My First Scary Stories — A Pre–Weekly Spooky Collection of Revenge, Murder & Monsters

Transcript prepared from a new automatic transcription of this episode’s released Spreaker recording. Separate host introductions, closing remarks, and identified advertisements are omitted. Reviewed for the previously flagged gaps and repetition; not checked word for word by a human against the audio. Some transcription errors may remain. Story introductions between the tales are retained. Automated punctuation restoration was checked to preserve the words.

Built for death. I was tired. I'd been up since 5 in the morning, and now, here I was, stuck at the construction site. I guess it could be worse. The place was basically all set. Aside from a few rooms that needed the drywall redone, I'd say it was good. Or at least, good enough. I'm Daniel Cole, a contractor, and I love my job.

I started my own business when I was just a snot-nosed punk at 22. too. I saw the way the old timers were running things and I knew I could do better. Way better. They paid their taxes and wanted to offer a fair wage for hard work. Suckers. I went into it with all kinds of fresh ideas. I cut benefits easy. All I had to do was tell my workers we were in hard times and I needed them to stick it out with me.

Ha! That was 20 years ago, and I'm still not paying for a thing. The business took off quick. I undercut all the competitors right away, because I'm not afraid to cut a few corners when push came to shove. Water down the cement a little, recycle a few bricks, whatever it takes. If you ask me, I'm just being real green. The only thing I ever, ever regretted was that wife of mine, Leslie.

I still don't know why I married her. Scratch that. I do know why I did it. A pretty face and blonde hair can make me do just about anything. Just ask my secretaries over the last few years. They'll tell ya. Leslie started to grumble about my long hours and the looks of my secretary, Tina, so she put her foot down. My secretary now?

Some college reject named Paul. Doesn't even drink. He's no fun to be around. Earlier this month, Leslie asked for a divorce, and mysteriously, our prenup disappeared. She's got my lawyer setting the whole thing up, and I'm expected to foot the bill. Ridiculous. Good thing I don't keep most of my money in the bank. She isn't touching a penny of my hard-earned cash.

Hey, hey, she can have the house. built it myself and that foundation can't have more than 10 years left in it anyhow. Ha! Enjoy that, sweetheart. Earlier this year, I was contacted about building some offices for a buddy who owns a chicken processing plant. He wanted it quick and he wanted it cheap, so I went around looking and I found where I'm standing right now.

Nice parcel of land near some woods and a small lake. Honestly, I can't figure out why no one was building here, but the company that sold it to us was excited to say the least. I did a little googling, and I guess a kid was found dead not far from here. Animal attack. Big deal! My neighbor has a dog the size of a Volkswagen.

I guarantee it's more dangerous to live in my neighborhood than out here. People don't talk about it much, but dogs kill kids. I wouldn't be surprised if it wasn't even a wild animal attack out here. I hate dogs. I put Hector in charge of building this place. He's an alright worker, but sometimes I think he's too busy thinking about tacos and tequila to do his job.

Though he's gotten a lot done in three weeks, I personally put together the large office in the back of the building. See, my buddy wanted a room with a hidden safe and a big heavy metal door. Makes sense since no one wants to get ripped off and it's been very convenient for me. I've been hiding the money I earn in the safe.

Leslie isn't going to get this stash of cash. I guarantee that. When I arrived at the site Hector was finishing up, I appreciated all the overtime he put in, even if I neglected to authorize it on his pay stub most of the time. I had been here earlier that morning to drop off a box of materials I got from a building being torn down later in the week.

Hinges and screws, stuff like that. Every penny counts. Hector said it was a bad idea, but I told him to do it or take a siesta at the welfare office. As he left, I headed to the back. I waited so as not to make him suspicious. You could buy a lot of piñatas with $670,000 and I wasn't taking any chances. I threw in a fresh $25,000 in hundreds and I sealed the safe shut.

I was all ready to leave. This place made me feel anxious at night. I heard a sound coming from outside. My mind was playing tricks on me. I've got to get some sleep. I'm going to have to get some coffee before my drive home. It was so dark, I couldn't see much of anything in the hallway. I could just barely see the light coming in from the cracks of the door.

But man, it was beautiful outside. I had never seen it under a full moon before. There was a calm peace over the pale moon light. I got into my car, and I started the engine. I backed up a few feet to get turned around in the dirt parking lot. all I wanted to do was get to the gas station on the corner.

If I was lucky, the clerk would speak at least a few words of English and I could get my damn coffee. As I started to pull forward, I heard a repeated thumping from the back of my car. This is just what I needed, a flat tire. I stopped the engine and I got out of the car. Sure enough, the back tire was flat.

These are brand new tires. Mechanics are con artists, plain and simple. I didn't even remember if I had a spare in the trunk. So I got out, I popped the back. Wouldn't you know it, I had a spare after all. I pulled the jack out and I got down on the ground. These were new pants. Perfect. I took the flashlight I had on my keychain and I shined it on the tire.

It was torn up pretty bad. It must have been blown out right when I pulled in here. I noticed something dangling just behind the tire. I laid flat and scooted myself underneath the car. Somehow I'd managed to sever a whole bunch of wires back here. Now I'm no mechanic, but this car is going nowhere. And neither am I. I guess this would have to be AAA's problem in the morning.

I heard a sound off in the distance. What the hell was that? I was still underneath the car looking at my wrecked undercarriage when I heard the sound move closer. Moving more. I started to scoot myself forward trying to get out from under the car. Something grabbed my leg. I could feel something sharp piercing straight through my ankle. Dear God, did it hurt.

It pulled me out from under the car and then I... And then I saw it. Looked like a wolf, but it couldn't have been a wolf. It was standing on its hind legs. I let out a scream and I turned, trying to run on my bum leg toward the office building. Dear God, if the door wasn't unlocked, I don't know what I'd do.

The door swung open and I slammed it behind me. I locked it and I stumbled to the back of the front office. Jesus Christ, what was that thing? It must have been a bear. Yeah, yeah, a bear. Bears can stand on their hind legs. My leg was in seriously bad shape. I needed a doctor pronto. I had seen a guy get a nail gun injury in their ankle before, but it didn't bleed like this.

I pulled my phone out of my pocket and I dialed 911. one. The door exploded open as if a grenade had went off on the other side. I dropped my phone and the battery popped out of the back of it. Cheap Chinese piece of crap. The creature stood there staring at me. It was easily six feet tall and it looked sore. Its eyes gave off a yellow glow from the angle they were fixated on me at.

I quickly grabbed the phone and the battery and I ran for my life through the hallway. I could hear the beast giving chase. The back office. I ran to I grabbed the heavy metal door and I closed it behind me. I turned the lock and I braced for the impact that was to follow. Nothing. It was quiet. The beast suddenly began to scratch and claw at the door, pounding on it.

This door could keep it out. It was thick enough to hold him. I couldn't stand on my ankle anymore, so I limped to the back of the office and I sat down. I began putting the battery back into my phone. I pushed it in and I turned the power on. The power-up screen was loading. It played a little jingle in a video that felt like it was taking an eternity to end.

I'm gonna make it. I'll call the police and they'll shoot this thing and I'll be fine. Maybe I could even use this injury to get sympathy from the wife. She'll let loose on her assault on my finances. You know, at moments like this, you realize what is truly important. Things become clearer to you than they once were. I'm gonna fire Hector. He always fights my instructions when I want to save money.

Just this morning we had that big argument, which I won, of course. I hit send on my phone and called 911. It started to ring. What were we fighting about? The operator answered. 911 emergency. At that moment, I remembered what we were arguing about. Hello? Can you hear me? Those old door hinges I had brought in, they were, uh, too rusted to secure the door.

