#67 - The Scariest Stories From The Internet

Summary

Smosh Mouth Episode #67: The Scariest Stories From The Internet – Summary

Release Date: October 21, 2024
Hosts: Shayne Topp (Shane) and Amanda Lehan-Canto (Amanda)

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Introduction to the Annual Creepypasta Episode

Timestamp: 01:03

Shayne and Amanda kick off their annual Creepypasta episode, expressing excitement for the Halloween season. They delve into the world of internet-originated horror stories known as creepypastas, discussing what sets them apart from traditional ghost stories and classic horror narratives.

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Understanding Creepypastas

Timestamp: 01:16 – 02:55

Shayne explains that creepypastas are modern internet folklore, often created anonymously on message boards. This anonymity contributes to their eerie nature, as the origins and authors remain obscure. Amanda adds that these stories tap into deep-seated fears, blending elements of truth and fiction to create compelling and unsettling tales. They highlight how creepypastas like Slender Man have transcended the internet to influence real-life events, showcasing the powerful impact of these digital myths.

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First Story: "Distorted Warning Signals" by Ashley Rose Wellman

Timestamp: 05:19 – 10:17

Summary: "Distorted Warning Signals" narrates the chilling experiences of an individual receiving mysterious phone calls warning them about impending disasters. Each call, delivered by a distorted female voice, predicts tragedies like plane crashes and deadly accidents. Despite attempts to trace these calls, no evidence is found, leaving the protagonist in a state of perpetual fear and anxiety. The story culminates with a final, ominous call warning them to "do not come home after dinner tonight," leaving the outcome unresolved and deeply unsettling.

Notable Quote: Shayne reads the protagonist’s final realization: “Something’s coming for me, but there was always this fractured, warped voice with these calls that never seemed to exist after I heard them.”
— [09:31]

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Second Story: The Tale of the Imaginary Friend, Ickbar Bigglestein

Timestamp: 11:32 – 19:05

Summary: Amanda shares a story about an imaginary friend named Ickbar Bigglestein (Ick), created by her mother to help her cope with childhood fears of the dark. Initially comforting, Ick's presence becomes sinister as Amanda grows older, requiring more forms of "sacrifice" to maintain his protective power. The story takes a dark turn when Amanda confronts Ick in her adult life, revealing his malevolent nature and the horrifying consequences of severing ties with her childhood protector.

Notable Quote: Shayne reflects on the story’s grim conclusion: “She didn’t listen to the warning. She came home after dinner tonight.”
— [09:42]

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Third Story: Smile Dog – A Digital Curse

Timestamp: 22:32 – 43:35

Summary: Shayne delves into the infamous creepypasta "Smile Dog," describing it as an image that allegedly causes viewers to experience severe psychological distress and nightmares. The narrative follows Mary E., who becomes haunted by the image after viewing it on a bulletin board system. She is compelled to spread the image to others to break free from its curse. The story intensifies as Mary’s husband succumbs to despair, leading to her eventual suicide and the perpetuation of the curse through a mysterious floppy disk containing the Smile Dog image.

Notable Quote: Amanda reacts to the story’s climax: “She died... but something’s coming for her.”
— [19:06]

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Fourth Story: The Rake – An Ancient Monster in Modern Times

Timestamp: 45:05 – 51:23

Summary: Shayne presents "The Rake," a notorious monster creepypasta with origins dating back to 2009. The narrative compiles various accounts and journal entries from individuals across different time periods who encounter this horrifying creature. Described as a hairless, humanoid figure with hollow black eyes and sharp features, The Rake instills paralyzing fear and often leads to tragic outcomes for its victims. The story emphasizes the monster's relentless pursuit and the lasting psychological trauma it inflicts on those who witness it.

Notable Quote: Amanda expresses her horror: “I can't stop thinking about it. It's terrifying.”
— [19:14]

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Exploring the Themes of Creepypastas

Timestamp: 51:35 – 58:22

Shayne and Amanda discuss their personal preferences within the horror genre, contrasting the fictional dread of creepypastas with the real-life sadness of true crime stories. They highlight how monsters in stories often represent abstract fears and anxieties, making them potent symbols in horror narratives. Amanda mentions her love for stories that evoke nostalgic warmth, while Shayne appreciates the poetic embodiment of real fears through monsters. They also touch upon the communal aspect of creepypastas, with stories being shared and evolved across the internet.

Notable Quote: Shayne muses on the symbolic nature of monsters: “A monster will represent fear or guilt or anxiety, but in a physical form.”
— [53:35]

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Conclusion and Future Episodes

Timestamp: 59:27 – 60:41

As the episode wraps up, Shayne and Amanda invite listeners to share their favorite creepypastas, expressing enthusiasm for future spooky episodes, including potential Christmas-themed horror stories. They emphasize the fun and imaginative aspects of exploring these internet-born tales while acknowledging the varying levels of fear they can evoke.

Notable Quote: Shayne encourages audience participation: “Please comment down below your favorite creepypastas because we'll do this again.”
— [60:03]

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Key Takeaways

• Creepypastas are modern horror stories originating from the internet, often created anonymously, enhancing their mysterious and unsettling nature.
• "Distorted Warning Signals" and "Ickbar Bigglestein" explore themes of predestination and the dark side of childhood imaginings, respectively.
• "Smile Dog" and "The Rake" are prominent examples of creepypastas that have left lasting impressions due to their eerie narratives and psychological horror.
• The hosts appreciate the symbolic representation of fears through monsters in creepypastas, distinguishing them from the sorrow associated with true crime stories.
• Community Engagement is a significant aspect, with stories being shared, discussed, and evolved across platforms, keeping the folklore alive.

Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Shayne on Creepypastas as Modern Folklore:
  “What I think makes creepypastas often scary is that a lot of times it's hard to trace back who wrote them.”
  — [02:39]

• Amanda on the Power of Stories:
  “Stories are so, so powerful. People can relate to them because there's a little bit of truth in them.”
  — [02:52]

• Shayne on the Final Destination Nature of "Distorted Warning Signals":
  “If it’s not for you, get out of here. Watch another episode.”
  — [04:48]

• Amanda's Reaction to "The Rake":
  “Goodbye. That's the Rake.”
  — [51:23]

• Shayne on Monsters Representing Real Fears:
  “A monster will represent fear or guilt or anxiety, but, like, in a physical form.”
  — [53:42]

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Final Thoughts

Episode #67 of Smosh Mouth offers a deep dive into the spine-chilling world of creepypastas, presenting listeners with some of the most haunting stories crafted on the internet. Through engaging storytelling and thoughtful discussion, Shayne and Amanda illuminate why these digital horrors captivate and terrify audiences worldwide. Whether you're a seasoned fan or new to creepypastas, this episode promises to leave you with lingering shivers and a newfound appreciation for modern horror folklore.

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Stay tuned for more eerie tales and spooky discussions in future episodes of Smosh Mouth. Happy Halloween!

Transcript

[Amanda]

This episode is brought to you by Amazon Prime. There's nothing sweeter than baking cookies during the holidays. With Prime, I get all my ingredients delivered right to my door, fast and free. No last minute store trips needed. And of course, I blast my favorite holiday playlist on Amazon Music. It's the ultimate soundtrack for creating unforgettable memories. From streaming to shopping. It's on Prime. Visit Amazon.comprime to get more out of whatever you're into.

[Shane]

My dad works in B2B marketing.

[Amanda]

He came by my school for career.

[Shane]

Day and said he was a big roas man. Then he told everyone how much he.

[Amanda]

Loved calculating his return on ad spend.

[Shane]

My friends still laugh at me to this day. Not everyone gets B2B, but with LinkedIn you'll be able to reach people who do. Get a hundred dollar credit on your next ad campaign. Go to LinkedIn.com campaign to claim your credit. That's LinkedIn.com campaign. Terms and conditions apply. LinkedIn the place to be, to be. Welcome to Smoshmouth. I'm Shane.

[Amanda]

And I'm Amanda.

[Shane]

And today is our annual creepypasta episode. Did it last year. It was great. So excited doing it again this year. Halloween's coming up and I have been excited for this for months now.

[Amanda]

I know.

[Shane]

And this past couple weeks I have just been reading creepypastas. It sucks a little bit.

