transcript
Speaker 1:
[00:00] So good, so good, so good.
Speaker 2:
[00:03] New markdowns up to 70% off are at Nordstrom Rack Stores now. And that means so many new reasons to rack.
Speaker 1:
[00:10] Because I always find something amazing.
Speaker 3:
[00:12] Just so many good brands. Because there's always something new.
Speaker 2:
[00:15] Join the Nordy Club to unlock exclusive discounts, shop new arrivals first, and more. Plus, buy online and pick up at your favorite rack store for free. Great brands, great prices. That's why you rack.
Speaker 1:
[00:30] So, you're saying with Hilton Honors, I can use points for a free night stay anywhere?
Speaker 2:
[00:35] Anywhere.
Speaker 1:
[00:36] What about fancy places like the Canopy in Paris? Yeah, Hilton Honors, baby. Or relaxing sanctuaries like the Conrad in Touloume?
Speaker 4:
[00:43] Hilton Honors, baby.
Speaker 1:
[00:45] What about the five-star Waldorf Astoria in the Maldives? Are you going to do this for all 9,000 properties?
Speaker 3:
[00:52] When you want points that can take you anywhere, anytime, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for this day. Book your spring break now.
Speaker 5:
[01:15] Hey, welcome back to CreepCast. Another week of scary stories. Today, we're gonna be reading a story called The Puppet In The Tree, which is, yeah, or hold on, where the fuck is my mouse? The Puppet In The Tree by Dopeabean, who did, is it The Dead Girl In My Yard, right?
Speaker 6:
[01:35] Dopeabean's done a few stories we've covered, so they did. The Dead Girl In My Yard was the best friend I ever had. All time CreepCast banger, in my opinion. They told me I was nothing but a dog, which is about the one where the girl was in the house, imagine Lake of the Dog, and I clean hoarder houses for a living.
Speaker 5:
[01:54] So a lot of bangers.
Speaker 7:
[01:57] Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[01:58] Dopeabean is the name that they write with online. Their actual pin name is RC Bowman. RC Bowman has a bunch of different stories you can check out, as well as multiple books that you can get on Amazon, either paperback or for Kindle, such as the Monsters We Forgot series, or What Monsters Do For Love. And every, I can't think of anything we've read from them I haven't liked.
Speaker 1:
[02:24] Yeah.
Speaker 5:
[02:24] I was going to say the hoarder one, I always forget, what a weird fantasy, like it dips into all these different weird things. And then I still think that the best thing that we've read from them so far, at least I had to say is the dead girl in my yard.
Speaker 6:
[02:39] The dead girl in the yard.
Speaker 1:
[02:40] Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[02:41] Yeah. That one was just so good. It was like a macabre bridge to Tarabithia.
Speaker 5:
[02:48] Yeah. No, it does feel like that. Yeah. Like a fucking demented bridge to Tarabithia, which bridge to Tarabithia is already kind of demented. Still can't believe the little girl that dies, falls and drowns.
Speaker 6:
[02:59] It just straights up drowns.
Speaker 5:
[03:00] She does. I remember you were like, wow.
Speaker 6:
[03:02] And you never see it. It's so traumatic. You never see it. It's just like, she's going forever.
Speaker 5:
[03:07] Let's put it for the best in a, in a children's movie.
Speaker 6:
[03:11] If they saw a full like eight minutes scene, I'm not saying you show her dead body. I'm saying like, he's not with her when it happens. There's no like, oh, it's a big tragic event. It's just, he comes home one day. It's like your friend's dead.
Speaker 5:
[03:25] You're like, yeah. Yeah. Well, bridge to Tarabithia, truly the most horrifying thing we've discussed on this podcast, the scariest thing we've ever covered.
Speaker 6:
[03:35] Yeah, it really is. But check out, check out RC Bowman's stuff. I will have it linked to the description. They're always a banger. And I should also mention that their account, Dope of Being got banned off Reddit. I know we talked about this last time we covered them. It got banned because of some stupid rule or something rather, but you can still see stories that get posted by them to their subreddit, the North American Pantheon, because they have that huge series. It's like a collective lore of supernatural things in the United States. And they also have like a Twitter or Facebook and Instagram, stuff like that. We'll have linked in the description. So be sure to show them some love. They certainly deserve it.
Speaker 5:
[04:13] Well, without further ado as well, be sure to check us out on audio platforms like Spotify and Apple Podcasts and give us a nice rating there. It really does help us. And also just want to give a quick shout out to our patrons who are listening and getting some extra content on the side. Isaiah, are you ready?
Speaker 6:
[04:29] I do want to mention while I'm continuing to shout out the author, most of their stories are now posted to their sub stack. I forgot about that. Yes, we'll have the sub stack linked in the description as well.
Speaker 7:
[04:38] Great. Okay.
Speaker 6:
[04:39] Anyway, I'm ready to get into it. The Puppet In The Tree, let us begin. Every elementary school has a ridiculous urban legend. My school had Muppet Man and I hated him. Muppet Man was deformed. Ill-fated plastic surgery left him with the ghastly proportions of a marionette puppet. So he stole a rainbow animal costume from the school theater and wore it everywhere. He lived in an ancient oak tree in the recess yard. Some kids claimed he lived in the branches, watching us play from camouflaged hideouts of leaves and twigs. Well, okay, off the jump.
Speaker 5:
[05:17] I want to say, I have no idea the age. I'm guessing it's a child, but I will say the, it seems like a full-fledged, I thought it was a teacher at first. I was like, my God.
Speaker 6:
[05:27] Oh, no, it is an adult. It has to be, because it says, you know, ill-fated plastic surgery.
Speaker 5:
[05:32] No, well, yeah, but you never know.
Speaker 6:
[05:34] It's not Muppet Boy, it's The Muppet Man.
Speaker 5:
[05:38] You ain't kidding either. It ain't no Muppet Boy, it's a Muppet Man. Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[05:44] So there's, it's just, also jumping into the deep end, no introduction, oh, my name is. It's just like, yeah, there's a guy dressed as a rainbow animal and he like watches the kids play from the trees.
Speaker 5:
[05:58] Which also, I don't like that, by the way. Grown a man with a rainbow, with like a rainbow cape or whatever, and then he's just watching people play in the trees. I'm trying to think if there was anything in my middle school where there was, or elementary school that was like, not in that vein, but like a super, like a folklorist, like a legend or something. And I can't think of any. The only thing I remember was that there was people that would, they said like, I don't know, like this, there was like an old well near our school, and they said that that was haunted, but nothing ever, nothing ever struck me as a kid to be like, oh my God, you know. So I don't know.
Speaker 6:
[06:35] Yeah. Yeah, I remember one time in middle school, which I'm trying to think elementary school, we used to, I remember running through empty classrooms and saying like, oh, there's ghosts or whatever. But I don't think there was any specific story. It was just kids being goofy. But I remember middle school one day, some guy apparently walked into the, onto the school parking lot with a shotgun. And all the, all the teachers are like, there's a guy in the parking lot with a gun. So it was like a big lockdown, everyone freaked out. But then it turns out he like just lived next to the school and he's like, oh, hey, I'm carrying this from my truck or whatever. He just like kept going. So it wasn't really a ghost story, but we used to joke that he would come back and kill us when.
Speaker 5:
[07:27] It's not really a funny story. Kids are pretty cruel though, huh? Kids are pretty-
Speaker 6:
[07:31] Well, I mean, yeah, kids will say stuff like that and it means nothing to them. It's like, oh, what if someone showed up with a shotgun and killed all of us?
Speaker 5:
[07:37] This guy, this teacher we had, this teacher we had in second grade, or he was a teacher at my school in second grade, I didn't have him, but his leg had to get amputated. He was in this horrible car crash, which to a second grader means absolutely nothing. So everyone kept calling him black beard and stuff, and people kept drawing parrots and shit and all kinds of stuff that was all pirate-related. And he was like, I'm not a pirate! And he was like, I'm not a pirate!
Speaker 7:
[08:04] He was prosthetic, and he was on cough. And people were so rude about it.
Speaker 5:
[08:14] Jesus, kids are so mean! I remember my friend was like, he doesn't even drive a car, he drives a pirate ship to school every day. This is a second grader. This is a second grader.
Speaker 6:
[08:28] Just finding new ways to be evil that no one would think of.
Speaker 5:
[08:32] God, I mean, just unnecessarily rude. It really does make me think at times where I'm like, if a fucking teacher just like decked a kid in the face, I'd be like, oh, you know what? You get one. I think you get one as a teacher. You get one.
Speaker 6:
[08:47] Yeah, well, a semester. I remember there's a guy who was a year older than me in middle school who like his mom would just buy him all kinds of like crazies. Like he had a bunch of guns. I remember what is up with this?
Speaker 5:
[09:08] You guys in guns. Did they not just get fucking Legos? Good God.
Speaker 6:
[09:13] Just Tennessee thing. I do remember, which is, this is bad. You shouldn't have done this. I remember he brought the guns to school one time because we wanted to go shoot after school. And he was like, yeah, check this out. Just at lunch, opens his backpack.
Speaker 7:
[09:24] It's just like a bunch of guns.
Speaker 5:
[09:26] Oh my God.
Speaker 6:
[09:27] And ammo. But here's the thing. I remember all of us going, cool.
Speaker 5:
[09:32] No, sure. Yeah, you're a child.
Speaker 6:
[09:33] That's awesome. Yeah. Then we went and shot him after school and it was fine. You know, there's nothing untoward, but just thinking about that now it's like, yeah, any reasonable adult would freak out. But I remember his brother blowing up frogs with firecrackers and stuff.
Speaker 5:
[09:52] Yeah, I don't like that.
Speaker 6:
[09:53] And I remember at the time, even then, like everyone else is like, isn't this cool? Like, you know, it's like they explode and stuff. And I'm like, I don't know. I like the guns to school is fine. I don't know about the blowing up live animals thing.
Speaker 7:
[10:10] Like, should we tell someone about this?
Speaker 6:
[10:16] Are you a big baby? Are you gonna be a baby about it? We gotta pad out this runtime. We can't be cutting stuff.
Speaker 7:
[10:22] What are you talking about?
Speaker 6:
[10:27] Anyway, the morbid kid said he lived in the trunk, eating caterpillar larva and torturing the ghost of Jason Hughes. Jason Hughes wasn't an urban legend, unfortunately. He was just a tragedy. A doomed, anxious wreck, cursed with ridiculously outsized glasses and an obsession with drawing. I remember feeling angry one rainy afternoon because I wanted to color with the teacher's new markers. Jason already used all the paper in the classroom. Nobody liked him much, including me, but I don't know why. He was a sweet kid, fretful, anxious, and a little too smart for his own good, but sweet.
Speaker 5:
[11:06] That's more realistic. Maybe not the cryptic thing, but I do feel like there's always one kid in the class who gets dogged on way too much, who doesn't deserve it. Now, that is true.
Speaker 6:
[11:16] That was me. That was me, by the way.
Speaker 5:
[11:18] You got dogged on? I bet you deserved it.
Speaker 6:
[11:21] There's the whole, one of the most famous bits of this podcast is me talking about being shoved into a trash can.
Speaker 5:
[11:26] Yeah. Listen, I'm not saying you didn't get a bullet. I'm saying that you deserved it. I'm saying the kid that doesn't deserve it.
Speaker 6:
[11:31] Oh, okay.
Speaker 5:
[11:32] I'm saying a child who is sweet and deserve it. I don't know. I just feel like as a kid, you'd piss me off.
Speaker 6:
[11:39] We probably, unironically, we would not have been friends.
Speaker 5:
[11:43] No rhyme or reason. No rhyme or reason. I just think about you as a child. I'm like, this fucking kid pisses me off. Get him the fuck away from me.
Speaker 6:
[11:51] Me and you would not have been friends because with the lateral nature of adulthood, it's kind of like, whatever. But when you're a kid and you're just really on to one thing, like I was super on to parents teaching stuff like that, you would have been one of the bad kids. You would have been one of the kids I shouldn't have talked to.
Speaker 5:
[12:12] I'm a fine child. I was a fine child. There was this kid in my school named that was a fucking menace though. That was like, no, that was like one of the kids where you're like, I like how you use a full name. I will dox him if you're still out there. He's got to be like in his forties now. That child, that was a bad egg. It was a bad egg. Look, there's a lot of censoring we're gonna have to do so far in this episode. We should just keep going.
Speaker 6:
[12:36] No, we're good. Well, what'd he do?
Speaker 5:
[12:39] He, it was like one of those kids where he would like, I mean, it was obviously like, we should cut this because it's, it was like obviously a kid who had problems at home. You know, he was like, he wouldn't bathe. He had like earwax running down his face, like the side of his face and stuff. And he'd like get really, he had like a really bad emotional swings. And he would like get up and like throw desks at our teacher. Like take the desk and throw it at the teacher and scream and stuff. And as a kid, you're like, this guy's a fucking monster. Sit the fuck down, freak. You know, like that kind of thing. But obviously it's like probably lashing out, probably has some kind of mental things going. Like there's so much more to it. But as of course, as a kid, you're like, yeah, he's fucking, he fucking freaked out. He hit my milk, fucking dickhead. Like that's all you care about. It's like he hit my milk on chicken patty day. That fucking fat fuck is what you say. You know, like look, cause you're young. I mean, you're in second grade. You can't read all the signs. So I don't know.
Speaker 6:
[13:43] That was a, that was a remarkable amount of a maturity out of you. I'm proud.
Speaker 5:
[13:46] No, thank you.
Speaker 6:
[13:47] That was big. Jason disappeared on a November evening in second grade. A few days later, a teacher found his clothes piled at the base of the schoolyard oak tree. The principal called the school assembly to make the announcement. He made it sound like the clothes had been laundered and neatly folded. My dad, cop at the time, a cop with the bad habit of telling his kids things. He said what he should have to know. Told me Jason's clothes were filthy. Worse than filthy. In fact, it mattered with urine, feces and blood.
Speaker 5:
[14:20] God damn, dude. Old boy gets plucked out of nowhere, pisses, shits himself, and then gets murdered as fucked. Also too, I would seriously be like, Dad, would you stop telling us about what happened today? Yeah, I saw this crack whore with broken shards of glass in her face. She was dead for hours. And maggots like, eat up. Don't forget your peas. You're like, God, dad, dad, could you just please? I don't want to hear about it anymore. Please dad.
Speaker 6:
[14:48] As the kid whose dad took him to look for a dead body, I relate to their situation.
Speaker 5:
[14:54] I was gonna say, you must feel I've strong kinship to this character so far.
Speaker 6:
[14:59] I do a little bit. I remember one time being out with my dad fishing. And while we were fishing, the little boat we were in kind of floated underneath the cliff face and just unprompted. My dad goes, I remember one time when I was about seven, I was walking home from school with a buddy of mine. And we turned a corner at a cliff kind of like this. And there was a guy that lived at the top of it, who jumped off. He was going through a divorce with his wife, couldn't take any more and he just jumped off. Then I turned this corner and his body looked like a snake. Way the bone snapped and the way pieces of him lay, looked like he was curled in on himself. I didn't even realize it was a person at first until I got closer and saw his face. It's a great day to say, if you use that top water bait, that should get the large mouth over there in the reeds. What a great day to sail, dad.
Speaker 5:
[15:51] It's a lovely, lovely ocean breeze out today. Thank you.
Speaker 6:
[15:55] It just just stuff like that constantly.
Speaker 5:
[16:00] Oh, Harold here. Thank you, Harry.
Speaker 6:
[16:04] Hi, Harry.
Speaker 5:
[16:06] You know, I. Yeah, no, I'm lucky I didn't have that with my father. I if I'd like to imagine, though, that that cop that I just told tells him horrible things that no child should hear.
Speaker 6:
[16:19] Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5:
[16:21] Homeless people. What? Homeless people. OK, I'm just trying to get my chicken parm. They smoke cigarettes with their butthole. Dad, please stop.
Speaker 6:
[16:35] I'm pretty sure they don't.
Speaker 5:
[16:36] I'm pretty sure.
Speaker 6:
[16:37] I'm not positive, but I don't think they do that.
Speaker 5:
[16:40] They do it. It's the setup almost like Chinese opium dens with the calm hookah lounges, and they smoke cigarettes with the buttholes. They smoke it out of the buttholes.
Speaker 6:
[16:48] Dad, I know what all those words mean.
Speaker 5:
[16:51] Separate from each other.
Speaker 6:
[16:53] I don't think when you put them together like that, it suddenly becomes this.
Speaker 5:
[16:57] Are you telling me this because I wanted to watch Aladdin after dinner? Eat up, champ. Prince of Leof is here.
Speaker 6:
[17:20] Yeah, yeah, that's the stuff. That's the good stuff.
Speaker 5:
[17:24] I will say so far, this is very, we should stop sidetracking. This is actually-
Speaker 6:
[17:28] Yeah, yeah, yeah. We've read three paragraphs, but I like it. It's a good three paragraphs.
Speaker 5:
[17:32] We have been interrupting so much. I know people are gonna be upset. I was just gonna say that so far, he's talking about some, I mean, some middle-aged man is in a tree at a school, and that-
Speaker 6:
[17:45] Well, that's the legend.
Speaker 5:
[17:46] The legend is that there's a man in the tree-
Speaker 6:
[17:49] That Michael Afton, or sorry, William Afton from Five Nights at Freddy's is in the Golden Bonnie suit in the tree now.
Speaker 5:
[17:55] Did it pop out and do the Freddy Fazbear scream? No, but it is cool that Jason Hughes, he's like an urban legend, he's a real kid, and that they found his clothes all folded up and it was covered in piss, shit and blood. Pretty brutal, pretty brutal.
Speaker 6:
[18:11] He told me I couldn't repeat it to anybody. I never did. It was too horrifying to even think about, let alone share. That's why I hated Muppet Man. Nobody could say his name without some snot nosed little ship from behind the track saying Jason's. Horrifying schoolyard litany. That was another problem. The kids at the school knew Jason was my neighbor and they knew my dad was a cop. After weeks of hysterical interest, I was abruptly ostracized. It suited me fine. Over the past couple years, my dad had arrested the parents of at least two kids in my class and they gave me hell for it. It was all right. I preferred books to people anyway and spent every recess reading under the oak tree. Sometimes I pretended to read to Jason's ghost. Penance, I guess, for treating him so poorly. Man, that's heartbreaking. That is sad. One day in February, I got to school two or three hours late. I don't remember why. I only remember getting to school and plodding across the empty recess yard. February is a bad month in a particular corner of the world. The sky goes from polished steel in the morning to icy steel in the evening, and at night, dimmed to a flat watery darkness that makes my heart ache. The plants are all dead, the tree skeletal, except for flourishing colonies of mistletoe. It looks like despair. The empty recess yard was no exception. Everything was gray and pale and somehow riddled like it would crack and shatter if you touched it. The almost preternatural stillness turned that pale winter fragility into something sinister. Paranoia scurled through me suddenly. What if? Just what if? It was true. What if the universe was broken? What if the scene before me was a fragile husk just waiting for a misplaced step to break it into pieces? I swallowed a surge of panic and took extra care with each step, setting my foot down with excruciating gentleness. The sand crunched under my soles. Everything felt solid, but the sense of glassy fragility persisted. I found the urge to close my eyes and walked as quickly as I dared. My path took me right past the oak tree. Black blown glass bark glimmered faintly. Branches threw spider web patterns against the grim sky. They were bare except for nests and mistletoe. The tree was infested with it. Suddenly, with the disconcerting, painfully adult burst of clarity, it occurred to me. The tree was dying. I slowed to a halt, staring at it with the kind of hushed reverence you're supposed to feel in church. The tree was scary but beautiful at the same time. More than that, it was a pillar of my memory. It was visible from my backyard, towering over the school in my childhood like a reassuring and eternal sentry. Except it wasn't eternal. It'd be gone some day. Maybe before I left grade school. Maybe sooner. My throat felt hot and tight. I took in the side of the bare branches and tried to mentally edit out the mistletoe clusters. It was difficult. They burst from the tree thicker than summertime leaves and they kept moving, jostled, no doubt, by the cold winter wind. Except, another brutal, bleak epiphany. There was no wind. The dark mistletoe rustled and writhed like a trapped serpent. Cold air stung my eyes as they widened. Bright bursts of color flickered inexplicably among the branches, slithering through the mistletoe like a multicolored feathered boa, and glittering in that seneous rope of color. Eyes. Glassy round eyes the color of limes. The rope of color broke into tendrils and grew, not unlike the fungus in which it nested, overtaking the darkness with eye-wateringly brilliant neon hues. Then they twined back together, warming behind branches and mistletoe before resolving into a fluffy, ridiculously proportioned caricature of an animal. A cartoon incarnate. A Muppet. Hello? It said. Its voice made me jump, full and hearty and unpleasantly friendly. A cartoon voice. My lip trembled. Tears pricked my eyes, scorching and frigid at once. You're not real.
Speaker 1:
[22:40] Yes, I am.
Speaker 6:
[22:41] It fixed me with a sharp, reptilian stare that made me want to scream.
Speaker 1:
[22:45] I might even be realer than you.
Speaker 6:
[22:48] The world looked glassier than ever, faded and brittle except for the obscenely bright monstrosity above me. I stamped my foot and held my breath, praying that the world would shatter, taking the Technicolor monster with it. If I broke a broken world, would I break anything at all? But the pavement remained solid. The frozen chill bypassed the soles of my shoes and I leeched into my feet. The creature stretched and stretched and stretched, slowly snaking its way down the trunk of the tree. Simultaneously sloth-like and reptilian, bursting with that ridiculous Crayola fur. It should have been funny. Why wasn't it funny? Why was I scared? Why wasn't I running away? It slid down the bark until its eyes were level with my own.
Speaker 5:
[23:35] Only really real things can hide themselves in plain sight. Real things like me and Jason Hughes. If friends call me Muppet Man, then you can too.
Speaker 6:
[23:48] I want to take a moment to thank today's sponsor, Cash Out. Once upon a time, Hunter thought I was reading off my credit card information over a livestream. That would have been bad, and it wouldn't be beyond reason that I would do something stupid like that. But even without me simply giving it away, there are plenty of scammers lurking around trying to access sensitive information, and that's why I use Cash Out. Cash Out lets you keep your money protected and send it securely. When you get the Cash Out card, not only do you get access to a ton of perks and benefits like exclusive early access to nationwide concert pre-sales or discounts on popular brands, but you also have extra security with the power to instantly lock or unlock your card right from your phone.
Speaker 7:
[24:27] If a suspicious transaction pops up on your card, Cash App has your back by automatically declining the purchase and sending you a heads up to confirm if it's you or not. Behind the scenes, you can rest assured knowing your account balance is protected by 24-7 fraud monitoring.
Speaker 6:
[24:41] Not to mention that Cash App makes sending and receiving money easier than ever. So you can spend with peace of mind today and order a Cash App card in the app or at cash.app. For a limited time only, new Cash App customers can earn $10 if they use code secure10 in their profile at sign up and send $5 to a friend within 14 days. That's right, if you're gonna send $5 anyway in the next two weeks, then might as well use code secure10 at the link in the description to get an extra $10 while you're at it.
Speaker 7:
[25:11] So use our exclusive code to earn some additional cash for real. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partners, prepaid app cards issued by Sutton Bank, member FDIC, promotions provided by Cash App, a blocking grant, visit cash.app.app. legal slash podcast for full disclosures.
Speaker 6:
[25:23] Thank you to Cash App for sponsoring the show. Their link will be in the description and we are now back to the episode.
Speaker 5:
[25:29] Today's episode is brought to you by Square, the business toolkit that helps you still manage and grow without the chaos. Whether you're just getting started or already running something great, Square gives you the tools to take payments, track sales, manage your team and keep everything organized. I love using Square when boothing at cons. It makes everything simple and streamlined, letting me focus on interacting with fans and getting the product in their hands. Plus with Square, you get a real time reports on what you're selling easily to track growth and identify when you need to restock on fan favorites. With Square, there's three clear plans and never any hidden fees. Choose between free, plus and premium for the best options that's right for your business. Square helps you run your business with confidence, clarity and less chaos. And now it's easier than ever to get started. So why wait? Right now you can get up to $200 off Square hardware at square.com/go/creepcast. That's sqare.com/go/creepcast. Run your business smarter with Square. Get started today. Back to the episode. I don't like that.
Speaker 6:
[26:35] I got to say the writing so far has been phenomenal. That description of like, I've recognized something with an adult clarity. The tree was dying. And for a moment, it was about like the realizing that your childhood isn't forever. You know, there's a mortality. There's a time limit to things that must exist, which is a cool, very like humbling thing for a child to think on only then to realize that the monster from imagination that supposedly took Jason is real.
Speaker 5:
[27:02] The I keep picturing it to like almost like the centipede in the end of the first season of Avatar, the guy that steals your face. I can't picture something like that, but I keep like picturing that matched with like a Pennywise kind of vibe. You know what I mean?
Speaker 1:
[27:17] Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[27:18] He's in like a giant. It's like a very cartoony costume, but it almost looks like not to just reference something you made, but what's your dog character's name from the puppet show?
Speaker 5:
[27:29] Oh, tugboat.
Speaker 6:
[27:31] Boat? Oh yeah. Tugboat. That's right. It's like when tugboat switches from a puppet to just the guy in the suit.
Speaker 5:
[27:37] Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[27:37] It's like I imagine the guy in the suit, but like the arms keep extending too long and the legs keep going too long and stuff like that.
Speaker 5:
[27:43] The way that they keep describing it too. I know people say that it was like a rainbow cape or whatever, but it just sounds like he has like multiple colored fur.
Speaker 6:
[27:50] Like whatever creature this is. He didn't say rainbow cape. It said rainbow animal costume.
Speaker 5:
[27:58] Oh, I see. I see.
Speaker 6:
[28:01] So it's just, I imagine like a giant like unicorn, like bright pinks and blues.
Speaker 1:
[28:05] Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 5:
[28:05] Yeah. Almost like a Lisa Frank drawing or something. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[28:10] It extended a hand long and absurdly thin, almost like distorted frog feet, except for the rainbow fur. I turned and ran into the school screaming all the way. The poor nurse tried to extract the story from me. I don't even remember what I said. I just remember hiding under a desk and sobbing. When I finally blubbered the words Muppet Man and Jason, the school went on lockdown. The cops came. My father wasn't with them. I watched through the window, gagging and crying and trying to forget Muppet Man's bright green eyes. But how could I? When everything else, the oak tree and the police, the nurse and the sky and my own shaking hands, looked so brittle and faded. Muppet Man was the only vibrant thing. The only bright thing. The only whole thing. The only real thing. Sometime later, maybe a minute, maybe ten hours for all I knew, a cop came into the nurse's office. He grabbed my elbow over the protestations of the nurse and marched me outside. The world rushed past me in a gray, dead, glittering blur. Tree loomed ahead, dark and blank and terribly close. I flailed, but it dragged me to the oak tree and shoved me forward. I stopped inches from the bark, dark and dead and cracked, except for absurd tufts of technicolor fur. Did you do that? The cop demanded.
Speaker 5:
[29:38] Do what? Do what? Did you put that?
Speaker 6:
[29:42] He pointed to a particularly obscene knot of neon pink fur.
Speaker 5:
[29:46] On this tree?
Speaker 6:
[29:47] I told him no. I told him it was Muppet Man. That I'd seen Muppet Man. That Muppet Man knew Jason and now he knew me. The nerfs sent me home shortly thereafter and my parents packed me off to my grandparents' house in San Diego that very night. I stayed for three weeks. I stayed until I stopped having nightmares of Muppet Man eating Jason's bloody shitstain closed while I watched, trapped by his bright eyes like a deer in headlights. I got home on a Wednesday evening. I know it was Wednesday because I remember looking at my mom's calendar, big and glossy and full of beagle puppies. It always made me smile. My parents fed me Burger King and ice cream cake and sent me to bed. When I pulled my covers back, I froze. Everything around me blanched, turning pale and glassy. Everything except the dirty tufts of neon bright fur on my pillow. Oh, no. My parents assumed I did it and yelled at me for almost an hour, but they let me sleep in their bed anyway.
Speaker 5:
[30:54] It's almost like spring is an infection or something, right?
Speaker 6:
[30:58] What?
Speaker 5:
[30:58] Just like the first, it seems like whatever he's like coming in contact with is like, now it seems like the, it seems like the Muppet Man is either after him or it's like he's like infected and now things that he's like touching or interacting with, right?
Speaker 6:
[31:09] Or what? I think the Muppet Man's just like stalking him.
Speaker 5:
[31:12] Okay. So you're saying that he took the form of like his pillow or whatever?
Speaker 6:
[31:15] Yeah.
Speaker 5:
[31:16] Oh, yeah. I see. I see.
Speaker 6:
[31:18] Or like, well, maybe not the pillow. It's just a tuft of fur. So it's like Muppet Man's been in his room.
Speaker 5:
[31:23] Oh, okay. So you're saying that it's just like, it's been where he's slept and, okay.
Speaker 6:
[31:27] Yeah.
Speaker 1:
[31:27] Yeah.
Speaker 5:
[31:28] The tuft of fur there is like he left the tree before the other people got there.
Speaker 1:
[31:31] Yeah.
Speaker 5:
[31:32] Yeah. I see.
Speaker 6:
[31:33] School was a nightmare. I spent the entire morning treading recess. When the bell rang, I thought about throwing a tantrum just to stay in the classroom, but I'd get in trouble. My parents would be angry. I'd go to the principal's office. Besides, there'd be other kids on the playground. Vibrant, living, colorful, noisy kids. All that noise and brightness might be too much for Muppet Man. I told myself these things, but still ran to the bathroom when the bell rang. I threw up and sat in the stall until a teacher, summoned no doubt by a tattletale, came and told me I had to go outside. I dithered in the corner by the tetherball court as far from the oak tree as I could get. Even from a distance, I thought I caught glimpses of bright fur slithering through the branches. I decided I was seeing things. When the days finally got warmer, still skies softening to rich blue in the daytime and Easter egg colors at night, bare branches sprouting buds, flowers growing in the planter boxes all around the school, I resumed my recess ritual of reading under the tree. I understand thinking that you're seeing things, but I'm not going back under the tree. You know? Yeah. Maybe another tree, but not that tree. I was cautious at first, but determined. Every adult in my life had me convinced that I was hallucinating. Every kid in the school knew I had a breakdown about Muppet Man. The taunts alone were enough to steal my resolve. Before I knew it, I was reading under the tree like always, the glassy winter whore barely more than a memory. One afternoon in April, something pulled me out of my book. I didn't know what it was at first. Maybe the kids screaming on the jungle gym. Maybe the fifth-grade girls gossiping a few yards away. Maybe the warm breeze rustling the leaves. I looked down and gasped. Larva crawled along my arms. Yellow-white caterpillar worms that lived in the bark. The kind all the kids said Muppet Man loved to eat. Maybe with the larva you are right. Maybe it is like an infection of some sort.
Speaker 5:
[33:36] I just feel like he keeps reading as like an infection or something or like, I just don't know why. It just keeps feeling like it's.
Speaker 6:
[33:43] There's pieces of this too that almost feel like it's rep, like Muppet Man's representative of an actual tragedy.
Speaker 5:
[33:49] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[33:50] Kind of like you were talking about, like you talking about the kid you knew, you know, choking when you were in the eighth grade. And it's like, yeah, but the eighth graders think about like, oh, like, oh, tires, like that's the sticks out to you. It's like this kid had the legend of Muppet Man. There was a tragedy. A kid was abducted or killed. And it's almost like they're rationalized, especially the part where they said that they were mean to them. So now they read almost as a penance.
Speaker 5:
[34:18] I mean, it does feel like it's almost like a folklore kind of legend. It almost feels like an anti-bullying kind of like tale. You know what I mean?
Speaker 6:
[34:25] Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's almost like this person is rationalizing the bad thing that happened because it was Muppet Man that did it.
Speaker 5:
[34:31] Yeah. Actually putting like a monster, like manifesting a monster for bad actions.
Speaker 6:
[34:37] Yeah, yeah. Not to draw a connection between Muppet Man and Anton Shiger, but it's almost like the no country for old men thing where it's like it's easier to create a monster rather than to be like, yeah, this just happens sometimes. Yeah, it just works that way.
Speaker 5:
[34:55] Almost trying to like find a rationale for how like horrible things can randomly happen.
Speaker 7:
[35:00] Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[35:00] Kids don't just go missing and terrible things happen to them. The Muppet Man did it. You know, the monster in the tree.
Speaker 7:
[35:06] Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[35:07] I ran to the tetherball court and lingered until the bell rang. When I got home that afternoon, I found clusters of neon fur all over my bedroom. I ran to my mother. She lost her temper, marched me into the backyard, and told me to stay until she was done cleaning up after me. When I finished crying, I settled myself under the apricot tree and got lost in my book. As the afternoon light deepened, rich daylight giving way to copper, something snapped me out of my reverie. I looked down and saw white worms, soft and tiny and somehow wet inching over my arms.
Speaker 5:
[35:44] Hello?
Speaker 6:
[35:45] I whispered in an unpleasantly friendly voice.
Speaker 5:
[35:48] Sorry it's been so long. I guess I've been a bad friend. I'm crazy.
Speaker 6:
[35:57] I whispered, snapped my book shut and closed my eyes.
Speaker 5:
[35:59] Crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy.
Speaker 6:
[36:02] Scratchy polyester fur crumbled against my skin. Not crazy, Muppet Man said.
Speaker 5:
[36:09] Just really like me and Jason Hughes.
Speaker 4:
[36:14] What are you reading?
Speaker 6:
[36:16] You reached out, blinding multicolor fur blazing in the dappled sunlight and flipped the book over.
Speaker 5:
[36:23] Black Beauty, is it good?
Speaker 4:
[36:27] It's great.
Speaker 6:
[36:29] I wanted to leap to my feet, wanted to run screaming into the house, but my bones felt watery and frozen at once. I wouldn't be able to stand up, let alone run. Muppet Man brushed the worms off my arm and settled down beside me. His fur made me feel itchy. I didn't look up. I already knew what I would see. That slothy dinosaur face dominated by glassy eyes that would blaze in the dying sun. I didn't want to see it. I was afraid of what would happen if I did.
Speaker 5:
[37:01] My mom will see you. You should read to me.
Speaker 6:
[37:05] Tears flooded my eyes.
Speaker 5:
[37:07] No.
Speaker 6:
[37:08] Strong, fuzzy fingers wrapped my wrist.
Speaker 5:
[37:11] I want you to read to me. No. If you read to me, I'll take you to Jason Hughes.
Speaker 6:
[37:19] I almost scoffed. Jason Hughes with the giant glasses and the canine voice, anxious Jason Hughes who stole all the art paper in the classroom just to draw stupid fish and stupid beetles. Jason Hughes had been reduced to bloody shit-stained clothes at the base of the schoolyard tree.
Speaker 5:
[37:37] Why? Because we're lonely.
Speaker 6:
[37:40] Glanced at the house, praying my mother would look out and see us.
Speaker 5:
[37:44] If he's lonely, he should go home. He can't.
Speaker 2:
[37:49] His mom doesn't like him.
Speaker 6:
[37:52] I pondered this briefly. I thought of my dad. My poor dad who worked himself to death with overtime. My poor dad who couldn't catch a break at work. But what if I could help him? What if I could find Jason Hughes, give my dad all the credit?
Speaker 5:
[38:08] When will I see Jason? It depends on how well you read.
Speaker 6:
[38:14] Oh, gosh. I mean, the pedophilia undertones are very present, right? Like I'm not imagining that.
Speaker 5:
[38:23] Yeah. I mean, it seems very predatory in that way. Or just very, yeah. But anything involving a child in the growing told, it's going to read that way, in my opinion.
Speaker 6:
[38:36] Yeah. That being said, in the original Pennywise.
Speaker 5:
[38:39] What was that?
Speaker 6:
[38:41] Like the original Pennywise, like the Tim Curry one.
Speaker 5:
[38:44] Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[38:44] There's much more like child predator, like I'm your friend, aren't I? Kind of thing.
Speaker 5:
[38:48] Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[38:48] Yeah.
Speaker 5:
[38:48] Yeah. I think, I don't know, the whole thing that you were saying, where it feels like it's a manifestation of like kids, like the way that even it reinforces a bit when he's just like, you know, stupid Jason Hughes who drew his stupid birds or, you know, that kind of stuff. It just feels like it's, that manifestation thing feels more and more akin to what's happening here.
Speaker 1:
[39:11] Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[39:13] I think so. It's like an imaginary friend, almost an imaginary foe.
Speaker 5:
[39:18] Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[39:18] And evil, an evil responsibility for the bad stuff.
Speaker 5:
[39:22] An evil thing born from, yeah, like shitty things that people did.
Speaker 6:
[39:25] Yeah. Well, especially the part, dying, especially the part about like, oh, well, maybe I can help my dad. You know, maybe if I go with Muppet Man, it'll help out dad. You could equate to a kid feeling like maybe because they were mean to Jason. That's part of the reason he disappeared. And now your dad's suffering for it. So maybe if I can help Jason, I can help my dad and undo the wrong.
Speaker 5:
[39:49] Yeah, multiple.
Speaker 6:
[39:50] It's like, it's like a child manifesting guilt.
Speaker 5:
[39:54] I was going to say multiple guilt factors.
Speaker 6:
[39:57] Yeah. Yeah. I opened my book to the very first page and began to read aloud. The scrape of the sliding glass door broke my concentration shortly after. I looked up and saw my mom. My heart leapt to my throat. I spun around, hopefully, but Muppet Man was gone. Next morning, I found clumps of neon fur in my dresser drawers. It clung to my pants and shirts like lint.
Speaker 5:
[40:19] Ugh.
Speaker 6:
[40:20] At the end of May, I found a note on my window sill. Neatly folded construction paper printed with a brightly colored marker.
Speaker 5:
[40:27] Come to the school tree tonight at 11. Your friend, Muppet Man.
Speaker 6:
[40:32] Coarse strands of yellow, pink, and blue hair sprinkled the note. I brushed them off and tucked the paper in my pocket. I wasn't stupid. I knew I couldn't go alone. I was terrified of Muppet Man and almost as terrified of what my parents would do to me if they caught me sneaking out. So I went to my father. I showed him the note and begged till I wept. He accused me of making it all up for a while, but in the end, he agreed to take me to the school at the appointed time.
Speaker 5:
[40:59] What? Well, I mean, it's got to be hopefully for an investigation. Otherwise, what the fuck are you talking about? All right.
Speaker 6:
[41:06] Well, it's talking about like, she, he, he thinks that his daughter is making all this up because of the trauma of losing a kid in your grade, right? So then the daughter's like, no, he left this in my room. It's like very clear to the father that his daughter made all this up, right? But she's so desperate to go that the father's like, if this helps her get over this, if this helps her, you know, get past it, maybe to realize it's not really there. The Muppet Man's not real. I'll go with her so that she can, you know, get past this phase of trauma.
Speaker 5:
[41:40] If that's the intention, I think that should be clarified more because at the moment it just sounds like, all right, fine, whatever. God, just stop bitching.
Speaker 6:
[41:47] Her dad clearly doesn't believe in the Muppet Man.
Speaker 5:
[41:49] Well, no, I don't think that it's not necessarily about whether they believe it, but it does, to me, that reads more like him just being like, oh my God, stop complaining, fine.
Speaker 6:
[41:58] No, I don't think he's like, fine, go be with the pedophile rainbow color uniform, man. I think instead it's just like, if this is the only thing that's going to keep my daughter, that may help her get past this, then I'm going to go with her so she can realize this isn't real. If in her psychosis, she's written a letter to herself from the Muppet Man, then maybe I should be with her to make sure she knows it's fake.
Speaker 5:
[42:26] I guess I never came to that conclusion that the dad was like that, because so far all they've done is yell at them being like, why would you put this everywhere? That's all they've done. So yeah, I wouldn't have guessed the dad being that earnest or I guess like that caring.
Speaker 6:
[42:40] Well, the mom's been described that way. The dad's been kind of earnest, right? With the investigation and trying to find Jason and stuff.
Speaker 5:
[42:46] All he did was tell them about, all he did was just tell them that the clothes were covered in blood, shit and piss. That's all he's done. He's giving her like details of the whole job.
Speaker 6:
[42:54] Maybe to me that's what love is.
Speaker 7:
[42:56] Maybe to me it's like, Daddy?
Speaker 5:
[42:57] Okay, dad. Don't forget the hookah lounge. Yeah, homeless man's a bumble. I got it. Thank you.
Speaker 1:
[43:03] Yeah, I got it.
Speaker 6:
[43:04] Aladdin's a dirty hippie.
Speaker 7:
[43:06] Understood.
Speaker 6:
[43:06] Prince Ali, I got it. Yeah, he's homeless, but also a people. What's the deal with that?
Speaker 7:
[43:13] Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 6:
[43:14] I want to take a moment to thank today's sponsor, Harry's Razors. Life is too short to let dull razors rule your life. And if your razors give up midway through a shave, you end up irritating your neck more than you're trimming it.
Speaker 7:
[43:26] Thankfully, Harry's is here to help.
Speaker 6:
[43:28] When you make the switch to Harry's Plus Razors, you get German engineered blades and barbershop quality shaves whenever you want at your fingertips or neck tip, I guess, face tip, chin tip.
Speaker 7:
[43:39] You get it.
Speaker 6:
[43:39] Instead of plastic, Harry's Razor has a heavy metal handle and each razor has aloe and vitamin E in the cartridge to keep your skin calm and smooth. Harry's Razors are designed in such a way that when you screw the handle into the head of the razor, it bends the razor at just the right degree to cut the hair on your face, but not the skin itself. The same facility has been making these blades for over 100 years.
Speaker 7:
[44:01] While you're getting top-notch quality, you're also getting your close shave at a great price.
Speaker 6:
[44:05] Why pay 30 bucks for refills when Harry's has better blades at a fraction of the price? Harry's is always willing to make it right.
Speaker 7:
[44:12] They have a risk-free trial, so if you don't love your shave, you can stop with no questions asked.
Speaker 6:
[44:17] For a limited time, our listeners can get Harry's Plus Trial Set for only $10 at harrys.com/creepcast. That's right, the Trial Set for only $10. The set includes the all-new Harry's Plus razor, one refined five-plate cartridge, two ounces of foaming shave gel, and a travel cover to protect your blades on the go. Once again, just head over to the link in the description at harrys.com/creepcast to claim this offer, and after your purchase, if you could let them know that we sent you, it would mean a lot.
Speaker 7:
[44:45] Thank you to Harry's for sponsoring the show.
Speaker 6:
[44:47] Their link will be in the description, and we are now back to the episode. We lived only a few blocks away, so we walked. The evening was unseasonably cold, almost as cold as the day I first met Muppet Man. I fought back tears the entire way, clutching my father's hand with both of my own. The school gates were locked, of course, but there was a small gate hidden in a passage behind the cafeteria. It had nothing but a simple latch. Kids all knew about it, but the adults never did anything. I led my father around the perimeter of the playground, keeping close to the buildings in order to hide in the shadows.
Speaker 5:
[45:20] Wait here.
Speaker 6:
[45:22] He obliged, looking tired even in the darkness. I looked at the tree. It didn't look sick anymore. Leaves had the mistletoe infestation. It looked full and healthy. The eternal sentry once more. I stood by the trunk and whispered.
Speaker 5:
[45:38] Hello?
Speaker 6:
[45:40] Something rustled among the leaves overhead. Hello? Came Muppet Man's warm, full voice.
Speaker 5:
[45:48] Where's Jason?
Speaker 6:
[45:49] Its branches rattled and a dark, furry shape slithered down the tree. Glassy eyes cut the light of the moon and blazed.
Speaker 5:
[45:57] He's inciting me.
Speaker 6:
[45:59] Muppet Man twisted and stretched down the tree until his eyes were level with mine. No longer was he vibrant or bright. His fur was filthy, caked with mud and sand and bare. Dirty canvas replaced large swaths of the once lush neon coat. Of course, he was missing fur. I've been leaving clumps of it all over my room for months. It was a wonder he had any hair left. What do you mean? My voice issued in a thin wheezy whine. Muppet Man crept closer, holding me captive with his glassy eyes. His long, thin fingers touched his chin, pushed, sliding into his face and pulling it up like a child removing a Halloween mask. My heart thudded, heavy and horrid as a war drum. Enormous glasses glinted at the moonlight, tragically outsized for the decayed little face underneath. Jason Hughes' rotted head was gray and so very fragile, gleaming like clouded glass under the moon. If I touched him, he would shatter. The absurd costume fell to the ground with a whisper. The dollan faded. Even the eyes were dead now. The costume was dead, it had never been alive. Jason's empty sockets bulged, then broke and split apart with a series of soft, papery pops. Something roiled inside, thick and dark and gleaming with a thousand dim lights and colors I couldn't name. The world flipped and the cold playground sand dug into my face. My dad's scream shattered the glassy silence. Perhaps it shattered Jason's poor dead face too. I curled up and lay still as my dad screamed and sirens wailed in the distance. The ruined costume went into an evidence locker. Jason himself was laid to rest several weeks later. They held onto the body as long as they did in order to find out what happened to him. I asked my father about it, but he refused to tell me. I was disappointed, yet relieved, and I never tried to find out on my own. I did my best to forget everything, and actually came close. I might have managed had my father kept his mouth shut. He has a habit of telling me things I shouldn't know, things nobody should know. I guess it's personal exorcism, freeing demons that haunt you. It's just that the problem with freeing demons is that demons usually go on to haunt someone else. My dad retired a few years ago, but he still has friends on the force. They get together and talk every once in a while. They had one of their visits last night, and one of his friends brought up Jason Hughes.
Speaker 5:
[48:40] Did they find the guy who did it?
Speaker 6:
[48:42] My dad asked.
Speaker 5:
[48:43] No. But the costume, that weird puppet costume, it's not in evidence anymore. It's gone. Did someone take it? Did they accidentally toss it or? We don't know.
Speaker 6:
[48:56] That alone was enough to haunt me forever, but it didn't stop at enough. Demons never stop at enough. They ever stop at all. I know this because when I got up this morning, I found dirty tufts of neon fur scattered all across my bedroom floor.
Speaker 5:
[49:12] What if I might end it? You know, I think that, like, that's the end of this one. We'll do, that was really short. We can do another one. I think that, like, you know, this is one of those, this is one of those stories where it's like, I like the kind of, I like ambiguity in stories, but I do wish that there was a bit more of like, why do you think, let me ask you this then, why do you think that the monster chose our protagonist? Especially because they, do you think that it just feeds on guilt?
Speaker 6:
[49:43] I think our protagonist was the only one who had anything for Jason Hughes other than like a mocking tone, because everyone else would make jokes about him or like the Muppet Man would be brought up and they'd be like, oh yeah, Jason's, he has just Jason's ghost. I like that our protagonist would sit under the tree and read to Jason.
Speaker 5:
[50:01] Yeah, I mean, I like that idea of a monster that like feeds on guilt or is drawn in or almost seduced by guilt and like playing into that idea that literally by showing compassion for Jason and like reading to him was a literal calling card for this thing to come and like target the main protagonist. Yeah. Yeah. So I thought that was pretty interesting.
Speaker 6:
[50:23] I, what do you think of the creature as a whole? I think the Muppet Man is interesting. I do, to me, it works best as kind of the metaphor thing. I think especially at the end where it's like, he goes to, or our protagonist goes to meet the Muppet Man. And then the Muppet Man shows him the body of Jason that crumbles. So all everyone else sees is just the suit with the body in it. Right? Yeah. It's almost like if you wanted to make it literal, you could imagine like maybe Jason is the one who stole the costume and ran into the woods. And then both these legends came off of each other. And then they just found the body one day. You know, maybe Jason took off his clothes. Yeah, I was in there. You know, whatever.
Speaker 5:
[51:08] I was kind of wondering if the tree's life had anything to indicate that like, at first I thought it was when Jason, so at first I was reading it that like, oh, Jason got abducted, right? And that the, like the feeding off of Jason gave the tree like a life force. Like it was that, it gave it that much life. And then that way the tree was dying because it had like digested him. It had like used whatever he wanted from Jason. So it was looking for another host or like another kind of meal to satiate it for the time being. But I do think this idea of it just being this, I mean, it's just a way of like passing on guilt in these different ways. I mean, it's really interesting thinking of like a creature that feeds on that. Because I think that like one that's kind of overplayed is like, you know, something that feeds on fear or something. But guilt is really interesting because I feel like children feel guilty a lot. I feel like they're over like very small things or they don't know, like, I feel like, you know, there's so many things where I think guilt hits children in an interesting way.
Speaker 6:
[52:08] Yeah, yeah, I think guilt's fun, especially with childhood fear. It's also an interesting like, it's like a punishment almost, like not in the sense that like a punishment for feeling bad, but it's punishing. It's like, oh, this one child already feels bad. Well, watch how they feel now. And like it preys upon that to make everything worse when they were already bad off. To me, Muppet Man, I think because Muppet Man is bright and vibrant with the tree is dying, but when the tree is alive, he's how he probably would look living out in the woods for days and days on end, decrepit, old, dirty. So to me, that's kind of like with the inference I made earlier, that the tree is kind of like referencing the mortality of childhood. Like, oh, the great sentry, the tree I love so much isn't going to be around forever. And when you have that dread, that's when the Muppet Man shows up in full force. But when the tree's alive, and when there may be answers to questions you have, like what happened to Jason, and when there may be closure for the family and stuff like that, that's when Muppet Man is real. And what Muppet Man actually is, is a decayed husk with another decaying husk inside of him. So to me, it's almost like the two are inverse because they represent opposite things. The tree is the protection of childhood while the dead tree and Muppet Man is the erasure of it, the death of it. So I don't know, it feels like, again, I think it works best as a metaphor for grief or guilt.
Speaker 5:
[53:43] The element of, just in terms of like guilt of like harboring guilt or shame or something, having something, I thought the one thing that was kind of interesting too is the having bright rainbow colored fur everywhere is just like a giant sign for something you're trying to hide or something that feels like it's like, it's obvious, you know what I mean? Like it's so abundantly clear that like, it's so noticeable, I guess. It feels like when you're holding onto guilt, shame, or like a secret or something that it feels like everyone knows that they can like read it, like they can easily see it past you and they can see it. And having these bundles of fur or something, and like having to explain that to other people and, you know, these things, these remnants leftover that are kind of being left and you're being blamed for it as well is, I just thought that that was kind of cool. Like that's an interesting visual.
Speaker 6:
[54:34] Yeah, it's similar. I mean, we made the British Terabithia reference earlier, but whereas Terabithia was kind of reminiscent of his childhood wonderlust. And then when the girl dies, he starts to see like monsters over there and scary things because now the world's soured. I feel like this is kind of similar to that, right? The tree was the safe place. You know, the sentry of the playground. But then when James Hughes goes missing, well now, or Jason Hughes goes missing. Well now it's scary. Now it holds the mystery of the monster, the Muppet Man and the suit. But then you grow up a little bit, some time goes by and then it's just a skeleton and it's just a tree.
Speaker 5:
[55:16] You know, do you think that the adults know about this? Do you think the adults know about this creature? Do you think it's a known secret?
Speaker 6:
[55:24] Well, they know about the suit. No, no. Well, I mean, if you want to view the story literally, like it is a monster in a tree and then it goes into police lockup and the suit's kind of alive, like the suit itself is a creature.
Speaker 5:
[55:37] Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[55:38] Then, yeah, I would say some adults probably know about it or there's some legend behind it. But for the sake of the metaphor that I'm into, I think that a lot of this is just kind of within the mind of a child, right? Like a lot of it's the way you view things. Like you remember, did you... That 4chan post I sent you the other night about the dog eating cereal, did you... So that kind of thing always freaks me out, which we'll... We may cover in an episode eventually, but that kind of thing always freaks me out. Like the way dogs perceive, or dogs, or the way children perceive things that they shouldn't be able to grasp yet.
Speaker 5:
[56:22] Yeah, trauma, like trauma, traumatic things.
Speaker 6:
[56:25] Like trauma. Yeah, like a kid your age dying. It's like that's a lot for a lot of concepts, a lot of grief, a lot of heavy stuff for a kid to put up with. So it's like the way their brains make sense of it is odd. Well, that's why I think there's some really good stories that prey on that, and I think this is part of it. It's easier to think The Muppet Man did it, right?
Speaker 5:
[56:47] Yeah, I mean, I think that children will find, I think a lot of people will find any way to rationalize or be able to articulate it so they can process it to their brain, which is either through, sometimes it's through joking about it, sometimes it's like literally manifesting something that like might be similar to something that like you're like a show or something, right? Like if you watch horror films or something, you might manifest this idea that it's like, it's a creature or so. I think that just however your brain is able to articulate these things that are so uncommon, I think is.
Speaker 6:
[57:21] Yeah. There was a, this is, this is super graphic. So like, you know, trigger warning, whatever. It's a scary story podcast. There's a story I read about one time. I can't remember. I'm pretty sure it was, it was posted as if it was real, if it's real or not. I don't know, but I remember reading about a mother who was at home when someone broke into the house and she shot, he came into the bedroom and she shot him in the head with a shotgun. So, you know, pretty brutal, right? And then she had like a five or six year old son who walked into the room as she was calling the police and looked at the guy that was shot and then looked at his mom and said, are you going to finish that? The mom didn't know what he was talking about or what's going on. Well later the police are talking to the boy and they're like, what did you see happen? And the boy's like, I heard a loud noise and I walked into mom's room and she was with the guy who threw spaghetti at the wall. Oh man. Wow. Like the kid cannot, the kid has no process, no concept of what's happened, but he can use the pieces of what he does now. You know, that looks like spaghetti as gross as it is. So it's like here, that's a lot to talk about a kid being abducted. You know, someone your age being abducted by the kind of person who would keep them for days and they would soil themselves over and over and then all their clothes are found. It's easier if the Muppet Man who lives in the trees, the one that did it. Yeah.
Speaker 5:
[58:54] No, I think that makes sense. Very quick story, too. It was definitely a rip at the Band-Aid kind of story. Like, damn, kind of in and out. I mean, like, start off with such a crazy... Starting your story off with being like, yeah, there's a middle-aged man in the tree is quite the bold move. And I think it definitely fucking hooked us pretty good. I think we got time for another one, like another short one. There's another short one. I think we do. There's another short one that got recommended called If You Meet Me, Please Kill Me. I thought that was an interesting title.
Speaker 6:
[59:26] Yeah. And it's also by someone who I think has made some bangers that we've covered on the show before, but we only covered them in one multi-episode and we haven't given them a look again. So I'd like to give them a look again. The author, her name's Gabby, but she goes by E-A-P-A-T-B-P. And I think I remember what that stands for. It's like E-Pad. Anyway, they wrote the stories about, hold on, I got the lights pulled up. They wrote the Sugar Daddy story. My Sugar Daddy asked me for weird favors. The one about every month, there's a parade in our town, which is a part of their Point Pine story series. And the man who follows me around and narrates my life, which all three of those I thought were great. Do you remember those, Hunter?
Speaker 5:
[60:15] Yeah, I know. Also to the Sugar Daddy one, I'm pretty sure that's the most upvoted story ever on rslashnosleep, right?
Speaker 6:
[60:21] Yes. Yeah, at least when we covered it, when we covered it, it was. Yeah, it was the number one voted story of all time. I'm pretty sure it still is.
Speaker 7:
[60:29] Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[60:31] And then, oh yeah, I remember we went through this list. And then the second most upvoted one is my wife's been peeking at me from around corners.
Speaker 7:
[60:38] Yeah.
Speaker 5:
[60:38] A banger as well.
Speaker 6:
[60:41] But so EA has written three great stories that we've read and a ton of people recommend them all the time. It feels like we get recommendations constantly to be like, oh, they wrote this cover. They wrote this cover. They wrote it and we enjoyed it the first time. And then EA actually came to the sub Reddit a few months ago when people were discussing the sugar daddy story and she seemed super cool with it and was glad that it was covered. So, you know, why not check her out again? And Harry recommended this story to read with the previous one.
Speaker 5:
[61:13] So, yeah, I'm curious. This one is so, this is another short one, but I'm wondering how it fits in as well with these kind of, with this other digestible story too. So let's jump in.
Speaker 6:
[61:25] Let's jump in too. And again, of course, as with Dopamine EA's information, their sub Reddit links to some of their other socials. I'll ask what all they want us to include, I'll be in the description as well. Be sure to show them some love. She's a fantastic author. So that out of the way. If this was uploaded about a year ago, if you meet me, please kill me. My friends won't believe me. My family thinks I'm crazy. And if I keep trying to convince them, they're probably just gonna lock me up. But I need help. And I think that strangers online are my last hope. So I'm begging, if you meet me, if you see me walking down the street and I say hello, if you meet me in a bar and feel inclined to buy me a drink, or if you match with me on a dating app and make plans, kill me. End it. I don't care how it's done. I prefer it to be as painful as possible, but I know that's probably a lot to ask. It's already a lot to ask someone who doesn't know me to commit murder on my behalf. And I'm sorry to put such a burden on you, but I truly can't do this any longer. Let me provide you with some context. I might have gotten ahead of myself, but I came on too strong. Don't leave yet, please. Please let me explain to you what's been going on. Maybe, hopefully, once you hear this, you'll be on my side. Maybe you'll believe me. Hell, maybe you've experienced this too. I can't be the only one who's experienced this. It started two months ago at Mitch's. Mitch's is a small bar that my friends and I used to go to every Friday night. They had a karaoke night, and everyone got free nachos with the purchase of a drink. It was a routine we had been sticking to for almost a year now, ever since Mellie moved into the apartment complex down the street and found the place. Anyway, it was a Friday night, probably around 10 p.m. because I remember that Jonas had just arrived, he got off his shift to the hospital at nine on those days. Mellie and I had just performed a tipsy version of Fleetwood Max, Rhiannon, and we were giggling and stumbling back to our booth when he intercepted our path. He said his name was Tony, short for Antonio. He said he was new in the city and had just moved here from Idaho or Iowa. I don't really remember. He wanted to talk to me. He said I had a nice voice and he enjoyed my performance. He would like to get to know me a bit better. I agreed because he was my type. Dark hair, green eyes, stubble on his jawline. He smelled like tied laundry detergent and something else that reminded me of my childhood friend, Isdra's house. Felt familiar to me. So I followed him to a booth near my friends. We talked for the entire night. Have you ever smelled someone or something and you're immediately like, oh yes, summer seventh grade, so-and-so's house.
Speaker 5:
[64:18] Yeah, sometimes it's uncanny. It brings in a very like a deja vu. Or sometimes I almost think that like I'm, it almost makes you think that I'm like, I feel like we've met before, you know, like at this very uncanny connection.
Speaker 6:
[64:30] Yeah. Yeah. The green eyes thing though, in combination with that, I feel like this is going to be like a shapeshifter or something that pretends to be them or whatever.
Speaker 5:
[64:39] Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[64:40] That's my bear trap laying it out now. Our first date was dinner and a movie, classic first date. We watched Hard Eyes, which he loved, but I said wasn't my style. We went to this expensive French restaurant after, a small place that was almost an hour away, and we had wine and ate our dinner while a woman sat in the corner of the room and sang La Via and Rose. It was romantic. It was romantic. It was a great date. What was your first date, Hunter?
Speaker 5:
[65:09] My first date?
Speaker 6:
[65:11] With Allison.
Speaker 5:
[65:13] With Allison? I took her to a hockey game.
Speaker 6:
[65:16] That's cool. That's a good day.
Speaker 5:
[65:17] Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[65:18] We went to a hibachi place and meet Kaila and I. Me and Allison went to a hibachi place. Kaila and I went there. Yeah. Sorry, bud. Sorry, bud. The nerd gets the girl. And then we saw Bohemian Rhapsody, which was kind of a whatever movie.
Speaker 5:
[65:39] What a painful first date movie.
Speaker 4:
[65:42] Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[65:42] Well, I mean, it was like, oh, queen. I like queen. It's like, you know, I mean, at the time I liked it because I like Rami Malek and stuff, but in hindsight, it's just kind of like, yeah, that is the band.
Speaker 5:
[65:55] It's a pretty shit.
Speaker 4:
[65:56] Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[65:56] It's a pretty shit song. I know. Yeah. It's kind of like it felt more. I thought about the more it felt like a Marvel movie where it's like, kind of, do you get that reference? It's that song. You know, you know, the song queen.
Speaker 5:
[66:08] All the music biops have been pretty shit as of late. Like I didn't, I don't know. Yeah. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 6:
[66:13] I heard, I heard that the weird Al one was funny cause it was a spoof.
Speaker 5:
[66:17] Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[66:17] Yeah.
Speaker 5:
[66:18] The weird Al was really funny.
Speaker 6:
[66:20] Yeah. The first bad sign didn't feel like a bad sign when it happened. You know what they say about hindsight. Started with him going by his full name instead of Tony. He said he had always gone by Tony because he preferred it. He thought Antonio was a mouthful. That Tony made him sound like a fun, easygoing guy while Antonio made him sound like the opposite. And then that day, he changed his mind.
Speaker 5:
[66:45] You've never gone by Ella or Stel?
Speaker 6:
[66:48] He asked me one evening as we were walking through a small street fair that the city put on every year.
Speaker 5:
[66:54] Nope, just Stella. I've always been completely Stella.
Speaker 6:
[66:57] I replied as I took a sip of my soda.
Speaker 5:
[67:00] Really? You've never gone by a nickname, not even as a child?
Speaker 6:
[67:04] Shook my head no again. I remember this conversation vividly now. I'd forgotten about it soon after it happened because it seemed irrelevant at the time. But as soon as I realized what was going on, popped back into my mind like someone had ducked into my subconscious and pulled it out, projecting it onto a big screen right in my face. After that, he decided he wanted to be Antonio. He wanted to be completely Antonio. After that step was done, the rest came quicker and quicker, like an avalanche headed downhill until it spiraled out of control. He changed his hair, dyed it a light of brown like mine. His eyes, which I swear to all of the gods were green when I met him, are now dark brown like mine. He got slimmer, losing his broad shoulders almost overnight. His face got rounder, softer and less angular. He shrank three inches.
Speaker 5:
[67:58] Jesus.
Speaker 6:
[67:59] Then he took my jokes, stole my bits, started saying things that only I would say. Even my friends would comment on it, albeit in an innocent way.
Speaker 5:
[68:08] Oh my God, that's such a stellar thing to say. Oh, that's so cute. You guys are becoming like a, you guys are like, kind of like the same person. I love when people start to adapt each other's mannerisms. Okay, first off, if anyone ever said to me, I'm like, they shrunk three inches and they're becoming a whoop.
Speaker 7:
[68:23] What the fuck are you talking about?
Speaker 6:
[68:24] They're shorter now. Hello?
Speaker 5:
[68:26] What are you talking about? This is so cool. This is clearly a fucking demon that's around me. What is happening?
Speaker 6:
[68:32] Not only that, but like, they're now your hair color, your hair length, you're like what?
Speaker 5:
[68:39] Exactly. It's like, what are you talking? He's becoming me. Yeah, I'm creeped at me.
Speaker 6:
[68:44] You're so cute when you have each other's mannerisms.
Speaker 5:
[68:46] Hello, we're the same person now.
Speaker 1:
[68:48] I'm you and you're me.
Speaker 6:
[68:52] Oh, isn't that adorable? You'll get you two kids.
Speaker 5:
[68:57] Yeah, exactly. Oh, look, he even got eye surgery to change his eye colors. That's so romantic. So we've been dating for three weeks. This is a three-week tour.
Speaker 6:
[69:07] The same cup size now. Bra besties.
Speaker 5:
[69:10] David, me and Alison, same cup size rules. Love wearing your love wearing your bras. Feel so comfy.
Speaker 6:
[69:19] I feel so you know, once we were this is this is an embarrassing story to say. Well, that's not really because it was a joke. But Kayla and I were walking through Knoxville one night and. What? Oh, I had left my gun at the house and Kayla was like here. Just carry mine. So I put her gun in my pocket and I'd also I was we were driving her car and I couldn't find a t-shirt or I accidentally grabbed her t-shirt. So we get out of the car and we go she's like, look at us. You're carrying my gun, driving my car, wearing my shirt. And then I go, yeah, wearing your underwear and route. I said that an old Chinese man who was on a phone stepped out right by us and all that he got was me going, yeah, I'm wearing your underwear and he puts the phone down and just makes high contact with me and watches me the whole way around the corner.
Speaker 5:
[70:17] Well, Isaiah, were you wearing your underwear?
Speaker 6:
[70:20] No, no, it was a joke.
Speaker 5:
[70:23] Would you ever wear your wife's underwear?
Speaker 6:
[70:26] No, no. No, I'm going to definitively on the record, no, that would not happen. That was a joke. It was funny like, haha, and what if...
Speaker 5:
[70:36] I'll tell you this. I'll tell you this. I'll tell you this much.
Speaker 6:
[70:39] That guy and you were taking it too seriously. What?
Speaker 5:
[70:42] I'll tell you this much. If my wife came to me and she said, Hunter, I want you to wear one of my thongs, I would do it in a heartbeat. In a heartbeat.
Speaker 6:
[70:50] It's too weird.
Speaker 5:
[70:51] In an absolute heartbeat. I would start flossing.
Speaker 6:
[70:54] It's also weird because it feels like you're trying to get me on board right now.
Speaker 5:
[70:57] No, no, no. I don't give a shit what you do. I'm saying that if I was approached, I would put it on record. I'm setting the record straight. If someone said, here, wear my thong, I would say absolutely.
Speaker 6:
[71:10] Someone, not even your wife, just anyone?
Speaker 5:
[71:12] You know what? Fuck it. Anyone. I would split the red C.
Speaker 6:
[71:16] I would never wear underwear.
Speaker 5:
[71:17] I'd pop one of the boys out on each side and I'd have it curl up like a little garden stake.
Speaker 6:
[71:22] Okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 5:
[71:23] And I'd start flossing.
Speaker 6:
[71:24] Okay. No, no, no. We don't need, look, I could, all that, all that description you gave, I figured that's where that would be going. We don't need it.
Speaker 5:
[71:35] Maybe I want to be one of the Victoria Secret dudes, man.
Speaker 6:
[71:38] Well, I want to even tell this story. I should have known that passing this off to you is too close.
Speaker 5:
[71:43] Maybe I'm jealous that girl's going to go to Victoria Secret and they get to dig through all those drawers full of fucking different colored panties.
Speaker 2:
[71:50] And all I have is fruit of the loom, fruit of the loom, and Allison and maybe a pastor or therapist to discuss.
Speaker 5:
[71:56] This is not for me.
Speaker 6:
[71:57] I am your business partner.
Speaker 5:
[71:58] It's boring.
Speaker 6:
[72:00] This is a joint business endeavor.
Speaker 5:
[72:01] We do not need to be in this. I'm doing it. Next time we see, I'm not even joking. And I want you to keep this on record because we're meeting again soon. When you literally see me, I'm going to be wearing a thong and I'm going to show you. Okay.
Speaker 6:
[72:14] I'm going to mentally block that. And I'm not going to think about that.
Speaker 5:
[72:16] I don't know how you're going to mentally block it. It's going to be funny. It's going to be a flash bang. You are going to see it.
Speaker 6:
[72:21] All right. You don't, you give our audience too much to work with. They say the most obscene things about this podcast anyway. You don't need to make it easier for them. Anyway, what the important thing I need to make note of is Bear Trap, by the way, I was right. I said he's going to like, he's going to start chameleoning her and Lizard Man Mimic or whatever. So I was correct.
Speaker 7:
[72:44] So that's what supported.
Speaker 6:
[72:45] Except we weren't doing that. He was stealing all of my jokes. He was taking all of my catchphrases. He would use my references that he didn't even know previously. He stole my style, swapping out his vans, jeans, button up shirts for thrifted boots and banties. He got glasses even though he didn't need them. And he went vegetarian. The worst part about this, the part that pissed me off the most as this was taking place, was the fact that everyone, everyone acted like I was insane. They acted like he had always been like that. He never went by Tony, Stella.
Speaker 7:
[73:23] What are you talking about?
Speaker 6:
[73:24] Oh, his eyes were never green. I think you're misremembering. Maybe it was the lighting in the bar that night. Oh, he's always been the exact same height as you. It's impossible for someone to just shrink. It was such bullshit. It's making me mad all over again to think about it now. Nobody believed me. I tried showing them photos where you could clearly see the differences and it was like they didn't notice them. Like I was the only one who could see the photo as is. I need to calm down. I'm not finished telling you my story and I worry about you getting bored. I need you to believe me. So would you believe me when I tell you that about two weeks ago, he became me? I mean, he literally became me. He morphed into a clone of me. He goes by my name. He wears my face and hangs out with my friends. Almost had a heart attack when I saw it the first time. It was like I was looking in a mirror, a screwed up mirror who had taken over my life. My friends acted like nothing was wrong, like he had always looked like that. They didn't think we looked alike at all. They didn't think it was weird that we had the same name. Everything was just a big, fat, stupid coincidence to them. It's so infuriating, it almost makes me laugh. So that's where we are now. He or I don't know, It. It can't be human, can it? Whatever It is has become me and it's ruining my life. He picks up my medications, takes my esthetician appointments, takes my Pilates classes, hangs out with my family, everything. I need you to kill him.
Speaker 5:
[75:00] It. Me.
Speaker 6:
[75:00] Something needs to die. Please. His name is Stella Kobe. I'm five feet, five inches, short brown hair, curly collarbone length, brown eyes, big glasses with thick red frames. I've got a tattoo of a skull on the inside of my right wrist and a four inch long scar that runs down the back of my right arm down my elbow. It's from when I fell off a horse as a child. I'm 156 pounds and I'm a big fan of rock music, specifically Blondie. I love action movies and I'm allergic to cinnamon. You might meet me out in public in the produce section of your local supermarket, maybe on Bumble or Hinge or Grindr. I'm in thrift stores a lot. Maybe watch out for me there. You'll know it's not the real me because I haven't left my apartment in over a week and I have no plans of doing so. I want that thing gone. I want it gone from this world before I ever step foot outside again. I don't know how it picks its victims, but it's quite charming. Just be careful. You can try to avoid it if you want, but your best bet is to just kill it, put an end to this thing. So please, if you meet me, if you meet it as me, please kill it.
Speaker 5:
[76:14] And that's the end. I will say that I don't know why, but I don't know why, but at the end it started, this is fucked up because I feel like I'm doing what she's complaining about. Why does it feel? I don't know. It feels like almost like a schizophrenic person being like someone is, there's someone that's pretending to be me out there walking around.
Speaker 6:
[76:32] Yeah, babe, you're just crazy. No, no, you're making it up. It's not you.
Speaker 5:
[76:36] I don't know why. It's because there was this Cronenberg short film that was on YouTube a long time ago. I don't know if it's there, but it was called The Nest or something. But it was about a woman who goes to a doctor's appointment and she says that there's like insects in her breast and she wants them removed. She wants the doctor to remove her breasts. And it's like, you never see any of the breasts. It just says that they're there. And it's like, you just can't really tell if she's telling the truth or not. Is it real? It's very interesting. And I don't know why, but this for some reason is posted so casually and it's so informal that it almost feels like a post of somebody who has almost mentally deteriorated. That being said, the fact that the people have met Antonio before and stuff makes it seem like it probably is a monster. But I do like this idea of someone being like, I went on a date and now the person's trying to be me. And you're like, what, really? I don't know.
Speaker 6:
[77:28] To me, it feels kind of to tie it into like the first episode's theme of like manifesting something. This almost feels like a literalized version of when people talk about in relationships that like they break up with someone and the person just keeps all their traits, you know?
Speaker 5:
[77:45] Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[77:45] Or it's like, yeah, they, you know, they got the shows they watch for me and the music they listen to for me and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 5:
[77:50] And the person is only who they are because of me.
Speaker 1:
[77:53] Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[77:55] It almost feels like that, but drawn out to a very literal position where it's like, he's literally skin walking me and I'm, I'm left over here almost again, like a breakup. I'm over here, a shamble hide in my apartment, and they're still out there doing things that I taught them, learning things that I showed them and stuff like that. Which is a fun.
Speaker 5:
[78:15] That's a fun.
Speaker 6:
[78:16] It feels like it takes a certain degree.
Speaker 5:
[78:18] Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[78:19] Like the mimic.
Speaker 5:
[78:21] That's a fun horror story concept of like a breakup that leads to being like the person that they are has been transformed because of me. Like I do actually like that. And then people like, and it is funny if people being like siding against her and being like, what are you talking about? He's always been that way. And like, what the fuck are you talking about? Because it's like, because you have the actual intimate relationship with that person and the other people can't see, you know, what's on the inside. So I do like that as like a fun comparison. I think that's a good read that you had.
Speaker 6:
[78:50] Yeah. Cause it feels like there's so many times like that, where after a breakup, someone's like, oh, well, no. Well, I mean, they got some stuff from you, but it's like, they always did that. They were like, it's like people gaslight you as if you weren't the one in the relationship friend groups have a phenomenal way of doing that. Yeah. It's like, oh, it's not that bad. Oh, you're being dramatic or whatever.
Speaker 5:
[79:15] Yeah.
Speaker 6:
[79:16] It feels like that, but literal.
Speaker 5:
[79:17] Especially whenever your friends become their friends too, the worst.
Speaker 6:
[79:22] Yeah. Then it's like, okay, well, now we have a civil war of sorts.
Speaker 5:
[79:26] There's going to be a great divide I'm telling you. Well, shit guys, those are both our stories today. I think they're both a lot of fun. I like whenever we get these options, wherever there's a couple of quick ones, it's always just kind of fun to see. Both these ideas just felt like a fun, just like dipping your toe into a premise that could be fun to dive deeper into, which is I think always a fun read. It's really easy, relaxed, and I hope that it was a good listen as well.
Speaker 6:
[79:51] I really enjoyed both of these, and I do think I see Harry's vision, well, I don't even know if Harry thought this, but the connection I made was that both of these are kind of like metaphors for stuff that really happens. Yeah, yeah, manifestations, yeah.
Speaker 5:
[80:04] Thank you so much to anyone who's listening on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, anywhere you can listen to a podcast. We appreciate you, and thank you for giving us a nice rating if you have. And also be sure to check out the Patreon if you want some extra content. We have some more extra bonus episodes there where we talk about movies and read stories and stuff like that. So be sure to check it out. And until next time, guys, stay Creeped.
Speaker 6:
[80:23] Stay Creeped. Be sure to check out the authors in the description. And if Hunter and Alison never break up, I'm going to gaslight everyone into believing Alison actually started the channel. I think that's the metaphor for this one.
Speaker 4:
[80:37] Bye. The right window treatments change everything, your sleep, your privacy, the way every room looks and feels. At blinds.com, we've spent 30 years making it surprisingly simple to get exactly what your home needs. We've covered over 25 million windows and have 50,000 five-star reviews to prove we deliver. Whether you DIY it or want a pro to handle everything from measure to install, we have you covered. Real design professionals, free samples, zero pressure. Right now, get up to 50% off with minimum purchase, plus get a free professional measure at blinds.com. Rules and restrictions apply.