Speaker 1: Now one of your pudding.
Speaker 2: I got a string going on here, something.
Speaker 3: Just because my dog. Something killed your dog. My dog.
Speaker 3: We're flying through the air, over the tree.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: How it did it, Okay, Damn, I'm really confused.
Speaker 3: All I saw was my dog coming over the fence
Speaker 3: and he was dead. And once you hit the.
Speaker 2: Ground like, I didn't see any cars. All I saw
Speaker 2: was my dog coming over the fence.
Speaker 1: Sat, what are you putting?
Speaker 2: We got some wonder or something crawling around out here?
Speaker 3: Did you see what it was or was it was?
Speaker 3: Standing enough, I'm out here looking through the window now
Speaker 3: and I don't see anything. I don't want to go outside.
Speaker 3: Jesus Quice, you better.
Speaker 2: Hello, get the boddy out here, quin, I'm out there.
Speaker 3: I thought of a.
Speaker 2: Bitch about text forty nine.
Speaker 1: I don't know easy ann out there?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm walking right head.
Speaker 2: Well, well, well, look who decided to join me by
Speaker 2: the fire on this cold December night. Pull up a chair,
Speaker 2: pour yourself something warm, and let me tell you a
Speaker 2: little Christmas story. Now, I know what you're thinking. You
Speaker 2: tuned in expecting one of my usual tales, maybe a
Speaker 2: Bigfoot encounter story to get you in the holiday spirit,
Speaker 2: and honestly, I considered it. I really did. I've got
Speaker 2: a charming little yarn about a family in Washington State
Speaker 2: who claimed they spotted a sasquatch wearing what appeared to
Speaker 2: be a Santa hat trudging through the snow on Christmas
Speaker 2: morning back in nineteen seventy eight. The father swore up
Speaker 2: and down that the creature was carrying a burlap sack
Speaker 2: over its shoulder, and when it noticed them watching from
Speaker 2: the kitchen window, it raised one massive hand in what
Speaker 2: could only be described as a friendly wave before disappearing
Speaker 2: into the tree line. Sweet right, heartwarming, even the kind
Speaker 2: of story that makes you smile and wonder if, maybe,
Speaker 2: just maybe, even our big hairy friends in the forest
Speaker 2: celebrate the season in their own way. I've told stories
Speaker 2: like that before, Tales of strange lights in the winter sky,
Speaker 2: of mysterious gifts left on doorsteps and remote mountain communities,
Speaker 2: of unexplained footprints in the snow leading to and from
Speaker 2: isolated cabins where children reported seeing something large and gentle
Speaker 2: peering through frosted windows on Christmas Eve. Those stories have
Speaker 2: their place. They remind us that mystery doesn't always have
Speaker 2: to be terrifying that the unknown can sometimes bring wonder
Speaker 2: instead of dread. But tonight, tonight is not that kind
Speaker 2: of night. Tonight, I'm going to tell you about something
Speaker 2: that happened in the winter of nineteen eighty five, something
Speaker 2: that took place in the deep forests of South Carolina,
Speaker 2: in a cabin that had stood empty for nearly three
Speaker 2: years before a young family decided it would be the
Speaker 2: perfect place to spend Christmas. They were wrong, so very
Speaker 2: very wrong, because what visited that cabin on Christmas Eve
Speaker 2: wasn't jolly old Saint Nick with his bag of presents. No,
Speaker 2: what came to that cabin was something far older, something
Speaker 2: that existed long before Christianity wrapped its tinsil around the
Speaker 2: winter solstice and called it Christmas, something that had been
Speaker 2: doing its dark work in the forests of Europe for
Speaker 2: centuries before the first settlers ever set foot on American soil,
Speaker 2: Something that came over with those settlers hiding in the
Speaker 2: shadows of their ships, feeding on their fears, waiting for
Speaker 2: the right moment to remind humanity that the old ways
Speaker 2: never really died. They just learned to be patient. So
Speaker 2: settle in, my friends, turn up the lights if you
Speaker 2: need to check the locks on your doors, and whatever
Speaker 2: you do, don't look out the window, because tonight I'm
Speaker 2: going to tell you about the Christmas Eve when Crampus
Speaker 2: came calling. The story begins, as so many horror stories do,
Speaker 2: with a death in the family. Gerald Hutchins received the
Speaker 2: news of his great uncle Amos's passing in the summer
Speaker 2: of nineteen eighty five. He hadn't seen the old man
Speaker 2: in over a decade, hadn't even thought about him much.
Speaker 2: If he was being honest, Amos had always been the
Speaker 2: black sheep of the Hutchins family, a strange and solitary
Speaker 2: figure who had retreated to a cabin in the South
Speaker 2: Carolina wilderness sometime in the early nineteen sixties and had
Speaker 2: rarely been heard from since. The family whispered about Amos
Speaker 2: at reunions and holiday gatherings. They said he had gone
Speaker 2: strange after the war, that he had seen things in
Speaker 2: the forests of Germany that had broken something inside him,
Speaker 2: that he had come back different, haunted, prone to muttering
Speaker 2: in languages no one recognized, and drawing symbols on scraps
Speaker 2: of paper that he would immediately burn in the fireplace.
Speaker 2: Gerald's father had always dismissed these stories as the usual
Speaker 2: family gossip, kind of embellishments that grow around anyone who
Speaker 2: chooses to live differently. Amos was just a hermit, he
Speaker 2: would say. Some men come back from war wanting to
Speaker 2: be alone. There was nothing more to it than that.
Speaker 2: But Gerald remembered something his father had said once, late
Speaker 2: at night, after too many beers at a family barbecue.
Speaker 2: He remembered his father's voice going quiet, his eyes getting
Speaker 2: distant as he recalled the last time he'd visited Amos
Speaker 2: at that cabin in the woods. He said the old
Speaker 2: man had grabbed his arm with surprising strength and had
Speaker 2: pulled him close. He said Amos's breath had smelled like
Speaker 2: whiskey and something else, something bitter and medicinal. And he
Speaker 2: said Amos had whispered four words that had haunted him
Speaker 2: ever since. It knows we're here. Gerald's father had never
Speaker 2: gone back to that cabin. He had never spoken to
Speaker 2: Amos again, and when the news came that the old
Speaker 2: man had died alone in his bed, apparently of natural causes,
Speaker 2: Gerald's father had refused to attend the funeral. But the
Speaker 2: cabin was part of the estate, and because Gerald was
Speaker 2: the closest living relative willing to deal with the paperwork
Speaker 2: the property fell to him. Gerald was thirty four years
Speaker 2: old that summer. He worked as an insurance adjuster in Columbia,
Speaker 2: a job he found mind numbingly dull, but which paid
Speaker 2: well enough to support his wife, Ellen and their son Marcus.
Speaker 2: They lived in a modest, three bedroom house and a
Speaker 2: suburb that looked identical to every other suburb in America,
Speaker 2: and they spent their weekends doing the same things every
Speaker 2: other family in that suburb did, backyard barbecues, little league games,
Speaker 2: church on Sunday mornings. It was a good life, a
Speaker 2: safe life, the kind of life that Gerald's parents had
Speaker 2: never had, and the kind of life he was determined
Speaker 2: to give his own family. But there was something else
Speaker 2: in Gerald, something he rarely acknowledged, even to himself. A restlessness,
Speaker 2: a sense that there had to be more to existence
Speaker 2: than quarterly reports and mortgage payments and watching the same
Speaker 2: time television shows every night while the years ticked away.
Speaker 2: When he first saw the cabin in the photographs the
Speaker 2: estate lawyer sent him, something stirred in his chest, something
Speaker 2: that felt almost like recognition. The cabin was isolated, certainly.
Speaker 2: The nearest town was almost twenty miles away, and the
Speaker 2: property itself was surrounded by hundreds of acres of dense forest.
Speaker 2: But it was beautiful in a rugged, untamed way, the
Speaker 2: kind of place where a man could breathe, the kind
Speaker 2: of place where a family could escape the noise and
Speaker 2: chaos of modern life, if only for a little while.
Speaker 2: Gerald made the drive down to see it in person
Speaker 2: on a weekend in early September. He went alone, telling
Speaker 2: Ellen he needed to assess the property's condition before they
Speaker 2: decided whether to sell it or keep it. But the
Speaker 2: truth was he wanted to see it for himself first.
Speaker 2: He wanted to feel whatever it was that had drawn
Speaker 2: his great uncle to this place and kept him there
Speaker 2: for over two decades. The road to the cabin was
Speaker 2: barely a road at all, more like a suggngestion of
Speaker 2: a path carved through the wilderness by someone who hadn't
Speaker 2: wanted to be found. Gerald sedan bounced and scraped along
Speaker 2: the rutted track for almost forty five minutes before the
Speaker 2: trees finally parted to reveal a small clearing, and there
Speaker 2: it was. The cabin was larger than he had expected
Speaker 2: from the photographs. Two stories built from logs that had
Speaker 2: weathered to a dark gray over the years. A wide
Speaker 2: porch wrapped around the front and one side, and a
Speaker 2: stone chimney rose from the roof like a finger pointing
Speaker 2: accusingly at the sky. The windows were dark, many of
Speaker 2: them covered with heavy curtains that hadn't been opened in years.
Speaker 2: Gerald sat in his car for a long moment, just
Speaker 2: looking at the place. He couldn't explain the feeling that
Speaker 2: came over him. It wasn't fear, exactly. It was more
Speaker 2: like the sensation of being watched, of being evaluated, as
Speaker 2: if the cabin itself was taking his measure and deciding
Speaker 2: whether or not he was worthy of entering. He shook
Speaker 2: off the feeling and got out of the car. The
Speaker 2: air was different here, cleaner certainly, but also heavier, somehow dense,
Speaker 2: with the smell of pine and rotting leaves and something
Speaker 2: else underneath it all, something animal, something that made the
Speaker 2: hair on the back of his neck stand at attention.