Hello? Can you please state your emergency? I don't know about you, but I'm feeling hungry now. Weird. Well, I hope you enjoyed that one. It was based on a true story. Well, not the werewolf parts or the horrible death parts, but I did know a really crummy contractor. So, yeah, I hope that guy got his comeuppance in real life as well. I'm sure you're noticing some recurring themes.

These really were the stories that made me realize I loved being a storyteller in front of a microphone. In fact, these are the stories that caused me to get kind of hijacked briefly by Chilling Tales for Dark Nights, which is an excellent Scary Story podcast and YouTube channel. I did a few stories for them as well. They were really great. And that was the beginning of me realizing, hey, if I want to have a podcast that I'll enjoy doing every single week and now beyond every single week, maybe it just needed to be a little bit spooky.

Speaking of spooky, this story has a lot of that sweet, sweet ambience that's going to make sure you feel a little on edge. So let's kick back now and enjoy The House of Our Screams, after these quick words from our sponsor. The House of Our Screams I loved Sarah more than any woman I had ever known. Her smile made my mind at ease.

It made the air taste sweeter. I'd never felt that way before. Within a year of our first date, we were married and ready to begin the great adventure together. I was content with my two-bedroom apartment in downtown, but Sarah wanted more. She found this amazingly beautiful near-mansion in the outskirts of a rural suburb 45 minutes from the city. Honestly, I was surprised there was even electricity this far out into the middle of nowhere.

But I set my snobbery aside and we moved out into the country. I didn't mind the commute once I saw that big empty living room that would one day hold our beautiful children. The nightmare started in the first week. I couldn't sleep through the night without these horrible visions of screaming faces and children crying surrounding me. Eventually sleep wouldn't come to me at all.

I knew it was affecting Sarah, though she was better at keeping her composure than I was. The house needed some work, so I had taken a week off from the office to help out. My wife was gung-ho. She rolled up her sleeves and jumped headfirst into it. Some of the rooms were beautiful, especially after the meticulous paint and wallpaper she had applied.

But a few of them upset me. The first bedroom was the absolute worst. I could feel a thick sense of dread when I would walk in, and what's worse is, I could tell it was all focused at Sarah. At night, I would see things coming toward her. I would see a dark figure standing over her bed, but I was powerless to stop him.

My fear grew greater and greater, and Sarah was convinced that I was simply overstressed from the move, and that I was dreaming. I tried to tell her we should leave until we could figure this out. I begged her to leave. I was terrified for her and for myself. She wouldn't listen. Why wouldn't she listen? On Friday night, I went into town to pick up Chinese food for Sarah.

She loved beef chow mein, and deserved a reward for all the hard work she'd done on that terrible house. As I was walking to my car outside of the restaurant, I saw the sky turn from a gray shade to an ominous black. Thunder was cracking in the distance, and I drove right into it on the way home. The drive felt like an eternity.

The main road was flooded over, so I had to take a dirt road through the country. My four-wheel drive barely did anything to help. As my truck crawled to a stop in our long, winding dirt driveway, none of the lights were on. I tried not to worry since the storm could easily knock down a power line. I ran to the front porch and fumbled with my keys trying not to drop the bag of food.

The door opened slowly and it was pitch black. I couldn't see a thing. I put the food down next to the front door and fished my cell phone out of my pocket. I pressed it over and over until it gave off a faint light. just enough to see where I was walking. The flashes of lightning helped me confirm the living room was empty.

I continued my way toward the kitchen, waving my phone back and forth trying to get the smallest bit of detail to show through the pitch black room. The door opened. I called for Sarah, but I got no answer. I knew there must be a flashlight somewhere in the room, so I headed to the drawers and started digging through them when suddenly... I got a terrible feeling.

I can't explain why, but I realized at that moment I knew where she was. The dread filled me from my core and spread out to my extremities. She was in that first bedroom. That terrible bedroom where I heard all those things said to me about her. I begged her not to go into that room. She had to be there. I rushed out of the kitchen with my arm out to keep from walking into any furniture and I headed to the stairs.

As I climbed them slowly, I could see full view of the staircase when the lightning interjected its pale luminance. I reached the top of the stairs and saw the door in front of me. I could tell you for certain with every ounce of my being that she was behind that door. As I opened it, the storm seemed to subside. The room was completely dark as I extended my hand with the cell phone, but it didn't cast much light at all.

I took a few steps forward and called her name, but I heard nothing. Suddenly, then at that moment, I heard the loudest crack of thunder in my life. It was as if someone had fired a shotgun beside my head. I jumped and at that moment I saw her. As if it were a macabre photograph revealed to me in one brief frame, I saw her lying on the floor.

I ran to her side and I held my light out. I could barely make out the detail of her face, but my eyes, they slowly adjusted to the darkness. There was a puddle beneath her. It was paint, white paint, that she had used to bring uniformity to all the rooms of the house. As my eyes adjusted to the low light and I brought the phone closer, I saw it.

A strip of red in the puddle. Blood red. It took six hours for the storm to finally clear and the ambulance to arrive. I knew that the house had taken her away from me. But as I sit alone tonight, on a night so much like the night I found her, I finally think to myself about that night. About that house. Why would this happen?

How could this happen? I've been so afraid to recount these events. But now, on a stormy night, just like the night I found her. I've truly been able to relive the entire event, but it isn't so clear to me anymore. They all seem so real, yet so distant to me. They haunt me, while at the same time they are blurry and uncertain.

A haze hangs over it all and confusing. Then I start to really think. Maybe they were right. The police. The judges. The jury. Maybe they were all right. Maybe I did come home in the rainstorm to find my wife working in the bedroom, laughing with paint stains on her sweater and her jeans. Maybe, as she stood there stretching to the ceiling on her stepladder, I pushed her off.

Picked it up, folded it, and hit her across the forehead with it. Maybe I did kill my wife. After all, stranger things have happened. you know it's kind of funny i bought my first house this year and i identify with a lot of the concerns of course i don't think i've killed anybody although neither did the main character of that story. But enough holiday cheer.

We need more holiday fear. I know these stories aren't based around Christmas, but to me, they're a gift to you. These are stories I wrote from a place of very honest love because I've always enjoyed those stories you would tell at sleepovers and late night car rides. That's been the lifeblood of me for as long as I can remember. And this story, Thrills Can Kill, is loosely based on one of my absolute favorite chilling slumber party stories.

So kick back and enjoy this one after a quick word from our wonderful sponsors. and they really are wonderful. They really allow us to keep this going, just like you guys do. So here we go. Thrills can kill. You might think it's fun to give yourself the creeps. April certainly did. She would intentionally wait until the street grew dark and quiet to run any of her errands for the day.

The simple walk to the corner market would make her heartbeat just a little faster. As she walked the mile she could feel the blood pumping. She would feel alive as her pace slowly sped up, But always the walk back would get to her more. You see, on the way back she would take the other side of the street. On the other side of her suburban street was an oddity, to say the least.

Sitting on the lawn of an otherwise average-looking house was a twisted mass of steel resembling a 1979 Volkswagen Beetle. The car's front end had been smashed nearly flat, and the passenger door had been cut clean by the firefighters trying to get the victim out of the wreckage. This mangled mess had belonged to a young woman, Tina Williams. Tina tried to drive herself home after a night of partying.

Needless to say, she never made it. Tina went off the shoulder and into a parked car just five blocks from her home. She was dead on the scene. Tina's parents went through a long and painful time of grief, during which they made the macabre decision to have the wrecked remains of Tina's car placed on their lawn. They considered it a kind of memorial, a warning to all the kids of the neighborhood who got their licenses and thought they were invincible.

