Pujkamaunka Splash | A Forgotten Video Game Horror Story

0:01 You remember the game, the ads, the crowds, the morning your grandfather took you to buy it. But nobody else remembers playing. Online, it's as if the game never existed. And you remember the man in the black sack, letting children inside, one at a time. What's that? You want to be scared? Come with me. You will experience tales. Of horror, ghosts, and death. It is not recommended for the weak at heart. Listeners in the dark. It's more fun that way. This is Weekly Spooky.

1:06 Hello, my spookies. It's Wednesday, and you know what that means. It's time for a little spooky in your weekly. And tonight we have a very scary one waiting for you. But before we get to that, I want to say thank you all so much for joining us here tonight. I do appreciate it. I love bringing a little bit of terror into your day. So make sure you're subscribed on your favorite podcast app if you aren't already, because we bring you something scary to listen to every single day of the week right here. And while you're at it, why not leave us a five-star rating, especially on Apple Podcasts or Spotify? It really helps the show grow by telling other spookies who stumble upon us they're in the right place. And if you want to support us for as little as $ 1 a month and get two bonus shows every single month, just head to weeklyspooky.com slash join.

2:08 And you'll also get access to over six years of exclusive creepypasta readings and audiobooks, all at weeklyspooky.com slash join. All right, that's enough of that. Now, let's talk about tonight. There are childhood memories we keep like treasures, a favorite toy, a new bike, the game we waited all year to play. Trevor remembers a game called Huja Maunka Splash. He remembers the mall, the early morning line, and his grandfather helping him get inside before everyone else. He also remembers things that never belonged in a game store. Strange men, a black curtain, an attendant whose face was hidden. Now, decades later, there is no record that the game ever existed. So what exactly has Trevor been remembering for all these years?

3:20 Get cozy. This one takes you on a dark ride that I know you'll enjoy. So turn down the lights. It's more fun that way. Poochka Mounka Splash by Alex Grass Featured in his collection Infernal Tramps Tales of Weird Terror Do you remember the game Poojka Mounka Splash? I do.

4:00 Not that there weren't memorable events aplenty in 1993. Clinton was inaugurated, Jurassic Park was in theaters, the ATF botching the Waco siege, and... And me? Well, a kid has dreams, of course. I'd been saving up for a new mongoose villain freestyle bike. After a friend showed me a homemade video of Matt Hoffman doing tail whips and tabletops, I'd become a BMX ramp riding nut. I was destined for California and superstardom, a life of rad stunts and sun-kissed bleach blonde beach bunnies loving all over me until I was Almost sick of it. Almost. But all that was pushed aside when they announced the release date for Poochka Mounka Splash. I never did buy that bike. I have memories of me and all the other middle schoolers saying, We're going Poochie! And tearing ads out of Gamer Pro magazine, geeking out over them not understanding that Marketing wasn't the product itself. A game's graphics could only blow your mind as far as 16 bits would let it. And back then, that was not very far. But you say that you

5:33 don't remember it. I guess I'm not surprised. Nobody ever does. Nobody can find it, can even find any mention of the game. And if you Google it and... Go ahead, right now, if you've got the time. So you can see I'm not lying. You won't find it. You'll find a YouTube video about Splash World Punta Cana and a TikTok about Puka Lava backsplashes, but nothing about the game. Why does nobody but me remember Pujka Manka Splash? The plan was for my grandfather to bring me and my dog, Pistol, in his Country Squire station wagon to the Bavaria Galleria mall.

