cold water, and she wasn't here,
not with her bones anyway.

Speaker 3 (01:08:24):
I offered my.

Speaker 13 (01:08:25):
Guests cookies and biscuits and a less shaky voice than
I expected. This gave me so much needed courage. As
I heard a response.

Speaker 14 (01:08:35):
Oh, dearie, I would love a biscuit. Hmmm, it's been
so long and I'm so hungry.

Speaker 13 (01:08:45):
Her old voice trailed off, sounding forlorn. Perhaps she knew
she was dead. With clammy hands and sharp little breaths
that puffed out like the beating of butterfly wings. I
reached out and biscuit. I could still feel her eyes
on me, heard her breath wheeze in and out from

(01:09:06):
her frail chest, like when fluttering on lace curtains. I
steeled myself. I placed her biscuit on the saucer and
spun around, and there was only the empty bed smiling
at me. Nothing to be afraid of. She was just
a little old lady who wasn't even here anymore. I

(01:09:30):
never saw her, never heard her voice again after that day,
but I could always feel her presence in that room,
fluttering about like the wings of a butterfly.

Speaker 1 (01:09:45):
I'm thinking about my death now, when you're gonna ring it,
When you're gonna ring it. A true story submitted by
the eight bit tinor narrated by Edward October. Mister Gary,
the band director at my hospital, was also a member
of my church. One year he formed this youth ministry
handbell choir. Most of the kids in it were also

(01:10:07):
into marching band and could already read music. We all
had about three or four bells to ring. Each bell
was a different pitch, etc. Every weekend between eastern summer break,
we loaded in a white van and traveled out to
the other churches in our district to perform at pot
lux and pancake breakfasts and all sorts of different church events.

(01:10:28):
I remember this one church was a far piece up
into mountains, and we had to drive up this long, winding,
narrow road just to get up there. There were lights
on both sides of the road looked kind of like
runway lights, you know, like at the airport, and it
is to help guide cars through fog banks. I mean
that's how high up a mountain we were. Well. Anyways,

(01:10:49):
we played our songs Maze and Grace, our Gods, an
Awesome God Onward Christian Soldiers, all the hits, and then
we went into the church's fellowship hall for a little reception.
We were eating on tater chips with dip, drinking pop,
eating pound cake when this one woman come up to
us bragging about how good we played, and her face

(01:11:10):
was all red and her eyes were red and puffy,
like she'd been crying the whole time. She kept staring
at me and patting my shoulder. She finally broke away
from us and gave me a big old hug. But now,
remember this woman was a stranger to me. I had
never seen her in my life, and I didn't know
her from Adam. But then a minute later, this other

(01:11:31):
lady from a church went up to me, apologizing for
the crying lady's behavior. She just had to meet you,
she said. Her son died about a year ago in
a car accident, and you're his spitting image. You look
just like him. Turns out he died on that road
we just traveled up, the one with the fog lights

(01:11:51):
on it. Kind of weird, right, cousin. I felt about
like a white horse that just walked over my grave. Well, anyways,
load up in the van and turn around and head
back to go back down the mountain. It was just
right about sundown and a fog had rolled in, and
mister Gary really had to crawl along that mountain road

(01:12:12):
and hug goes guidelights. We laughed about on the way
up by and by we come along to this hairpin turn,
and I mean it was a real twisty, kiss your
hind end kind of turn. And in the middle of
that turn, mister Gary slams on his brakes because there's
this nut job standing in the middle of the road.
It was too dark and foggy to make out his features.

(01:12:35):
He seemed to be crossing from one side of the
road to the other. So we just come to a
complete stop right there in the middle of the road
and waiting for him to pass. Anyways, here comes his
car driving up a mountain and comes screaming around to
bend with its high beams on and blindness and all
that fog. If we hadn't have stopped for this pedestrian,

(01:12:55):
mister Gary would have surely been blinded by that car
and we might have ended up rolling off off the
side of the mountain. By the time the car passed us,
the guy crossing the road had just up and vanished.
But before we headed back down the mountain, we noticed
another thing, a little memorial on the road side. It

(01:13:19):
was a wreath of flowers placed there at the bend
in the road, with one of those guidelights shining up
on it. There are some mementos leaning against the wreath,
and one of them was a photograph and a frame
that had remember Me written on it. Picture was of
a guy about eighteen or nineteen, and he looked just

(01:13:41):
exactly like me.

