WEBVTT
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Behind the plaster were bones. In the cabinets, something squealed
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like a pig. And in the witch House, when the
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dead start to stir, they don't stop until you are
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inside the walls with them.
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There's a shiell in the air. Must befall.
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Join me for.
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A tale of Halloween. You will experience tales over over ghosts,
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and dam it is not recommended for the weak at heart.
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Join me for a Tale of oul.
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Is Weekly Spooky. Hello, my spookies, It's the second day
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of October and Spooky season is rocking and rolling. So
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what better way to get into the spirit of the
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season then move in to the Witch House. But before
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we get to that, I just want to say thank
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you so much for spending a little bit of your
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October with me. We hear at Weekly Spooky celebrate Halloween
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all year long, but when the most wonderful time of
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year comes around, well we go all out and we're
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happy to have you. So make sure you're subscribed on
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your favorite podcasting app. And while you're at it, why
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not leave us a five star rating on Apple Podcasts
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or Spotify. It truly helps the show by showing other
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spookies they're in the right place, and if you want
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to support us in a very direct way, you can
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head to Weeklyspooky dot Com slash join and for as
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little as one dollar a month, get two bonus shows
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every single month, as well as five years of creepy
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pasta readings and exclusive audiobooks at Weeklyspooky dot Com slash Join.
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Head over there and join over ninety other spookies and
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making sure we can keep bringing you the show for
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another six years and beyond, and make sure to come
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back tomorrow when Joe Solmo brings us a terrifying tale
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of Tricker Treating and the murderous sickle Jack. But as
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for tonight, what if the place you called home had
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already been claimed the funeral parlor turned apartment building where
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every wall hides carcasses, curses, and the restless dead. Freddy
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thought he was just renovating a house until the whispers,
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the shadows, and the thing in the cabinets reminded him
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some doors should never be open. We go into the
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witch House after this in The Witch House Walls by
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David o'hanley. For months, Freddy had felt like he was
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out of his mind. Now his mind was out of
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him and dripping down the dry wall of the apartment.
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The top of his head was missed in the air,
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and chunks on the foe wood lamin it. One of
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his molars had landed in the plastic pumpkin full of
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fun sized candy bars. Pieces of his scalp clung to
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the ceiling, turning the attached hair into black tinsel. The
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shotgun at his feet had done everything he expected it
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to except one. That fucking figure's Freddy's spirit said. Nine
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months before giving his living room a fresh coat of
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cranial Crylon Freddie had purchased the old Steinbeck funeral home
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with the intent of converting it into several apartments, two
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family units on the first floor, four single bed efficiency
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units on the second, and a studio on the third.
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It had been a painstaking project. The building had served
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as Kuto Basin's only mortuary for almost thirty years. After
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a terrible spat of deaths in nineteen forty five, Stuart
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Steinbeck's mind broke and forced him to retire from his
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macab occupation. The funeral parlor became his home. The horrible
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things Stuart had seen during that year haunted every waking moment,
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and he remained a recluse until his death in the
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winter of fifty eight. Despite the home's dark origins, none
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of the previous owners had ever experienced anything out of
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the ordinary while living there. Freddie made sure he got
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that part in writing he wasn't about to have tenants
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breaking leases over Poltergeist's. After all, the property had been
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in surprisingly good condition by the time Freddie purchased it.
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None of the previous owners had bothered renovating outside of
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a few minor comforts and a large in ground pool.
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If they had, maybe they could have saved him a
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small fortune and eventually his fucking life. He'd planned on
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having the unit available by summer to use the pool
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as a selling point, but he realized that wasn't going
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to happen. As he tore down the first wall, Desiccated
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animal carcasses hung behind the century old plaster, wrapped in
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rotting cloth, like mummies of the hundred acre wood. Alongside
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them were clusters of dried whorehound and sage. Every room
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the contractors tore into they found more of the same. Squirrels, raccoons, cats,
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and even a pair of piglets had been extracted from
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within the spaces. Freddy was loose, using money on his
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investment with each new discovery, but he was also losing
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his mind with each one they removed. And it wasn't
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just him either. Fewer workers returned to the job site
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with each passing week. At first they complained of noxious smells,
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missing tools, and whispered voices in empty rooms. Then they
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started getting sick. His foreman had vomited blood and maggots
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across the new kitchen a day after finishing the first
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downstairs apartment. By July, Freddie and his girlfriend O Dallas
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had moved into the house to finish the work themselves.