6:24 He picked us up out front of my mom's tract house, our wild yard littered with my baby sister's Fisher-Price toys and a slip-and-slide that never got put away. Our neighbors hated us. It was early in the morning when Grandpa showed up. early enough that the street lamps were still on. Mom watched me get into his car from the TV room window. Me and Pistol sat in the back. I felt funny sitting up front with my grandfather, so I always tried to avoid it. When I irritated him, he said things like, Stop being trouble or I'll leave you where trouble lives, with the poor kids. To which I would reply, Mom says we are the poor kids. I mean the ones with fleas. You ever eat nothing but cold cheese and knuckle sandwiches? I didn't know if he was serious. I made sure I didn't push him far enough to find out. We got to the Bavaria Galleria at about seven in the morning. The sun was only just coming out, and the line was already hundreds of people long. stretching from the mall entrance all the way up to the sidewalk that snaked around the lot. This was a bad sign. Grandpa hated three things more than anything else in this world. Japanese cars, fake cripples parking

7:59 in real cripples' handicap spaces, and waiting in lines. He looked back at me through the rearview mirror, while I tried to wipe the frown off my face. I didn't want this whole ride to be for nothing. I figured he'd seen the line, and we were just going to drive back home. But he looked at me in the rear view and grinned a conspirator's grin. Don't worry, kid. We're not waiting in line. We pulled up to a reinforced door next to a loading dock and dumpsters and got out of the car. Hey, Sam, an elderly security guard said to my grandpa. How's tricks? Hang in further port than starboard, but at least the wedding tackle's still operational.

8:58 Not that anything's biting. This is my grandson, Trevor. Trevor, this is my buddy, Spets. Nice to meet you, Mr. Spetz, I said, and shuffled Pistol's leash over to my left hand so I could offer a handshake. Just Spetz, kid, he said, shaking my hand. That's quite a grip you got, he leaned in toward Grandpa and nudged him in the ribs. Kid's been practicing the five-knuckle shuffle, huh? Easy, Spetz. I'm just joshing you. I know, Spetz. If you were serious, you'd be collecting your teeth. Spets deposited me, Grandpa, and my dog Pistol right out front of Babbage's. There was a young guard holding our place in line. He left right when we showed up. I looked around at the other adult chaperones, fencing in the queue of teens and preteens waiting. to get in. Everyone had shown up with their grandparents. All of them were younger than sixteen or older than sixty. Behind us there were fluorescent lights the same color as a dirty pool looks underwater. Near those were little Tiled plant beds interspersed with random shrubbery. Benches for husbands to park themselves. Bistro tables favored by shrieky gossipers.

10:32 In front of us was a huddle of men in coveralls and work coats, trucker caps and beanies, all of them laced up in work boots. I couldn't tell just what they were doing. They all stood around a big... wishing well, yelling at the fountain in the middle of it. What are they doing there? I asked. Where? Grandpa said. Right there, I pointed. Grandpa looked up from his newspaper. It's just an empty fountain. He brought the paper back up in front of his face. They're probably waiting on someone to fix it. You don't see those guys? I said.

11:21 Grandpa peeked over his paper again and stared right where I was pointing. He looked long enough that he couldn't have missed it, but he still showed no sign that he'd seen what I saw. He reached in his slacks. I heard his pockets jangle. He pulled out a few dimes, a quarter, a dozen pennies. He gave me one of the pennies. Go ahead, make a wish. I started in the direction of the wishing well, but Grandpa put his hand on my shoulder. Leave the dog, he said. You don't mind watching him? Leave the dog. He sounded the way people who go a long time without sleep sound.

12:13 I handed him the leash. I walked over to the wishing well. nudging between two bearded tanks with beer bellies and acid reflux breath. The fountain had been emptied out. I could see two pitbull mixes in the dry well, baring their teeth and snapping and growling at each other. Someone shoved into someone else who then shoved into me, bumping me into one of the beer-bellied human tanks. Malt liquor spilled in my hair and down my back, reeking somewhere between candy-flavored medicine and fresh-cut sheet metal. The well reeked of cheap swill and sweat-soaked work clothes. A drunk maintenance man was yelling himself hoarse. I want to see a throat cut! Show me a muddle rip another's throat out!