Speaker 15 (01:13:44):
The Invitational a true story submitted anonymously narrated by Mike,
co host of Brugrim podcast. Back when I was in college,
I worked as a carboy during my breaks. It was
a sweet gig and sometimes I'd get some pretty generous tips,
even though we weren't technically supposed to accept them. Every

(01:14:09):
July the club would host a men's invitational and the
players would leave their bags on their carts overnight. I'm
talking upwards of one hundred thousand dollars worth of clubs
and gear. So the pro Atar club told me and
this other kid that worked there to camp out in
the car barn overnight to watch the bags, sort of

(01:14:29):
like overnight security. And I think he paid us a
nice little bonus under the table. So we ordered a
shitload of pizza and listened to the radio and played
small steaks poker all night to keep from getting bored.
We even took some practice swings with a couple of
the priceier drivers on hand. It was almost a summer
camp type vib What made it feel more like a

(01:14:51):
summer camp was that this country club was right up
against the woods. We were already in the middle of nowhere,
a selling point to our members who wan wanted to
get away from it all whenever they played. But this
particular card barn was on the far edge of the
property that butted up against the tree line of acres
and acres of woodland. So if you were up there

(01:15:13):
at night with the lights off, you wouldn't believe how
dark and quiet it would get. And like I said,
this was in July, so you'd expect to hear a
lot of insects and other critters at night, but you
could just about hear a pin drop. I was glad
we were smart enough to bring that radio with us,
otherwise the silence would have been pretty unsettling. Now, even

(01:15:35):
though we were supposed to stay up all night babysitting
the carts, we still brought sleeping bags and pads, and
by around one or two in the morning we decided
to get a little bit of rack time. This was
in the late nineties, so we didn't have smart phones
in our pockets that could have been used as alarm clocks.
But we did have a little wind up kitchen timer
that I'd have the foresight to bring with me so

(01:15:56):
that we could catch an hour of sleep here and there.
Turned out we wouldn't have any trouble waking up. Sometime
between two thirty and three in the morning. I remember
because I looked at the kitchen timer and saw that
it wasn't supposed to go off for another twenty minutes
or so. We were started to wake by a loud,
metallic bang of something pounding on the metal roof of

(01:16:19):
the carbarn. It sounded like a tree branch or a
large rock had bounced off the roof, but then it
kept going like something really big was on the roof
trying to cave it in. We turned all the lights
on in the barn, as well as a flashlight that
we shined up to the ceiling. In the beam of
the flashlight, we could see the sheet metal of the
roof rippling, as if from footsteps or from somebody pounding

(01:16:40):
on it. There was also another sound, like the heavy
breathing of a large animal, almost like a shoe box
of sound. Whatever it was, it sounded big and like
nothing I'd ever heard before. Just thinking about that sound
makes me all teary eyed with fear. This one on
for about fifteen or twenty minutes, and during that whole

(01:17:00):
time we were paralyzed with fear, unable to do anything
but puddle between two golf carts. I guess we were
thinking that if the roof caved in, the golf carts
would shield us a little from whatever fell on us.
And then as soon as that alarm went off, the

(01:17:21):
banging stopped. At SunUp, we ventured out to see what
the damage was. There were some sizeable dents and scratches
left in the sheet metal on the cart barn, and
it was all along the side facing the woods. The
ground round it was torn up as if a large
animal had been rerouting around in it. Funny as it
may sound, I believe that whatever had attacked the cart

(01:17:43):
barn must have been frightened away by our alarm.

Speaker 1 (01:17:47):
Grandad's Ghost Story a true story narrated by Parisa Vickis,
creator host of Beauty Unlocked.

Speaker 16 (01:17:56):
This isn't my story to tell. It's something that happened
to my granddad. He's a tough, stoic old bird, and
I've never known him to be afraid of anything, and
he's always been a very honest man. He doesn't tell
this story often, but you can tell it creeps him
out whenever he remembers it. I'll try my best to

(01:18:19):
retell as effectively as he'd tell it. Granddad was a
true outdoorsman from a very young age. Once, when he
was about eleven, he went fishing in a little creek
that meandered through the family farm. At that age, he
was obsessed with Westerns and always went fishing in a
black straw hop Along Cassidy cowboy hat. Does anyone remember

(01:18:43):
who hop Along Cassidy was? He was a cowboy played
by a white haired old man, wore all black, including
his hat, and rode a white horse. That cowboy hat
was good for fishing, he said, because it provided excellent
shade from the sun, and he loved it because it
came with a whistle, and since it was made of straw,