To say it was eerie was an understatement. The neighborhood wasn't happy with the Williams family's decoration decisions, but it was simply too sore of a topic to breach. Over the years, everyone had decided to just let it be. But April was a different story. As April would skip her way home at night, she would intentionally come back on the opposite street, guaranteeing her a thrilling glimpse of the ghastly scene.

and it would never disappoint. She would almost always succumb to a gut feeling of fear that made her feet want to run. Her nasal passages would clear and her fight-or-flight instincts would start to hit full tilt. She would sprint the rest of the way home and as soon as she had latched her door behind her, she would giggle with delight. She loved to be scared.

She would go through this excitement maybe once a week if she was lucky until, of course, summer vacation hit. Once school was out, April would be running down the streets late at night ad nauseum, trying to get her favorite thrill. Only one problem ever really presented itself. The thrill was starting to subside. The more she would go on her runs, the more mundane they had started to feel.

Eventually, she didn't even look for excuses. She would simply leave the house and stare at the wreckage, at the Williams house. Even the wreckage started to become ordinary. April had memorized how the front end went inward, what windows still had glass in them, where the jaws of life had cut through to try to retrieve the body of poor Tina Williams. That would make the chill run up her spine, the thought of that poor girl, that poor dead girl.

April had never known Tina. She hadn't moved to the area until years ago. but the idea of the death was upsetting to her and she was drawn to it. April's older sister had moved away for college three years ago and the hallway closet was still filled with many of her things. She was a girl of strange tastes. There were mostly movies, books, and board games stacked in boxes.

When things got boring to April, she would search through the closet. That's when she found it, the answer to her boredom. Just seeing it gave her heart a sudden increase in speed. She opened the box and looked down at the board and the planchette: it was a Ouija board. The plan was to place the Ouija board on what was left of the hood of the car and try to contact Tina's spirit.

The plan seemed silly, but in the end all it had to do was scare her. That was simply all she wanted. The anticipation for her plans were exquisite. She tapped her feet all day long waiting for the sun to set, for the time to come. When night finally arrived, she waited for the lights in the houses to slowly shut off in the neighborhood.

By 11.30, all the lights were out. April was the only night owl on this block. April opened her front door. There was a chill she hadn't anticipated. She went back inside and put on a loose-fitting windbreaker she had also found in her sister's belongings. She grabbed the board and made her familiar walk to the dreadful sight. As she arrived at the wreckage, her body and mind started to panic.

She wanted to run away. It was perfect. She basked in that feeling of terror. She smiled ever so slightly. She found that the best spot to place the board would be on the dash of the car. It was wide and still somewhat flat following the accident. April would have to lean inside through the car window to use the board. It was too perfect.

She set the board inside the car and leaned in. She put her hands on the planchette and started to move it in a figure eight. Are you a spirit? She asked timidly, trying not to speak too loud. The planchette slowly moved to yes. That feeling pounded through April's entire circulatory system. Even if she was just doing it to herself, this was an incredible and thrilling experience.

Can you help me talk to... Tina Williams? She asked, slightly less timid as the planchette continued moving on the board, never stopping between questions. The arrow moved down to no. This answer perplexed April. Why not? she asked. The arrow started to move again. It started to spell. I. A. M. T. I-N-A. I am Tina. That answer made April feel more alive than she had ever felt in her entire life.

Her legs were tingly as her chest felt light like it could float away. She took a deep breath to ask another question. What is it like to be dead? Her planchette started to move faster now. It began spelling yet again. L-O-N-E-L-Y Lonely, she said to herself. Why is it lonely? she asked the board. The pointer started to move faster now. It started to show the same letters over and over.

J-O-I-N-M-E, J-O-I-N-M-E, J-O-I-N-M-E, Join me. A feeling went through April's body. She had never felt before. It was too much, She was done. It had gone too far. Her chest was starting to throb as she felt. The fear overtook her senses entirely. The board dropped suddenly, startling her further. She pulled herself out of the car window when she felt a hand grab her coat sleeve.

She struggled, but it would not let her go. Tina's ghost was lonely. She had been dead so long, she wanted April to join her in the grave. She struggled as much as she could, trying to pull free, but all she could hear in her head was, Join me. Join me. Join me. As her heart pounded, April began to feel lightheaded. She went limp and fell against the car door.

In the morning, Mr. Williams came out to find a horrible sight. A young girl leaning against the wrecked Volkswagen Beetle. She was dead from a sudden heart attack. Her coat had been caught on the jagged metal of the car door. Join me. I don't know about you all, but my imagination very often gets the best of me. And I think that's what happened to April as well.

Of course, I don't think it, I guess, because I wrote the story. I always enjoy stories about young people taking a risk. Maybe because I didn't do a whole lot of that myself when I was a kid. But this next story, I actually feel like kind of is a Christmassy theme because it's about getting what you want and kind of sort of about family.

Of course, that's by way of robbing graves, which I guess is slightly less wholesome. At least I haven't seen the Hallmark original Christmas movie about grave robbing yet, but I'm sure it's good. I'm sure it's about a young woman who's obsessed with her grave robbing business and has no time for love or anything else. But she goes to a small town where she's going to rob the grave of a hunky widower's great grandma.

And that's when she realizes maybe she shouldn't do that. I'm just making this up as I go along. I apologize. I'm just trying to have a little fun with you guys, I suppose. But now I think it's time for you all to hear what I think is maybe one of the scariest stories I've written and performed on my own. Aunt Kelsey's Coffin.

So let's give it a listen after these quick words from our sponsors. Aunt Kelsey's Coffin. One o'clock was creeping into a cold night at the Final Peace Cemetery on the outskirts of town. Easily the most peaceful place you could ever hope to be, but at the same time, who would ever want to be there? Richie, that's who. Richie was a middle-aged man, distinguished facial features framed by a wise beard.

His profession was one as old as death itself. Grave robbing. The hours were a little rough, and the sights and smells were interesting to say the least, but you never know what you'll find out there, and the rewards could be phenomenal. Ritchie remembered as clear as day when he picked up his macabre vocation. He was 25 years old, fresh out of college with a liberal arts degree, and nowhere to go.

His student loans were starting to get the best of him, and he was always looking for work, but then a break came in the form of a telegram. His great-aunt Kelsey had bit the dust at the tender age of 97, and an inheritance was sure to be his. Aunt Kelsey had a load of money, and while it was unfortunate she had passed away, she would help him more now than she could ever know.

After a meeting with her attorney immediately following the funeral, it was revealed that she had indeed left him a sizable inheritance. However, it was in the form of a donation to charity in his name. Lousy, he thought to himself. That's just like her to go the self-righteous route. As he headed home, he reflected on the whole ordeal when something struck him. When they buried his aunt, she had on a necklace.

A large blue diamond necklace. Blue diamonds were incredibly rare, and it had always been a centerpiece of Aunt Kelsey's extensive collection of jewelry, all of which had been donated to charity, except for what she was wearing at her burial. Richie tried to shake the ghastly thoughts, but they just made too much sense to him. She didn't need it anymore, and that diamond alone could pay nearly half of his loans.

So, he took a jar of change from his bedroom and cashed it in to buy a shovel. It was an investment in his future. As he walked carefully into the graveyard, shovel in hand, it became clear how obvious his crime would look if he were caught. But who would catch him? No one visits this old cemetery at night. The caretaker wasn't there more than once a week by the look of the grass.

The earth was still soft from the recent burial. It wasn't difficult at all. A little elbow grease, and before he knew it, his shovel hit the wood lid of Aunt Kelsey's coffin. Inscribed on the front was, Eternal Peace Be With You, with some golden leaves on either side. Prying it open took a little finesse, but sure enough, he got his fingers under the lid ready to lift it.

As the lid swung open, Ritchie lost his balance and fell forward. He put his hand out to break his fall and ended up landing on Aunt Kelsey's face. The feeling shocked him. As he lifted himself back up and moved his hand, he felt sick to his stomach. Her face had warped and distorted. The wax the mortician used to mold her face into a pleasing form for the funeral had flattened on half of her skull and stretched on the other side, revealing muscle and bone.

