Stories Fables Ghostly Tales

In the Dragnet episode titled "The Jewellery Theft," Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Frank Smith investigate a high-stakes robbery at a downtown jewellery store. The case begins when the store owner reports that a significant amount of expensive jewellery has been stolen, with no clear signs of forced entry. Friday and Smith interview store employees, customers, and nearby witnesses, slowly piecing together a complex puzzle.

As the investigation unfolds, they discover a web of insider connections, leading them to suspect that the crime was an inside job. Tensions rise as they work against the clock to catch the culprits before the stolen goods can be sold on the black market. The episode highlights the meticulous, methodical approach that Friday and Smith use to follow leads and build their case, ultimately leading to a dramatic conclusion where the thieves are caught just before making their getaway.

Major Trivia for this episode 💎💎💎

Dragnet's episode titled "Police Academy" follows Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Bill Gannon as they visit a police training facility. They’re tasked with addressing an array of new recruits on the realities of law enforcement, bringing their no-nonsense approach to the classroom. Throughout the episode, the recruits face intense physical training, classroom instruction, and simulated crime scenarios, while Friday and Gannon share stories from their years on the force.

The episode highlights the tension between idealism and the tough realities of police work. However, things take a turn when an unexpected incident during a training exercise puts everything they've been teaching to the test. Will the recruits measure up? And what lessons will they learn from their first real challenge?

Dragnet is, more and more, becoming my favourite of my Old Time Radio Episodes!

Also, I cannot imagine being in the LAPD back then - it's so dangerous now, let alone back then without easy communications, and a lack of backup!!!!!

Hope you loved today's episode legends!!! 👮‍♀️👮‍♂️👮Still in Japan but didn't want to leave you hanging!!! Much love mates!! 😍😍😍

About the Bloodroot Curse:

In the forgotten town of Grimsby, a deep and sinister secret lies beneath the earth, where the roots of an ancient, cursed tree have taken hold. A decade ago, Clara, a bullied girl who met a tragic and violent end, became the unwilling catalyst for the town's descent into madness. The chaos ghosts, born of Clara’s pain and the town’s guilt, feasted on the townsfolk, corrupting their  horrifying ways.

Now, ten years later, the cursed roots have spread far beyond Grimsby, poisoning the land and the water itself. When three curious teenagers—Kara, Lucas, and Jake—stumble upon the forgotten town, they unknowingly .  as soon as they arrive, they must fight to uncover the dark history of the town and the truth behind Clara’s death.

But the deeper they go, the more they realize that Grimsby’s horrors are far from over, and the cursed tree’s roots have yet to claim their final victims. Every shadow hides a monstrous form, and every whisper carries the echoes of long-dead children. The chaos is growing stronger, and the ghosts of the town will not let them escape easily.

Will the three friends find a way to destroy the curse before it consumes them too? Or will they become the next victims in a town where the dead do not rest?

LEGENDS This episode comes out AFTER the Amazing Lezza's birthday, but I've included the special audio created JUST for him, mainly because I feel that it's a good bit of a laugh, whilst honouring my friend, and his unending support.

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EPILOGUE - These are write ups, on each of the Ghosts encountered in Grimsby, I suggest reading AFTER you've listened to the story.

Epilogue: The Ghosts of Grimsby

Long after the events of that fateful night, the land surrounding Grimsby remained haunted, not by the living, but by the echoes of those who had been taken—innocent souls corrupted by a darkness they did not understand. Each ghost was bound to the town’s cursed roots, their fates twisted by their deaths and the chaos that followed. Their suffering became eternal, their forms grotesque, their methods of killing as horrific as the horrors they had endured in life.

Let us walk through the town one last time. Let us meet the ghosts of Grimsby, each with their own tale of torment, each shaped by the darkness that claimed them.

Clara — The Catalyst

Clara's death was the seed that planted Grimsby’s corruption. She was once a quiet, timid girl, driven to despair by the cruel taunts and bullying of her peers. When she died, her small body bled into the roots of the ancient tree, and that blood became the lifeblood of the chaos spirits that would eventually destroy the town.