(01:19:04):
it wouldn't make him as hot as a felt hat would.
Can you tell that Granddad loved that hat? Anyway, he
was out fishing this creek at its widest point. It
was a blustery day, so blustery in fact, that the
little chin strap did nothing to keep Granddad's beloved hat
from blowing away. He said that hat sailed off his

(01:19:26):
head and into the creek and then just kept going.
He ran after it, hoping it would get caught on
a tree branch or a wash up along the side
of the creek where he could get at it, which
it did, except it ended up on the opposite side
of the creek, where the brush was pretty thick. He
had to find a safe place across the creek and

(01:19:46):
then backtrack over to it. The day was not only
blustery but also cloudy, and so it was quite dark
on that side of the creek with its dense patches
of trees and brush. Granddad crossed over to the spot
where his hat had washed up and saw that it
had moved. In its place. He saw a strange woman,

(01:20:07):
strange as in he'd never seen her around before, and
strange as in strange. She wasn't dressed for creaking, that's
for sure, he said. She wore a dress or a
robe of pure white that was wet up to her
knees from waiting in the creek. Her skin was just
as colorless as her dress. Grandad said that she looked

(01:20:29):
like a young woman in her twenties. She was pretty too,
except for the fact that she had deep crows feet
at the corners of her pale blue eyes, and she
didn't have any eyebrows. Her hair was long and brittle
and the color of fresh cut wheat. She wore a
red scarf wrapped tight around her neck and face, hiding

(01:20:50):
her mouth like a bandit in a Western She looked
straight at him and held the hop along Cassidy hat
in front of her as if to give it back
to him. Granddad didn't take it, though, he was too
scared and ran back home and never fished in that
creek again. Well, he did fish there again, but only

(01:21:12):
one more time years later, decades later. He was in
his fifties, and it was right before they auctioned off
the farm. Granddad claimed it had been so long that
he'd forgotten what had happened that day when he was
a boy. Well, either that or he'd convinced himself it
had been a day dream. He'd fished all morning and

(01:21:32):
was ready to pack up his tackle and call it
a day when he saw it, a black straw cowboy
hat sized for a child's head, floating towards him against
the flow of water in the creek. He grabbed it
and saw it was his old hop along Cassidy hat,
not a hat just like it, the exact same hat.

(01:21:56):
He knew because he had his initials written on a
tag around the sweat fand he even recognized his crude
a little boy handwriting. The hat looked just as it
had the day he lost it, not a day older
and no worse for wear. Granddad held the hat in
his hand, marveling at how it could have possibly returned

(01:22:17):
to his possession, and when he looked up, he saw
her the same woman in pure white, with the same
pale skin and hairless eyebrows, and with the same red
scarf and hair like fresh cut wheat. The first time
he told me the story, I asked him what happened next.
He told me that the weird woman showed him something awful,

(01:22:40):
and then refused to say anything else. In fact, he
left the room after telling the story and didn't really
speak for the rest of the night. Many years later,
not long before Grandad died. In fact, I again asked
what the woman had showed him when he saw her
that second time. He eventually said that she took off

(01:23:01):
her scarf and when she did, her jaw unhinged, as
though the scarf had been the only thing holding her
jawbone in place. He said he could see she had
a head full of needle sharp teeth. Huh the hat, Oh,
Granddad burned it in the woodstove, burned it and scattered

(01:23:22):
the ashes. Said he couldn't bear to have it in
the house.

Speaker 1 (01:23:48):
Stick around after the credits for a brief word from
some of our fellow indie podcasters, creators, and friends. There
may even be some bloopers, outtakes, and bonus content as well.
You have been listening to Octoberpod. Octoberpod is produced, edited
and directed by Edward October. The series co producers are
m J McAdams and Amber Jordan. Logo and banner graphics

(01:24:12):
by Jessica Good Edward October character design by Nick Calavera.
Select still photography courtesy of unsplash dot com. Select music
cues by Doctor dream Chip and various other stock music
and sound effects courtesy of freesound dot Org. Music from
Bigfoot Apocalypse and Thorax theme from Octoberpod composed by Nico Vitaesi.

(01:24:36):
All other images, music and FX cues, except where noted,
are sourced from within the public domain. Follow us on
YouTube at Octoberpod, home Video, on Instagram and the app
I Still call, Twitter at octoberpodvhs, and on TikTok and
Blue Sky at Octoberpod. Or find us and all of

(01:24:57):
our links on the world wide Web at Octoberpod vhs
dot com. For business inquiries or story submissions, email Octoberpod
at gmail dot com. If you enjoyed this program, we'd
be very pleased if you've told your friends about us,
and while you're at it, write us a five star
or equivalent review. Wherever you were listening, the man who

(01:25:19):
spoke to you was mister Edward October.

