Day 3 - The Last Pumpkin on Briar Row & Something Special for Halloween

Creepy

This episode of Creepy presents two distinct Halloween-themed creepypastas that explore the supernatural consequences of seasonal traditions and retail opportunism. The first story, 'The Last Pumpkin on Briar Row,'

Key takeaways

• Yanina Litt's 'The Last Pumpkin on Briar Row' features a tenant who receives a note instructing them to leave an uncarved pumpkin whole and return it before midnight.
• The pumpkin in the first story splits open to reveal a dirt-lined staircase leading to a room of hundreds of jack-o'-lanterns with moving carved mouths.

Main topics

• Halloween folklore and traditions
• Supernatural replacement rituals

Notable quotes

"Do not carve this one. Leave it whole. Bring it back before midnight."

Conclusion

Listeners seeking atmospheric Halloween horror will appreciate how bot

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:00) I'm John Grylls from Creepy, and I listen to the Be Afraid Podcast Network. Creepy Presents The 31 Days of Horror Day 3 Speaker 2 (0:12) No. Speaker 3 (0:19) This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous, chilling, and disturbing creepypastas and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened or are simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. Speaker 2 (0:58) Well that Speaker 1 (0:59) was Speaker 2 (0:59) definitely an interesting take on the Headless Horseman. A little dirtier than what we usually go for, but still. Thanks for the effort, Paula. Next up, we have John Gritz. Speaker 2 (1:15) Close enough. Not going to be easy following erotica, but I was thinking about that tradition y'all have about carving pumpkins or turnips, and I thought I might tell you about my own experiences with something like that that just happened. It's called The Last Pumpkin Speaker 3 (1:32) on Briar Row. Speaker 2 (1:39) Every Halloween, the people on Briar Row leave one pumpkin uncarved. It sits on the curb at the dead end, turned toward the woods, with no candle inside and no face cut into it. Kids make jokes about it during the day. Nobody touches it after sundown. I used to think that was just one of those neighborhood rules people kept because grandparents kept it. Then I spent my first October in the little blue rental at the corner, and I learned what the last pumpkin was for. I noticed the pumpkin on the afternoon of the 13th. It was huge, too wide for one person to lift, and the color of a bruise under orange skin. Someone had set it on a flattened bed of leaves, with its pale stem aimed at my porch. A paper grocery bag sat beside it. Inside were a tea light, a kitchen knife with a black handle, and a folded note. The note had been written in thick marker. Do not carve this one. Leave it whole. Bring it back before midnight. I should have ignored it. That's what I tell myself now. and it's true enough to hurt. But Halloween makes foolish things feel planned. The air smells like wet leaves and sugar wrappers. Porch decorations lean and grin. Even an empty street seems to be waiting for applause. I carried the bag inside and left the pumpkin where it was, because the note had not asked me to move it yet. At dusk, every porch on Briar Row went dark, except mine. That was when I saw the second note. It had been slipped under my door, though I had been sitting ten feet away and heard nothing. And this one said, no candy, no masks, no visitors. When the knocking starts, do not answer. Speaker 2 (3:35) I read it twice. Then I looked through the front window. The street was empty. Plastic ghosts twisted from mailboxes. The uncarved pumpkin sat at the dead end, bigger than before. Its shadow stretched across the pavement like spilled ink. The first knock came at 7.15. It was small and polite, the kind made by a child in gloves. I stood behind the door with one hand over my mouth, although I had no reason to be quiet. The porch boards creaked. Something brushed against the welcome mat. After a minute, a candy wrapper slid through the mail slot and landed on the floor. It was old and faded, with a price printed in cents. It smelled like basement dust. More knocks followed. Some were high, some were low. Some slow enough I could feel them in my teeth. None of them came with voices. None came with footsteps leaving afterward. The wrappers piled up by the door. Not just candy, but ticket stubs. School pictures cut into strips. Birthday candles melted to nubs and little curled pieces of fingernail. Each thing looked abandoned by a different year. Each thing smelled faintly of the woods. At nine, my porch light went out. I hadn't touched the switch. The house dropped into a darkness that seemed crowded, as if every corner had filled with someone holding a breath. I lit the tea light from the grocery bag because it was the only candle I had. The flame burned green for a second. In that green flash, I saw the pumpkin at the dead end turn a little. not roll. Turn. It faced my house straight on. That was enough. I grabbed the knife, not because I meant to carve anything, but because it felt better than holding nothing. Speaker 2 (5:31) Outside, Briar Row smelled wrong. Not rotten, exactly. More like the inside of a pumpkin after the seeds had been scooped out and left in a warm sink. The jack-o'-lanterns on nearby porches had all changed. Their faces were no longer triangles and crooked smiles. They were the same face, copied again and again, with round eyes and a mouth open too wide. I knew that face. Not from any person I remembered clearly, but from a photograph taped inside the grocery store window every October. Missing. Last seen Halloween night. There were several of those posters in town, old enough that the paper yellowed around the tape. Everyone passed them without reading. Everyone accepted them as part of the season, like cider and fake spiderwebs. The pumpkins had made masks of the missing, and all of them were watching the dead end. I walked with the uncarved pumpkin. That sounds brave, but it wasn't. It felt like being pulled by a hook set behind my ribs. Each step made the knife warmer in my hand. A paper bag crackled in my pocket, though I'd left it on the kitchen table. When I reached the curb, the huge pumpkin split by itself from stem to base. The sound was soft and wet, almost gentle. Inside wasn't pulp. Inside was a narrow staircase packed with dirt. roots hung from the walls. Candle smoke drifted upward, carrying that sweet, burnt smell of Halloween night after the fun has ended and streets are full of crushed candy. Speaker 2 (7:18) I should have run. I know that. But there are moments when fear stops being a warning and becomes a set of instructions. Speaker 2 (7:28) I climbed down. At the bottom, I found a room lined with jack-o'-lanterns. Hundreds of them sat on shelves dug into