Part One: Halloween Special: Spooky Stories

of coffee? Spot it and that episode covers everything that people who I don't know people might have already heard it, but if they, if you haven't, I should go out and listen to it because it covers everything about like how the problem was formed, basically everything that's wrong with capitalism, and almost all of the ideas about how we get out of that problem, which usually involves like supporting worker cooperatives in the global South.

be thorough if I'm gonna do something for y'all. So like I I and it was like something that you know, obviously I'm like super passionate about it. But you're right, it's like here's here's a microcosm of all that's wrong with capitalism, colonialism, right, consumerism, you know, all of it, and then the solution being the shit we've been trying to say is the solution the whole time just yeah, cooperates fort each other. Stop seeing people as resources.

you said. So just in game one while we were winning beautiful, we just he was like, oh my god, he called a timeout like I already love you. Just air missing they won and they won.

people like me get murdered all the time. It doesn't sound fun, you know. And then eventually I realized that actually most horror movies are me murdering people instead. Because I moved into like a black cabin in the middle of the woods.

is you're not supposed to turn thirty. It was a personal failure on my part, the kind of personal failure that meant the ghouls of New Orleans were after me. The night air was alive with the usual white noise of gunshots and fireworks, and I stalked the cemetery, bouquet in hand, past row after row of people who died young. Some were at rest in their own above ground tombs,

others had been crammed into mausoleums. No one ever seemed to ask why so many gutter rats and punks were buried in relative luxury in a private graveyard within city limits. We humans are a relatively non curious species. On the whole. I laid thirteen white roses on Deirdre's grave. Deirdre didn't like flowers, but I like flowers. What she doesn't like doesn't matter, because she's dead, dead and eaten. Everyone I've

ever loved, really loved, not the like. The requisite and insincere love of child for parent was laid out within one city blocks worth of marble and cement. Janelle Mariette Thompson nineteen ninety to two thousand and nine, the girl I came to New Orleans for who broke my heart by deciding she was straight after all. She died drunk on a freight train before I had the chance to forgive her, before I had the chance to tell her there was nothing to forgive. Erica Freeman nineteen eighty eight

to twenty thirteen, the next straight girl after Janelle. We stayed friends. We played in three bands together. The last one was Dead Girl, Suicide on stage, Blood on the Crowd. I haven't forgiven her. Jorge Jefferson dead at twenty. Marcel Smith made it to twenty four, Damian Polanski twenty eight, Robert Lance, Heather Maria twenty three, each of them, Susie Hamilton and Suzanne Lanover never saw twenty. Deirdre Hanson nineteen

ninety two to twenty eighteen. I was so sure she was straight that she had to hit on me for a year before I let her kiss me. The year is a long time for people like us. The ghoul Sworn. We finally kissed down on the levee at a place called the End of the World. We were old then already. I was twenty four and it was her twenty third birthday, and what I got her was goods and services from our sponsors. That's what you get. Ooho, yo, wild you.

flat and I was feeling lazy. So she'd died without me, and the Ghules put her here and every year on the anniversary of her death, their back at her corpse for another little bit of her soul. A knuckle here, a femur there. They eat bones and they live forever. And Deirdre was dead, like all of us. Ghulesworn were supposed to be while we were still young, and our essence was still strong in our marrow. There I was alive. It wasn't long until dawn until the ghules would rise

with the sun and haunt me. Haunt me. Already, dogs were howling, already, there was light on the horizon. One day soon I'd be and the words Mary Walker were going to be carved into stone. People go to New Orleans to die. I didn't want to die anymore. I had to get going. I had to track down ghosts and rumors of those who'd escaped. I left the flowers for Deirdre. Fuck you, Deirdre, Fuck you for dying. It

was Janelle who'd offered me the bargain. This would have been where I should have done the ad transit anyway.