[Amanda]

Kind of sucks a little bit.

[Shane]

It kind of sucks a little bit.

[Amanda]

I remember last year I didn't know what a creepypasta was, which is awesome of me. Very cool. Sometimes I wonder, where have I been? But when you started reading them, I was like, oh, these are just like stories that I grew up reading, like ghost stories.

[Shane]

They're scary stories. It's just they come about on the Internet. Now. What I think makes creepypastas often scary is that a lot of times it's hard to trace back who wrote them. So sometimes there's no credit to them because they were created like by a lot of people on a message board or something.

[Amanda]

And so let me get this right. Creepypastas aren't true or we don't know.

[Shane]

No. But they kind of become a new type of folklore. Kind of how Slenderman is the most famous creepypasta. And that started like I said, it started off with like a photo that someone had created of this creepy, tall, faceless man in the background of like a playground of a bunch of kids playing. And then just stories come about and it kind of just builds and it builds on the Internet to a point where now people go, I've seen Slender Men in real life. People are saying that, oh my God. But there's so many places on the Internet where people post stories and create.

[Amanda]

Monsters and people literally do things in real life created on those creepypastas and those monsters, which is like the really dark side of it. But I. Stories are so, so powerful. People.

[Shane]

Yeah.

[Amanda]

Can relate to them because there's a little bit of truth in them.

[Shane]

Absolutely. I. What I like about creepypastas too, is they. They tap into certain types of genres and things that I feel like classic horror stories never do. I have a couple today that I think fall into that. What do you mean by that? You know, I think I'll explain as we read the stories because I have a couple that I think are very specific to creepypastas. Types of stories that happen a lot in creepypastas that I feel like you don't see too often outside of it. Oh, I see. But I have a lot. And I found a few that aren't too long so that we can read a few stories. Love that some of them are famous creepypastas. Some of them are a little more niche, not as known. A lot of them are old, old stories from like over 10 years ago. Some of them are a little more recent. But I read. Read them all and all of these did scare me, so.

[Amanda]

Oh, okay. I'm really excited because you and I really like watching horror movies, so I feel like you and I get scared about a lot of the same things.

[Shane]

Yeah. But my favorite stuff is. I think my favorite type of horror is like, eerie or like mysterious. A little bit of mystery, a little bit of unknown, a little bit of what is going on. That's what really gets me. But we have a variety here today.

[Amanda]

And what's cool is art made it look like we like, broke into an abandoned, like.

[Shane]

Yeah.

[Amanda]

Cottage or like weird mountain house. And we, like, set up one little light and we're sitting at the table and all the cabinets are bare except for, like a couple things of.

[Shane]

Right.

[Amanda]

Beans.

[Shane]

And at the very end of this episode, after we finish these stories, there's going to be a knock at the door. And we're not going to know and.

[Amanda]

We'Re not going to know who it is. And there's a lake down there. And it's like there's one boat, but only one paddle.

[Shane]

Right.

[Amanda]

There's not two.

[Shane]

Only one of us can go.

[Amanda]

God.

[Shane]

I should also just give. I feel like pause for a second here. I should have said this at the top of just a general trigger warning. Regarding creepypastas, I picked ones that I felt weren't too intense. But in general, you know, these are. These are pretty scary stories. Some. Some very scary topics and uncomfortable themes. So if it's not for you, get out of here. Watch another episode.

[Amanda]

We have plenty of other episodes that are more light.

[Shane]

Okay, so our first story. Do you believe in like, signs? Like, oh, I got a sign I shouldn't go, I shouldn't go out tonight. I got a sign that I shouldn't do this. Or I got a sign like I'm doing the right thing. I feel like I'm seeing a sign.

[Amanda]

I normally equate it to like, deja vu. I always see deja vu as like, okay, I've been here before, or I think I'm going the right way.

[Shane]

Interesting.

[Amanda]

Yeah.

[Shane]

So this first story is called Distorted Warning Signals was written by Ashley Rose Wellman. I'm trying to think. See, when it was written, I'm not sure, but it's a story, kind of in this realm of receiving signs. When I got the first one, I was literally seconds away from stepping onto the plane when a call from unknown blared from my cell phone. It was a ringtone I hadn't heard before, one I was pretty sure hadn't come with phone. Normally I wouldn't have stopped to answer it, but I was expecting a call about a job I had interviewed for the previous week. I took a deep breath in and accepted the call. Hello? Do not get on the plane. A woman's voice, garbled and strange, as if her vocal cords had been shredded and she was trying desperately to choke out speech. Despite the unnerving fractured quality of her voice, her tone was insistent and eerily calm. Then the call ended. I froze. I had always had a slight phobia of air travel and something about this call just. There's no way I was about to get on a seven hour flight now. I turned around and headed towards the food court. I just get another flight later in the afternoon, I figured. I watched from the airport Starbucks three hours later as every TV in the terminal lit up with crash footage of the plane I should have been on. No survivors. Not a single one.

[Amanda]

What?

[Shane]

I tried to trace the call. So did the police. But there was nothing to trace. There was no evidence my phone had ever received a call around that time. They analyzed the phone records. Incoming and outgoing communication to my phone. Nothing. I wasn't making it up. I couldn't have been. That wasn't the only call. Throughout the years, they were few and far between but always right. And I always listened. Do not go on that blind date tonight. Five months later, my would be date was convicted of killing four women, all with my hair color and build. Found them in a shallow grave about 250ft from the diner he offered to take me to. Do not drive to the concert tonight. 18 Wheeler lost control and plowed into a line of cars. Every driver crushed, every driver killed in the stretch of freeway I would have been driving down. No matter if I got a new phone. If I moved across the country, the calls would still come. I. I could almost feel the presence of whatever it, whatever it was, whatever it is watching over me. I imagined being at the bottom of the freezing ocean still strapped into my coach section plane seat. Or being in the mass grave across from the diner. Or watching an 18 wheeler skidding toward my car knowing death was imminent. And I'd get this tightness in my chest. I'd think about how thin that line was, how close I'd gotten. If I hadn't had a job interview I was waiting to hear back from, I'd have never listened to that first call. And that would be it for me. It always felt like something was coming for me. But there was always this. This fractured, warped voice with these calls that never seemed to exist after I heard them. Self destructing warning signals rotting away before my eyes. And I was alive. I had a bad feeling about this cruise. I had planned it as a girl's week out with some of my friends from college and was looking forward to a week in the tropics in the dead of winter. But part of me could almost sense that the call was coming. Maybe I'd watch Titanic one too many times, but there was a little nagging fear from the start. I hoped it would be fine, but I knew that if something was going to happen, I'd get the call. I'd know now. Now, a week before I'm set to go on the cruise. After stepping into my apartment after returning from dinner with a friend, I notice my cell has a message from Unknown. They never had to leave a message before. Haven't checked it all night. Damn it. And I really wanted to go on that cruise too. Ah well. Not worth whatever horrific fate awaited me in the cold dark ocean. I click play message and feel my stomach drop as I listen to the voice sounding horrifically distorted as if it emanates from a throat slashed to ribbons, crackling with more urgency than ever before. I look around my apartment as voice on the phone repeats the same phrase over and over. Again. Do not come home after dinner tonight. Do not come home after dinner tonight. Do not come home after dinner tonight.

[Amanda]

She's home.

[Shane]

She's home after dinner tonight. After dinner tonight. It's a good one. That's it. That's. That's where the story ends. What?

[Amanda]

Yeah, Update.

[Shane]

No, no update. She came home after dinner tonight.

[Amanda]

What are you talking about?

[Shane]

She didn't listen to the warning.

[Amanda]

Okay, who's this writer? I want to write her a letter because that cannot. That cannot be the end.

[Shane]

That's where it ends.

[Amanda]

I wish she added something like. And then I heard the footsteps up the stairs.

[Shane]

See, I like where it ends. No, I like where it ends.

[Amanda]

I guess you and me are not the same.

[Shane]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Amanda]

Wow. That.

[Shane]

Pretty spooky.

[Amanda]

I really like that. I wasn't expecting that.

[Shane]

Huh.

[Amanda]

So she still can't go on the cruise with her friends because she's getting slashed.

[Shane]

We don't know what's coming for her, but something's coming for her.