Ritchie turned his head away for a moment, trying to regain control of his stomach, and it worked, but only just barely. Ritchie left the cemetery with the blue diamond and three gold rings. Bills weren't a problem for him for quite some time. The image of Aunt Kelsey's twisted face may have stuck with him for a while, but the ease at which he had made so much money stayed with him even longer.

Before long, Richie was hitting three graveyards a month. The hardest part was just putting the grass and dirt back the way he had found it, but after a while he had become an expert. He would drive out into the country, check into a motel with a fake name, and head into the cemetery that night. The older the cemetery, the less people were there, and the more valuable the jewelry.

Final Peace Cemetery was one of his best finds to date. It wasn't listed on any maps. He found it strictly from word of mouth. No one had been buried there since the 50s. Some of the grave markers went back to Civil War days. This could mean some serious money in the bank. Richie had a strict method he would follow when robbing graves, and they were pretty simple.

The larger headstones with older dates had a better chance of having something of value. Also, only dig up women's graves. Men don't tend to have many valuables on their person when they get planted. The first grave marker was a bust. The lady only had a wedding band on. Richie was disappointed, but he was optimistic of his next spot. A light fog had descended over the cemetery like a blanket trying to keep all the souls warm through the cold night.

Sometimes, when he's not sure where to dig, he would just walk around until his gut told him to stop. That had paid off pretty well in the past. As he walked along, he came to a very large grave marker. It read, Agnes Thompson, 1801 to 1885. He got that feeling in his gut and decided this was as good a place as any.

As he stomped his shovel into the hard earth beneath him, a chill hit him right in the back of the neck. It felt like someone was watching him. Though that is not really an uncommon feeling in his line of work, but it was particularly intense to him that night. Getting the creeps was business as usual for him, but he tried very well to ignore it.

He made it through the first few feet of dirt no problem. Every now and then, Richie would stop to look around the yard. Something really had him spooked. He kept working, and finally he heard the familiar thud of the shovel hitting wood. Pay dirt, he said. Scooping away the dirt took only a matter of moments. He reached over the side of the hole and grabbed his lantern.

As he brought the lantern down, it revealed the casket lid, which had some tasteful gold leaves and an inscription. "'Eternal peace be with you.'" Richie stopped for a moment to think. Where had he seen that before? Then it hit him. This casket was a dead ringer for the one his aunt Kelsey had been buried in twenty years ago. A feeling of dread swept across him.

Thinking back to that night wasn't pleasant at all. Every night of grave robbing was easier than the last, but that first night was the cruelest to him. He felt another chill go over him as he looked around again and found no one was there, but he couldn't seem to get it through his thick skull. Finally, he got his nerve back and started prying at the coffin lid.

It creaked loudly as it opened. For some reason, every part of Richie's body told him to stop. He felt like he should close it back and just get out of there, not even place the dirt back. Just run for his life. He took a deep breath as the lid slowly lifted. It felt so heavy, or maybe he wanted it to be heavy so he wouldn't open it.

As the lid opened the rest of the way, Richie strained, closing his eyes. The coffin was empty. There was nothing at all inside. Maybe someone else had gotten to it. He'd never had that happen to him before, but he couldn't be the only one stealing from the dead. This night has been a total loss, he said to himself. I may as well go home.

He slammed the casket lid down hard and started to climb. He crawled out of the hole and began to rise to his feet. As he rose, he felt a snag on his coat. He grabbed it to shake it free, but what he felt in his hand was cold, damp, and soft. It was locked on his coat sleeve. As he tried to pull it off, he then heard a yell.

He looked over to his side to see on the ground next to him a disgusting, rotted corpse, its teeth exposed and mouth wide open, letting out the most horrible yell. Don't steal. It, moaned in its horrible, mangled voice. Ritchie let out a scream. His heart started to pound so hard He thought it could come out of his throat. The slimy creature slowly sat up And turned its head to look right at Ritchie.

Only, it couldn't look at him. Its eyes were rotted out And all that were left were sockets Where worms were wriggling their way free out of his head. Richie finally jumped to his feet. No, this isn't real. You're not real, He pleaded. He turned to run And at that moment he saw a face, A familiar face, Standing in front of him. Behind the fog and the pale light of the moon Was the twisted face of Aunt Kelsey.

Richie, She moaned, You stole from me. As she let out those terrible words, Richie stood in shock. None of this could be happening, not in real life. A second figure came out of the shadows next to the rotten Aunt Kelsey. She was a terribly thin creature, her clothes filthy with dirt and grime. She held her chin tightly with her left hand. Her eyes were dark and piercing.

Do you remember me? She forced out in a groan. The chain of my necklace wouldn't clasp, so you cut off my head. Richie panicked. No, no, you're dead. All of you are dead. Another figure came out from the black. It let out an eerie voice. My wounds were so important to you that you cut off my fingers. You even dried out my gold teeth.

Richie wanted to run, but his legs didn't work. The fear engulfed him entirely. The apparitions began to speak. Oh, Richie. The dead is a terrible way to make a living. Richie couldn't tell if his eyes were open or closed. All he saw was black. Then his eyes finally began to focus. The terrible face of Aunt Kelsey pierced through him as the coffin lid slowly closed over top.

Now, all was truly black. Richie kicked and screamed. He pounded on the lid, trying to break free. Please, let me out of here. I'll give it back. I'll give it back, he pleaded. Aunt Kelsey spoke to Richie from outside of the casket. Don't be afraid. Jane, when I died, I was lucky enough to get a visitor. But Richie, you don't have any gold or diamonds.

So I guess you'll be alone for a long, long time. The dead truly are a terrible way to make a living. That one kind of haunted me from the time I first wrote it. The concept of a face made of mortician's wax being smushed down really gets to me even now as a 36-year-old man, and I hope you enjoyed experiencing it as well.

This has actually been really fun for me. I haven't listened to a lot of these in a very long time, but these really are the precursors to weekly spooky. They were called don't listen in the dark, volumes one and volume two, and they each featured four stories. This next one is extra special to me because I turned it into a part of a movie.

It's called fair scare, And we actually adapted it into a segment of my horror anthology, Scarewaves, which you can find on Amazon if you're really curious about my film work. I don't know if you are or not. It's a pretty cool story. It's got a very Tales from the Crypt EC Comics vibe, and I think you're really going to dig it. So let's get to that right now, after these quick words from our lovely and festive sponsors.

Fair Scare, The top story of the night. Two unidentified men have succeeded in one of the most daring bank robberies in New York State history, taking over $2 million in cash during a poorly timed armored car transition in the small rural town of Tomaston. Police suspect one or more of the men involved may have had a job with the bank, as knowledge of the location and timing of their money transports were extremely proprietary.

Roadblocks have been set up throughout the major highways and state routes across New York State. The suspects were last seen headed toward Pennsylvania as they fled the scene. Police say they will apprehend the men within 24 hours. More information as it is made available. Robbie leaned over and turned off the radio. Mitchell sat next to him in the car. The silence was almost loud.

The road was pitch black. Every curve came as a surprise. As they drove along, Mitchell could feel his stomach tightening into many, many knots. Bobby, on the other hand, wasn't nervous at all. They had simply walked up to the truck with their guns out and took the money. It would have been perfect if one of the guards hadn't tried to be a hero, but what does one $10 an hour rent-a-cop really matter when there's $2 million to gain?

Not much, as far as he was concerned. Mitchell wasn't quite so comfortable with their actions, but he was fine with the payout. A million dollars each, and the cops are looking for them in Pennsylvania. Mitchell couldn't help but chuckle to himself about that. As they crossed the Connecticut state line, the two of them had been friends for years. Robbie was a bit older and had spent his early 20s in state prison for Grand Theft Auto.