outlived every derelict building I've ever known. Y'all go hard down here, I told her, after an evening that involved stealing drugs from a dealer, consuming those drugs, trying and failing to steal more drugs from the same dealer, and a roving party that moved through the darker bits of the city with a generator and a sound system and a shopping cart. Revelry had followed us like a cloud

overhead dancing debauchery. Sobriety was creeping up on me unwanted, like a fever, and I wasn't entirely sure how we'd made it back from the party to our tarped off overhang on that rooftop. I was eighteen. I don't know how to describe being eighteen, but you either remember it yourself or you might live long enough to know. You want to hear why, Janelle asked, Yeah, we can't go to jail. What it's gonna sound crazy? She said, bitch, I was born for crazy. Worse than that, I can't

tell you everything unless you join us. Whatever she was going to say, I already knew I was going to go along with it. I thought the sun shone out of that girl's asshole. I would have followed her into a wood chipper. Oh to be eighteen again. What's it involved? I asked, a permanent get out of jail free card. Cops will look the other way, the courts will look the other way. In exchange, you gotta die before you're thirty, like someone will kill me, not unless you turn thirty.

I didn't expect to turn thirty anyway. The way the world was and is who does survival didn't really seem possible, so I refused to prioritize it. I'm in that morning as a ketamine hangover started in on me. Janelle took me to meet the Ghules for the first time. The hot winter sun bore down on me, but I kept my hood up, as if a ratty black hoodie offered me any sort of anonymity or protection. In the kangaroo pocket, I fingered my revolver snubnose. Shit for most purposes, good

for killing someone, point blank, good for killing myself. I walked through the Upper Ninth and everything was weathered wood and smiling people. Somewhere in the distance I heard the horns and drums of a second line. This is a city that knows how to celebrate death whenever. The Ghules were going to catch me. When not if because I was too much of a coward to hold that smith and wesson to my temple. They weren't gonna kill me so much as they were gonna let me die. I've

been to their dungeons. You lived a twenty five as a ghule sworn, and they tap you for work down there, sometimes, probably just to remind you of their power, probably just to remind you to get on with dying. They were gonna hang me from chains, and they were gonna cut me open and remove every bone from my body, one by one. They were gonna crack me open to the marrow. They were gonna let me watch. It wouldn't work to run.

The Ghules owned the legal system inside and out. As soon as I'd turned thirty, they'd set me up as convicted of every crime they'd ever got me off of. Once I got popped, there'd be someone in my cell willing to take a full pardon in exchange for a knife in my guts. I turned the corner and saw the levee all handsome and full of birds. A few dogs ran off leash, while a few happy people passed a bottle on the grass. My finger found the trigger, and I know it's bad, but I let it sit.

There no safety on that thing besides the hard pull of a double action. I needed to die. I didn't want to die. They live forever, and I was only going to live a few more minutes or hours or days. A seagull landed on the concrete ruin under its feet in red spray paint. Someone had tagged the devil let us. I stopped and watched that bird, because it was beautiful, because it was worth the risk. After some time, it

flew off, and I went back to walking. Desmond lived in a little fortress of an apartment in the heart of a massive ruined factory, up on the fourth floor. If you want a view of the water, or of the city, or really just to see the sun or the sky at all, you've got to leave that safety and walk a few hundred yards across trash and needles and rubble to look out any windows. Desmond says, the privacy is worth it. Desmond is only twenty two, but

he's been sworn for a decade already. He's second generation. His mother hanged herself when he was fourteen. I gutted his father in an alley because I blamed him for his mother's death. I might have been right. Ever since, Desmond has been one of my best friends. He undid about fifteen locks and alarms in active defense systems to let me into his place. At least three or four million dollars in stolen lab equipment was barricaded inside. Didn't think I'd be seeing you again, he told me, from

where he lay on a ragged couch. His pupils had eclipsed the brown of his eyes. His black skin glistened with sweat. Despite the relative cool of the room. I wasn't sure what he was on, But then again I was never sure what he was on. A vape pen dangled loose in his hand. The whole place was bathed in dim lavender light. Even the dozens of led indicator lights had been modified to glow pale purple. The walls were wallpapered with flat screens. Most were broken. Some were