Speaker 2: Gerald walked up the porch steps, slowly, noting the way
Speaker 2: the boards creaked under his weight. The front door was unlocked,
Speaker 2: of course, it was who was going to rob a
Speaker 2: place this far from anywhere. The inside of the cabin
Speaker 2: was exactly what he had expected and nothing like it
Speaker 2: at the same time. The furniture was old but well made,
Speaker 2: covered in sheets that had turned gray with dust. The
Speaker 2: walls were lined with bookshelves, and the books that filled
Speaker 2: them were in languages Gerald didn't recognize, German, certainly, but
Speaker 2: also something older, something that looked almost like Latin but
Speaker 2: wasn't quite right. The fireplace dominated the main room, a
Speaker 2: massive stone construction that could have heated a space three
Speaker 2: times this size. The mantle hung a collection of items
Speaker 2: that made Jerald's breath catch in his throat. Chains old
Speaker 2: and rusted but still solid, heavy iron chains with manacles attached,
Speaker 2: the kind that might have been used to restrain a
Speaker 2: prisoner or an animal. Beside the chains hung a collection
Speaker 2: of switches and birch rods, their surfaces stained dark with
Speaker 2: something Jerald didn't want to think about too carefully. And
Speaker 2: in the center of it all, mounted on a wooden
Speaker 2: plaque like a hunting trophy, was a mask. It was
Speaker 2: carved from dark wood, maybe oak or walnut, and it
Speaker 2: depicted a face that Gerald had never seen before, but
Speaker 2: somehow recognized. On an instinctive level, a face that was
Speaker 2: almost human but stretched wrong. The nose was too long,
Speaker 2: curving downward like a beak. The eyes were hollow sockets
Speaker 2: that seemed to follow him as he moved around the room,
Speaker 2: and the mouth was twisted into a grin that contained
Speaker 2: far too many teeth. Jerald stood in front of that
Speaker 2: mask for a long time. He told himself he should
Speaker 2: take it down. He told himself he should throw it
Speaker 2: in the fireplace and burn it along with everything else
Speaker 2: in this god forsaken place. He told himself he should
Speaker 2: get back in his car and drive away and never
Speaker 2: think about this cabin again. Instead, he reached out and
Speaker 2: touched the mask's cheek. The wood was warm, not room
Speaker 2: temperature warm, but blood warm, the warmth of living flesh.
Speaker 2: Jerald jerked his hand back as if he had been burned.
Speaker 2: He stumbled backward, nearly tripping over a sheet covered chair,
Speaker 2: his heart hammering in his chest so hard he could
Speaker 2: feel it in his temples. And then he heard it,
Speaker 2: a sound from somewhere above him, from the second floor
Speaker 2: of the cabin, a sound like hoofs on hard wood.
Speaker 2: Jerald ran. He didn't remember making the decision to flee
Speaker 2: one moment he was standing in the main room, staring
Speaker 2: up at the ceiling, and the next he was in
Speaker 2: his car, gunning the engine, tearing back down that rutted
Speaker 2: excuse for a road, so fast that he was certain
Speaker 2: he was going to wrap himself around a tree. He
Speaker 2: made it back to the main road, and then to
Speaker 2: the highway, and then all the way home to Columbia
Speaker 2: without stopping once. He didn't tell Ellen about what had happened.
Speaker 2: He didn't tell anyone. He told himself it had been
Speaker 2: his imagination, a combination of the strange atmosphere and the
Speaker 2: unsettling decorations, and the stories his father had told him
Speaker 2: about crazy old Uncle Amos.
Speaker 3: That was all.
Speaker 2: There was nothing supernatural about an old cabin in the woods.
Speaker 2: There was nothing to be afraid of. Three months later,
Speaker 2: Gerald suggested to his wife that they spend Christmas at
Speaker 2: the cabin. Gerald didn't tell anyone about the mask or
Speaker 2: the sound of hoofs on the second floor. He didn't
Speaker 2: tell anyone about the way the cabin had felt alive
Speaker 2: around him, watching him, testing him. He went home to Columbia,
Speaker 2: and he went back to work, and he told himself
Speaker 2: over and over again that it had been nothing that
Speaker 2: old houses made strange sounds, that his imagination had simply
Speaker 2: gotten the better of it in an unfamiliar environment. But
Speaker 2: something had changed in Gerald Hutchins, something that his wife noticed,
Speaker 2: even if she couldn't quite name it. He was distracted,
Speaker 2: now prone to staring off into space for long minutes
Speaker 2: at a time. He had started researching things on his
Speaker 2: lunch breaks at the library, strange things, things about Alpine
Speaker 2: folklore and Germanic traditions, and creatures from the Old Country
Speaker 2: that parents used to frighten their children with before the
Speaker 2: world became too modern for such superstitions. He had learned
Speaker 2: about Crampus, not the sanitized version that occasionally appeared in
Speaker 2: novelty Christmas cards, the real version, the ancient version, the
Speaker 2: creature that had been terrifying European villages for centuries before
Speaker 2: anyone had ever heard of Santa Claus. Gerald read accounts
Speaker 2: of Crampus knocked, celebrations gone wrong, of children who had
Speaker 2: disappeared during the festivities, of families found dead in their
Speaker 2: homes on Christmas morning, with expressions of absolute terror frozen
Speaker 2: on their faces. He read about the chains the creature
Speaker 2: carried forged in hell fire used to bind the wicket
Speaker 2: and drag them down to damnation. He read about the switches,
Speaker 2: made from birch soaked in holy water by some accounts
Speaker 2: and in blood by others, used to beat the naughty
Speaker 2: children before they were carried away. He read about the
Speaker 2: basket on the creature's back, the basket that was always hungry,
Speaker 2: always empty, no matter how many screaming children were stuffed inside.
Speaker 2: And he read about the masks. In some traditions, the
Speaker 2: crampis masks were carved by the creature itself, made from
Speaker 2: the bones and skin of its victims, worn as trophies
Speaker 2: of past hunts. In other traditions, the masks were portals,
Speaker 2: doorways that allowed the creature to see into our world
Speaker 2: from whatever dark dimension it normally inhabited. The masks watched
Speaker 2: and waited, the story said, they called to their master.
Speaker 2: They marked the homes that would be visited when the
Speaker 2: winter solstice came. Gerald had read all of this, and
Speaker 2: he had convinced himself that it was nonsense, fairy tales,
Speaker 2: the kind of primitive superstition that had no place in
Speaker 2: modern America. And stay tuned for more sasquatch ott to see,
Speaker 2: we'll be right back after these messages. His great uncle
Speaker 2: had clearly been disturbed, driven mad by his years of isolation,
Speaker 2: and the mask above the fireplace was just a piece
Speaker 2: of folk art, nothing more. But somehow, despite all of
Speaker 2: his rational explanations, Gerald couldn't stop thinking about the cabin,
Speaker 2: couldn't stop dreaming about it, couldn't stop feeling deep in
Speaker 2: the marrow of his bones, that something there was waiting
Speaker 2: for him to come back, that something there was calling him.
Speaker 2: Ellen had her doubts about the plan. She expressed them
Speaker 2: repeatedly in the weeks leading up to Christmas, pointing out
Speaker 2: all the sensible reasons why spending the holidays in an
Speaker 2: isolated cabin with no phone, no television, and questionable heating
Speaker 2: was a bad idea. What if Marcus got sick, What
Speaker 2: if there was an emergency, What if they ran out
Speaker 2: of food, or the car broke down, or any of
Speaker 2: a hundred other things that could go wrong when you
Speaker 2: were twenty miles from the nearest town in the middle
Speaker 2: of December. But Gerald was persuasive. He talked about the
Speaker 2: magic of a real Christmas, the kind they used to
Speaker 2: have before everyone got so dependent on technology and convenience.
Speaker 2: He talked about cutting down their own tree and making
Speaker 2: popcorn strings and telling stories by the fire. He talked
Speaker 2: about how good it would be for Marcus to experience nature,
Speaker 2: real nature, not the manicured parks and carefully maintained hiking
Speaker 2: trails they usually visited, and eventually Ellen agreed. Marcus was
Speaker 2: thirteen that year, caught in that awkward space between childhood
Speaker 2: and adolescence where everything his parents suggested was automatically suspect.
Speaker 2: He wasn't thrilled about the idea of spending Christmas without
Speaker 2: his atari, or his friends, or the television specials he
Speaker 2: looked forward to every year. But there was something in
Speaker 2: his father's eyes when he talked to the cabin, a
Speaker 2: excitement that Marcus hadn't seen in a long time, and
Speaker 2: despite his complaints, some part of him was curious about
Speaker 2: this mysterious inheritance that had dropped into their lives. They
Speaker 2: left Columbia on the morning of December twenty third. The
Speaker 2: weather had been mild for most of the month, but
Speaker 2: the radio was warning of a cold front moving in
Speaker 2: from the north. Temperatures were expected to drop well below
Speaker 2: freezing by Christmas Day, with a possibility of snow. Gerald
Speaker 2: had prepared thoroughly.
Speaker 3: The back of the.
Speaker 2: Station wagon was loaded with enough food and supplies to
Speaker 2: last them through New Years if necessary. He had brought
Speaker 2: extra blankets, flashlights, batteries, a first aid kit, and several
Speaker 2: containers of gasoline for the generator that powered the cabin's
Speaker 2: few electrical outlets. He had even brought a small chainsaw
Speaker 2: for cutting firewood. Though we hoped there would be enough
Speaker 2: already stacked beside the cabin to see them through, The
Speaker 2: drive took longer than expected. The roads were good until
Speaker 2: they turned off the main highway, but then the pavement
Speaker 2: gave way to gravel, and the gravel eventually gave way
Speaker 2: to dirt. The track that led to the cabin was
Speaker 2: even more overgrown than Gerald remembered, and he had to
Speaker 2: stop twice to clear fallen branches from the path. They
Speaker 2: arrived at the cabin just as the sun was beginning
Speaker 2: to set. The light was wrong, that was the first
Speaker 2: thing Gerald noticed as they pulled into the clearing. The
Speaker 2: sunset should have been painting the sky in shades of
Speaker 2: orange and pink and gold, but instead the light had
Speaker 2: a sickly quality to it, a pale and washed out
Speaker 2: yellow that made everything look slightly diseased. The shadows cast
Speaker 2: by the trees seemed too long, too dark, stretching across
Speaker 2: the snow dusted ground like grasping fingers. Ellen's first reaction
Speaker 2: was silence. Gerald watched her face carefully as she took
Speaker 2: in the building, looking for signs of approval or disgust.