Mitchell met him on the outside and, while he would often be a moral man, the promise of quick risk and huge reward kept him on board with Robbie's schemes. Stealing from vending machines and parking meters was a great way to afford a flat screen TV or an iPod, but this heist took the cake. For weeks, Robbie would drive out to Tamastin, sit in his car, and watch the transaction go down between the armored trucks.

Tamastin was a tiny, sleepy town basically no one had ever heard of. Robbie wouldn't have even known about it either, but then his great-aunt died, and he went to the funeral. That was when he laid eyes on one of the easiest scores there could ever be. As they drove down the dark back roads of Connecticut, the car felt heavy. with the weight of their actions as well as the weight of the two million dollars in cash.

The safe house they were headed to had been provided by Ava, Mitchell's girlfriend. The house belonged to her ex-stepmother. No one lived there most of the year, and while Robbie was never comfortable with involving a woman in their plans, it was the best option. The arrangement was simple. Robbie and Mitchell split at 50-50, then they parted ways. Robbie planned on heading to South America to expand his criminal horizons, planned on heading off to Europe.

He thought it was romantic. The road winded and slowly turned from paved to dirt. The moon was half full and the blue light shined off of a stream they seemed to be following. The car pulled up to a dark house and as they got out a woman walked out of the pitch black. The glow of her cigarette gave her face an amber glow as she puffed away.

Ava had been nervously chain-smoking and listening to the radio for hours. She ditched her cigarette and ran up to Mitchell. She held him tight and told him how glad she was to know he was all right. Robbie just looked on with a face that could only be described as skeptical. Hello, Robbie, Ava said begrudgingly. We made it, he said short and proud.

As they went inside, it became apparent that the house no longer had power. It would appear the house had gone from an occasional country getaway to fully abandoned in the last few years. fumbled off into the dark and returned with two old gas lanterns. Primitive, but effective. Robbie stretched his legs and propped down on a recliner chair. Ava and Mitchell almost immediately retired to the kitchen, no doubt to put a wall between themselves and Robbie.

He could faintly hear their voices. Ava always took the aggressive tone and Mitchell always collapsed to her demands. Robbie didn't know what they were talking about and he really didn't care. He was just counting money in his head over and over and over. When they entered the living room again, Ava was silent and nudging Mitchell. He clearly had no desire to say whatever she had coerced him into.

Finally, she pushed him aside and jumped to the point. I wanted to talk about my half. Your half, Robbie said. You don't have a half. You two can figure out what you do with your money on your own time. Ava didn't like his answer, and she had no qualms with explaining that she had found the getaway house, and she had kept her mouth shut.

She wanted a third for her trouble. Robbie was in shock. He was fuming mad, but he knew that the answer was to wait. He always knew it was better to think and then act. Mitchell and Ava retired to a bedroom in the back of the house. Robbie was sitting watch under the flickering light of a single candle. No one had asked him to do it, but he felt obligated to watch for anything unusual.

His head was still buzzing with rage over Ava's demands, but he still hadn't decided how to deal with it. A sound boomed through the house. Robbie nearly jumped out of his skin. He pulled out his gun and then immediately realized it was the bedroom door opening. The dark hallway filled with amber light as Mitchell stumbled through the hallway with his lantern burning off the last bit of fuel it had.

What the hell are you doing? Robbie whispered. I'm thirsty, Mitchell replied, groggy and innocent. At that moment, Robbie's mind fired up a story. Robbie took Mitchell aside and quietly explained the situation as he saw it, explaining that earlier in the evening, Ava had come to him and flat out told him if she didn't get her cut, she would go to the police.

This shocked Mitchell. It was a sobering realization for him. He was upset, but he knew where this was going. It would all be very simple. They walked back into the bedroom as quiet as they could. Mitchell was solemn, and even Robbie couldn't maintain his usual professional composure. He reached for the pillow next to Ava's head and slowly picked it up. She shifted in her sleep, which nearly made Robbie cry out.

He brought the pillow back and prepared himself for the task. He began to slowly bring the pillow toward her face. Mitchell's hands stopped Robbie, and at that moment Robbie was ready to do them both in. But when they made eye contact it became clear mitchell wanted to do the deed himself. As mitchell brought the pillow down over ava's face, she began to panic.

Robbie kept yelling at him to push harder. The time it took to smother the life out of ava felt like an eternity. She scratched, she clawed, as her muffled screams and cries were growing louder and louder. Robbie, He leaned in and put his weight on the pillow to aid Mitchell's effort. And that was all it took. Her body went limp. Mitchell started to let off, but Robbie snapped at him and told him to hold it down for another minute.

They had to be sure. They rolled her up in the bedding she had laid in and walked her outside carefully. The easiest option was to put her in the nearby stream. The 50-foot walk went by quickly as both the men tried to count the money in their heads over and over again to ignore the ghastly act that they were committing. They walked back to the house in silence.

Mitchell laid back down in bed and tried in vain to sleep. Robbie was a crook and a killer, but this was brutal even for him. He decided to go outside and walk, get fresh air, and think about his money. The air was cool and moist, with dew, Silent and still. But Then the sound of the water started to infiltrate the night. Trudging feet walked out of the water Covered in moss and mud, Making their way toward the house.

Coming to correct a wrong, Coming for revenge, Coming for Mitchell, A slimy, seaweed-covered hand started to open the front door. Mitchell jumped awake in his bed, His heart pounding and his body covered in perspiration. His panic wasn't calming much at all when he suddenly realized he heard that sound again. Those trudging footsteps. But they were real to him this time. He knew they couldn't be, though.

They were from his dream and from his guilty conscience. It wasn't real. It couldn't be real. Then a pounding came to the door. This was real. The pounding was real. Ava had come back to punish him. He killed the woman he loved. Something like that couldn't go unpunished. Mitchell went to his nightstand. He had a pistol Robbie had given him for insurance during the heist.

He grabbed it and he ran to the living room. The pounding had gotten louder. He pointed the gun at the door. You're dead. You aren't coming back. I got the money and you're dead. He screamed frantically. He fired into the door. Just then, he heard a groan. The sound of pain. Mitchell's mind finally switched back to reality. He ran up and opened the door.

Robbie laid there with bullets in his stomach and chest. Mitchell got down on his knees and checked him out, but he was dead. You can't be dead. I'm so sorry, buddy, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. Mitchell knew he couldn't live with himself now. He'd killed the woman he loved and his best friend. He knew there was one bullet left and he knew exactly how to use it.

He put the gun in his mouth and cocked the hammer back. This was it. He cringed as he prepared to pull the trigger. Suddenly a thought went through his mind: the money- he didn't have to split it with anyone now, two million dollars- was all his. Maybe life was worth living after all. As he started to remove the gun from his mouth, A slimy hand came out of the darkness, covered in seaweed and moss.

It grabbed his hand and it pulled the chair. I love you, Mitchell. Gotta love when a plan works out, right? Well, I guess it depends on whose side you're on. But in the end love conquers all right, kind of. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed that one. I'm very proud of that story. I'm very proud of the version we did in the film scarewave.

So if you get a chance to check that out I think you'll enjoy it. But this next story was one of my absolute favorites I've ever written because it's got a taste of science fiction to it. It's about a futuristic prison with a warden that controls everything via computer. But he has a deeply mean streak. He's drunk on power and he's not ready for one cold night to bring about a loss of that power.

So let's take this one in after some quick words from our sponsors. It's good to be the king. Now, I'm not delusional. I know I'm not really a king, but it can feel pretty close. I'm Terry Thomas, and 50-plus hours a week, I'm the warden at the Patterson Correctional Facility, Level 4. But I hate that name. Correctional really isn't the right word.

When my dad was a guard back in the day, they called it a penitentiary. Now that's a word with power behind it. Same with the word guard. Now they call them corrections officers. Why don't they just call them flight attendants? We're the only thing between the good, law-abiding citizens and the animals of society that they need caged. But we need to look nice and neat and sweet.

Well, I'll tell you, it's a hard job. I became an officer at Lardner, the same prison my old man had worked at years before, but unlike him, I climbed the ladder quickly. His lazy, drunken self wasn't the model employee by any stretch, but me, I loved what I did and I did it well. It's all about psychology. You treat a prisoner like a prisoner.

You don't respect their space, you don't call them by their first name, and you sure as hell don't do them any favors. They need to be aware that the only thing between them and your club is their ability to be polite. The moment that their demeanor shifts a single iota in the wrong direction, BAM! Discipline. They need to learn discipline more than anything.

They arrive and they are immediately told to take a shower, to get dressed, to make their beds. These things have to be pounded into their heads, because if they had any discipline at all in the first place, they wouldn't be here. Now, a lot of people say it's like dealing with children, but I can tell you when I was nine years old, I never once pulled a sharpened toothbrush on my little sister.

No, these are grown men completely aware of what they are doing, and they are choosing to do it. I have never batted an eye at kneecapping a single one of them. But those were the old days, you see. As I became a supervisor, things calmed. There wasn't a lot of action, but I got to make sure everyone was doing their jobs to the best of their ability.

The warden had no clue what he was doing. The prison was dirty, the guards were selling cigarettes to the inmates. I had no problem at all expressing my disdain for the operation. I was handed a cell block of my own at 26 years old and strictly because the warden wanted to watch me fail. And he said I had no clue when I would go around talking smack about his inefficiencies.

He would have been right. The guards were lazy and the inmates in the block here were violent and disorderly. But I didn't care. I walked into the place and I fixed every single problem by myself. There were no more fights in the yard, No more sneaking cigarettes in storage closets. I pulled that entire block together myself. No one had to help me, No one except for my baton.

I did it in spite of all of the help the staff had to offer. And before the warden could properly ignore my accomplishments, there was a surprise visit by the lieutenant governor. He saw what I had done and he immediately put me in for a big recommendation. That's how I got this job. A brand new state-of-the-art facility unlike anything else in the country.

It looks less like a prison than it does an industrial park and all the locks are magnetic and I can section off any area I want with the swipe of my touch screen. The best part is, I do it all myself. No guards needed. I sit in my control room and I judge what is happening by viewing my cameras. If prisoners are getting rowdy, I can have the sprinkler system spray boiling hot water.

It stops them dead in their tracks, and it's my own design. At night, I inspect every lock, every corner for a blind spot. This system couldn't work with just anybody. But it's me who makes it shine. When the state reinstituted the death penalty, the governor was so impressed with the facility and how I ran it, they built the only execution room in the state right here.

They truck in some of the real bad guys you see on TV down to my little establishment. You know, one guy they brought in had been all over the news for months. He killed maybe 40 people and managed to make the cops look stupid. When they brought him in, they offered me some support staff so I wouldn't feel in danger. I refused it outright.

This was just another animal in the zoo. That night, I opened his cell and I made sure he understood that I was in control. He wasn't so tough standing there with his head shaved, waiting to go. I made a call that night and convinced them to allow the execution to be entirely self-contained. That's right. I pulled the switch, too. If you ask me, it's a privilege.

I'm not just containing the scum of the earth. I'm helping to end it. I'm part of the solution and sure as hell not part of the problem. Now, I'm not obsessed with my job, but I am diligent. I monitor from my home when I'm not here, and I've been known to catch some sleep in my office because the job needs to be done right.

It's important. I won't pretend it's easy to do it all myself, but I will tell you that I can do it. Thanks to the magnetic locks, I can separate any prisoner I want, then have a little one-on-one time with them. I am respected, and they are disciplined. New Year's Eve came up fast, and I had been in charge for eight years by that point, and my record was phenomenal.

It was a mild winter, and I don't think I had to shovel my driveway once that year, so I decided to spend the holiday in my office. It's a huge wall of monitors with interfaces all around. I preferred to control it all with my handheld unit. It was pretty genius. I mean, it was a computer, a phone, and a two-way radio. If they threw in a can opener, I think they'd have it perfect.

Some storm clouds had been pushing their way into the county, and they were making a lot of noise. I checked the weather report on my hand unit, and it predicted a severe thunderstorm. That damn thing was so useful. The storm was harsh and loud. There was lightning flashing constantly. Some people would be nervous, but not me. This is my land, and I'm the king.

I took another drink out of my flask. Whiskey and late shifts go together like peanut butter and jelly, by the way. As I opened my eyes after enjoying another belt, I heard a loud crashing. Everything was dark. Pitch black. I couldn't see my own hand in front of my face. I know this place backwards and forwards. In four seconds, the backup lights will activate.

Four, three, two, one. Nothing. The storm must have taken out the prison's generator and not just the power grid. That generator is meant to be the backup. I have to call someone. My hand unit doubles as a flashlight. I really love that thing. So I found my way to my chair and I made the call. What the hell is going on? Sir, lightning struck the transformer that feeds the power to you.

You can't receive anything from the power grid or from your own backup generators. Why don't we have a backup for this? It's a one in a million shot that the storm would take out the transformer. Lightning basically struck your facility. When can I have the power back on? I'm not sure, sir. We will have the engineers to you immediately. We'll send a riot squad to you and get you out of there.

Don't send a riot, team. Just focus on getting the power back on. Sir, the locks could fail at any time. We need to send in the squad to maintain order. I can maintain order! You just get the power back on. I can handle this. I don't suggest it. I am in charge! Do what I say or I will call the governor myself!

Yes, sir. We will radio when the power is back on. Idiot dispatcher. He's some minimum wage know-it-all trying to tell me how to run my prison. I know what I'm doing. It is eerie, though, sitting here. My eyes had adjusted to the dark and now I could see all these blank screens. All those inmates I'm not seeing. But I'm positive the locks couldn't fail.

There's just no way. Jesus Christ, my door! Someone was pounding on my door! Come out, warden! We want to thank you for unlocking the doors! Giving us all a fresh start for the new year! The animals were out of their cages. It didn't take them long. opportunistic monsters that they were. I don't have anything to worry about. When the power comes back on, I'll lock the whole place down.

I'll force them back into their cages, and I won't feed them till I feel like it. Warden! We know you're in there, come on! Me and the boys want to make sure you're alright. We hope you didn't stub your toe in the dark or anything. I'm not stupid. If that door fails, I know exactly what to do. I made my way to the closet off past my control center.

There's nothing as effective as an old standard. As I opened the door, lightning flashed and showed my eyes the outline of my shotgun. My secret weapon, I guess. The slamming on the door was getting louder and louder. The moment they come in here, I can pump them full of lead, and I'm totally justified. As I loaded a few rounds into the rifle, the door kicked open.

I couldn't see who was there, but I turned and I fired. I don't know if I hit anyone, but my point was made. I started walking toward them, ready to fire again. They closed the door. I didn't expect that. Maybe they aren't so stupid. It was getting quiet now. I could hear the faintest rustling, like they were rats. Like they were rats.

They were rats. Then my radio sounded. Sir, do you need assistance? Just get the power back on! I shut the handset off, and I put my attention back to the door. I could smell something strange. The room was so dark, but... I felt like the wall was... moving, or shifting. Then I realized... it was smoke. The room was filling with smoke. I started to panic as my lungs filled quickly.

I was choking. I tried to get the handset on my belt clip out, but my lungs burned and my eyes, they rolled into the back of my head. My eyes tried to focus. I couldn't quite make out where I was. I was sitting and I couldn't move. I could feel cold steel on my forehead, or maybe it was around my head. Hey, man.

We know you're like the king or something, so we wanted to give you your own throne, complete with a crown. It was one of the prisoners, but I couldn't see anyone in the room. I could just hear him taunting me. Sorry, pal. The governor isn't calling for you. Dear God, I was in the electric chair, and I could hear the lever being pulled.

I knew that sound all too well. It squeaked all the way to... Nothing. Idiots, the power isn't on! What a bunch of morons! When I get out of here, they're dead. I heard a sound coming out of my pocket. My handset was sounding off. sir we will be able to restore full power no i i can't reach it it's in my pocket in three two one seemed to me like he needed a little time off but i guess that came as a shock to him Oh, man.

Well, this next one is extra strange because when I was recording this CD, I had a very specific deadline. Remember, these scary stories were delivered on physical discs. You couldn't just email them out. You had to have them burned and printed and ready to rock. Well, I had one more story left to record and I had no voice. My voice had completely burnt out, so I improvised and gave the character this very odd, deep, raspy voice that, frankly, I couldn't do now to save my life.

So enjoy one more drink. After a quick word from our sponsors. One more drink. What can I say? I'm a ladies' man through and through. I love women. I love everything about them. I love their hair. I love the way they laugh, the way they talk, the way they smell. I love the way each of them is different, and I want to love them all.

Blondes, redheads, brunettes, green hair spiked four feet high. I don't care, there just isn't a thing that can put me off from them. Unfortunately, I never had too much luck with the ladies. In fact, you could say I was a little bit of a failure with women. and I didn't go on my first date until I was 19 years old, and that was a disaster.

The girl wasn't interested in me, which I didn't understand since she was the one who said yes to our evening together. We sat and made small talk over some fancy pasta that cost me 25 bucks a plate, and she couldn't have appeared less interested if she'd tried. I just wanted to get to know her a little better. her. When the night ended, I asked her if she wanted to have a nightcap with me.

She said she had to be up early and couldn't. I'm not ashamed to say I begged her to stay. She was gorgeous, and I wanted her to stay just a little while longer. I wasn't particularly experienced with women, but I was pretty sure I knew what I wanted. How to get it was really a different matter, though. She sat on my couch, and I brought her a libation.

I was a whiz when it came to mixed and though she protested, I convinced her to have just one last drink. She appreciated the subtleties of my cocktail, and getting a compliment from her kind of made my heart swell with joy. She was sweet. I just wish she could have been sweet on me. When her drink was done, so was she. She got up and she headed for the door.

I was sad to see her go. until the cyanide kicked in. I could see her body weight shifting as walking became more and more difficult. She must have known something was wrong, but she probably just thought the drink was stronger than she'd thought. Boy, was she right. When she hit the floor, so did my heart. She was down, and she was dead.

Her beautiful eyes that lit up the room faded as she gazed a million miles away. She was mine forever And ever And ever. Our date ended, like many dates to follow, On a long, quiet drive out into the country Where there was a nice little quarry a short distance off the road. No one ever came out this way. It was so isolated I would swear that there weren't even birds or bugs anywhere to be found.

It was quiet And beautiful. The quarry went on and on into the dark. I'd just make the drop and know that the women I loved were safe down there. Then I'd drive back home in silence, never feeling lonely, knowing they were all down there, waiting for me. I used to never care much for the bar scene, but as my social life started to take off, that changed really quickly.

I loved going out and meeting new people, and the concept of being given a drink was not at all foreign. In that situation, I would meet a beautiful woman, we would chat and learn about each other and then, the moment she told me in her own way that she was in love with me, I'd beg her for one more drink. No woman seemed to be able to resist, especially because of the finality of the offer.

It made them feel like they would be free of obligation as soon as they were done. And they had no idea how right they were. On a particularly cold night, I went to a dive bar I'd never been to before. I sat down at the bar and started to enjoy my drink. Well, I didn't really enjoy my drink. You see, it wasn't nearly as rough a place as I had imagined when I entered it.

I had assumed by the rundown appearance and the sign with several of the letters just blacked out on the neon that this place was just full of bikers and tattooed up thugs. While there were a few, it was mostly a simple blue-collar bar. They only served domestic beer, which I hated, but their menu was the last thing on my mind when I saw her.

Her name was Alyssa. A beautiful name to match a beautiful woman. Her eyelashes batted at me as soon as I sat down next to her. She was welcoming and warm. In an instant, I felt like we had so much in common. She didn't have too much to say, but she was a woman about quality, not about quantity. I liked her so much.

I wanted her to come with me, and she wasn't particularly resistant. When the bar announced last call, she informed me that she had to get going. She had something very important to do before morning, but I insisted on one more drink. She agreed, and as I brought the glass over to her, I dropped the tablet into the drink seamlessly. I was an expert in such a kind of sleight-of-hand magic thing going.

I handed her the glass, and she slammed it down. She must have really been in a hurry after all. As we both exited the bar, she was feeling kind of woozy and off balance, and I let her lean on me for some stability. But finally, she couldn't hold herself up at all anymore. She went entirely limp. And at that moment, I had her.

She was mine. My lovely bride. I had considered putting women in my trunk in the past, but that was simply ridiculous and insulting. The women's beauty is something to be admired. They aren't some kind of garbage to be tossed aside. So I buckled up Elisa into the passenger seat, and I smiled, seeing her there so peaceful. I had never been concerned with letting them ride shotgun.

and I even got pulled over once by a police officer with one of my lovelies sitting right next to me. I simply explained exactly what was going on. I told him it was late, and my girlfriend was tired and I needed to take her home so she could get some rest. I didn't have to stretch the truth at all, not a single bit.

The officer smiled and told me to drive safely, and we were on our way. True love conquers all. The truth will set you free. As we drove and drove into the dark night, I could see our destination rapidly approaching. We would be to the closest point by the quarry in a matter of moments. The thrill filled my lungs and stomach with just butterflies.

It was like my wedding day. My whole life was going to change yet again at the end of this long road. It would end with us spending eternity together. Life is beautiful. As I pulled the car over on the side of the road, the chill had gotten stronger. I put on a jacket I had in the back and hoisted Elisa out of the passenger seat.

She was light as a feather and I whisked her away to her new home. I was carrying her through the threshold. Marital bliss was simply the next step. I marched steadfastly. As I cut through the forest, breathing in the cold night air deeply, I heard something, like a wheezing or something. Maybe I had overexerted myself. I stopped and tried to control my breath, and it wasn't me at all.

Elisa was slowly taken in air. The dosage must have been too weak. How could I have been so careless with the woman I love? I picked up my pace, running with her in my arms as I heard her breathing slowly start to catch back up. I had to get to the cliff's edge. I couldn't let a perfect night be ruined. I could see it off in the distance, but then suddenly her eyes opened and pierced through me.

She wanted to scream, but her voice was so weak. I made it to the edge of the cliff. I held her up, ready to send her to her final resting place. but she kept trying to say something to me so finally I looked her in the eyes and I listened. At that moment her mouth widened beyond any size I could have ever imagined like a snake unhinging its jaw to eat its prey.

Her teeth suddenly, they sprouted fangs that were long and sharp like knives as she grabbed me with an unheard of strength. As I began to panic she let out one simple phrase. Just one more drink. I mean, it wouldn't be a horror story collection without at least one vampire. So this last story that I'm going to present you with tonight is a little different.

After doing so many stories in basically the same method, I decided to take it one step further, literally, and go outside of my home and record my story about being in a graveyard at night alone. While being in a graveyard at night alone. So everything you hear in this story is not a sound effect. It is the actual stereo sound of me wandering into a graveyard in the middle of the night and reading myself a scary story.

It's pretty much peak adulthood, if you ask me. So, get comfortable and don't ever do what I did. It was interesting, but incredibly unwise. So let's listen to it now, after these quick words from our sponsor. The following story was recorded at one in the morning, inside of a cemetery, outside of my house. It has no augmentation or sound effects added, no music.