In death, Clara’s spirit became one with the tree. Her form remained a small, frail child, but twisted by her sorrow and rage. Her skin was pallid, translucent, and the dark roots of the tree pulsed beneath her flesh, as if they had become part of her. Her eyes were wide, black voids that seemed to suck in the light, and her mouth—a gaping, grotesque wound—never moved, though her voice could still be heard in the minds of those who entered Grimsby.

Method of Death: Suffocation by Roots

When Clara sought vengeance, she did so slowly and methodically, just as the tree had spread its roots to choke the town. She would appear silently beside her victim, her tiny hands reaching out, her fingers elongating into dark, sinewy roots that wrapped around their throats. As her victims gasped for air, those roots would burrow into their mouths, down their throats, and deep into their lungs. They suffocated not from lack of air, but from the crushing weight of the roots as they filled their bodies from within. The roots would twist and coil until they burst through the skin, leaving the victim a broken, hollow shell.

Her revenge was precise—an extension of the torment she had felt as a child, suffocated by the cruelty of others. Her victims were left as empty husks, their bodies bent and twisted, consumed from the inside.

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Sam Turner — The Broken Jaw

Sam Turner had been the ringleader of the bullies who tormented Clara. When Clara’s blood awakened the chaos spirits, Sam was among the first to fall. But his death was slow and agonizing, his body twisted and broken in a way that mirrored the cruelty he had inflicted upon others.

In death, Sam’s ghost became a monstrous reflection of his living self. His jaw, which had once spat insults and commands, was unhinged and broken, hanging loosely from his skull. The bones in his arms and legs had been shattered, leaving him with limbs that hung at odd angles, grotesquely elongated. His skin sagged, barely clinging to the broken framework of his body, and every movement caused his bones to crack and shift unnervingly.

Method of Death: Shattering

Sam’s killing method was as brutal as his appearance. He would stalk his victims silently, his broken limbs dragging across the ground, the sound of splintering bones echoing in the air. Once close, he would lunge at them with unnatural speed, his arms and legs wrapping around them like a spider. His broken fingers would dig into their flesh, and with a sickening snap, he would begin to break them.

One by one, he would snap their bones—starting with their legs to keep them from running, then their arms, then their ribs. Each crack of bone was deliberate, each scream savouring, as Sam mirrored the feeling of breaking Clara down with his cruelty. The final act was always the jaw—he would grip their face and pull, dislocating the jaw in one brutal motion, leaving their mouths hanging open in a twisted, perpetual scream.

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Emily Greaves — The Bloated Woman

Emily Greaves had been a housewife in Grimsby, a woman who had been known for her vanity and cruel gossip. She had spread rumours about Clara’s family, rumours that only fuelled the girl’s torment. When the chaos ghosts came, Emily’s death was not swift—it was grotesque, her body bloating with the weight of her own malice.

In death, Emily’s ghost was swollen and misshapen. Her skin had turned a sickly shade of purple, stretched taut over her bloated body. Her face was a mass of festering sores, and her eyes bulged grotesquely from their sockets. Her belly hung low, distended and full of something dark and writhing beneath the skin. Her fingers were thick and clumsy, but they had grown long, blackened nails that dragged along the ground behind her.

Method of Death: Drowning in Flesh

Emily’s method of killing was as suffocating as her appearance. She would appear before her victims with slow, lumbering steps, her bloated form twitching with every movement. Her presence alone would induce a sense of suffocation, as if the air grew thick and impossible to breathe.

As she approached, her bloated belly would split open, releasing a wave of thick, dark fluid that smelled of rot and decay. The fluid would surge forward, swallowing her victim, trapping them in the viscous substance. They would struggle, scream, but it was no use. The more they thrashed, the faster they sank, their lungs filling with the putrid fluid until they drowned in it.

When Emily’s victims were finally claimed, their bodies were left floating in the dark pools of fluid, their skin bloated and discolored, much like Emily herself.

--

Mr. Aldridge — The Crawling Teacher

Mr. Aldridge had been a schoolteacher in Grimsby, strict and unkind, never missing an opportunity to punish Clara for being "different." His cruelty extended beyond words—he had struck her, humiliated her, even threatened her with expulsion. When the curse overtook the town, Aldridge’s fate was particularly grotesque.