Speaker 17 (01:25:33):
Welcome to the Popculture Diary, where we talk trends, gossip,
and throwbacks. Each week we flip through the popculture pages
of the past, from the nineteen eighties through the twenty tens.
Remember the neon fashion, the Tamagatshi kraze, the boy band

(01:25:54):
mania and the TV shows we all rushed home to watch.
How about the celebrity scandals, the blockbuster movies, the chart
topping hits, and the toys we begged for every Christmas.
We'll revisit the fads that defined us, the headlines that

(01:26:14):
shocked us, and the guilty pleasures we secretly still love.
From Waffman's to Wi Fi, from shoulder pads to skinny genes,
from the mall to MySpace. If it had us talking, laughing,
or gossiping, it's in the diary. So if you're ready

(01:26:35):
to relive the moments that shaped decades of pop culture,
hit subscribe and join me as we flip back the
pages and rediscover the trends, gossip and throwbacks. Will never forget.
This is the pop culture Diary.

Speaker 11 (01:26:55):
You feel that a sudden chill, a single down your spine,
it's not it, is it? No, it's the unmistakable sign
that we've found them the most terrifyingly delicious ghost stories
you've ever heard.

Speaker 15 (01:27:09):
And trust us, we've had some close calls.

Speaker 11 (01:27:13):
We're talking haunted halways, phantom apparitions, and things that go
bump in the night, all served up on our new
show Ghost Bites.

Speaker 15 (01:27:23):
Join us as we dig into the spectral secrets and
spooky sightings that we'll have you sleeping with the lights on.

Speaker 11 (01:27:29):
So if you're brave enough, come grab a bite with us.

Speaker 15 (01:27:32):
Just try not to let it be your last.

Speaker 1 (01:27:40):
Ghost bites. Coming soon to your favorite podcast platforms, spoot.

Speaker 5 (01:27:50):
Spook.

Speaker 4 (01:27:51):
Hey there, I'm Tara.

Speaker 16 (01:27:52):
And I'm Jessica, and together we co host the podcast
Three Spooted Girls.

Speaker 4 (01:27:56):
If you love the paranormal or murder some Mondays for
full length episodes where we discuss our favorite paranormal stories
and true crime cases.

Speaker 16 (01:28:05):
And join us again on Thursdays for our minisodes called
stabby Snippets, where we tell you all about true crimes
happening in the news.

Speaker 4 (01:28:12):
You can find us on Apple Podcasts, Podbean, Spotify, wherever
the hell else you listen to your pods at. You
can also find us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook by
using the handle at three Spooks Girls.

Speaker 3 (01:28:23):
Come and hang out with us and get your spooky
on while we scare the hell out of you.

Speaker 11 (01:28:27):
Three boop.

Speaker 1 (01:28:33):
It's seventeen ninety one. Do you know where the Headless
Horseman is? Welcome to Terrytown, a peaceful New York hamlet
with one exception. It's located only a mile away from
the most haunted place in America, Sleepy Hollow. They said

(01:28:55):
it was safe to venture into the hollow at night.
They were wrong. Weird October Pod presents the Brides of
Sleepy Hollow, a shocking, all new, all original sequel to
the Ultimate Halloween Ghost Story, The Legend of a Sleepy Hollow,

(01:29:16):
written by Amber Jordan Whitney, Zahar Jane Knightsheb Dan b Fierce,
from an original IDM by Edward October, starring Ari Sha
Karen Rayner of chick Lit Podcast, Tom O'Connor of Madison
on the Air, Chauncey K. Robinson, host of YouTube's production
Tales from Hell, and Edward October. The Brides of Sleepy

(01:29:41):
Hollow coming to October pod AM and October pod Home
Video on the Tuesday before Halloween, October twenty seven. This
time you may lose more than your head October podhes
dot com. Go into your glass recycling and grab an
empty jelly jar. What not even worry about? A lilt.

Speaker 10 (01:31:06):
N y.

Speaker 17 (01:31:16):
No no mean mename

Speaker 7 (01:31:47):
Mus you mem you know me

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

Crime Junkie

Stuff You Should Know

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}CRYPT CLIPS: Spooky Stories for Pumpkin Carving

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang

Crime Junkie

Stuff You Should Know

All Episodes

CRYPT CLIPS: Spooky Stories for Pumpkin Carving

Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang