Speaker 1: Calaroga Shark Media.
Speaker 2: Hello and welcome to Ghost Scary Stories and the Hunger.
This is episode one, the Invitation.
Speaker 1: I should have known something was wrong when Uncle Pete called.
He hadn't spoken to anyone in the family for fifteen years,
not since Grandma's funeral, when he accused us all of
being vultures picking at the bones. But there he was
on my voicemail October thirtieth, his voice shaky but urgent. Sarah,
it's Pete. I need you to come to the cabin
for Thanksgiving, the old place in frost Lake. I've been
restoring it and the family needs to be together, all
of us. It's important. Please come bring Emma November twenty
first through the twenty eighth, a proper week long Thanksgiving
like the old days. The old days, as if any
of us remembered those. The Brennan family cabin had been
abandoned since the nineteen fifties. Four generations of our family
had refused to use it, letting it rot in the
Minnesota woods. But Uncle Pete had inherited it through some
quirk of the will, and apparently he'd spent the last
two years bringing it back to life. Emma and I
drove up on November twenty, first, three days before Thanksgiving.
The last ten miles were on a logging road that
my GPS didn't recognize. The trees pressed in close, their
bare branches scratching the car like fingernails. This is horror movie. Stupid,
Emma said from the passenger seat. She was seventeen, too
smart for her own good isolated cabin, weird uncle, family reunion. Mum, Seriously,
he's not weird, I said, though I wasn't convinced. He's
just particular. The cabin appeared through the trees, like something
from a fairy tale or a nightmare. Three stories of
dark wood and stone, smoke rising from two chimneys, windows
glowing amber in the fading light. It was bigger than
i'd imagined. Grander, older cars were already there, five of them.
I thought we were early, Emma said. Uncle Pete met
us at the door. He looked good, better than I'd
ever seen him. The gaunt, angry man from the few
funeral had been replaced by someone robust, almost glowing with health.
His embrace was too long, too tight, Sarah, Emma, perfect timing.
The others are already settling in others I hadn't known.
Others were invited, the whole family, well, everyone who would come.
Your cousins Marcus and Dana, Aunt Patricia, your brother David.
David's here. I hadn't spoken to my brother in three years.
Come come, we're just starting dinner prep. The inside of
the cabin was overwhelming, dark wood paneling, mounted deerheads, oil
paintings of stern faced ancestors. It smelled of pine, sap,
and something else, something metallic. The kitchen was enormous, with
two stoves, both running. The counter was covered in food,
raw turkeys, six of them, pounds and pounds of beef,
whole chickens, more meat than twenty people could eat. Aunt
Patricia was at the stove, stirring a pot that could
have bathed a toddler. She looked up when we entered,
and her smile was too wide. Sarah, you made it.
We were worried you wouldn't come. Why would you worry?
I said? The weather, She interrupted, storm coming in. Big
one might be here all week. She laughed, high and strange.
My cousin Marcus was chopping vegetables with mechanical precision. Chop, chop, chop.
He didn't look up Marcus. I touched his shoulder. He flinched.
When he turned his eyes were bloodshot. Sarah good, more hands,
more mouths more, Oh what? Nothing?
Speaker 2: Tired?
Speaker 1: Been cooking all day? David emerged from what looked like
a pantry carrying another turkey. My brother, who I'd last
seen storming out of my apartment after a fight about
mum's estate, set down the bird and hugged me. Sis,
glad you're here, really glad. Everyone was being too nice,
too welcoming, as if they'd rehearsed it. Emma pulled me aside, Mom,
what's with the meat museum? Are we feeding an army?
I don't know. Dinner was bizarre. We sat at a
long table that could seat twenty Uncle Pete at the head,
the rest of us scattered along the sides. The food
was good, too good, tennison stew, fresh bread, roasted vegetables.
But everyone ate mechanically, eyes on their plates. So I tried, Pete,
the restoration is amazing. How did you sh He held
up his hand. Listen. We all froze outside, wind through trees,
a branch scraping the roof, and something else, A sound
like breathing, but bigger deeper. Just the wind, Pete said,
after a moment, just the wind. After dinner, Pete showed
us to our rooms, third floor, under the eaves. The
stairs creaked with every step. Stay inside after dark, he said,
lock your doors, don't go to the root cellar, and
if you hear anything unusual, just ignore it. Unusual like
what Emma asked. Pete's smile faltered. Frost Lake has wildlife, bears, wolves,
They get curious about the cabin sometimes. Our room had
two beds with quilts that smelled of cedar. The window
overlooked the forest. As I unpacked, Emma stood at the glass,
mom look. I joined her. Below. Uncle Pete was walking
the perimeter of the cabin with a flashlight, but he
wasn't looking out at the forest. He was looking up
at the walls, running his light along the logs methodically,
like he was searching for something. That's when I saw them,
even from the third floor, even in the moving beam
of his flashlight, scratches deep gouges in the wood, starting
about ten feet up and going higher, like something had
tried to climb recently. What could do that? Emma whispered.
Before I could answer, Pete's flashlight beams swung up to
our window. He saw us watching. For a moment, nobody moved.
Then he waved, smiled, pointed at the lock on our
window and mind turning it. We locked the window. I
didn't sleep well. The cabin made sounds, settling, creaking, breathing.
Around two am, I heard footsteps in the hall, slow deliberate.
They stopped at our door. The handle turned slightly. It
was locked. The footsteps moved on. At three am, something
scraped against the outside wall, long deliberate scratches. I lay frozen, listening.
Emma was awake too, I could tell by her breathing. Mom,
it's just a tree. I lied. In the morning, I
found Uncle Pete on the porch, coffee in hand, staring
at the forest. He looked exhausted. Couldn't sleep, I asked,
never can this time of year, Pete. What's going on?
Why did you really invite us here? He was quiet
for so long I thought he wouldn't answer. Then the
cabin has requirements, traditions, things that need to be observed.
What kind of traditions, old ones, family ones? He turned
to me and his eyes were desperate. Sarah, I need
you to trust me. I need everyone to stay calm,
stay together, and follow the rules. After Thanksgiving you can
all leave. But until then, until then, what he stood
walked to the edge of the porch. In the daylight,
I could see more scratches everywhere, some old painted over,
some fresh raw wood showing through. Until then we feed
the family tradition. Pete, you're scaring me. Good, you should
be scared, But not of me. He pointed at the
tree line. It comes at night, has been coming since
I started the restoration. At first I thought I was
imagining it. Then I found great great grandfather Josiah's journal,
learned about the winter of eighteen seventy four, about what
he did, about what he created, created, not created. Woke
up federal started something that can't be stopped, he laughed, bitter.
You know, our family used to be thirteen members, bigger
back in eighteen seventy four, But after that winter, only
Josiah and his immediate family were left. The others disappeared
a crack from the forest. We both turned nothing there,
but the birds had gone silent. It's hungry, Pete whispered,
And it's coming for Thanksgiving dinner, just like it has
every year since eighteen seventy four. The family that forgot
to feed it. They didn't survive to tell anyone. But
we're going to feed it. We're all going to sit
down to dinner on Thursday, and we're going to feed it.
And then maybe maybe it'll let the rest of us
leave feed it. What Pete looked at me with hollow eyes,
What do you think all that meat is for? But
I knew down in that part of your brain that
recognizes danger before you consciously understand it. I knew the
meat wasn't for us. And looking at how much there
was enough to feed fifty people, I had to ask
Pete how big is it? He didn't answer. He just
pointed at the scratches, the ones that went all the
way up to the roof, thirty feet high. Big enough,
he said, and getting bigger every year. That night, at dinner,
as we sat around the table with our forced smiles
and nervous chatter, I noticed something new. Place settings for
people who weren't there empty chairs that Uncle Pete wouldn't
let us move. Family tradition, he said. When Dinah asked,
we set places for those who came before, but after dinner,
when everyone had gone to bed, I counted the empty
settings thirteen, the exact number who disappeared in eighteen seventy four.
And at the head of the empty places, scratched into
the beautiful old wood of the table, were two words,
still hungry. Tomorrow, Uncle Pete promised he'd show us the journal,
show us what happened in eighteen seventy four, show us
why we all needed to be here. But tonight, lying
in bed, listening to Emma's nervous breathing and the sound
of something large moving through the forest circling the cabin,
I wondered if we'd all live long enough to feed
whatever was coming for Thanksgiving dinner, or if we were
the dinner ghost.
Speaker 2: Scary Stories is a production of Calaoga Shark Media. Some
elements of AI may have been used in this production,
but it was written, edited, mixed, and produced by Real
Live People. Executive producers Mark Francis and John McDermott.