[Amanda]

And now we'll never know.

[Shane]

Something happen. Yeah, it's pretty special.

[Amanda]

That's some Final Destination creepypasta stuff.

[Shane]

I know. It's really good. It's a well done one.

[Amanda]

Has anyone thought to do, like, make these? I mean, of course they have. Maybe.

[Shane]

Hormones.

[Amanda]

Yeah, of course.

[Shane]

Plenty. Candle Cove, Slenderman. There's been tons that have been turned into things, but most haven't, and they're all so good. Our next story that I think I'll pick you talked about in a recent episode about how you had an imaginary friend as a kid.

[Amanda]

I did.

[Shane]

Skinny Bob the bear.

[Amanda]

Bob the skinny tall bear.

[Shane]

A tall, skinny bear who didn't.

[Amanda]

Kind of made fun of me a lot in the best way ever.

[Shane]

Okay.

[Amanda]

Like, the friend that's like, chill out. It's.

[Shane]

And did. Did Bob, like. Did he protect you from things? Was he there to, like, make you safe or anything?

[Amanda]

He wasn't like, hero status. Okay.

[Shane]

He was just like.

[Amanda]

You probably find him, like, sitting on a couch and be like, I told you. So that's like more of his vibe.

[Shane]

Okay.

[Amanda]

I definitely felt protected, but I more like had to do it on my own.

[Shane]

Okay.

[Amanda]

I guess he was a very healthy imaginary friend. He's like, gotta do this on your own, kid.

[Shane]

Okay.

[Amanda]

So. Yeah.

[Shane]

Well, our next story is about an imaginary friend.

[Amanda]

Okay.

[Shane]

It was written 12 years ago. I can't find the author.

[Amanda]

Well, if someone knows the author, they'll put it in the comments.

[Shane]

But some of them, some of them, the credit is kind of unknown. Ooh. Even spooky so this is a story someone wrote about a their childhood imaginary friend.

[Amanda]

Did you ever see the movie Drop Dead Fred?

[Shane]

No.

[Amanda]

It is a very scary movie about her imaginary friend.

[Shane]

Doesn't sound like a scary movie. That sounds like a comedy.

[Amanda]

It's a mix of both. I think. It's from the 80s and I watched it when I was a kid and that made me very scared of imaginary friends.

[Shane]

Okay, well, hopefully this story doesn't make you more scared of imaginary friends.

[Amanda]

Okay.

[Shane]

When I was a small child, I was terrified of the dark. I still am. But back when I was around six years old, I couldn't go a full night without crying out for one of my parents to search beneath my bed or in my closet for whatever monster I thought was waiting to eat me. Even with a nightlight, I would still see dark shapes moving around the corners of the room or strange faces looking in on me from my bedroom window. My parents would do their best to console me, telling me that it was just a bad dream or a trick of the light. But in my young mind, I was positive that the second I fell asleep, the bad things would get me. Most of the time I would just hide under the blankets until I became tired enough to stop worrying. But every now and then I would become so panicked that I would run screaming into my parents room, waking up my brother and sister in the process. After an ordeal like that, there would be no way anyone would be getting a full night's rest. Eventually, after one particularly traumatizing night, my parents had had enough. Unfortunately for them, they understood the futility in arguing with a six year old and knew that they would be unable to convince me to rid myself of childish fears through reason and logic. They had to be clever. It was my mother's idea to stitch together my little bedtime. She collected a large assortment of random pieces of fabric and her sewing machine and created what I would later refer to as Mr. Ikbar Bigglestein, or Ick for short. Ick was a sock monster, as my mother called him. He was made to keep me safe while I slept at night by scaring away all the other monsters. He was pretty damn creepy, I had to admit. Honestly, looking back on it all now, I'm still impressed that my mom could think of something so strange and disturbing. Looking ikbar had the stitched together look of a Frankenstein gremlin with big white button eyes and floppy cat ears. His little arms and legs were made from a pair of my sister's black and white striped socks and the half of his face that was green, was made from one of my brother's tall football socks. His head could have been described as bulbous, and for his mouth, my mom attached a piece of white fabric and sewed in a zigzag pattern to shape a wide grin of sharp teeth. I loved him at once. From then on, ick never left my side so long as it was after dusk. Of course, ick didn't like the sun and would get upset if I tried to bring him to school with me. But that was okay. I only needed him at night to keep away the boogeyman, which was what he was good at. So every night at bedtime, ick would tell me where the monsters were hiding, and I would place him near the section of my room closest to the spookiness. If there was something in the closet, Ick would block the door. If there was a dark creature scratching at my window, Ick would be pressed up against the glass. If there was a big hairy beast under my bed, then under the bed he went. Sometimes the monsters weren't even in my room. Sometimes they would hide in my dreams, and Iqbar would have to come with me into my nightmares. It was fun bringing Ick into my dream world as he and I would spend hours, hours fighting off ghouls and demons. The best part was, in my dreams, ick could talk to me for real. How much do you love me? He would ask. More than anything, I would always tell him. One night in a dream, after I had lost my first tooth, Ick asked me for a favor. Can I have your tooth? I asked him. Why? To help me kill the bad things, he said. The next morning at breakfast, my mom asked me where my tooth went from. What? She told me the tooth fairy didn't find it under my pillow, but I told her that I gave it to Iqbar. She just shrugged and went back to feeding my little sister. From then on, every time I lost a tooth, I would give it to ick. He would always thank me, of course, and tell me that he loved me. Eventually, though, I ran out of baby teeth and I was beginning to get a little too old to be to still be playing with dolls. So ick just sat there on my bookshelf, collecting dust, slowly fading away from my attention. Over time, the nightmares, however, became worse than ever. So bad that they even began to follow me to the waking world, terrorizing every dark corner or rustle in the bushes. After one particularly bad night, biking home from a friend's house when I swore a pack of rabid dogs were chasing me I got home to find something strange waiting for me in my room. There on my bed, standing fully upright in the soft glow of the moonlight from my window, was Iqbar. At first I just thought my eyes were playing tricks on me again. They had been all evening. So I tried to flick on the lights. Another flick of the light switch, then another and another, with no change to the darkness. It was then that I started to get nervous. I backed away slowly toward the door behind me, my eyes never leaving the shape of Ick's silhouet, my hand awkwardly outstretched behind reaching for the doorknob. I was just about to get my ass out of there when I heard the door slam itself shut, locking me into the blackness in nothing but shadows and silence. I stood frozen in place, not even breathing. For how long I can't say. But after what felt like a lifetime of cold fear, I heard the shrill, familiar voice. You stopped feeding me, so why should I protect you? Protect me from what? Let me show you. I blinked once and everything changed. I wasn't in my bedroom anymore. I was somewhere else. It wasn't hell, but the comparison wasn't far off. It was some sort of forest, a horrible nightmarish place where partial monstrosities hung from the canopy and the ground swarmed with carnivorous insects. A thick fog wafted through the air and with it the stench of rotting meat, while chartreuse lightning flashed across this night sky. In the distance, I could hear the agonizing screams of something not quite human. My head throbbed like it was about to explode, the pain forcing out a river of tears. In my mind I heard his voice again. This is what your reality would become without me. I felt earth shaking, footsteps approaching fast. I'm the only one who can stop it. It was behind me now, huge and angry, hot breath across my back. Bring me what I need and I will. I woke up before I could turn around. The following day I raided my parents closet for my brother's baby teeth, giving them all to Ikbar. Almost immediately, the night terrors ceased and I was more or less able to go on about my life as normal. From time to time I would have to sneak into my little sister's room and snatch what was meant for the Tooth Fairy. Or strangle out one of the neighborhood cats and pry out its sharp little incisors. Anything to ward off the visions. Anything from a shark tooth necklace to a cavity ridden by cuspid. I also began to notice that Ick would move about my room whenever I left for any length of time, rearranging my stuff and hanging additional curtains. He was even beginning to look more lifelike. Somehow, in the right light, his teeth would glisten, and he was warm to the touch. As much as he creeped me out, I just couldn't work up the courage to just destroy him, knowing perfectly well where that would leave me. So I went on collecting teeth for Ick throughout all of my high school and college. The older I got, the more things I would learn to fear, the more teeth Ick would need to keep me safe. I'm 22 years old now, with a decent job, my own apartment, and a set of dentures. It's been almost a month since Ick's last meal, and the horrors are starting to crowd around me once more. I took a detour through a parking garage after work tonight. Found a man fumbling with his car keys. His teeth were stained yellow from a lifetime of cigarettes and coffee. Even still, I had to use a hammer to get out the molars. When I got back to my apartment, he was waiting for me on the ceiling in the corner. Two white eyes and mouth of razors. How much do you love me? He asks. More than anything, I reply, taking off my coat. More than anything in the world. Oh. Credit to Stephen D. Harris. That's. That's. Who wrote that.