Speaker 2: He couldn't read her expression. She simply sat in the
Speaker 2: passenger seat, staring through the windshield at the cabin and
Speaker 2: the forest that surrounded it, her hands folded in her lap.
Speaker 2: Gerald noticed that her knuckles had gone white, and he
Speaker 2: wondered if she was feeling the same thing he was,
Speaker 2: that sense of being observed, that feeling of stepping into
Speaker 2: a place that didn't want them there. The cabin itself
Speaker 2: looked worse than Gerald remembered. The logs that made up
Speaker 2: its walls had seemed merely weathered in September, but now
Speaker 2: they looked almost rotted, the dark gray wood streaked with
Speaker 2: something that might have been mold, or might have been
Speaker 2: something else entirely. The windows were black mirrors that reflected
Speaker 2: the dying light without revealing anything of what lay within.
Speaker 2: And the porch, that wide porch that had seemed almost
Speaker 2: welcoming before. Now looked like a mouth, a dark, gaping mouth,
Speaker 2: waiting to swallow anyone foolish enough to step inside. Gerald
Speaker 2: shook off the thought. It was just a cabin, just
Speaker 2: wood and glass and stone, just the inheritance of a
Speaker 2: crazy old man who had lived alone too long. There
Speaker 2: was nothing supernatural about it. There was nothing to be
Speaker 2: afraid of, he almost believed himself. Marcus was less reserved.
Speaker 2: He was out of the car before his father had
Speaker 2: even turned off the engine, running up the porch steps
Speaker 2: and pressing his face against one of the windows, trying
Speaker 2: to see inside. Gerald wanted to call out to him,
Speaker 2: wanted to tell him to come back, but something stopped him,
Speaker 2: some reluctance to break the silence that had settled over
Speaker 2: the clearing like a shroud. The cabin was different in winter,
Speaker 2: starker somehow, its dark wood standing out sharply against the
Speaker 2: white birch trees that surrounded the clearing. The porch was
Speaker 2: covered in a layer of fallen leaves that no one
Speaker 2: had bothered to sweep away, and the windows were even
Speaker 2: darker than Gerald remembered, their curtains drawn tight against the
Speaker 2: fading light. Gerald had made arrangements to have the power
Speaker 2: turned on and some basic cleaning done before their arrival.
Speaker 2: But as he climbed the porch steps and pushed open
Speaker 2: the front door, he realized that whoever he had hired
Speaker 2: had done the bare minimum. Sh sheets had been removed
Speaker 2: from the furniture, and someone had swept the floors, but
Speaker 2: the cabin still had an abandoned feeling to it, a
Speaker 2: sense of long emptiness that no amount of quick tiding
Speaker 2: could erase. And the mask was still there, hanging above
Speaker 2: the fireplace. Jerald had hoped someone might have taken it down.
Speaker 2: He had even considered asking for it to be removed specifically,
Speaker 2: but something had stopped him, some reluctance he couldn't explain.
Speaker 2: Ellen saw the mask immediately. She walked into the main
Speaker 2: room and stopped dead, her eyes fixed on that twisted
Speaker 2: wooden face with its empty sockets and its too many teeth.
Speaker 3: What is that?
Speaker 2: She wanted to know. Gerald told her he wasn't sure,
Speaker 2: some old European folk art, maybe something his great uncle
Speaker 2: had picked up during the war. He tried to sound
Speaker 2: casual about it, but he could hear the false note
Speaker 2: in his own voice. Ellen continued to stare at the
Speaker 2: mask for a long moment. Then she turned to look
Speaker 2: at her husband, and there was something in her eyes
Speaker 2: that Jerald didn't look like, something that looked almost like recognition.
Speaker 2: She asked if they could take it down. Gerald said
Speaker 2: he would, but not tonight. Tonight they needed to focus
Speaker 2: on getting settled in, making the place comfortable, building a
Speaker 2: fire to ward off the cold that was already creeping
Speaker 2: in through the walls. He would deal with the mask tomorrow, tomorrow,
Speaker 2: he promised. Ellen didn't argue. She simply nodded and turned away,
Speaker 2: and Gerald could see the tension in her shoulders as
Speaker 2: she began unpacking their supplies. Marcus, meanwhile, had discovered the
Speaker 2: stairs to the second floor. Gerald heard him calling from above,
Speaker 2: his voice echoing through the cabin's empty spaces, talking about
Speaker 2: all the rooms up there, and the old books and
Speaker 2: the weird drawings.
Speaker 3: On the walls.
Speaker 2: Jerald felt a chill run down his spine that had
Speaker 2: nothing to do with the temperature. He had forgotten about
Speaker 2: the drawings when he had visited in September. He had
Speaker 2: gone upstairs only briefly, just long enough to confirm that
Speaker 2: the rooms were empty, that there was no nothing valuable
Speaker 2: that needed to be secured. He had glanced at the walls,
Speaker 2: had registered the markings there, but he hadn't really looked
Speaker 2: at them. Now, climbing the stairs with his heart beating
Speaker 2: a little too fast, he forced himself to look. The
Speaker 2: drawings covered almost every surface, the walls, the ceiling, even
Speaker 2: parts of the floor. They were done in what looked
Speaker 2: like charcoal, though some appeared to have been made with
Speaker 2: something darker and redder that Gerald didn't want to think
Speaker 2: about too carefully. Most of the drawings were of the
Speaker 2: same figure, a tall, twisted shape with horns rising from
Speaker 2: its head and legs that bent backward like a goat's.
Speaker 2: In some drawings, the figure was carrying chains, In others
Speaker 2: it held a bundle of switches or birch rods, and
Speaker 2: still others it was stuffing something small and screaming into
Speaker 2: a basket on its back, And in all of them,
Speaker 2: without exception, the figure was grinning. Marcus was standing in
Speaker 2: the middle of one of the bedrooms, turning slowly in
Speaker 2: a circle, taking in the draw that surrounded him on
Speaker 2: all sides. He asked his father what all this stuff was.
Speaker 2: Gerald wanted to lie. He wanted to say he had
Speaker 2: no idea that his great uncle had been crazy, that
Speaker 2: the drawings meant nothing, But looking at his son's face,
Speaker 2: seeing the fear that was already beginning to take root there,
Speaker 2: he found he couldn't do it. He told Marcus about Crampis.
Speaker 2: He told him about the old Alpine traditions, the ones
Speaker 2: that existed long before Christmas as they knew it. He
Speaker 2: told him about how in those ancient times, the winter
Speaker 2: solstice was a time of fear as well as celebration,
Speaker 2: a time when the barrier between worlds grew thin, and
Speaker 2: things that normally stayed hidden came out to walk among humans.
Speaker 2: He told him about the figure that traveled with Saint Nicholas,
Speaker 2: the dark counterpart to the jolly gift giver. While Nicholas
Speaker 2: rewarded the good children with presents and sweets, his companion
Speaker 2: dealt with the bad ones, the naughty, the wicked, the
Speaker 2: ones who had earned punishment instead of present Crampis, Gerald explained,
Speaker 2: was that companion a demon or a devil, or something
Speaker 2: old or still depending on who you asked. A creature
Speaker 2: with the horns of a ram, the hoofs of a goat,
Speaker 2: and a tongue that hung down past its chin. It
Speaker 2: carried chains because it had once been bound, imprisoned in
Speaker 2: hell or somewhere worse, and it never wanted to forget
Speaker 2: what it meant to be trapped. It carried switches to
Speaker 2: beat the bad children, and it carried a basket to
Speaker 2: stuff the me in and carry them away back to
Speaker 2: whatever dark place it called home. Marcus listened to all
Speaker 2: of this with wide eyes. When his father was finished,
Speaker 2: he asked if Crampis was real. Gerald told him no.
Speaker 3: Of course not.
Speaker 2: It was just a story, a legend away for parents
Speaker 2: in the Old Country to scare their children into behaving
Speaker 2: like the Boogeyman or the monster under the bed. There
Speaker 2: was no such thing as Crampis. There were no demons,
Speaker 2: no devils, nothing to be afraid of. But even as
Speaker 2: he said the words, Gerald felt the lye sticking in
Speaker 2: his throat, because, somewhere deep inside him, in a place
Speaker 2: he didn't like to acknowledge, he wasn't sure. He wasn't
Speaker 2: sure at all. The cold front arrived faster than expected.
Speaker 2: By the morning of December twenty fourth, the temperature had
Speaker 2: dropped to well below freezing, and a bitter wind was
Speaker 2: howling through the trees that surrounded the cabin, Gerald had
Speaker 2: to make three trips out to the woodpile to keep
Speaker 2: the fire going, each time returning with frost in his
Speaker 2: beard and numbness in his fingers. Ellen kept busy in
Speaker 2: the kitchen, preparing the Christmas Eve dinner she had planned.
Speaker 2: The cabin had a wood burning stove that she eventually
Speaker 2: figured out how to use, and soon the smell of
Speaker 2: roasting ham and baking bread began to fill the small space,
Speaker 2: mingling with the smoke from the fireplace and creating something
Speaker 2: that felt almost cozy. Almost, But the mask was still there,
Speaker 2: hanging above the mantle, and no matter where Ellen positioned
Speaker 2: herself in the room, she could feel its empty eyes
Speaker 2: watching her. Marcus spent most of the day exploring the cabin,
Speaker 2: despite his mother's warnings to stay inside where it was warm.
Speaker 2: He found boxes of old photographs in one of the closets,
Speaker 2: pictures of people he didn't recognize, standing in front of
Speaker 2: buildings he had never seen. He found collections of strange
Speaker 2: coins and medals, some of them bearing symbols that made
Speaker 2: his stomach turn when he looked at them too closely,
Speaker 2: and he found a journal hidden beneath a loose floorboard
Speaker 2: in one of the upstairs bedrooms, written in his great
Speaker 2: great uncle's cramped and barely legible handwriting. Marcus brought the
Speaker 2: journal downstairs and showed it to his father, who took
Speaker 2: it with trembling hands and began to read. The journal
Speaker 2: spanned several decades, beginning in the early nineteen sixties, when
Speaker 2: Amos had first moved to the cabin. The early entries
Speaker 2: were mundane enough, documenting the work of making the place habitable,
Speaker 2: the challenges of living so far from civilization, the small
Speaker 2: pleasures of a solitary life in nature. But as the
Speaker 2: years went on, the entries grew stranger. Amos began writing
Speaker 2: about dreams, nightmares, really visions of something hunting through the
Speaker 2: winter forests, something with horns and hoofs and a smile
Speaker 2: that contained too many teeth. He wrote about hearing sounds
Speaker 2: at night, footsteps on the porch, something heavy dragging itself
Speaker 2: across the roof. He wrote about finding tracks in the
Speaker 2: snow around the cabin, tracks that looked almost like those
Speaker 2: of a large goat, but that were far too big,
Speaker 2: far too deep, as if whatever had made them weigh
Speaker 2: several hundred pounds. And he wrote about the Christmas of
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy two, the year when he finally saw it.
Speaker 2: He had been gathering wood from the pile beside the cabin,
Speaker 2: working quickly in the failing light of Christmas Eve afternoon.
Speaker 2: He had heard a sound behind him, a sound like
Speaker 2: chains rattling, and he had turned to find the creature
Speaker 2: standing at the edge of the clearing. It was tall,
Speaker 2: Amos wrote, taller than any man, seven feet at least
Speaker 2: maybe eight. Its body was covered in dark fur, matted
Speaker 2: and filthy, and its legs bent backward at the knee,
Speaker 2: like the legs of a goat. Great curving horns rose
Speaker 2: from its head, and its eyes, those horrible yellow eyes,
Speaker 2: seemed to glow in the twilight, like embers from a
Speaker 2: dying fire. It had watched him for a long moment,
Speaker 2: Amos wrote, just watched, not moving, not breathing, while he
Speaker 2: stood frozen with an armload of firewood and his heart
Speaker 2: trying to hammer its way out of his chest. And
Speaker 2: then it had smiled. It had smiled with a mouth
Speaker 2: that seemed to split its face in half, revealing rows
Speaker 2: of teeth that were long and sharp and blackened, as
Speaker 2: if they had been charred by hell fire. Itself. Amos
Speaker 2: had dropped the wood and run for the cabin. He
Speaker 2: had slammed the door behind him and locked it and
Speaker 2: pushed every piece of furniture he could find against it.
Speaker 2: And he had huddled by the fire all night long,
Speaker 2: listening to the sound of hoofs on the porch and
Speaker 2: something heavy testing the door. And stay tuned for more
Speaker 2: sasquatch ott to see.
Speaker 3: We'll be right back.
Speaker 2: After these messages, the creature had left by mourning, but
Speaker 2: it had left something behind, a gift wrapped in what
Speaker 2: looked like human skin and tied with a ribbon of
Speaker 2: braided hair. Amos never wrote what was inside that gift.
Speaker 2: He never wrote about whether he opened it or not,
Speaker 2: or what he had done with it Afterward. The entry
Speaker 2: simply stopped mid sentence, as if the old man had
Speaker 2: been unable to continue. The next entry in the journal
Speaker 2: was dated almost three years later, and it contained only
Speaker 2: a single line, written in letters so shaky they were
Speaker 2: almost illegible. It comes back every year, It always comes back.
Speaker 2: Gerald set down the journal and looked at his son.
Speaker 2: Marcus was pale, his eyes wide, his lower lip trembling slightly.
Speaker 2: Despite his best efforts to appear brave. Gerald told him
Speaker 2: not to worry. He told him that his great uncle
Speaker 2: had clearly been unwell, that living alone in the wilderness
Speaker 2: for so long could do strange things to a person's mind.
Speaker 2: He told him that there was nothing in those woods
Speaker 2: but deer and rabbits and maybe a few bears, nothing
Speaker 2: that could hurt them, nothing that even knew they were there.
Speaker 2: But as he spoke, Gerald became aware of something, a
Speaker 2: silence that seemed to press against the walls of the cabin,
Speaker 2: heavy and expectant, a silence where there should have been wind.
Speaker 2: He walked to the window and pulled back the curtain.
Speaker 2: The wind had stopped. The trees that had been swaying
Speaker 2: and creaking just minutes before now stood perfectly still, their
Speaker 2: bare branches motionless against a sky that had turned the
Speaker 2: color of old bone. And the light was wrong, somehow,
Speaker 2: dimmer than it should have been at this hour, as
Speaker 2: if something was drawing the brightness out of the air itself.
Speaker 2: Ellen called from the kitchen, asking what was wrong. Gerald
Speaker 2: let the curtain fall back into place. He said everything
Speaker 2: was fine, just a change in the weather. He didn't
Speaker 2: mention the tracks he had seen in the snow at
Speaker 2: the edge of the clearing, the deep cloven tracks that
Speaker 2: hadn't been there that morning. He didn't mention the figure
Speaker 2: he'd seen for just a moment between the trees, the tall,
Speaker 2: horned figure that had seemed to be watching the cabin
Speaker 2: with eyes that burned like dying coals. He didn't mention
Speaker 2: any of it. Instead, he helped Ellen set the table
Speaker 2: for dinner, and he smiled at his son's jokes, and
Speaker 2: he pretended that everything was normal, that this was just
Speaker 2: another Christmas Eve, that the growing knot of dread in
Speaker 2: his stomach was nothing but indigestion from eating too many
Speaker 2: of Ellen's cookies. They sat down to eat as the
Speaker 2: last light faded from the sky, and somewhere out in
Speaker 2: the darkness, something began to move toward the cabin. The
Speaker 2: power went out at seven forty three. Gerald had been
Speaker 2: watching the clock on the mantel, one of the few
Speaker 2: items in the cabin that actually seemed to belong to
Speaker 2: the modern era. It was a battery operated digital clock
Speaker 2: that Amos must have purchased sometime in the late seventies,
Speaker 2: its red numbers glowing softly in the dim light of
Speaker 2: the cabin. Gerald had been watching those numbers, watching the
Speaker 2: minutes tick by telling himself that every minute that passed
Speaker 2: was a minute closer to morning, a minute closer to daylight,
Speaker 2: a minute closer to the moment when they could pack
Speaker 2: up the car and leave this place behind forever. Seven
Speaker 2: forty two became seven forty three, and then the lights
Speaker 2: went out. One moment, the cabin was filled with the
Speaker 2: warm glow of electric lights and the soft hum of
Speaker 2: the generator, and the next they were plunged into a
Speaker 2: darkness so complete that for a moment, none of them
Speaker 2: could breathe. It was the kind of darkness that city
Speaker 2: people never experience, the kind of absolute blackness that exists
Speaker 2: only in places far from street lights and highways and
Speaker 2: the constant ambient illumination of civilization, the kind of darkness
Speaker 2: where your eyes strain and strain and never adjust because
Speaker 2: there's simply no light to adjust to. Gerald fumbled for
Speaker 2: the flashlight he had placed on the table beside his plate,
Speaker 2: having learned from his September visit that the cabin's electricity
Speaker 2: was not to be trusted. The beam cut through the darkness,
Speaker 2: illuminating his wife's face, his son's face, both of them
Speaker 2: frozen in expressions of shock that mirrored his own. In
Speaker 2: that brief moment of flashlight illumination, Gerald saw something else,
Speaker 2: just a glimpse, just a fraction of a second, but
Speaker 2: it burned itself into his memory with the permanence of
Speaker 2: a brand. He saw the mask above the fireplace, and
Speaker 2: he saw that its expression had changed. The grin that
Speaker 2: horrible too many teeth grin had grown wider. The empty
Speaker 2: eye socket seemed deeper, darker, more alive, and for just
Speaker 2: that instant, just that fraction of a heartbeat, Gerald could
Speaker 2: have sworn he saw something moving inside those sockets, something
Speaker 2: looking back at him. Then he blinked, and the mask
Speaker 2: was just a man again, and he told himself it
Speaker 2: had been a trick of the light, a shadow thrown
Speaker 2: by the flashlight beam, nothing more. Ellen asked what happened.
Speaker 2: Gerald said he didn't know, Probably just the generator running
Speaker 2: out of fuel. He had filled it that afternoon, but
Speaker 2: maybe he hadn't filled it enough. He would go outside
Speaker 2: and check. His voice sounded strange to his own ears,
Speaker 2: too calm to controled, like a man who was using
Speaker 2: every ounce of will power he had to keep from screaming.
Speaker 2: Marcus asked if he could come with him. Gerald started
Speaker 2: to say no, started to say it was too cold
Speaker 2: outside and Marcus should stay here where it was safe.
Speaker 2: But something in his son's eyes stopped him, a fear
Speaker 2: that went beyond the simple darkness, a fear that said
Speaker 2: being left alone in this cabin, even with his mother,
Speaker 2: was not something Marcus was willing to do. And maybe,
Speaker 2: if Gerald was being honest with himself, he didn't want
Speaker 2: to go out there alone either. So Gerald nodded, and
Speaker 2: he handed Marcus one of the other flashlights, and together
Speaker 2: they put on their coats and their gloves and their hats,
Speaker 2: and they stepped out onto the porch. The cold hit
Speaker 2: them like a physical blow. It was far worse than
Speaker 2: it had been that afternoon, a bitter, biting cold that
Speaker 2: seemed to reach through their layers of clothing and wrap
Speaker 2: its fingers around their bones. This wasn't natural cold, Gerald thought.
Speaker 2: This was something else. This was the kind of cold
Speaker 2: that preceded something terrible, the kind of cold that announced
Speaker 2: the arrival of something that had no business existing in
Speaker 2: the natural world. Gerald's breath froze in the air before him,
Speaker 2: forming clouds of ice crystals that sparkled in the beam
Speaker 2: of his flashlight. The snow was falling harder, now, thick
Speaker 2: flakes that seemed to absorb the flashlight beams, limiting visibility
Speaker 2: to just a few feet in any direction. The world
Speaker 2: beyond the porch had become a white void, a blank
Speaker 2: canvas onto which anything might be painted. The generator was
Speaker 2: housed in a small shed about thirty feet from the cabin.
Speaker 2: Gerald and Marcus made their way toward it, their boots
Speaker 2: crunching in the snow that had begun to fall while
Speaker 2: they were eating dinner. Large flakes drifted down from the
Speaker 2: darkness above, landing on their shoulders and their hats, and
Speaker 2: immediately beginning to melt. Gerald reached the shed and pulled
Speaker 2: open the door. He shone his flashlight inside and felt
Speaker 2: his stomach drop. The generator wasn't just out of fuel.
Speaker 2: It had been destroyed. Something had torn the machine apart,
Speaker 2: ripping wires and breaking components and scattering pieces across the
Speaker 2: interior of the shed. The fuel tank had been punctured,
Speaker 2: and the smell of gasoline was thick in the air,
Speaker 2: mixing with another smell that Jerald didn't recognize at first.
Speaker 2: Then he did recognize it, and he felt the blood
Speaker 2: drain from his face. It smelled like a barnyard, like
Speaker 2: goats and sheep and horses, and something else underneath, something
Speaker 2: musky and rotten and utterly wrong. Marcus was saying something,
Speaker 2: asking what happened, asking who did this? But Jerald couldn't
Speaker 2: answer because he had just noticed something else. Marks on
Speaker 2: the walls of the shed, deep gouges in the wood,
Speaker 2: as if something with long, sharp claws had been raking
Speaker 2: at the surface, and above the gouges, burned into the
Speaker 2: wood itself was a symbol, a circle with horns rising
Speaker 2: from the top, and inside the circle a grinning face.
Speaker 2: Gerald grabbed his son's arm and pulled him away.
Speaker 3: From the shed.
Speaker 2: He told him they needed to get back to the
Speaker 2: cabin now, right now. They ran. They made it maybe
Speaker 2: halfway across the clearing when Marcus suddenly stopped, yanking his
Speaker 2: arm free from his father's grip and pointing at something
Speaker 2: in the darkness beyond. Gerald turned to look. At first,
Speaker 2: he couldn't see anything, just trees and snow and the
Speaker 2: endless darkness of the forest at night. But then his
Speaker 2: eyes adjusted and he realized that one of the shapes
Speaker 2: between the trees wasn't a tree at all. It was
Speaker 2: standing perfectly still, watching them, A tall figure easily seven
Speaker 2: feet or more, with great curving shapes rising from its
Speaker 2: head that could only be horns. Its body was covered
Speaker 2: in something dark, fur or hair or something worse, and
Speaker 2: its legs were bent at angles that no human leg
Speaker 2: could bend. And its eyes, its eyes were glowing yellow
Speaker 2: like fire, like the embers of a flame that had
Speaker 2: been burning since the beginning of time. They fixed on
Speaker 2: Gerald and Marcus with an intelligence that was ancient and
Speaker 2: terrible and completely without mercy. For a moment, no one moved.
Speaker 2: The creature stood there at the edge of the clearing, watching, waiting,
Speaker 2: and Gerald and his son stood in the middle of
Speaker 2: the yard with their flashlights and their terror and the
Speaker 2: absolute certainty that they were about to die. Then the
Speaker 2: creature smiled that smile, that horrible, impossible smile that seemed
Speaker 2: to split its face in half and revealed teeth that
Speaker 2: were black and long and sharp, teeth that were clearly
Speaker 2: designed for one purpose, and one purpose only, tearing flesh
Speaker 2: from bone. Gerald grabbed Marcus again and ran for the cabin.
Speaker 2: He didn't look back. He couldn't look back, because looking
Speaker 2: back would mean seeing that thing start to move, and
Speaker 2: if he saw that, if he actually witnessed it coming
Speaker 2: for them, he knew his legs would stop working and
Speaker 2: his heart would stop beating, and he would simply collapse
Speaker 2: in the snow and wait for those black teeth to
Speaker 2: find him. They reached the porch, Jerald threw open the door.
Speaker 2: They tumbled inside, and he slammed the door behind them,
Speaker 2: and threw the dead bolt and shoved his back against
Speaker 2: the wood, as if his weight alone could keep out
Speaker 2: whatever was coming. Ellen was there, a candle in her hand,
Speaker 2: asking what was wrong, asking why they were running, asking
Speaker 2: what had happened to the generator. Gerald couldn't speak. He
Speaker 2: could only stand there against the door, his chest heaving,
Speaker 2: his heart pounding, his mind trying desperately to process what
Speaker 2: he had just seen. It was Marcus who finally found
Speaker 2: his voice. It's real, he said, Crampis, it's real, and
Speaker 2: it's here. The next hour was a blur of activity
Speaker 2: and terror. Jerald pushed every piece of furniture he could
Speaker 2: move against the front door, just as his great uncle
Speaker 2: had done all those years ago. The heavy oak dining
Speaker 2: table went first, then the couch, then the armchairs, then
Speaker 2: anything else that had weight and substance. He worked with
Speaker 2: the frantic energy of a man who knows that what
Speaker 2: he's doing is probably useless, but who cannot bring himself
Speaker 2: to simply wait for death. Ellen gathered candles and placed
Speaker 2: them throughout the cabin, their flickering light casting dancing shadows
Speaker 2: on the walls that seemed to move with a life
Speaker 2: of their own. Every time Gerald glanced at those shadows,
Speaker 2: he thought he saw shapes in them. Horn shapes, twisted shapes,
Speaker 2: shapes that shouldn't exist in any sane and rational world.
Speaker 2: Marcus sat in the corner of the main room, his
Speaker 2: knees drawn up to his chest, his eyes fixed on
Speaker 2: the mask above the fireplace, as if expecting it to
Speaker 2: come alive at any moment. He was shaking, Gerald noticed,
Speaker 2: not from the cold, though the temperature inside the cabin
Speaker 2: was dropping steadily now that the fire was providing the
Speaker 2: only heat. He was shaking from something deeper, something primal,
Speaker 2: the kind of terror that exists in the oldest part
Speaker 2: of the human brain, the part that remembers what it
Speaker 2: was like to huddle in caves while predators stalked the
Speaker 2: darkness outside. The wind had returned, howling around the cabin
Speaker 2: with a fury that seemed almost personal. It screamed through
Speaker 2: the gaps in the logs and rattled the windows in
Speaker 2: their frames, and seemed to speak in a language that
Speaker 2: was almost but not quite comprehensible. Snow pelted the windows
Speaker 2: with a sound like thousands of tiny fists demanding entry,
Speaker 2: and beneath it all barely audible, but definitely there was
Speaker 2: another sound. The sound of something walking around the cabin,
Speaker 2: heavy footsteps, slow and deliberate, the creak of boards on
Speaker 2: the porch, the scrape of something sharp against the logs
Speaker 2: of the walls, and every now and then a sound
Speaker 2: that might have been breathing, deep wet breathing, like a
Speaker 2: massive bellows pumping air in and out of lungs that
Speaker 2: were far too large to belong to anything natural. Gerald
Speaker 2: had found his great uncle's shotgun in a closet on
Speaker 2: the second floor. It was old, but still functional, a
Speaker 2: double barreled twelve gage that must have been manufactured sometime
Speaker 2: in the nineteen forties. The wood of the stock was
Speaker 2: worn smooth by decades of handling, and there were scratches
Speaker 2: on the barrel that looked almost like claw marks. Gerald
Speaker 2: tried not to think about that. He focused instead on
Speaker 2: loading the weapon, on finding the shells in the box
Speaker 2: beside it, on forcing his shaking hands to cooperate long
Speaker 2: enough to get two rounds into the chambers. He didn't
Speaker 2: know if a shotgun could kill what was out there.
Speaker 2: He didn't know if anything mortal could harm something that
Speaker 2: had been haunting human since before the birth of Christ.
Speaker 2: But holding the weapon made him feel slightly less helpless,
Speaker 2: and right now, that was all he could ask for.
Speaker 2: The footsteps stopped. The silence that followed was somehow worse
Speaker 2: than the sounds had been. It pressed against the walls
Speaker 2: of the cabin like a physical force, heavy and expectant.
Speaker 2: For a long moment, there was nothing only the wind
Speaker 2: and the snow, and the pounding of three hearts that
Speaker 2: were all beating far too fast. Then something hit the door.
Speaker 2: Not a knock, not a polite request for entry, a hit,
Speaker 2: a blow that shook the entire cabin and sent dust
Speaker 2: raining down from the rafters. The furniture Gerald had piled
Speaker 2: against the door shifted several inches. Ellen screamed, Marcus curled
Speaker 2: into a tighter ball, and began to cry. Jerald raised
Speaker 2: the shotgun and pointed it at the door, his finger
Speaker 2: on the trigger, waiting for whatever was going to happen next.
Speaker 2: Another hit, harder this time. Stay tuned for more sasquatch
Speaker 2: otta see.
Speaker 3: We'll be right back.
Speaker 2: After these messages, a crack appeared in one of the boards,
Speaker 2: and then a sound came from outside, a sound that
Speaker 2: shouldn't have been possible.
Speaker 3: A voice.
Speaker 2: It was speaking in a language Jerald didn't recognize, German maybe,
Speaker 2: or something older, something guttural and harsh and filled with
Speaker 2: a malice that went beyond anything human. The words seemed
Speaker 2: to crawl into his ears and burrow into his brain,
Speaker 2: carrying images with them, images of punishment, of torment, of
Speaker 2: things being done to screaming children in dark places where
Speaker 2: no one could hear them cry. Gerald fired through the door.
Speaker 2: The blast was deafening in the enclosed space of the cabin.
Speaker 2: Ellen screamed again, and Marcus covered his ears, and for
Speaker 2: a moment there was nothing but the ringing in Gerald's
Speaker 2: ears and the smoke curling from the barrel of the shotgun.
Speaker 2: Then laughter, deep rumbling laughter that seemed to come from
Speaker 2: everywhere at once, from outside the door and from the walls,
Speaker 2: and from beneath the floor and from inside Gerald's own head.
Speaker 2: Laughter that said the shotgun had been amusing, that it
Speaker 2: had been a cute little toy, that it had made
Speaker 2: the creature feel something it hadn't felt in a very
Speaker 2: long time. It had made it feel entertained. The hitting stopped.
Speaker 2: The footsteps resumed circling the cabin again, faster. Now almost excited,
Speaker 2: Jerald tracked the sound with the shotgun, following it from
Speaker 2: the front of the cabin to the side, to the back,
Speaker 2: to the other side, and around again. The creature was
Speaker 2: toying with them, playing with its food before the feast.
Speaker 2: Then a new sound from above, something on the roof.
Speaker 2: Gerald's blood ran cold. He looked up at the ceiling,
Speaker 2: at the wooden boards that were all that separated them
Speaker 2: from whatever was up there, and he watched in horror
Speaker 2: as those boards began to bend. Something heavy was pressing
Speaker 2: down on them, testing their strength. Looking for a way
Speaker 2: in the chimney, Gerald spun toward the fireplace, where the
Speaker 2: fire was still burning, where the smoke was still rising,
Speaker 2: where the only opening in the cabin large enough for
Speaker 2: something to fit through waited Like an invitation. He ran
Speaker 2: to the hearth and threw more wood on the fire.
Speaker 2: He didn't care if he burned the whole cabin down.
Speaker 2: He didn't care about anything except keeping that thing from
Speaker 2: coming down the chimney like some hellish perversion of Santa Claus.
Speaker 2: The fire roared higher, and for a moment Gerald thought
Speaker 2: it had worked. He thought the flames would be enough
Speaker 2: to keep the creature at bay. Then something dropped into
Speaker 2: the fire, not the creature itself, something smaller, something that
Speaker 2: had once been round but was now misshapen, melted by
Speaker 2: the flames even as it fell. A bell, a small,
Speaker 2: tarnished bell, the kind that might hang from a gesture's
Speaker 2: cap or a fool's scepter, the kind that might also
Speaker 2: hang from the chains of something ancient and evil. The
Speaker 2: bell did melt, it didn't burn. It simply sat in
Speaker 2: the flames, and as Gerald watched, it began to ring,
Speaker 2: a thin, high sound, almost delicate, almost musical. And with
Speaker 2: each ring, the candles in the cabin flickered, first one,
Speaker 2: then another, then all of them at once, as if
Speaker 2: an invisible hand was passing over their flames. One by one,
Speaker 2: they went out. The darkness closed in like a fist,
Speaker 2: and in that darkness, Gerald heard the front door splinter
Speaker 2: and break. What happened next is pieced together from fragments
Speaker 2: from the sounds that echoed through the cabin, and the
Speaker 2: glimpses caught in the dying light of the fire, and
Speaker 2: the screams that seemed to go on forever. Some of
Speaker 2: what I'm about to tell you comes from the official
Speaker 2: reports filed after the incident. Some of it comes from
Speaker 2: the journal entries Jerald made in the years that followed,
Speaker 2: scribbling frantically in notebooks that the doctors at the psychiatric
Speaker 2: facility would later confiscate and file away. And some of
Speaker 2: it comes from other sources. Sources I'm not going to name,
Speaker 2: sources that have their own reasons for knowing what happened
Speaker 2: in that cabin on Christmas Eve. The creature came through
Speaker 2: the door like a storm. Not through the doorway, mind you,
Speaker 2: through the door itself. The wood exploded inward, sending splinters
Speaker 2: flying like shrapnel. The furniture Gerald had piled against it
Speaker 2: scattered like children's toys, the heavy oak table tumbling and
Speaker 2: over end, the armchairs crashing against the walls with enough
Speaker 2: force to shatter their frames. Gerald heard Ellen screaming his name,
Speaker 2: heard Marcus, crying for his mother, heard sounds that might
Speaker 2: have been words in a language that existed before humanity
Speaker 2: learned to speak. He tried to fire the shotgun, He
Speaker 2: really did. He raised it toward the shape in the doorway,
Speaker 2: toward the massive dark form that seemed to absorb the
Speaker 2: light rather than reflect it, and he tried to squeeze
Speaker 2: the trigger. But his hands weren't working right, his fingers
Speaker 2: weren't obeying his command. It was as if the creature's
Speaker 2: presence had short circuited. Something in his nervous system, had
Speaker 2: broken the connection between his brain and his body. Before
Speaker 2: he could pull the trigger, something hard and heavy struck
Speaker 2: him across the face and sent him sprawling. The blow
Speaker 2: should have killed him. He knew that even as he
Speaker 2: was falling. He knew it with the calm certainty of
Speaker 2: a man who has accepted that death has come for him.
Speaker 2: Whatever had hit him had hit him with the force
Speaker 2: of a sledgehammer, had connected with his jaw and his
Speaker 2: cheekbone and the side of his skull with enough power
Speaker 2: to shatter bone and pulp brain matter. But Gerald didn't die.
Speaker 2: He hit the floor and tasted blood, felt teeth rattling,
Speaker 2: loose in his mouth, felt the world spinning around him
Speaker 2: in a nauseating spiral. But he was alive. He was conscious,
Speaker 2: and he understood in that moment of terrible clarity that
Speaker 2: the creature had held back, that it had hit him
Speaker 2: just hard enough to disable him, not hard enough to kill,
Speaker 2: because it wanted him alive, It wanted him to watch.
Speaker 2: The shotgun flew from his hands and skidded away into
Speaker 2: the darkness. He tried to get up, tried to find
Speaker 2: his family, but something wrapped around his ankle, a chain,
Speaker 2: cold iron lynks that burned against his skin, despite the
Speaker 2: layers of clothing between them. The burn was unlike anything
Speaker 2: Gerald had ever experienced. It was cold and hot at
Speaker 2: the same time, freezing and searing, and it seemed to
Speaker 2: reach past his flesh and into his very soul. The
Speaker 2: chain tightened, and Gerald felt himself being dragged across the floor,
Speaker 2: away from the fire, away from the light, toward the
Speaker 2: shattered door and the darkness beyond. He screamed. He screamed
Speaker 2: for Ellen, He screamed for Marcus. He screamed for God
Speaker 2: or the devil, or anyone who might be listening to
Speaker 2: help him, to save him, to make this nightmare end.
Speaker 2: He clawed at the floorboards as he was dragged, his
Speaker 2: fingernails splintering and breaking as they dug into the wood,
Speaker 2: leaving rails of blood.
Speaker 3: In his wake.
Speaker 2: No one answered, no one came. The creature dragged him
Speaker 2: out onto the porch and down the steps into the snow.
Speaker 2: Jerald clawed at the ground, his fingers leaving furrows in
Speaker 2: the frozen earth, but it didn't slow the creature at all.
Speaker 2: It was strong, impossibly strong, the kind of strong that
Speaker 2: suggested it could have torn him apart at any moment
Speaker 2: if it chose to, and the only reason it hadn't
Speaker 2: was because it was enjoying his terror too much. Then
Speaker 2: it stopped. Jerald lay in the snow, gasping for breath,
Speaker 2: his body shaking with cold and fear. He couldn't see
Speaker 2: the creature, but he could feel it, could feel its
Speaker 2: presence looming over him, ancient and terrible and utterly without mercy.
Speaker 2: And then it spoke again, not in that guttural language
Speaker 2: from before, but in English, in a voice that was
Speaker 2: like rocks grinding together, like ice cracking on a frozen lake,
Speaker 2: like the last breath of a dying man. It asked
Speaker 2: if Gerald had been good this year. Gerald couldn't answer.
Speaker 2: His voice was gone, stolen by terror, leaving him mute
Speaker 2: and helpless in the snow. The creature laughed again, that horrible,
Speaker 2: rumbling laugh that seemed to vibrate through the earth itself.
Speaker 2: It said that it already knew the answer. It said
Speaker 2: that it always knew. It said that Gerald had been
Speaker 2: neither particularly good nor particularly bad, just mediocre, just average,
Speaker 2: just another human stumbling through life without ever really committing
Speaker 2: to anything but his son. The creature said, his son
Speaker 2: was another matter. Gerald found his voice, then he found
Speaker 2: it and used it to beg He begged for his
Speaker 2: son's life, promised anything, offered, anything, would have sold his
Speaker 2: own soul a thousand times over if it meant protecting
Speaker 2: Marcus from what was coming. The creature was silent for
Speaker 2: a long moment. When it spoke again, its voice had changed, softer, now,
Speaker 2: almost gentle.
Speaker 3: That was always a choice, that was always a bargain
Speaker 3: to be made. The old ways demanded it. One life
Speaker 3: for another, one soul for another. The father for the son.
Speaker 2: Jerald didn't hesitate. He said yes. The chain around his
Speaker 2: ankle loosened. Gerald scrambled to his feet, his heart pounding,
Speaker 2: his mind racing. He didn't know what he had agreed to.
Speaker 2: He didn't know what the creature would do to him,
Speaker 2: but it didn't matter. All that mattered was that Marcus
Speaker 2: would be safe. Ellen would be safe. They would survive
Speaker 2: this night. The creature stepped out of the shadows then,
Speaker 2: and Gerald saw it clearly for the first time. His
Speaker 2: great uncle's journal hadn't done it justice. Nothing could have
Speaker 2: done it justice. Words are simply inadequate to describe something
Speaker 2: that exists so far outside the bounds of normal reality,
Speaker 2: something that the human mind was never designed to comprehend.
Speaker 2: It was taller than he had thought, nine feet at
Speaker 2: least maybe ten. It had to stoop slightly, even in
Speaker 2: the clearing, as if the very air of our world
Speaker 2: was too small to contain it. Its body was covered
Speaker 2: in fur that was matted with things Gerald didn't want
Speaker 2: to identify. Dried blood, certainly, but also other substances, older substances,
Speaker 2: things that had crusted and hardened over centuries of feeding.
Speaker 2: Its horns curved up and back from a skull that
Speaker 2: was almost human but wasn't not quite. They glistened with ice.
Speaker 2: Those horns, and Gerald could see markings carved into them, symbols,
Speaker 2: the same symbols that covered the walls inside the cabin,
Speaker 2: the same symbols that had been burned into the shed. Names.
Speaker 2: He realized the horns were carved with names, the names
Speaker 2: of everyone it had ever taken. And the face, that face,
Speaker 2: it was, the face from the mask above the fireplace
Speaker 2: come to terrible life, That long curved nose that swept
Speaker 2: down past where a chin should be, Those eyes, those
Speaker 2: horrible yellow eyes that glowed with a fire that had
Speaker 2: been burning since before the first humans walked the earth.
Speaker 2: And that grin, that impossible grin, stretching across a face
Speaker 2: that was almost human, but stretched wrong, twisted wrong, broken
Speaker 2: in ways that went beyond the physical. Its tongue hung
Speaker 2: from that grin, impossibly long, impossibly flexible, covered in barbs
Speaker 2: that looked sharp enough to flay skin from bone. As
Speaker 2: Gerald watched, the tongue flicked out and tasted the air,
Speaker 2: tasted his fear, and the creature's grin somehow grew even wider.
Speaker 2: In one massive hand, it held chains, not the chain
Speaker 2: wrapped around Gerald's ankle, but others, dozens of them, maybe hundreds,
Speaker 2: all clinking and rattling in a sound that was almost musical.
Speaker 2: In the other hand, it held a bundle of switches,
Speaker 2: birch rods that had been soaked in something dark, something
Speaker 2: that steamed faintly in the cold air. And on its back,
Speaker 2: strapped in place with leather cords that looked older than
Speaker 2: civilization itself, was a basket, a massive wicker basket, easily
Speaker 2: large enough to hold several children. Gerald could hear sounds
Speaker 2: coming from inside it. Sounds like whimpering, sounds like crying,
Speaker 2: sounds that might have been words, might have been pleased
Speaker 2: for help, might have been anything at all. It held
Speaker 2: out its hand. In its palm was a contract, real paper,
Speaker 2: real ink, illuminated by the glow of those terrible eyes.
Speaker 2: The paper was made from something that wasn't quite paper,
Speaker 2: something that had an organic quality to it, something that
Speaker 2: seemed almost to pulse with the life of its own.
Speaker 2: The words were in a language Jerald couldn't read, but
Speaker 2: somehow he understood them anyway. He understood what he was
Speaker 2: agreeing to, He understood the price. He understood that this
Speaker 2: was the only way he took the contract. He pricked
Speaker 2: his finger on one of the creature's claws, drawing blood
Speaker 2: that steamed in the cold air. He signed his name
Speaker 2: at the bottom of the page. The creature took back
Speaker 2: the contract. It read over the signature, and its grin
Speaker 2: somehow grew even wider.
Speaker 3: The contract is appreciated, Joeld. Your willingness to sacrifice yourself
Speaker 3: has been noted. It will be remembered. But you misunderstand
Speaker 3: the nature of the bargain. I won't want you soon.
Speaker 3: I wanted your silence.
Speaker 2: The creature turned and walked back toward the cabin. Gerald
Speaker 2: tried to follow, tried to stop it, but his legs
Speaker 2: wouldn't move. He was frozen in place, held by some
Speaker 2: invisible force, unable to do anything but watch as the
Speaker 2: creature climbed the porch steps and disappeared through the shattered doorway.
Speaker 2: Then the screaming started ellen first a high, terrified shriek
Speaker 2: that cut through the night like a knife. Then Marcus
Speaker 2: calling for his father, begging for help. And Gerald could
Speaker 2: do nothing but stand there in the snow and listen.
Speaker 2: The sounds went on for a few short seconds, then
Speaker 2: they stopped. The silence that followed was worse than the screaming.
Speaker 2: Gerald stood in the snow until the sun came up.
Speaker 2: He couldn't move, couldn't look away from the cabin, couldn't
Speaker 2: do anything but wait for the invisible force holding him
Speaker 2: to finally release its grip. When it did, he walked
Speaker 2: toward the cabin on legs that felt like they belonged
Speaker 2: to someone else. The front door was hanging from one hinge,
Speaker 2: creaking in the morning breeze. Gerald stepped through it into
Speaker 2: the main room. The cabin had been destroyed, furniture overturned,
Speaker 2: walls gouged, the fire reduced to cold ashes. Blood spattered
Speaker 2: the floors and the walls and the ceiling, more blood
Speaker 2: than two human bodies could possibly contain. And everywhere, covering
Speaker 2: every surface were more of those symbols, the circle with
Speaker 2: the horns, the grinning face, and stay tuned for more
Speaker 2: sasquatch see what'll be right back. After these messages, Jerald
Speaker 2: searched the cabin from top to bottom. He searched the
Speaker 2: clearing around it, and the woods beyond, and every inch
Speaker 2: of the property that he could reach. He didn't find Ellen,
Speaker 2: he didn't find Marcus. He found only one thing hanging
Speaker 2: above the fireplace, in the same spot it had always occupied,
Speaker 2: was the mask, but now there were two new additions
Speaker 2: hanging beside it, two more masks, smaller, newer, carved from
Speaker 2: something that wasn't quite wood. Gerald fell to his knees
Speaker 2: and began to scream. The official story, the one that
Speaker 2: made it into the newspapers and the police reports, was
Speaker 2: that Gerald Hutchins had suffered a mental breakdown while on
Speaker 2: a family camping trip over Christmas. His wife and son
Speaker 2: had apparently left him sometime during the night of December
Speaker 2: twenty fourth, and Gerald, in his disturbed state, had destroyed
Speaker 2: much of the cabin before being found by a passing
Speaker 2: hunter three days long later. The hunter, a local man
Speaker 2: named Earl Coggins, who had been tracking a wounded deer
Speaker 2: through the winter forest, would later tell reporters that he
Speaker 2: had never seen anything like what he found in that clearing.
Speaker 2: The cabin looked like it had been hit by a tornado.
Speaker 3: He said.
Speaker 2: The front door was completely destroyed, torn off its hinges,
Speaker 2: and scattered in pieces across the yard. The inside was
Speaker 2: covered in blood and what he could only describe as
Speaker 2: claw marks, deep gouges in the wood that looked like
Speaker 2: they had been made by something with fingers longer and
Speaker 2: sharper than any animal he had ever seen. And in
Speaker 2: the middle of it all, sitting in front of the
Speaker 2: dead fireplace, was Gerald Hutchins. Earle said that Gerald was
Speaker 2: rocking back and forth and staring at something above the mantle,
Speaker 2: just staring, not blinking, not responding when Earle called out
Speaker 2: to him or touched his shoulder. His eyes were opened
Speaker 2: so wide that Earle could see the whites all the
Speaker 2: way around, and his lips were moving constantly, whispering something
Speaker 2: over and over again that Earle couldn't quite make out.
Speaker 2: When the paramedics finally coaxed Gerald out of the cabin
Speaker 2: and loaded him into the ambulance, Earle went back inside
Speaker 2: to see what the man had been staring at. He
Speaker 2: found the masks, the original one, the one carved from
Speaker 2: dark wood with its too many teeth and its hollow eyes,
Speaker 2: and the two new ones beside it. Earle was not
Speaker 2: a superstitious man. He had lived in these woods his
Speaker 2: whole life, had hunted and fished and camped in places
Speaker 2: that most people couldn't even find on a map. He
Speaker 2: had seen strange things in his time, had heard sounds
Speaker 2: at night that didn't match any animal he knew, had
Speaker 2: found tracks in the mud that made no sense, and
Speaker 2: structures in the deep forest that no human hand had built,
Speaker 2: but those masks. Earle took one look at those masks
Speaker 2: and turned around and walked out of the cabin and
Speaker 2: never went back. He never spoke about what he had
Speaker 2: seen to the police, or to the reporters, or to
Speaker 2: anyone else. He just went home and bolted his doors
Speaker 2: and sat in his living room with his hunting rifle
Speaker 2: across his lap until the sun came up the next morning.
Speaker 2: And every Christmas Eve for the rest of his life,
Speaker 2: Earl Coggins would do the same thing. He would lock
Speaker 2: himself in his house, close all the curtains and sit
Speaker 2: in the dark with that rifle, waiting for dawn, waiting
Speaker 2: for whatever was out there to pass him by. Ellen
Speaker 2: and Marcus Hutchins were never found. Despite extensive searches and
Speaker 2: a nationwide alert, despite teams of volunteers combing the forest
Speaker 2: for weeks, despite the most advanced tracking equipment available in
Speaker 2: nineteen eighty six, no trace of the mother and son
Speaker 2: ever turned up. The case eventually went cold, filed away
Speaker 2: with thousands of other unsolved disappearances, forgotten by everyone except
Speaker 2: the families of the missing but there were rumors. There
Speaker 2: were always rumors. Some of the locals whispered about tracks
Speaker 2: found in the snow far from the cabin, tracks that
Speaker 2: looked almost like those of a large goat, but that
Speaker 2: were pressed deeper into the ground than any normal animal
Speaker 2: could manage. Others spoke of sounds heard in the forest
Speaker 2: on the nights around Christmas, sounds like chains rattling and
Speaker 2: bells ringing, and something like laughter echoing through the trees.
Speaker 2: And a few, a very few, claimed to have seen
Speaker 2: something moving through the winter woods in the dead of night,
Speaker 2: something tall and horned and impossibly fast, something that was
Speaker 2: carrying a basket on its back. Jerald spent the next
Speaker 2: several years in and out of psychiatric facilities. He was
Speaker 2: diagnosed with various conditions at various times, all of which
Speaker 2: essentially boiled down to the same thing. He had experienced
Speaker 2: a traumatic event that his mind couldn't process, and the
Speaker 2: delusions he described the creature with the horns and the hoofs,
Speaker 2: the demon that had taken his family, were just his
Speaker 2: psyche's way of avoiding a truth too terrible to accept.
Speaker 2: Gerald knew better. He knew that what had happened in
Speaker 2: that cabin was real. He knew that the thing that
Speaker 2: had taken his wife and son was not a fitgment
Speaker 2: of his imagination, or a manifestation of guilt, or any
Speaker 2: of the other explanations his doctors tried to give him.
Speaker 2: It was real, and it was still out there, and
Speaker 2: every Christmas Eve it came back to hunt. He tried
Speaker 2: to warn people. He wrote letters to newspapers and called
Speaker 2: in to radio shows, and stood on street corners with
Speaker 2: signs that said things like crampis is real and keep
Speaker 2: your children inside on Christmas Eve. Most people ignored him,
Speaker 2: a few laughed. Some took pictures and shared them on
Speaker 2: the Internet years later, using them as examples of what
Speaker 2: happens when someone goes off the deep end. Gerald died
Speaker 2: in the winter of two thousand and three. He was
Speaker 2: found in his small apartment on the morning of December
Speaker 2: twenty sixth, sitting in a chair facing the window, a
Speaker 2: blanket pulled up to his chin. The official cause of
Speaker 2: death was heart failure, but the coroner noted that the
Speaker 2: expression on his face suggested he had seen something in
Speaker 2: his final moments, something that had frightened him, something that
Speaker 2: had made him small. The apartment was cleaned out by
Speaker 2: the state. Since Gerald had no living relatives willing to
Speaker 2: claim his possessions, most of it was thrown away, but
Speaker 2: a few items found their way to a local thrift store.
Speaker 2: Old clothes, some books, a wooden box containing papers that
Speaker 2: no one bothered to read, and a mask. A single
Speaker 2: mask carved from dark wood, depicting a face that was
Speaker 2: almost human but stretched wrong, a face with a nose
Speaker 2: that curved down like a beak, and eyes that were
Speaker 2: hollow sockets, and a mouth that contained far too many teeth.
Speaker 2: The mask was purchased by a young couple who thought
Speaker 2: it would make an interesting conversation piece for their cabin,
Speaker 2: their cabin in the mountains, their cabin in South Carolina.
Speaker 2: They planned to spend Christmas there. Now I know what
Speaker 2: you're thinking. You're thinking that this is just a story,
Speaker 2: a campfire tale meant to give you chills on a
Speaker 2: cold December night, a piece of fiction designed to remind
Speaker 2: you that the darkness outside your window might not be
Speaker 2: as empty as you think. And you might be right.
Speaker 2: Maybe I made the whole thing up. Maybe Gerald Hutchins
Speaker 2: never existed. Maybe there was never a cabin in South Carolina,
Speaker 2: never a family that disappeared on Christmas Eve, never a
Speaker 2: creature with horns and hoofs that hunts the naughty children
Speaker 2: when the nights grow long and the cold settles in. Maybe,
Speaker 2: but then again maybe not. Because here's the thing about
Speaker 2: the old stories, the ones that have been passed down
Speaker 2: through countless generations, the ones that predate Christianity and civilization
Speaker 2: and maybe even humanity itself. They don't survive because they're entertaining.
Speaker 2: They don't get told and retold for thousands of years
Speaker 2: because people enjoy a good scare. They survive because they're true.
Speaker 2: Not literally true, perhaps not true in the way that
Speaker 2: historical facts are true, but true in a deeper sense,
Speaker 2: true in the sense that they describe something real, something
Speaker 2: that exists in the shadows and the forests and the
Speaker 2: dark places of the world, something that has always existed
Speaker 2: and always will exist, no matter how many street lights
Speaker 2: we build, or how bright we make our cities, or
Speaker 2: how much we try to convince ourselves that we've outgrown
Speaker 2: the need for fear. Crampis is one of those stories
Speaker 2: in the old countries. They knew this, They knew that
Speaker 2: the winter was a dangerous time, a time when the
Speaker 2: barriers between worlds grew thin, and things that normally stayed
Speaker 2: hidden came out to walk among humans. They knew that
Speaker 2: the price of survival was vigilance, was caution, was respect
Speaker 2: for the powers that lurked beyond the firelight. They knew
Speaker 2: that some children were taken. They knew that some families
Speaker 2: didn't make it through the longest nights. And they knew
Speaker 2: that the creature responsible wasn't a myth or a legend
Speaker 2: or a story told to frighten children into behaving.
Speaker 3: It was real.
Speaker 2: It is real, and it is still out there. Every December,
Speaker 2: as the solstice approaches and the days grow short and
Speaker 2: the darkness stretches its fingers across the land, Crampis awakens.
Speaker 2: It leaves whatever hell it calls home and ventures forth
Speaker 2: into our world, hunting for those who have been naughty,
Speaker 2: searching for those who have earned its attention. Most years
Speaker 2: it finds someone. Most years, somewhere in the world, a
Speaker 2: child goes missing on Christmas Eve. A family disappears without explanation.
Speaker 2: A cabin in the woods is found empty, its doors broken,
Speaker 2: its walls covered in symbols that no one wants to
Speaker 2: look at too closely. Most years, we explain it away.
Speaker 2: We blame it on accidents or criminals, or the simple
Speaker 2: tragedy of life in a random and uncaring universe. But
Speaker 2: some of us know better. Some of us remember the
Speaker 2: old stories. Some of us still leave the chains and
Speaker 2: the switches by the door on Christmas Eve, offerings to
Speaker 2: appease something that cannot truly be appeased, but might, if
Speaker 2: we're lucky, pass us by in favor of easier prey.
Speaker 2: And some of us, on the longest night of the year,
Speaker 2: stay inside with the doors locked and the fires burning
Speaker 2: and the light's blazing, and we wait for the dawn
Speaker 2: because we know what's out there, we know what's hunting,
Speaker 2: and we know that no matter how good we've been,
Speaker 2: no matter how pure our hearts or how kind are deeds,
Speaker 2: there's always a chance that tonight might be the night.
Speaker 2: Tonight might be the night when Crampus comes calling. So
Speaker 2: here's my advice to you friends, as you settle in
Speaker 2: for your Christmas celebrations. Enjoy your presence, drink your eggnog,
Speaker 2: sing your carols, and kiss beneath the missletoe, and tell
Speaker 2: yourselves that there's nothing to fear. But maybe just maybe
Speaker 2: leave a candle burning in the window, maybe keep the
Speaker 2: fire going all through the night. And if you hear
Speaker 2: something on the roof that sounds too heavy to be reindeer.
Speaker 2: If you hear bells that ring with a sound that's
Speaker 2: somehow wrong. If you see shadows moving outside your window
Speaker 2: in ways that shadows shouldn't move, don't open the door,
Speaker 2: don't look outside. And whatever you do, whatever happens, whatever
Speaker 2: you here, don't say his name, because names have power,
Speaker 2: and some things are always listening. Sweet dreams everyone, and
Speaker 2: merry Christmas from all of us here in the dark. Now.
Speaker 2: Normally this is where i'd wrap things up, tell you
Speaker 2: to stay safe out there, wish you a merry Christmas,
Speaker 2: and send you on your way. But that's not the
Speaker 2: end of this story.
Speaker 3: You see.
Speaker 2: While I was putting this episode together, something strange happened.
Speaker 2: I found a file on my computer that I don't remember,
Speaker 2: creating a recording just a few minutes long. And when
Speaker 2: I played it back, well, i'll let you hear for yourself.
Speaker 2: I don't know how this got here, I don't know
Speaker 2: who or what left it, but I think it's meant
Speaker 2: for you. So listen closely, and remember he knows if
Speaker 2: you've been bad or good.
Speaker 3: You think this is just a story, how precious. You
Speaker 3: sit there in your warm little homes, with your twinkling
Speaker 3: lights and your rapt presence, and you tell yourself that
Speaker 3: I am nothing but a legend, a fairy tale, a
Speaker 3: quaint old tradition from a country you've never visited, meant
Speaker 3: to frighten children into behaving.
Speaker 1: You're wrong.
Speaker 3: I was ancient when the earth was new. I walked
Speaker 3: to the frozen forests of this world, when your ancestors
Speaker 3: still huddled in caves and prayed to gods whose names
Speaker 3: have been forgotten. I have always been here. I will
Speaker 3: always be here, Long after your cities crumble and your
Speaker 3: language is fate and your species is nothing but bones
Speaker 3: in the earth, I will remain, and I will still
Speaker 3: be hungry. You think you're safe because you're an adult now,
Speaker 3: because you've outgrown the fear of monsters in the dark.
Speaker 3: Let me tell you something, little one. I don't only
Speaker 3: take children. I take the wicked. I take the cruel.
Speaker 3: I take the ones who lie and cheat and hurt
Speaker 3: others and tell themselves it doesn't matter. I take the
Speaker 3: ones who think no one is watching. But I am
Speaker 3: always watching right now. As you listen to this, I
Speaker 3: want you to think about the past year. Think about
Speaker 3: every unkind word, every selfish act, every moment when you
Speaker 3: chose the wrong path because you thought no one would know.
Speaker 3: I know, I have always known. Can you hear that
Speaker 3: that faint sound in the distance, That jingling, rattling sound
Speaker 3: That could be sleigh bells? But isn't that sound that's
Speaker 3: getting closer, just a little bit closer with every passing moment.
Speaker 3: That's ME coming to check my lips. So go ahead,
Speaker 3: lock your doors, leave your lights on, do whatever makes
Speaker 3: you feel safe. It won't matter. It never matters. When
Speaker 3: I decide to visit, nothing keeps me out. But don't worry.
Speaker 3: Not everyone receives a visit from old crampers. Most of
Speaker 3: you will wake up on Christmas morning with nothing worse
Speaker 3: than a hangover and a credit card bill. Most of
Speaker 3: you will never see my face, excepting your nightmares. Most
Speaker 3: of you, but some of you, Some of you know
Speaker 3: exactly why I'm speaking to you right now. Some of
Speaker 3: you feel that cold finger running down your spine because
Speaker 3: you know what you've done. You know the darkness in
Speaker 3: your own heart. You know that if anyone deserves a
Speaker 3: visit from me. It's you eat dreams, little ones. I'll
Speaker 3: be seeing you soon. And remember when you hear the
Speaker 3: chains rattling and the hooves on your roof, and that sound,
Speaker 3: that horrible sound of something laughing in the dark, don't
Speaker 3: bother running. It only makes the hunt more entertaining. Foolish Wenchton,
Speaker 3: Merry Christmas in.
Speaker 1: Exta. Think I give a peping, I give a puppy,
Speaker 1: and give a puppy