13:09 The others cheered. A cloud of cigarette smoke grew or dissipated in proportion to the drunken noise. It seemed like all the men together were one organism breathing smoke and alcoholic fumes. Some slapped each other's backs with cigarettes or beer still held in their hands. Sparks flew from the embers as rough fingers struck burning cherries, cans of Schlitz malt liquor and old-style bashed lips and sloshed beer on uniforms. Bottles were smashed on the ground when one of the dogs edged in on the other. One of the pitbulls got the other by the throat. The men cheered, spewing raucous noise the color of blue-gray smoke from their mouths.

14:02 One pitbull necked the other, and I covered my face. The weaker dog whined and squealed. It sounded like when Mom dropped a paint can on Pistol's foot, but worse. I felt rough hands on me, hands that smelled like grease and piss and drugstore liquor. The hands grabbed my face and vice gripped my skull and forced me to look forward. A phlegmy voice croaked in my ear. Watch it, boy. Watch now. This is where he takes the cunting throat.

14:43 I was terrified. I thrashed at the stranger's hands. I struggled free. I shoved at every meaty, sweat-stinking body around me. No one tried to stop me. I wasn't even remotely as interesting as dogs killing dogs. I came back and stood in line. My grandfather wasn't reading the paper. Now he was just fidgeting, checking his wristwatch. It took him half a minute to notice me. When he looked down, I handed him back the penny and said, I didn't use it. I thought for sure Grandpa would notice that I was shaken up, but he didn't say anything, only took the penny and gave me back Pistol's leash. Cheering started up the line, a rippling daisy chain of applause.

15:48 I looked ahead. They were opening the store. When it was your turn, a man with a mouthless and eye-holeless bag over his head unhooked a red velvet rope to let you in. One kid at a time. The black bag over the man's head was sackcloth. The velvet rope shabby and stain-spotted. Baghead's body was scoliotic and knobby, flesh pinks hued gray by time, prune wrinkly like hour-long bathtub fingers. He was so, so old, much older than my grandpa, than any of the others waiting on line with their grandkids.

16:37 I could tell, even with his face covered. I was next. The ancient baghead came close to shouting at me. Give your dog to your minder and hold out your hand. His voice was a soundboard of reptile noises and mnemonic respiration, punctuated by a hack and growl here, a cough and grumble there. He spoke in alien English. The syllables and consonants were in their proper place, and his diction was spot-on, but it was phonetically mysticized, shifting words I ought to have known into something foreign and new. Give up the goddamn leash, I said, you scuttling little whelp. Baghead's wretched voice was more powerful than a man half his age.

17:35 I looked up at my grandpa. expecting him to give a lipful right back. But as I held the leash out, with my very nervy and whining poodle attached to it, for him to take, Grandpa stared at the sickly, glowing fluorescence overhead, a small spot of drool pulling the corner of his mouth. You go wait there. You go wait there. The baghead said to, no, commanded my grandfather, bouncing his bagged head at a gaggle of grandparents huddled by a shelf filled with Super Mario All-Stars and other Nintendo properties.

18:23 They were all gray and bent, even grayer and further bent because they were here. Grandpa pulled Pistol over to the senior's huddle. He bent down on one knee to gently pet our family dog. He'd never pet Pistol before. I couldn't move. I had a sense of the uncanny, something strange and powerful changing the air we breathed, the blood in our veins, strange and powerful enough to make men do things they wouldn't otherwise do. I was gobsmacked to see a very young girl, the only one who wasn't there to buy the game, bring Pistol a stainless steel dish to drink from. Her head was roughly shaved, the whole skull scabbed and congealed red chicken scratch, and she was completely nude. I don't know how we knew not to tell our parents or anyone. What we did in that room behind the black curtain. I don't know that my memories of the day I bought Poochka Mounka Splash or the day after or all the days after would make sense to anyone. but me because they weren't

19:54 memories not really they were sensations and images echoes of acts a bright green screen on the largest cathode ray tv i'd ever seen blood oozing from between the screen's glass and the TV housing, sun flare bright lights flash-frying my retinas, a cold, bone hand wrapped around my wrist, a steel hammer held inside my fingers, urinating on the floor, howling along with my dog pistol, while a carpet-wide bed of worms, their wriggling bodies so dark green they were almost black, noisily slushed and squirted as they crawled all over the body of another naked girl. I think she died before the worms wetly groped her. I saw the giant TV screen split and crackle open, glass shards for teeth and dark green ooze like drool. The broken mouth wailing in animal anguish so terrible that Pistol lost his legs, a puddle of urine spreading underneath him on the floor.