In death, Mr. Aldridge became a crawling horror. His legs had been twisted and snapped backward, his knees bending the wrong way, forcing him to drag himself along the ground with his hands. His once-proud face had collapsed inward, his nose missing, his lips curled back in a rictus grin, revealing broken, jagged teeth. His eyes were gone, leaving empty, bleeding sockets, but he still moved with an unsettling certainty, as if he could see everything.

Method of Death: Paralysis and Dissection

Mr. Aldridge’s method was as slow and torturous as the lessons he had once inflicted. He would crawl toward his victims silently, his broken body moving with sickening speed. Once he reached them, he would paralyze them with a touch, his hands seeping an icy cold into their skin that left them frozen in place, unable to move or scream.

He relished in the slow process of their deaths. Aldridge would take his time, using his long, sharpened fingernails to peel away the skin, layer by layer. He would dissect his victims slowly, exposing muscle and bone while they remained paralyzed, their wide eyes filled with terror. His blind face would hover inches from theirs, savoring every moment of their agony.

The final cut was always to the spine. Once the victim had been reduced to a quivering, skinless mass, Aldridge would reach around to the back of their neck and snap their spine in one brutal motion, leaving them as limp and lifeless as a broken doll.

--

The Greaves Children — The Wailing Twins

The Greaves twins had been two of the cruellest children in Grimsby, much like their mother. They were the ones who had often orchestrated the worst of Clara’s bullying, hiding her things, pushing her down, and mocking her tears. When the curse fell upon the town, they met a fate they had never imagined.

In death, the twins became a single, grotesque entity. Their bodies were fused together at the torso, their legs twisted and tangled in a knot of flesh. Their arms had become thin, elongated, stretching far beyond the limits of what was human. Their faces were fused side by side, their mouths stretched wide in an eternal wail, their eyes bloodshot and bulging.

Method of Death: Entrapment and Evisceration

The Wailing Twins would begin by luring their victims with the sounds of laughter—innocent, childlike, but echoing eerily through the air. Once the victim was close, they would reveal themselves, their grotesque form crawling toward the person with unsettling speed.

Their arms, impossibly long, would wrap around the victim, pulling them into an embrace that was suffocating and inescapable. The twins’ combined strength was immense, and once they had their prey in their grasp, there was no escape. Their long, sharp fingers would dig into the flesh, tearing through muscle and bone, eviscerating the victim while they still struggled.

As the victim bled out, the twins would press their faces against the person's, their mouths still open wide in a wail that never stopped, forcing the last thing the victim saw to be the twisted, monstrous faces of the children they had once been.

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END OF EPILOGUE - I hope you absolutely LOVED the extra bits of information, and the story itself!!! Happy Birthday again Lezzaaa!!!🎂🎂🎂🎂 Hope you enjoy your Birthday song!!

🎂PUBLIC PATREON EPISODE WITH HIGHEST QUALITY AS A BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION 🎂

Why it was, that this episode inspired by Joseph Schroeder...

Legend's, our friend Joseph Schroeder asked me if I could narrate a tale involving zombies. Naturally I love zombies, and naturally I want to move mountains for my friends. So after much searching I was unable to locate a Public Domain or a story - so I decide to write one. This is in lieu of two Birthday's coming up that I would like to dedicate both upcoming stories to.  

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Beneath the Crimson Sky: Joseph Schroeder whose Birthday is on: October the 13th

The Bloodroot Curse: Lezza Bower whose Birthday is on: October the 3rd!

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With the the Amazing Matthew Bower dedication being worked on once I'm back from Japan (I'd never forget my pal you wonderful sausage!) 🌭

I've recently got access to some POWERFUL storytelling tools and I'm aiming to use those chops. So rest assured I'm going to be doing my utmost to push the envelope when I can - these two stories are a taste of what I'm working on, and stories designed by the Tale Teller 🔥Hope you love'em! I also will be putting up extra content to my Patreon Supporters where possible, and today's will be Beneath the Crimson Sky, "Skinner Descriptions". These epilogues will add extra details for all those that support the Podcast and just add that extra bit of flavour if you enjoy the story, and the world that it is set in.