[Amanda]

Okay, Stephen.

[Shane]

Okay, Stephen.

[Amanda]

Wow. Well, yeah, that got to a really sad place.

[Shane]

That one's dark.

[Amanda]

That one's really dark.

[Shane]

That one's sad.

[Amanda]

At first you were reading it, I was like, oh, this sounds like Drop Dead Fred. Like, love me, love me. And then I was like, oh, dentures. She strangled a cat.

[Shane]

I know.

[Amanda]

A hammer. Yeah, she has dentures.

[Shane]

Went through a lot to just.

[Amanda]

This is awful.

[Shane]

This is terrifying. So Bob the bear was. Was not like that.

[Amanda]

No, no, no. Bob the bear is. Hey, he's not needy, okay? He's very independent.

[Shane]

He's just chilling. He's.

[Amanda]

It's almost like Bob shows me a version of, like, a version of myself that I want to be or something. Just, like, chill, open, but, like, always there for you if you need him.

[Shane]

Okay.

[Amanda]

Have you ever seen the show Eric on Netflix?

[Shane]

No.

[Amanda]

Benedict Cumberbatch? That he's like a puppeteer and his son goes missing, and the puppet that the son was, like, thinking about comes to him, and it's kind of like that guy. He's just like, ah, whatever. This is really spooky.

[Shane]

That's really scary.

[Amanda]

I mean, there feels like there's so many different horror movies that I've seen that, like, this is giving me A lot of familiar feelings, like the conjuring or like, anything in the woods that's, like.

[Shane]

There's always also something so creepy about, like, children's imaginations when kids are. Because kids.

[Amanda]

Well, kids are open. They're super, super open. There's no logic coming in. I mean, yes, some of them have logic, but they're not, like, thinking, okay.

[Shane]

That'S dumb saying crazy shit.

[Amanda]

They're just open to it.

[Shane]

Yeah.

[Amanda]

Oh, my God. I like the way he writes.

[Shane]

He wrote really well.

[Amanda]

He wrote really well.

[Shane]

It was really chartreuse lightning. I mean, I know. There you go. I was like, I picture that perfect charcuterie lightning. Sounds delic.

[Amanda]

Cheese and sausage.

[Shane]

Yeah.

[Amanda]

Flying down. The girl's like, oh, actually, that's not too bad. I like this forest.

[Shane]

Yeah. The idea of a sock puppet with teeth, I don't like that.

[Amanda]

I mean, I'm not surprised that the mom made something freaking dark. She's probably seen some dark ass.

[Shane]

I will say. I feel like there's got to be a better way to get teeth than. Than what he's doing.

[Amanda]

Yeah. Come on, dude.

[Shane]

Yeah.

[Amanda]

You know, why couldn't we just start.

[Shane]

With, like, eat, like food, become a dentist.

[Amanda]

Yeah. Like, chill.

[Shane]

Go to dental school.

[Amanda]

Like, stop making. She has dentures. That's what's disturbed me the most. Dentures that she ripped out her own teeth.

[Shane]

Like, I know. That small little detail is really well done.

[Amanda]

I don't like that. I don't like. I really don't like body horror. But, like, teeth ripping out, it's a lot. This is really creepy.

[Shane]

Super creepy.

[Amanda]

It's almost like Elf on the Shelf.

[Shane]

Yeah.

[Amanda]

Oh, I'm gonna relate it to Elf on the Shelf.

[Shane]

On the Shelf is terrifying.

[Amanda]

It's the worst thing in the world.

[Shane]

Hate it.

[Amanda]

Why do people do it?

[Shane]

Yeah. Well, so you're getting hungry. Really hungry. Head to Jack in a Box and pick up a smashed Jack. It's a juicy, delicious, smashed burger topped with cheese, pickles, grilled onions, and boss sauce. And it's now available on Sourdough the Smash Jack. Only a Jack in the Box. Order one on the Jack app today. Our next.

[Amanda]

Wow.

[Shane]

Our next story is really creepy.

[Amanda]

This is really spooky.

[Shane]

Yeah. This next story is a famous creepypasta.

[Amanda]

Famous.

[Shane]

It's a famous creepypasta. Iqbar Bigglestein was also a pretty famous creepy pasta. But this one. This one's very well known.

[Amanda]

His nickname.

[Shane]

Ick, I think. Yeah. I mean, what are you doing? So do you believe in. Do you believe in, like, cursed objects? Like that an object could be.

[Amanda]

You know, I do have a bad energy to it. Or like mirrors and old paintings.

[Shane]

Interesting old paintings.

[Amanda]

I. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like estate sales stuff is not.

[Shane]

And then are you familiar with like chain letters? You know how back in the day. And I feel like it's probably found new ways of doing this, where it's like, you've seen this, like this, you've read this, now pass this on to a friend or else you will get 10 years of bad luck. Did you ever get that type of thing?

[Amanda]

I mean, I got those stupid texts that were like, send this to your 10 best besties or you're gonna rot in hell for. Exactly. Dirty little girl.

[Shane]

Those are some themes, I would say, of this next one.

[Amanda]

Chain mouth.

[Shane]

So there is a. There's a legend online about an image. Just an online image called Smile Dog. Sounds funny. Here we go.

[Amanda]

Okay.

[Shane]