21:13 After that, nothing. I remembered nothing until we got to the car. We sat in the station wagon, my copy of Pujkamaunka Splash resting on the dashboard in front of me. It was like I'd only just woken up. My hands were stained red, and there were bloodied strings of curly white fur in between my fingers. I looked over at Grandpa, still holding Pistol's leash. Pistol was gone. Grandpa softly cried through a bloody nose and split lip he hadn't had before.

22:01 My grandfather was in the 20th Armored Division when the U.S. military liberated the Dachau concentration camp. I'd never seen him cry before. I went home, and I played my game. I never saw my grandfather again. So now you understand the mystique, the violence, the sheer... ruining lust of Poochka Mounka. Though you can't trust what I say, how could you? A video game that dominated the market for years then disappeared without anyone anywhere remembering any of it. I might as well say I'm the king of England. And even though I was the only one who remembered the game, I didn't understand my memories of it. Not until I found the game again. Hidden after all these years. I blew the dust from the cartridge. I wiped down the Super Nintendo. I put the game cartridge in. And I started to play. And my television opened its mouth. like the TV and babbages did more than thirty years ago.

23:33 And inside my television's mouth, I could hear them calling out for me. From deep inside Pujamaunga Splash, I heard them. I heard Pistol. I heard Grandpa. And I heard the ancient baghead, too. They were telling me something. I heard that strange voice, that baghead voice speaking a once incomprehensible language. An alien tongue. I now understood. The time is right. Now, bring others to play. Well, my spookies. I think I'll stick to board games for now. There's nostalgia, then there's a television opening its mouth and asking you to bring some friends along. If you find an old cartridge nobody else remembers, maybe leave the dust right where it is, and if a familiar voice calls from the screen, let it find its own player too. A big thank you to Alex Grass for sharing his story with us here tonight.

24:55 And you can check out even more of his stories and this one in his new book, Infernal Tramps, Tales of Weird Terror. Available wherever you get your books. I have my copy. And if you like tonight's story, you'll really dig it. So check that out and thank you again, Alex. Next week, right here on Weekly Spooky, we will begin the holiday season a little early. No, no, no. With a brand new Thanksgiving story by Joe Salma. So we'll have two Thanksgiving stories brand new for you to sink your teeth into. This season. Don't miss it. And I want to say an extra special thank you to our Patreon backers who go to weeklyspooky.com slash join and support us directly. Especially our Patreon podcast boosters, folks who pay a little more to hear their names at the end of the show. And they are Johnny Nix, Kate and Lulu, Jessica Fuller, Mike Eschewy, Jenny Green, Karen Wemet, Jack Kerr, and Craig Cohen. Thank you all so much, and if you want to hear your name at the end of every episode of Weekly Spooky... Just head to weeklyspooky.com slash join and sign up at the $ 15 a month or higher tier. It really makes a difference and means a whole hell of a lot to me. And remember, Spookies, we have a lot planned for you this holiday season.

26:07 Some very unappetizing Thanksgiving specials, as well as quite the spread for the Christmas season. So make sure you're subscribed on that podcast app you like so much, or Head to Apple App Store or the Google Play Store and download the weekly Spooky app so you can keep up with all the comings and goings. See you tomorrow. For myself, for my executive producers, Rob Fields and bobbletopia.com, my producer, Dan Wilder, and my creepy composer, Ray Mattis, talk at you tomorrow. Thank you for listening. Make sure to find your way back next week. But for now, you are safe. Trust me. Ha, ha, ha.