playing a carry Grant film. I perched on a milk crate stool across from him. What do you want dead? Girl. He didn't turn his face to look at me. You can't hide out here. Won't work out for either of us. You give a shit about danger. He took a drag and let out a cloud of vapor. It smelled like jasmine. Desmond scent coated his drugs. But I didn't remember there

being a jasmine one. I guess not, he said. His hands dug into the ragged upholstery, tensing and releasing of their own volition, and he gasped as something course through his veins. I can give you something to get out for good, he said, after his body came back under his control. Painless euphorick. Even Danny took some last week, said it was pleasant before she went under. I'm not trying to die, I said. Life is a death sentence. Not trying to die. Desmond turned his head and only

his head to look at me. His eyes seemed to glow in the light. It's too late, dead girl, you know that right. He turned back toward the ceiling. Avery got out, I said. Avery was an old gender queer punk who haunted ghoul sworn bars talking to No One two years back, twenty nine years old. They'd disappeared. I hadn't seen their grave, and I hadn't seen them in the dungeons, dead in the swamps. Desmond said, Gator's got to eat too. That's not what I hear, I said,

I hear you deal to them sometimes. I hear you know where they are. He took another drag and convulsed and filled the room with the scent of flowers. When did you go coward? He asked? Wanting to live makes me a coward. No, wanting to live makes you a hopeless, idiotic optimist. Going to ground makes you a coward. It's that or what just die?

When she thought it was gonna work, the only way to hurt them I can think of is to starve them out. We all assumed they go hungry without us, though there wasn't any proof. If they ain't eating you, they'll be eating somebody else. He took another hit. This time the convulsions kept going for a full thirty seconds. You gotta try this, he said, offering me. The vape

doesn't have a name yet. It's a fast acting upper shuts down your motor control intense while it's happening, but fuck, when you come down, you come down solid, feel like yourself. I'm good, I said, Live a little, he said, then smiled at his own joke. I'm good. Here's what you do, he said. I got it figured out. Let me kill you, which, let's be real, you should let me do anyway, because you killed my dad. Only fair. Then there's an old cement mixer in here. I'll in case your body drop

you in the river. I get to kill you, you get to die, and gules don't get to eat you. Everybody's happy except the ghules. Fuck them.

We are, Desmond agreed. I'm not killing you. You killed yourself a long time ago when you swore a pact with demons. This is me just helping another friend not make a rash decision. Shooting so some one is always a rash decision. The panic attack hit like a wall of sound, and it made me question my resolve. Death felt preferable to panic. Three, he counted. He raised the gun in both hands and aimed it at my temple for a man stone beyond reason. He held it steady.

I wanted to vomit. Two I still wanted to live. I tensed my legs under me. One I sprung at the ground. He fired, missed. My ears rang. I shot upright, closed on him, wrenched the gun from his hand, held it to his temple. A dead girl. We're friends, he spoke, loud like he could barely hear himself, which was probably the case. My ears rang, Tell me where to find avery, I said, just as loud. I won't tell you anything when you got a gun to my head, he said,

matter a principle. He was right. I dropped the mag and cleared the chamber. He lifted his vappen and I flinched. He took another drag, a tiny one. His hands clenched and unclenched. I sat next to him on the couch and he passed me the vape. I took a hit, and my panic intensified for a second before it dropped away entirely. I was as calm as I'd ever been. Sometimes that's the way through panic, same as danger. Don't

hide from it, embrace it. Avery's in the swamps, Desmond said, and they're not dead because they've been living off of the goods and services that support our podcast, including various things that you can go vape. I don't know if vape sponsor us or not. If they do, don't do it. Yeah. If there are drugs that are being advertised, you should trust your friends about drugs more than you should trust ads.

all directions by trees. I parked at their dock, climbed a few stairs, and knocked at their door. They answered in aviators, A real tree punk vest and tight black pants. They looked exactly like I'd seen them perched at that bar every night for years, except they were paler than I remembered, and they had a shotgun pointed at my belly. Fuck you want Mary Walker to live? I said, go away? How'd you do it? How'd you survive? I ain't survived, for shit, not yet. I only got a year on you.