I first met in person with Mary E. In the summer of 2007. I had arranged with her husband of 15 years, Terrence, to see her for an interview. Mary had initially agreed. Agreed since I was not a newsman, but rather an amateur writer gathering information for a few early college assignments and if all went according to plan, some pieces of fiction. We scheduled the interview for a particular weekend when I was in Chicago on unrelated business. But at the last moment, Mary changed her mind and locked herself in the couple's bedroom, refusing to meet with me. For a half an hour, I sat with Terrence as we camped outside the bedroom door, listening and taking notes while he attempted fruitlessly to calm his wife. The things Mary said made little sense, but fit with the pattern I was expecting. Though I could not see her, I could tell from her voice that she was crying. And more often than not, her objects to speaking with me centered around an incoherent diatribe on her dreams, her nightmares. Terrence apologized profusely when we ceased the the exercise, and I did my best to take it in stride. Recall that I wasn't a reporter in search of a story, but merely a curious young man in search of information. Besides, I thought at the time I could perhaps find another similar case if I put my mind and resources to it. Mary e. Was the SIS OP for a small Chicago based bulletin board system 1992, when she first encountered smile.jpg and her life changed forever. She and Terrence had been married for only five months. Mary was on one of an estimated 400 people who saw the image when it was posted as a hyperlink on the bbs. Though she is the only one who has spoken openly about the experience. The rest have remained anonymous or are perhaps dead. In 2005, when I was only in 10th grade, Smile.jpg was first brought to my attention by my burgeoning interest in web base phenomena. Mary was the most often cited victim of what is sometimes referred to as Smile Smile Dog. The being Smile Jpeg is reputed to display what caught my interest, other than the obvious macabre elements of the cyber legend and my proclivity towards such things was the sheer lack of information, usually to the point that people don't believe it even exists other than as a rumor or a hoax. It is unique because though the entire phenomena centers on a picture file, that file is nowhere to be found on the Internet. Certainly many photo manipulated simulacra litter the web, showing up with most frequency on sites such as image board 4chan, particularly the slash X focused paranormal sub board. It is suspected these are fakes because they do not have the effect the true smile.jpg is believed to have, namely sudden onset temporal lobe epilepsy and acute anxiety. This purported reaction in the viewer is one of the reasons The Phantom like smile.jpg is regarded with such disdain, since it is patently absurd. Though depending on whom you ask, the Reluctance to acknowledge Smile.jpg's existence might be just as much out of fear as it is out of disbelief. Neither Smile.jpg nor Smile Dog is mentioned anywhere on Wikipedia, though the website features articles on such other perhaps more scandalous shock sites as hello.jpg or Two Girls One Cup. Any attempt to create a page pertaining to Smile.jpg is summer summarily deleted by any of the encyclopedias. Many ad Admins encounters with smile.jpg are the stuff of Internet legend. Mary E. Story is not unique. There are unverified rumors of Smile.jpg showing up in the early days of Usenet, and even one persistent tale that in 2002 a hacker flooded the forums of humor and satire website Something Awful with a deluge of Smile.jpg pictures, rendering almost half of the forums users at the time epileptic. It is also said that in the mid to late 90s that smile.jpg circulated on Usenet and as an attachment of a chain email with the subject line Smile God loves you. Yet despite the huge exposure these stunts would generate, there are very few people who admit to having experienced any of them and no trace of the file or any link has ever been discovered. Those who claim to have seen smile.jpg often weekly joke that they were far too busy to save a copy of the picture to their hard drive. However, all alleged victims offer the same description of the photo. A dog like creature, usually described as a appearing similar to a Siberian husky illuminated by the flash of the camera, sits in a dim room. The only background detail that is a that is visible being a human hand extending from the darkness near the left side of the frame. The hand is empty but is usually described as beckoning. Of course, most attention is given to the dog or dog creature as some victims are more certain than others about what they claim to have seen. The muzzle of the beast is reputedly split in a wide grin revealing two rows of very white, very straight, very sharp, very human like teeth. This is of course not a description given immediately after viewing the picture, but rather a recollection of the victims who claim to have seen the picture endlessly repeated repeated in their mind's eye during the time they are in reality having epileptic fits. These fits are reported to continue in indeterminably often while the victims sleep, resulting in very vivid and disturbing nightmares. These may be treated with medication, though in some cases it is more effective than others others Mary E. I assumed was not on effective medication. That was why after my visit to her apartment in 2007, I sent out feelers to several folklore and urban legend oriented news groups, websites and mailing lists hoping to find the name of a supposed victim of smile.jpg who felt more interested in talking about this experience. For a time nothing happened and at length I forgot completely about my pursuits. Since I had begun my freshman year of college and was quite busy. Mary contacted me via email, however, near the beginning of March 2008. This is to [e-mail] from Mary et subject last summer's interview Dear Mr. L. I am incredibly sorry about my behavior last summer when you came to interview me. I hope you understand that it was no fault of yours, but rather my own problems that led me to act out as I did. I realized that I could have handled the situation more decorously. However, I hope you will forgive me. At the time I was afraid. You see, for 15 years I have been haunted by smile.jpgsmile. dog comes to me in my sleep every night. I know that sounds silly, but it is true. There is an ineffable quality about my dreams, my nightmares, that makes them completely unlike any real dreams I have ever had. I do not move and I do not speak. I simply look ahead and the only thing ahead of me is the scene from that Horrible picture. I see the beckoning hand and I see Smile Dog. It talks to me. It is not. Not a dog, of course. Though I am not quite sure what it really is. It tells me it will leave me alone if only I do as it asks. All I must do, it says, is spread the word. That is how it phrases, demands. And I know exactly what it means. It wants me to show it to someone else. And I could. The week after my incident, I received the in the mail, a manila envelope with no return address. Inside was only a 3 1/2 inch floppy diskette. Without having to check, I knew precisely what was on it. I thought for a long time about my options. I could show it to a stranger, a coworker. I could even show it to Terence, as much as the idea disgusted me. And what would happen then? Well, if Smile Dog kept its word, I could go to sleep. Yet if I lied, what would I do? And who was to say something worse would come, would not come for me if I did as the creature asked. So I did nothing. For 15 years, though, I kept the diskette hidden amongst my things. Every night for 15 years, Smile Dog has come to me in my sleep and demanded that I spread the word. For 15 years, I have stood strong, though there have been hard times. Many of my fellow victims on the BBS board where I first encountered smile.jpg stopped posting. I heard some of them them ended their lives. Others remained completely silent, simply disappearing off the face of the web. They're the ones I worry about the most. I sincerely hope you'll forgive me, Mr. L. But last summer, when you contacted me and my husband about an interview, I was near the breaking point. I decided I was going to give you the floppy diskette. I did not care if Smile Dog was lying or not. I wanted it to end. You were a stranger, someone I had no connection with. And I thought I would not feel sorrow when you took the diskette as part of your research and sealed your fate. Before you arrived, I realized what I was doing was plotting to ruin your life. I could not stand the thought. And in fact, I still cannot. I am ashamed, Mr. L. And I hope that this warning will dissuade you from further investigation of smile.jpg you may, in the time. You may in time, encounter someone who is, if not weaker than I, then wholly more depraved. Someone who will not hesitate to follow Smile Dog's orders. Stop while you are still whole. Sincerely, Mary E. Terrence contacted me later that month with the news that his wife had killed herself while cleaning up the various things he'd left behind, closing email accounts and the like. He happened above upon the above message. He was a man in shambles. He wept as he told me to listen to his wife's advice. He'd found the diskette, he revealed, and burned it until it was nothing but a stinking pile of blackened plastic. The part that was most disturbed that most disturbed him, however, was how the diskette had hissed as it melted. Like some sort of animal, he said. I will admit that I was a little uncertain about how to respond to this. At first I thought perhaps it was a joke, with the couple belatedly playing with the situation in order to get a rise out of me. A quick check of several Chicago newspapers online's obituaries, however, proved that Mary E. Was indeed gone. There was, of course, no mention of her ending her life in the article. I decided that for a time, at least, I would know. I would not further pursue the object of smile.jpg especially since I had finals coming up at the end of May. But the world has odd ways of test us. Almost a full year after I'd returned from my disastrous interview with Mary E. I received another email to [e-mail] from El Zhir [e-mail] Subject Smile hello. I found your email address through a mailing list you put your profile said you are interested in Smile Dog. I have saw it. It is not as bad as everyone says. I have sent it to you hear Just spreading the word. Smiling Face. The final line chilled me to the bone. According to my email client, there was one file attachment called Naturally Smile Jpeg. I considered downloading it for some time. It was mostly like a it was most likely a fake, I imagined. And even if it weren't, I was never wholly convinced of Smile JPEG's peculiar powers. Mary E's account had shaken me, yes, but she was probably mentally unbalanced anyways. After all, how could a simple image do what Smile Jpeg was said to accomplish? What sort of creature was it that could break one's mind with only the power of the eye? And if such things were patently absurd, then why did the legend exist at all? If I downloaded the image, if I looked at it, and if Mary turned out to be correct, if Smile Dog came to me in my dreams, demanding I spread the word, what would I do? Would I live my life as Mary had, fighting against the urge to give it, give in until I died? Or would I spread the word, eager to be put to rest and if I chose the latter route, how could I do it? Whom would I burden it in turn, if I went through with my earlier intention to write a short article about smile.jpg I decided I could attach it as evidence and anyone who read the article, anyone who took interest would be affected. And Even assuming the smile.jpg attached to the email was genuine, would I be capricious enough to save myself in that manner? Could I spread the word? Yes. Yes, I could. Do you want to see the image?

[Amanda]

Are you insane?

[Shane]

I have it right here. I'm looking at it.

[Amanda]

Nope.

[Shane]

You don't see it?

[Amanda]

No.

[Shane]

Okay, I don't want to see the image. We can attach it as a link in the description.

[Amanda]

What? Guys, do not click this image.

[Shane]

Smile JPEG will be linked in the description below. Because we're just spreading the word.

[Amanda]

That's insane. Who are you? Are you. Are you the owner of this? Okay.

[Shane]

Did I write this?

[Amanda]

Can I tell you? Did the horror movie Smile come from this? Have you seen the horror movie Smile?

[Shane]

I did see Smile. Well, I. You know, this.

[Amanda]

It's different.

[Shane]

This is an older story, but this is more akin to the Ring, because the Ring is about a VHS tape that you need to keep on passing.

[Amanda]

It's almost like in the newer times. It's like it follows the movie Smile.