Now, let's begin with going over Beneath the Crimson Sky:

The Plot:

"Beneath the Crimson Sky" follows Joseph Schroeder, a scientist trapped in a world ravaged by a mutated virus born from the Chernobyl disaster and the fallout’s radiation. When the outbreak hits his research facility, Joseph narrowly escapes the zombie-like infected, only to be  survivors called the Skinners—grotesque, half-dead beings who  decay. As Joseph fights to survive, he descends into the depths of an old facility where he discovers properties.

Joseph's journey explores themes of body horror, survival, and the grotesque cost of redemption in a dying world.

The next tale will be The Bloodroot Curse, and I have a little surprise heading your way Birthday Lezza!

FEEDBACK QUESTION - Would you rather me attach this as a separate document, or include it below as I have done in this post? Would LOVE to know which is more convenient.

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Epilogue: The Skinners

In the twisted annals of the apocalypse, few horrors stood out like the Skinners.

Once human, the Skinners were the result of a tragic confluence of two apocalyptic forces: the virus that had swept across the earth, and the unrelenting radiation that had poisoned the air, soil, and water for decades. Their origin lay in the radioactive wasteland, where the survivors of the initial outbreak sought refuge in the shadow of the abandoned facility. But instead of safety, they found something far worse—a grotesque form of survival that warped both body and mind.

The infection, born from a mutated strain of a virus that had once been confined to the irradiated zones, was slow at first. It didn’t kill its hosts outright like the faster, more violent versions that spread through the cities. This version festered, melding with the radiation, its effects creeping through the body, twisting the very fabric of flesh and bone. For those exposed to high levels of radiation, like the survivors near Chernobyl, the infection interacted with the isotopes buried in their cells, creating a new breed of horror.

The Skinners were not created overnight—they evolved in the crucible of that poisoned land.

The transformation begins with the skin—the first and most visible sign that something is horribly wrong. The infected’s flesh would start to bubble and swell, as though something beneath the surface was alive, trying to claw its way out. Black, necrotic veins would crisscross the body like dark rivers, pulsing unnaturally. The skin, which had once been pliable and human, became leathery and brittle in some places, stretched taut in others, splitting open to reveal glistening red muscle underneath.

The radiation acted like a perverse catalyst, hardening the skin into a grotesque armour. But it didn’t just protect; it disfigured. Limbs swelled unevenly, bones twisted and grew in jagged angles, poking out through the skin, making each Skinner a walking mass of scars, gashes, and protrusions. Their eyes, once windows to the soul, became bloodshot and sunken, their pupils dilating to the point of near-blindness. Their sense of sight degraded, replaced by a heightened sense of smell and hearing.

It was their skin, however, that became their defining feature. The Skinners would take the flesh of the dead—whether human, infected, or animal—and graft it to their own bodies. In their madness, they believed the freshly dead tissue would stave off their inevitable decay, that it could somehow absorb the rot and prolong their wretched lives. They used crude tools—rusted knives, shards of glass, anything sharp enough—to peel the skin from the fallen and stitch it onto their own decaying bodies, layering themselves in a patchwork of death.

The Skinners' most terrifying strength lay in their resilience. The radiation that had poisoned their cells also granted them an unnatural durability. Their skin, though stretched and twisted, had become as tough as leather, resistant to conventional weapons. Bullets could tear through their grafted patches of flesh, but it would take much more to drop them permanently. The dead tissue they grafted onto themselves didn’t rot the way it should. It bonded with their own, forming a crude second layer of skin, acting like a grotesque, organic armour.

Their twisted bodies, though deformed, were incredibly strong. Years of scavenging and brutal survival had reshaped their muscles, making them capable of feats of strength no ordinary human could manage. Their fingers, often wrapped in layers of dead skin and tissue, had morphed into claws, capable of rending flesh from bone with ease.