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They worked day and night, and by the middle of
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September they had gotten three second floor us ready, plus
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the one downstairs opposite their own. They lowered the rent,
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they waived the application fees, yet no one was applying.
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The construction workers had told everyone about what they had
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found inside his walls. The locals had begun whispering, and
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over the months they'd given it a name. No one
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wanted to live in the Witch House, or maybe they do,
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O Dallas said from across the kitchen island. Both of
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them were covered in drywall dust from the last of
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the high efficiency units. The next day, o dallas would
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start painting it while he began work in the attic.
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The studio was the last thing to do before Freddy
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could finally say he'd conquered the nightmare that had won
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once been his dream. He didn't even see a point anymore, though.
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Kuto Basin was full of ghost stories, and nobody was
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going to move into an apartment that might turn them
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into one. The stacks of applications we don't have, says otherwise.
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Freddie picked the sesame seed from the big mac bun.
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We're going to have to torch the place for insurance
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while we can still fucking afford to pay for it. Baby,
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it's almost Halloween, she'd said, conspiratorially. People want things to
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make sense. They want to get what they're promised. Lean
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into it, sure, Freddie forced himself to say he didn't
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realize what day it was. Lean into it. We can
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decorate all the apartments, o'dallas continued. We throw a Halloween
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party as an open house. He will scare the shit
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out of them and they'll love us for it. There's
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no way that'll work. Freddie pushed the value meal into
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the trash with everything else. He hadn't eaten that week. Tomorrow,
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I'll get matches, Freddie, we can do this. Oh, Dallas
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took his hand. Despite the grit of dry wall and plaster,
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they were still soft. Her one hundred dollars nail job
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was wrecked, but she was smiling. Those two goddamn cute
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dimples told him he was wrong about everything. Freddie hadn't
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slept good in weeks. He'd lost almost twenty pounds in
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the last month, and every single part of him ached.
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He was racking up his credit cards so Odallas wouldn't
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see how fast they were running out of money. But
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those dimples and that smile with her slightly bucked teeth
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gave him enough hope to work. One more day. She'd
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always done that, given him the one more day that
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turned into one more week, one more month. Everything he'd
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accomplished in the last five years had been because of
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her smile. Remodeling the Witch House was no different. He
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would have given up in the summer, but O'dallas had
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smiled and promised him they could make it work. That's
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just who she was, his sweet smiling guide straight into hell.
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You're not safe yet, weekly Spooky will be right back
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The next day, Freddie began work in the attic. The
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floorboards thrumbed beneath his sneakers from whatever Odallas was blasting
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on the bluetooth speaker. He thought about going to get
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the other one from their bedroom, but two flights of
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stairs could fuck right off. It was going to be
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a hard enough day. The attic had been cleared of junk,
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and the basic framework of the bathroom and kitchenette had
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been finished by the contractors before they flaked out. Freddy
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would need to hire a real plumber and electrician before
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he could make the loft available to renters, but he
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could finish the demo and get the insulations and drywall installed.
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He tapped the crowbar against the rear wall, listening to
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the hollow echo from the space beyond. Freddy wasn't sure
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what Stuart Steinbeck had used the attic for in his lifetime,
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but it certainly hadn't been storage. There were stories, of course,
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The basin was full of stories. Freddy used the bar
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to scratch away a pealing flap of half century old
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wallpaper of carousel ponies. Someone had lived in the space
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once upon a time. Someone's going to live here again.
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Freddy said, cocking the crowbar over his shoulder. Someone with
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better fucking taste. His first swing did little more than
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stir up a cloud of dust and dislodge some more
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wallpaper fragments. The second went straight through the plaster, as
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did the third. He shoved the hook end inside the
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hole and jerked back with everything his emaciated body had
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in it. A fissure split down the wall, racing along
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its length in a widening spider's web of cracks. Freddy
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started to scream. As the dust cleared. He gagged, but
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didn't have anything in his stomach to actually throw up.