[Shane]

There's a lot of. Well, it's this idea of like a cursed item, and you now have to do something, and if you don't follow its orders, you will be cursed by it.

[Amanda]

That. That stuff scares me a lot because it. It's almost like, you know, in a horror movie when someone's, like, walking in the woods and they reach the same place and they're lost, and it's like they're stuck in a loop. That scares me so much. So that's why I will not be looking at that.

[Shane]

Okay?

[Amanda]

And you shouldn't either.

[Shane]

People, do not click the link in the description below.

[Amanda]

I can't believe you were looking at it. Yeah, you're nuts.

[Shane]

It's probably a recreation. This is probably not the real one.

[Amanda]

Oh, is that what you told.

[Shane]

It's really creepy, though. It's a creepy image.

[Amanda]

Don't try to convince me to look at it.

[Shane]

Don't try to convince you to look at it.

[Amanda]

So it's so. But it's not a dog.

[Shane]

It's not a dog. A lot of the victims say it's.

[Amanda]

Not a dog, but it's a hand beckoning.

[Shane]

A hand beckoning in the background and a dog, a distorted dog. With human, like, teeth.

[Amanda]

Nope. No, thank you. I will not be looking at that.

[Shane]

Okay.

[Amanda]

I am superstitious enough. I'm not like, holy believer. Fully believe everything, but I'm super. What is the image lame?

[Shane]

No, it's not lame. It's scary. It's scary looking.

[Amanda]

You just show me, like a cartoon doll.

[Shane]

It's scary looking.

[Amanda]

Okay.

[Shane]

It's a scary looking image.

[Amanda]

You should stop looking at it. Okay. Selena agrees with me.

[Shane]

Yeah.

[Amanda]

It's almost like I won't go in the mirror and say Bloody Mary.

[Shane]

Okay.

[Amanda]

What's the one that brings the candy man?

[Shane]

Candyman.

[Amanda]

Yeah.

[Shane]

It's a movie.

[Amanda]

Yeah. You have to say three things in the mirror. That's when the candyman comes out.

[Shane]

Oh, yeah. I don't do that stuff. I'm not trying. I'm not trying to beckon.

[Amanda]

Okay.

[Shane]

The things neither. Okay, let's do a little. This one's a pallet cleanser. I think this is a little bit of a palette cleanser. Cuz I. It's. It is creepy, but I think you're going to think it's funny. Now. This is. This one is one of the ones that I was talking about where this is a conversation common creepypasta theme that I feel like you don't see much in regular horror, which is Lost media. So Lost. Lost media is like, you've probably heard about how certain TV shows have an episode that they took off the air and. No. And they've lost it. Or like how there's a lot of movies and shows that are like, all the films are burned. So like that movie that existed that people remember, it doesn't exist anymore. And on the Internet, on the Internet, this happens a lot too, where just things get lost and we're like, yeah, it's gone. It's Lost media. This. This video that everyone loved. It's gone.

[Amanda]

Where does it go, though?

[Shane]

It's just gone. It's. It's like maybe the. Every single record of it was deleted. It just can happen. So there's a lot of these types of stories on that were written in creepypastas. There's the most famous one, which is about a lost episode of SpongeBob SquarePants. I didn't pick that one, but I picked another one about a lost episode of the Simpsons.

[Amanda]

You know, I don't watch the Simpsons.

[Shane]

That's okay. I don't watch the Simpsons.

[Amanda]

Did you watch the Simpsons growing up?

[Shane]

Not really, no. It was on, but I never really watched it. It wasn't a last episode. My brothers loved it. But I wasn't really watching it. Yeah, this is an episode. This is a. This is a story about There's a lost episode of the Simpsons. Okay, you know how Fox has a weird way of counting Simpsons episodes? They refuse to count a couple of them, making the amount of episodes inconsistent. The reason for this is a lost episode from season one. Finding details about this missing episode is difficult. No one who is who was working on the show at the time likes to talk about it. From what has been pieced together, the lost episode was written entirely by Matt Groening. During production of the first season, Matt started to act strangely. He was very quiet, seemed nervous and morbid. Mentioning this to anyone who was present results in them getting very ang angry and forbidding you to ever mention it to Matt. The episode's production number was 7G44. The title was Dead Bart. In addition to getting angry, asking anyone who is on the show about this will cause them to do everything they can to stop you from directly communicating with Matt. Groining at a fan event, I managed to follow him after he spoke to the crowd and eventually had a chance to talk to him alone as he was leaving the building. He didn't seem upset that I had followed him. Probably expected a typical encounter with an obsessive fan. When I mentioned the lost episode, though, all color drained from his face and he started tremb. When I asked him if he could tell me any details, he sounded like he was on the verge of tears. He grabbed a piece of paper, wrote something on it, and handed it to me. He begged me never to mention the episode again. The piece of paper had a website address on it. I would rather not say what it was for reasons you'll see in a second. I entered the address into my browser and I came to a site that was completely black except for a line of yellow text. A download link. I clicked on it and a file started downloading. Once the file was downloaded, my computer went crazy. It was the worst virus I had ever seen. System restore didn't work. The entire computer had to be rebooted. Before doing this, though, I copied the file onto a cd. I tried to open it on my now empty computer, and as I suspected, there was an episode of the Simpsons on it. The episode started off like any other episode, but had very poor quality animation. If you've seen the original animation for Some Enchanted Evening, it was similar, but less stable. The first act was fairly normal, but the way the characters acted was a little off. Homer seemed angrier, Marge seemed depressed. Lisa seemed anxious. Bart Seemed to have genuine anger and hatred for his parents. The episode was about the Simpsons going on a plane trip. Near the end of the first act, the plane was taking off. Bart was fooling around, as you'd expect. However, as the plane was about 50ft off the ground, Bart broke a window on the plane and was sucked out. At the beginning of the series, Matt had an idea with that the animated style of the Simpsons world represented wanted life and that death turned things more realistic. This was used in this episode. The picture of Bart's corpse was barely recognizable. They took full advantage of it, not having to move and made an almost photorealistic drawing of his dead body. Act one ended with the shot of Bart's corpse. When act two started, Homer, Marge and Lisa were sitting at their table, crying. The crying went on and on. It got more pained and sounded more realistic. Better acting than you would think popping possible. The animation started to decay even more as they cried, and you could hear murmuring in the background. This crying went on for all of Act 2. Act 3 opened with a title card saying one year had passed. Homer, Marge and Lisa were skeletally thin and still sitting at the table. There was no sign of Maggie or the pets. They decided to visit Bart's grave. Springfield was completely deserted, and as they walked to the cemetery, the houses became more and more decrepit. They all looked abandoned. When they got to the grave, Bart's body was just lying in front of his tombstone, looking just like it did at the end of Act 1. The family started crying again. Eventually, they stopped and just stared at Bart's body. The camera zoomed in on Homer's face. According to summaries, Homer tells a joke at this part, but it isn't audible. In the version I saw, you can't tell what Homer is saying. The view zoomed out as the episode came to a close. The tombstones in the background had the names of every Simpsons guest star on them. Some that no one had heard of in 1989, some that haven't been on the show yet. All of them had death dates on them. For guests who died since, like Michael Jackson and George Harrison, the dates were when they would die. You can try to use the tombstones to predict the deaths of living Simpsons guest stars, but there's something odd about most of the ones who haven't died yet. All of their deaths are listed as the same date. Credit to KI Simpson. Hey, creepy.

[Amanda]

So it's a lost cousin who wrote this story about.

[Shane]

I guess so. Yeah, it's. That's us. Simpson that's this honest.

[Amanda]

That's sad that Bart Simpson died.

[Shane]

Bart's dead, dude.

[Amanda]

But, like, you're an idiot. You smashed a window in an airplane.

[Shane]

Well, yeah.

[Amanda]

You got sucked out.

[Shane]

Doing typical Bart things.

[Amanda]

Is it crazy that I can't stop thinking about Angela's Bart as Dart Simpson? And Dart Simpson? So whenever you're saying. And I'm thinking about Angela with her face painted yellow, like, yeah, hey, guys. Is that terrible?

[Shane]

Yeah.

[Amanda]

Okay.