They moved with a speed that belied their bloated forms. While some shambled like the traditional infected, others—those further along in their mutation—had limbs so grotesquely elongated that they could sprint, charging at their prey with an inhuman grace. They used the tunnels, sewers, and ruins as their hunting grounds, navigating the darkness like feral creatures, their mutated senses guiding them toward the scent of living flesh.

But perhaps their most insidious strength was their adaptability. The Skinners thrived in areas saturated with radiation and infection. What would kill a normal human in minutes—the toxic air, the irradiated water—only strengthened them. They were drawn to these irradiated zones, often dragging their prey into the heart of such places, where the environment itself became a weapon.

But for all their strength and resilience, the Skinners were not invincible. Their very bodies, though grotesquely fortified, were also fragile in a way. The layers of dead skin, no matter how thickly applied, could not truly replace their own dying tissue. Underneath the patchwork of grafted flesh, their bodies continued to rot. If wounded deeply enough, they would bleed profusely, their necrotic blood black and thick like tar. A precise blow to their exposed muscles or severed arteries could bring them down.

Their grafting process—the crude stitching of dead skin to their bodies—wasn’t a perfect science. Often, the new flesh would reject the host, creating festering sores and open wounds that never fully healed. Infection, even in a world overrun by disease, still posed a threat to them. While their bodies were resistant to the viral strain that had initially ravaged the world, they were still vulnerable to the bacteria and other infections festering in the dead flesh they harvested.

Moreover, the Skinners’ reliance on their mutated senses came with a cost. They had sacrificed their eyesight almost entirely, relying on sound and smell to hunt. This made them vulnerable to distractions—loud noises, powerful scents, or bright lights could confuse them, sending them into disoriented frenzies.

Their greatest weakness, however, lay in their minds. Over time, the infection didn’t just warp their bodies—it broke their sanity. The longer they lived as Skinners, the more their minds deteriorated, consumed by the hunger and madness of the infected. They became more animalistic, driven only by the need to survive and consume. Gregor had been one of the last to maintain some semblance of intelligence, but even he had succumbed to the madness in the end.

The origins of the Skinners were tied to the outbreak of the virus itself, though their creation was a tragic accident of circumstance. When the virus mutated in the irradiated zones, it created a new strain that behaved differently than the fast-acting version that ravaged cities. The survivors who fled into the irradiated zones near Chernobyl believed they had escaped the worst of the infection. They had sealed themselves inside bunkers, hoping the thick radiation would keep the infected away.

But the virus, carried by the winds and dust, infiltrated their lungs and bloodstreams. It mutated inside them, interacting with the isotopes still lurking in their cells from years of exposure. The radiation didn’t kill the virus. It enhanced it, creating a new breed of infected—one that was slower, but far more resilient.

In their desperation to survive, these survivors began experimenting with grotesque methods to stave off their decay. Some believed that by grafting healthy, uninfected skin onto their bodies, they could slow the virus’s progress. But the process only accelerated their mutation, turning them into the Skinners—walking abominations, half-living, half-dead, scavenging the remains of the world for fresh flesh to sustain their pitiful existence.

-- I hope you all have loved this extra information -- 

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LEGENDS!!! Happppy Sunday you amaaazing Friendsss!! 😍🥰😍🥰

Mates today I'm fortunate to have a story of a very Goosebumpy style. We have aged folks being taken advantage off (really sad), KARMA combing back to bite people (really good!), and retribution of the most fitting kind (very good but in a bad way xD).

I hope you enjoy this audio-book style of reading of POPCORN written by Gaetan Battaglia! I had an absolute blast mates. If you have stories of your own, you're always welcome to send them on in as I love reading them.

For this episode I'm releasing it early for all members as a special for everyone to enjoy.

Over this current week I'll be spending time on creating 4 weeks of content for your lovely selves, and I'll be pushing hard to get as many stories out as I can - edited, updated, and ready for listening prior to heading off to Japan over the October break. I'll also try to include some remastered audio before heading off, and all in all, pulling all stops.

Should I have solid internet where I am in Japan, I might even be able to post some pics and let you know what I'm up to here. But legends I'll be in touch!!

Have a woooonderful week mates!! 🥰🥰🥰🥰🥰