It's just me reading a spooky story to myself in a graveyard in the middle of the night. Enjoy. The graveyard was dark, that pure dark. When I'm out on nights like these, I imagine this is what my ancestors saw when they were hunting. The idea that survival meant getting around in this darkness, let alone succeeding in gathering food in pitch black, circumstances made me amazed our species had made it so far.

It also made me start to believe the whole idea that on a full moon life is more dangerous. Not in a supernatural way, but the night is lit up. It's the best time to hunt. The predator's time. My name is Bruce Swigart, and this is my hobby. Everyone should have a hobby. Something to let your brain stretch out and get some exercise.

Something that makes the day-to-day struggles melt away. I tried them all. I tried collecting stamps, but I can legitimately tell you it was the most depressing experience of my life. Putting so much effort into little pieces of adhesive paper is just about as pathetic as a person could be. Coins weren't much different, but at least you could get a can of coke with one.

No matter what I tried, I couldn't find peace. I had always felt so restless. I just couldn't shake it. I spent a lot of time at cemeteries, and that's when I discovered something wonderful. Quiet. A total somber silence that allowed my mind to decompress. I never felt quite so alive as when I was at the cemetery. It was morbid and I understood that, but I couldn't help the way I felt.

But simply hanging around a graveyard was way too morbid. I had read about people who make a record of a tombstone by putting a sheet of paper over it and rubbing it with charcoal. It creates a neatly shaded copy. So I bought some paper and some charcoal and I was well on my way. Being out late at night at the graveyard never really gave me the creeps.

It was just so calm and I felt so at home. There was never another person to bother me. Usually, being alone with my thoughts would be terrible, but not here. The cemetery extended on and on for acres. I never went anywhere else because there seemed to always be a new discovery just under my nose. I took my time. I wasn't trying to score quantity I wanted to make the best rubbings of the most interesting grave markers I had spent a lot of time at this cemetery earlier in the year after a tragic loss had occurred.

I was trying to navigate through a terrible storm, and my wife was sitting next to me in the car, screaming in agony. She was in labor, four weeks early. Our son was on his way into the world, and I had to get us to a hospital in case there was any complication. The rain beat down on our windshield so hard I couldn't see the lines half the time, but I knew if we pulled over, my wife and my newborn son were more at risk.

My heart raced every time a car passed us, their lights barely penetrating the shield of rain pouring onto us. I made several curves while saying a silent prayer. I just wanted this ride to be over with. We couldn't have been more than 10 minutes from the hospital, but it felt like 40. Looking back, I try to figure out if there was any way I could have gotten us there sooner.

That was one of the things that I needed to escape. The thoughts and the memories. As we drove on the rain, as we drove on, the rain started to let up and I gritted my teeth as I could see a semi-truck coming our way. They passed by us safely, but at that moment, a splash of water came up from one of its 18 wheels.

The instant flood blinded me entirely and I lost control of the wheel. Our car hit the guardrail. I was knocked unconscious from the impact, but my wife and my unborn son weren't so lucky. It was all like a blur after that. I was released six days later from the finest care the state could offer and just expected to head back into society.

It wasn't possible. Not really. But I faked it and managed to hold down a job and make the house payment. But to be honest, I couldn't have stood another second of this life if I hadn't discovered my strange late-night hobby. It kept me centered, allowed me to grow and to heal. It was just the miracle I needed. Survivor's guilt is truly cruel.

I sat myself down beside a marker with a gorgeous design. Cynthia Butor, 1934-1997. She must have been married to a Freemason. Their little weird logo with the G on it was there too. I pulled out my sheet of paper and placed it on the stone. I gently applied some painter's tape, trying not to harm the stone or leave any sticky residue. I pulled out my piece of charcoal and rubbing slowly and steady.

The rubbing was half the joy of it all. The rhythm was almost like zen. I could swear it was meditation. As I continued to rub, all I could hear was the rubbing. It became louder and louder until I felt like the only sound on the planet was the charcoal to the paper. I heard a sound off to the distance. It startled me deeply.

I snapped my piece of charcoal and left an ugly dark line on my rubbing. I wasn't sure what I had heard, but there is never anyone out there at this time of night. The air was cold, and my eyes tried to focus through the darkness. There was nothing and no one out there. I pulled out a fresh piece of paper. I couldn't bear having a blemish on my work, so I had to start over.

I was a little shaken up partially because I was trespassing, but also because, while it sounded silly for me to say, what kind of person would be out in a cemetery at this time of night? I laughed to myself at my own foolishness and started rubbing again. I was having trouble finding my groove now, but my solitary mood must have been tainted even though there was no evidence that I should feel that way.

I heard a train off in the distance. I lived in a rural suburb, so our freight trains were consistent at this time of night. That sound cutting through the night air comforted me somehow. My rubbing continued and I could feel peace washing over me like a warm liquid. As I gently rolled up the rubbing of Ms. Cynthia's grave marker, I walked along the markers.

If I could find one more good one this night, it would just be perfect. I walked up to a marker a little ways away from where I had been and crouched down to get a better look. Eric L. Whiting, 1903-1983 Though it is creepy and insensitive, I always found it amusing when a person died on a nice round number. Something about the marker spoke to me.

I began to pull out my sheet of paper when I heard something again. This had to be another person. I spun around just in time to see an odd figure. More of an outline of one, standing off in the distance. I froze. I couldn't tell if they had seen me or not. I waited for them to make a move. They were still.

I tried to rack my brain to figure out if maybe this was my reflection or a grave marker I was mistaking. But just then, the figure crouched down. There was some person standing next to a grave in the middle of the night. While I knew my intentions were innocent, I had no idea what this person could be doing here. I gathered my things as quietly as I could.

I needed to get out of there as fast as possible. As I picked up my art supply bag, it slipped from my hand, making a loud, clanking sound. The figure looked over in my direction. Who's there? he asked authoritatively. I panicked. I'm sorry if I'm trespassing. I didn't mean anything by it. The man walked closer to me. He came into focus. He was a young man around 20 years of age.

He smiled. I'm not the caretaker. I'm just out here making grave rubbings. I was kind of worried you were the caretaker, the man laughed. My name is Lee. Bruce, I answered with a sigh of relief. We spoke for a moment about how strange a coincidence it was. We both were out doing the same activity on the same night. I hadn't known anyone else in all my time that held such an interest.

He was such a young, kind man. He even shared some of his hot tea he had in the thermos. It was colder than I had expected, so he quickly became my hero. Lee headed back to the marker he had been rubbing when I interrupted him. He was almost done with it. He made the last few strokes very well, I might add, and rolled it up to take it home.

We shook hands and prepared to part ways, but then he turned around to tell me one last thing. Not to try to harsh your night or anything, but that grave I rubbed, it was my father's. I come here from time to time. It feels like I'm spending time with him. I never really got to know him, and it might sound weird, but if you get a chance, you should rub it.

Maybe I could feel a little like he's getting more appreciation in this middle-of-nowhere cemetery. I smiled and assured him I would do just that before heading home myself. As we parted ways, I felt a legitimate need to follow through with my promise. It was freezing out, so I had to quickly place my paper on the tombstone and start rubbing. Something felt strange, though.

The calm I was used to hadn't come to me. As I rubbed and rubbed, I just felt unsettled. I wondered if maybe the calm serenity of my getaway had been shattered by the kind young man. Regardless, I had to finish. My eyes were tired, and I couldn't really tell how the rubbing had turned out, but I felt my gesture had been I detached the tape and rolled the paper up.

As I did so, a cloud passed overhead and allowed the moonlight to come into my view. I could just barely make out the name on the tombstone. My face froze. The name was clear to me now. Bruce Swigert, 1956 to 1986. My son had come to visit me, and I've never left this cemetery.