[Shane]

These. These types of things actually kind of creep me out. Like, it does creep me out of just like. Yeah, there's this episode that nobody really remembers, and it's just kind of like, off.

[Amanda]

See, these stories kind of make me feel like I just went on an acid trip and I want to come back home.

[Shane]

Okay, okay.

[Amanda]

Like, I'm a little bit like, what?

[Shane]

Yeah. Okay.

[Amanda]

That's a crazy one. But is the Simpson guy related? Related?

[Shane]

That's. We don't know. So I feel like we have to maybe choose between some things here. So I've got a couple I love.

[Amanda]

How many creepypastas you got?

[Shane]

I've got a lot. So we have one that's kind of a little more. I would say, not sci fi, but a little more distorted reality type of horror, and one that's more monster horror. Ooh. These are both really famous creepypastas. They're both really good.

[Amanda]

Monster.

[Shane]

You want to go monster?

[Amanda]

I do. I want to go old school. Classic monster. That's what I'm feeling. I'm feeling classic.

[Shane]

Then this one's good. This one was recommended to me by a few people. This is an old one. This. This originated back in, like, 2009. And it's. It's a famous creepypasta. It is the Rake. The Rake.

[Amanda]

That's terrifying.

[Shane]

Monster. But a lot of people were like, oh, this one really scared me back in the day. So this is a series of accounts of this monster known as the Rake. Okay. All right. This is a collection of different accounts, reports, and accounts. So people have collected different letters and stories and posts online that all lead to this one monster. So this is a suicide note that was found in 1964. As I prepare to take my life, I feel it necessary to assuage any guilt or pain I have introduced through this act. It is not the fault of anyone other than him. For once I awoke and felt his presence. And once I awoke and saw his form once again, I awoke and heard his voice and looked into his eyes. I cannot sleep without fear for what I might next awake to experience. I cannot ever wake Goodbye. Found in the same wooden box were two empty envelopes addressed to William and Rose and one loose personal letter with no envelope. Dearest Linnie, I have prayed for you. He spoke your name. This is a journal entry translated from Spanish. That was from 1880. I have experienced the greatest terror. I have experienced the greatest terror. I have experienced the greatest terror. I see his eyes when I close mine. They are hollow, black. They saw me and pierced me. His wet hand. I will not sleep. His voice and then it's unintelligible text after that. We have a Mariner's log from 1691. He came to me in my sleep. From the foot of my bed I felt a sensation. He took everything. We must return to England. We shall not return here again. At the request of the rake. From a witness in 2006. Three years ago, I had just returned from a trip from Niagara Falls with my family for the for the 4th of July. We were all very exhausted after a long day of driving. So my husband and I put the kids right to bed and called it a night. At about 4am I woke up thinking my husband had gotten up to use the restroom. I used the moment to steal back the sheets, only to wake him in the process. I apologize and told him I thought he got out of bed. When he turned to face me, he gasped and pulled his feet up from the end of the bed so quickly his knees almost knocked me out of the bed. He then grabbed me and said nothing. After adjusting to the dark for half a second, I was able to see what caused the strange reaction. Reaction. At the foot of the bed, sitting and facing away from us, there was what appeared to be a naked man or a large hairless dog of some sort. Its body position was disturbing and unnatural, as if it had been hit by a car or something. For some reason I was not instantly frightened by it, but more concerned as to its condition. At this point I was somewhat under the assumption that we were supposed to help him. My husband was peering over, his arm and knee tucked into the fetal position, occasionally glancing at me before returning to the creature. In a flurry of motion, the creature scrambled around the side of the bed and then crawled quickly, quickly in a flailing sort of motion right along the bed until it was less than a foot from my husband's face. The creature was completely silent for about 30 seconds, or probably closer to five. It just seemed like a while just looking at my husband. The creature then placed its hand on his knee and ran into the hallway leading to the kids room. I screamed and ran for the light switch, planning to stop him before he hurt my children. When I got to the hallway, the light from the bedroom was enough to see it. Crouching and hunched over about 20ft away, he turned around and looked directly at me, covered in blood. Blood. I flipped the switch on the wall and saw my daughter Clara. The creature ran down the stairs while my husband and I rushed to help our daughter. She was very, very badly injured and spoke only once more in her short life. She said, he is the Rake. My husband drove his car into a lake that night while rushing our daughter to the hospital. He did not survive. Being a small town, news got around pretty quickly. The police were helpful at first and the local newspaper took a lot of interest as well. However, the story was never published and the local television news never followed up either. For several months, my son Justin and I stayed in a hotel near my parents house. After we decided to return home, I began looking for answers myself. I eventually located a man in the next town over who had a similar story. We got in contact and began talking about our experiences. He knew of two other people in New York who had seen the creature we now referred to as the Rake. It took the four of us about two solid years of hunting on the Internet and writing letters to come up with a small collection of what we believe to be the accounts of the Rake. None of them gave any details, history or follow up. One journal had an entry involving the creature in its first three pages and never mentioned it again. A ship's log explained nothing of the encounter, saying only that we were they were told to leave by the rake. That was the last entry in the log. There were, however, many instances where the creature's visit was one of a series of visits with the same person. Multiple people also mentioned being spoken to, my daughter included. This led to us wondering if the Rake had visited any of us before our last encounter. I set up a digital recorder near my bed and left it running all night. Every night for two weeks, I would tediously scan through the sounds of me rolling around my bed each day when I woke up by the end of the second week, I was quite used to the occasional sound of sleep while blurring through the recording eight times with normal speed. This took almost an hour every day. On the first day of the third week, I thought I heard something different. What I found was a shrill voice. It was the Rake. I can't listen to it long enough to even begin to describe it. I haven't let anyone listen to it yet. All I know is that I've heard it before. And I now believe that it spoke when it was sitting in front of my husband. I don't remember hearing anything at the time, but for some reason, the voice on the recorder immediately brings me back to that moment. The thoughts that must have gone through my daughter's head make me very upset. I have not seen the Rake since he ruined my life. But I know that he has been in my room while I slept. I know and fear that one night I'll wake up to see him staring at me. That's the Rake.

[Amanda]

Wow.

[Shane]

Yeah. Credit to Brian Somerville.

[Amanda]

Thanks, Brian Somerville.

[Shane]

Thanks, Brian Somerville, for creating the Rake.

[Amanda]

And setting some nightmares. My God.

[Shane]

Yeah.

[Amanda]

What scares me the most is obviously the. The modern day story.

[Shane]

Oh.

[Amanda]

Of sleeping in bed because.

[Shane]

But there's something so creepy about. Yeah. And this thing was spotted 400 years ago.

[Amanda]

100 is like the ship.

[Shane]

Yeah.

[Amanda]

Do not come back to England.

[Shane]

We need. We're leaving for England.

[Amanda]

Do not come back to England.

[Shane]

To go back to England, we must.

[Amanda]

Go back and tell the prince or the king that we can't get the spices.

[Shane]

My favorite stories are monsters.

[Amanda]

This is why I wanted to read the I love the monsters one. It gives me it. It like gives me that, like, nostalgic, like, warm wrap sweater. It makes me feel like a little kid again. Because I feel like we told a lot of monster stories. Whereas, like, sci fi I love, but it feels more like I'm older.

[Shane]

Sci fi is more like, oh, what. What could we as humans create that we shouldn't? Or, you know, like, yeah, it's that type of thing. And then ghosts and demons and stuff. It's like, what if there's these things that are all around the world? But what's creepy to me about monsters is it's like, no, we're talking about one singular thing that could be out.

[Amanda]

There that's been alive forever.

[Shane]

Or. Yeah, just one. This one thing. Like, it's not like, oh, there's a bunch of these all over the world. It's like, no, there's this thing somewhere in this part of the United States called the Rake. And people have recounted seeing it over the past. I'm like, that to me is. That creeps me out. Cause I'm just like, ooh. And, you know, there's a lot of those stories. Cause there is like, the Jersey Devil. There's, you know, things like that get brought up and I'm like, ooh. Like, that's.

[Amanda]

There's nothing scarier to me than feeling like the blankets are Getting, like, ripped off of me or there's something beneath my feet.

[Shane]

Yeah.

[Amanda]

I don't know about you, but I have to have my feet covered. Like, I can't just let my legs be free to.