That makes you the oldest ghulsworn I've ever heard of. I said. They couldn't hide their pride. When I said that, look, can I come in just talk to you? We can talk out here. They stepped outside and closed the door. There were no windows. We sat on the dock, feet dangling over. Their fingernails and toenails were painted the blue of dead flesh. They spent a good moment lost in thought. Maybe we can help each other. They said, we'd never been friendly. Avery and I. Avery hadn't any friends as

long as I'd known them. Rumors said they lost most of theirs in a gang fight and never bothered finding new ones. So why the swamps? You know they're afraid of water. What I've spent the last two years studying the fucking things learned an awful lot. They need sunlight to function. They're not just cold blooded, they're unblooded. They're afraid of water, not because they'd drowned they can't, but because they'd run out of energy down there where the

sun can't reach. It's over for them. Torpor forever. You're in the swamps, because if you see them coming, you sink their boats. Bingo. That's it. Then just hide in the swamps by yourself, only come out at night. Let me tell you how to stay alive, Mary Walker. You cling to life. You claw at it until your fingers bleed.

You tell yourself every time you take a breath that you're going to live to take another one, that you will live forever, no matter what it takes, no matter how much it hurts, no matter how much you hurt anyone else. You sound like a ghoul in the distance. Some animal called out like a human, quietly screaming. They weren't always ghules. They became ghules, each of them individually. How I asked, you know how the marrow of the gul sworn. There's more to it than that, but it's

mostly the marrow of the ghul sworn. All the gulls were once ghul sworn, how can that work? I don't know, Avery said, it's the chicken in the egg. Chickens though they eat eggs. Avery was going to try and kill me. They were going to try to eat my bones. I put my hands in the pocket of my hoodie and felt the revolver. I've told you how I survived. Avery said. Their shotgun was in their lap, and they rested their

hand on the grip. Now you can help me. For a half second, I considered waiting for them to move to prove their intentions.

You want me to put you down. We sat on the roof of his squatted factory. The moon was waning in the sky above us. I couldn't see many stars, not as many as I'd seen paddling out from the swamp with a stack of Avery's notebooks piled in the canoe. But the lights of the city are stars of their own. Each one holds a mystery and the promise of life. No, not that part, I said. You were right about not

clinging to life so desperately. That's the ghoul's life. I'd rather I wasn't caught up in any of the shit at all. Sure, but I'd still rather be ghulesworn than be a ghoul. That's my dead girl, Desmond said. He took a drag from his pen. The air smelled like rose. What's that one, I asked, Basically, just speed, he said, has a worse come down than speed, though I'm still working on it. You want to hit you're not selling it well, So what's the plan If you're not gonna

let me kill you? But you're supposedly not afraid of death anymore. Let's kill ghules, I said, How the fuck do you kill ghoules? You got a cement mixer, right, Yeah, it's not me. We're going to drop into the river, I said. I like the way you think, dead girl, stop calling me dead girl. I'll stop calling you that when you're dead, which sounds like it'll be tomorrow. Yeah, that's about my guess. If we're dead tomorrow, want to get wrecked tonight? I took one long last look at

the stars of the city. Yeah, I said, yeah, I do. And that's the story.

people who died afterwards. But it was just such a like, oh, yeah, like this shit's hard. Yeah yeah, oh man, and so so yeah, no, this is my this is my my grand metaphor for how a lot of people don't think they're going to live to be old.

is a douchebag frat boy like that, you know. And and he's not even like a cool one. Yeah, Sometimes douchebag frat boys you could be like they're kind of cool.

I'll be posting those dates and or saying them on the show. Want to get them figured out, and we'll see you all on Wednesday. Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website. Foolzonemedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.