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Another of Steinbeck's stuffed animals hung there, twisting on its noose.
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The empty eye socket stared at him as it turned.
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Dried sage protruded from between the shriveled lips and dingy
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yellow teeth. You sick, motherfucker, Freddy wheezed, covering his mouth.
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He tossed the crowbar at the wall. The entire structure
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pulsed at the blow. The plaster began to fall in pieces,
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clacking and knocking onto the wooden floor like hailstones ahead
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of a tornado. Freddy backed away slowly, never taking his
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eyes off the desiccated lamb. The plaster came down in
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an avalanche, spilling out across the floor to meet him.
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He coughed and fanned at the air. As the dust settled,
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he saw the animal was not alone. Freddy sank to
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his knees, trying to catch his breath. Since construction began,
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he was sure he had seen every animal in Ohio
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in its mummified form, every animal except for one. Hidden
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behind the wall. Were six lambs, three on either side
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of the withered, leathery thing that occupied the middle. Unlike
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the farm animals that hung from the neck, this one
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had its limbs bound tightly. Freddy didn't know how, but
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he knew that meant the child had been alive when
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the wall went up. Baby, come back to bed, oh,
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Dallas grumbled sleepily. I am in bed, Freddie said bleakly.
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He stared at the ceiling, wondering what time it was.
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He hadn't told her what he found in the attic,
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aside from saying it was more of Steinbeck's voodoo shit.
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Once he'd ripped down the rest of the walls to
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make sure there were no more human remains, he'd stuffed
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the carcasses in thick black trash bags and hefted them
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into the open topped dumpster out back. That was so weird. Oh,
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Dallas yawned, rolled over and draped her arm across him.
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I thought you were in the closet. Freddie kissed the
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top of her head. The leaven conditioner was oily on
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his lips, and the floral scent made him want to sneeze.
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His eyes fell on the closet. Maybe it was one
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of his coats hanging just right, but it did look
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like someone was there. Freddy returned to his vigil, staring
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straight through the textured ceiling and into that damned attic.
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He'd given the dead kid its own trash bag. That
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was the best he could do as far as a
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proper burial goes. Reporting it was out of the question.
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The kid had been there since the fifties. They probably
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would have died of old age already, so it was
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unlikely anyone was still around that would care that he'd
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tossed the body into the dumpster with all the other
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dead things. Freddie sighed as O'dallas started to snore. He
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assumed it was all the paint messing up her sinuses,
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because she even snored cute on a normal day. This
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wasn't cute. It was more like snorting. Freddy worked to
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emancipate himself from Odallas's slender body without waking her. He
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eased off the bed and glanced back at the closet. Jesus,
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that is creepy, he admitted, reconsidering his choice of opaque
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frontages on the twin doors. Watching o'dallas sleep, it became
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clear that she wasn't the source of the sound. Freddie
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followed the noise, tracking it by volume until he'd isolated
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it to the kitchen. Freddie flipped the light switch. His
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eyes stung and blurred from the assaul. The shadows stretching
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across the walls looked disturbingly human. As the organs adjusted
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to the brightness, he rubbed at them with his palms.
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Everything appeared once he'd finished. The noise had also ceased.
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As Freddy turned to leave a guttural snort once more.
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He spun on a bare heel, looking for the source.
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The cabinet under the sink tapped once, then again. He
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watched it move on the hinges as if something were
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trying to open it from the inside, but wasn't quite
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strong enough, it tapped and tapped, the efforts growing more frantic.
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The animalistic grunting grew frustrated. Oh away, weakly, spooky, will
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be right back. Rats. It can't be rats, Freddy whispered.
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He went to the sink and grabbed a glass from
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the drying rack to catch the intruder. He knelt in
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front of the cabinet, chewing his bottom lip nervously. As
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the animal's attempts escalated. He debated not looking. There was
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no point seeing the vermin if he wasn't seeing the
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income to deal with them. Let the little bastards be
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until we get some tenants, he told himself that just
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wouldn't do. However, they were just another problem on the