[Shane]

But wow. I usually have, like, one leg out.

[Amanda]

So that leg is for the T.

[Shane]

I just get too hot.

[Amanda]

That leg's like, yeah.

[Shane]

They're like, oh, for me. For free.

[Amanda]

The rake's like, oh, I'll take this.

[Shane]

I also love monsters, just in a storytelling sense, because there's something poetic about monsters in that I think they are. If done right, monsters are, like, the representation of something real.

[Amanda]

Yes.

[Shane]

Like, a monster will represent fear or guilt or anxiety, but, like, in a physical form. And it brings that fear of what it. What it really is in the real world, but it personifies it.

[Amanda]

Like that movie A Monster Calls. I love that movie so much. I think Liam Neeson is voicing over that monster, Noah 5. It's so good. It's. It is like. I think it's his grief and stuff like that.

[Shane]

But I'm such a fan of monsters, and it's hard to do. There's not many monster movies, but it's what I like. When I watched Stranger Things, I was like, oh, hell yeah, monsters. Loved. I'm into this. Give me monsters.

[Amanda]

I think monsters are tough because it's like, what do they look like?

[Shane]

It can be really.

[Amanda]

I really think you could really mess it up. They either look really, really scary or they're like. I mean, I think it's best when you don't fully see them. Like, see their full scale.

[Shane]

Of course. Yeah.

[Amanda]

That was. That was a creepy story.

[Shane]

It was really creepy. It's a popular one. Trevor, when I was. I was texting with, like, Spencer and Trevor, and. And Trevor was like, oh, the rake scared me as a kid. And I was like, okay, well, I'm reading.

[Amanda]

So he was reading creepypastas as a kid.

[Shane]

Oh, a lot of people are reading these as kids.

[Amanda]

Where do you find them?

[Shane]

They're just all over the Internet. They end. They end up everywhere. Like, the reason, like, the whole idea with the pasta is like, that. It gets posted, it gets copied and pasted.

[Amanda]

Right, Right.

[Shane]

So copy pasta, Creepypasta. And so these stories get told.

[Amanda]

What's copy pasta?

[Shane]

That's just. Copy pasta is any story or phrase that gets copied and pasted all over the place. And so creepypasta is just a scary version of that. And there's a lot of them, and that's why there's so many that are about things that like, interest people of that age group. There's a very famous Minecraft horror story called Hero O'Brien about a dude who's playing Minecraft, just a single player game, and. But he kept seeing, like, an image of someone else playing the game, like, very far off in the distance.

[Amanda]

Oh.

[Shane]

And just. Just stuff like that. So it's like, it's scary for people who are into the game. They're going, oh, man, what if. What if I see it?

[Amanda]

You know, I kind of love those stories that stick in my mind. Like, the last time we read Creepypastas. I'll never forget that creepy little thing that was in Mr.

[Shane]

Wide Mouth.

[Amanda]

There you go.

[Shane]

Yeah, I'll never forget that. If you haven't watched our previous Creepypasta from last year, you should check out.

[Amanda]

One year from now.

[Shane]

There's a whole bunch. And there is a subreddit called no Sleep, which is really popular nowadays, which is another story forum. And there's a lot of stories there that we could pull from as well. So we'll do this again. This is a lot of fun.

[Amanda]

God, I love October.

[Shane]

Yeah, October.

[Amanda]

So fun.

[Shane]

It is a lot of fun Halloween. I like reading scary stories. I couldn't do this all the time, though. No, full time scary. It's nice to have, like, a time when I do this. And then I'm like, let's move on to some happy stories. Some Am I the asshole stories.

[Amanda]

That's why I think about. I think about true crime podcasters.

[Shane]

Like, I couldn't do that. See that?

[Amanda]

Yeah.

[Shane]

Same does a different thing to me. As opposed to scary stories have me going, like, my imagination gets riled up and I start thinking. I'm like, ooh, what's going on? What? What things? But true crime has me feeling more dread and more, like, sadness. Cause I'm just like, that's. Someone has to live with that forever.

[Amanda]

I agree.

[Shane]

And I'm like, I personally can't get behind. I'm like, you know what? People do all sorts of things in different forms of jobs. But I have a hard time being, like, telling, oh, sorry, my mom is calling me.

[Amanda]

Whoa.

[Shane]

She was like, I heard you.

[Amanda]

A voice told me that hurt you.

[Shane]

But with true crime, I'm just like, I can't get over that. I'm like, that's someone's real life. And that to me, is awful.

[Amanda]

I know, I know. But I think, I think, I think I, like, I could do it because I get really, like, obsessed with the small details.

[Shane]

Well. And I guess I can handle it if if it's been resolved. If like, oh, they're locked away or whatever. But so many are like. And I'm like, especially missing. And yeah. Just that bring. That makes me sad. Yeah. Knowing that it's like. And honestly, I don't even. Like a fictional story about like kind of real world horror.

[Amanda]

Yeah.

[Shane]

Where it's people doing things. I'm like, let it be something that we don't know if it exists or not.

[Amanda]

Yeah.

[Shane]

So monsters and in evil images and lost episodes of TV shows. I'm like, ooh.

[Amanda]

Easier to digest.

[Shane]

There's an element of unknowns. But whereas with real, like, what's truly scary is stuff that it's like, oh, we know everything about this and it's awful. Like, that's really scary. Whereas a little bit of unknown is like a fun scary because we don't know.

[Amanda]

So what does it say about me that I listen to all that, all that bullshit?

[Shane]

You're one of so many people that are interested in it. I don't think there's anything inherently wrong with that. I'm just saying for me personally, on an entertainment level level, or just like.

[Amanda]

Yeah.

[Shane]

And, and we, we can be enter. Entertained Sounds like the wrong word. But, you know, captivated.

[Amanda]

Captivated by things.

[Shane]

Right. Like storytelling. No different than someone who's into reading histories of wars. It's like, that's not good. So I'm not glad a war happened.

[Amanda]

But who is reading histories of war?

[Shane]

I, I, I. Oh, come on. Like ancient wars. That stuff is crazy.

[Amanda]

Ancient Rome. Let's go back to that trend.

[Shane]

Like Greece. That shit's awesome.

[Amanda]

Oh, well, I love.

[Shane]

I'll read about the Peloponnesian War.

[Amanda]

But I, I love, like Greek mythology.

[Shane]

See, that's. And that's, that's like, that's fun.

[Amanda]

Yeah.

[Shane]

That. I'm having a blast. And that's, that's the thing. This type of scary. I have a, I have a lot of fun. It's just fun for my imagination.

[Amanda]

Yeah.

[Shane]

Because then I cook up stories and I'm like thinking about things.

[Amanda]

Yeah. Wow.

[Shane]

This has been a lot of fun.

[Amanda]

Thank you for finding all those stories.

[Shane]

Yeah. And I hope people enjoyed it.

[Amanda]

Spooky time.

[Shane]

Yeah. It's hard to find because a lot of creepy pastas get really dark. A lot of them are really messed up and some are just like, Some are bad. Some are bad, some are bad.

[Amanda]

Someone's like, I was walking and flipped on the light.

[Shane]

Anyone can write a creepypasta. You can just post them online. But I like the ones like, I said that give me a sense of eeriness or are scary but not dreadful.

[Amanda]

No, those were really good.

[Shane]

I hope I did a okay job with pulling these, but no, those were all awesome.

[Amanda]

Just don't look at the link.

[Shane]

Don't click the link.

[Amanda]

Guys of smile.jpg yeah, don't click that. Great job, Shane. Thank you. Thank you for sharing that.

[Shane]

Thank you.

[Amanda]

I am spooked.

[Shane]

And for people listening, please comment down below your favorite creepypastas because we'll do this again and maybe, maybe next year. Maybe sooner. I mean, I'm down to do creepy episodes Christmas time. Yeah, Christmas. Christmas. Creepy, creepy Christmas. Let me know your favorite creepypastas down below and we'll see you next week. Next week we're telling some real ghost stories.

[Amanda]

Yeah.

[Shane]

That people have experienced here at Smosh.

[Amanda]

Yeah, we're bringing some people on, so stay tuned for that.

[Shane]

All right, thank you for watching. We'll see you later. See you later. Goodbye. Bye.