Scout's Warning

Ever wondered what happens when the supernatural collides with the everyday heroism of a loyal pet? Prepare yourself as Carmen Carrion leads you through the eerie happenings in Oak Grove Cemetery, where an ordinary Belgian Malinois named Scout faces a sinister new reality. A toxic spill awakens ancient horrors beneath the earth, and Scout's supernatural instincts kick into high gear, alerting him to the unnatural danger threatening his beloved Martinez family. As the ground heaves with the restless dead, Scout's unwavering loyalty and bravery become the family's last hope against the encroaching menace.<br><br>As the nightmare spreads, Scout's world begins to unravel in the chilling chapter "The Transformation in the Basement." Familiar faces and cherished pets undergo grotesque metamorphoses, turning a once peaceful neighborhood into a realm of chaos and fear. The danger hits home when young Nina, a member of Scout's family, starts transforming right before their eyes. In this gripping tale of terror, Scout stands alone in recognizing the threat, summoning every ounce of courage to shield his family from the insidious forces reshaping their world. Join us for a tale that casts loyalty and instinct into the heart of supernatural dread, where every shadow holds a potential nightmare.

Chapters

• 0:01 Carmen's Crypt
• 11:28 The Transformation in the Basement

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome restless souls to Carmen's Crypt. I'm Carmen Carrion, keeper of forgotten tales and curator of nightmares. You've wandered into my domain where each week, I unearth a fresh horror from the depths of human imagination. In these darkened halls, stories wait like hungry shadows. Each tale. We've collected whispers of terrors, both ancient and new, from crumbling mansions where something skitters behind the walls to that strange text message you received at 3am from a number that shouldn't exist. So gather close, the candles are lit, the shadows grow long and the witching hour is upon us. Are you prepared to face what lurks in the darkest recesses of Carmen's Crypt? Lock your doors, still your nerves and remember here every fear comes alive. This is Carmen's Crypt. Your sanctuary of scares awaits.

Speaker 1: 1:04

Scout knew 67 words in human speech. Most were simple things like sit, stay and good boy, but he understood more complex concepts too, especially protect and family. The Martinez pack had chosen him from the shelter three years ago, when he was just a yearling Belgian Malinois with too much energy and a fierce drive to guard. They didn't know that his military working dog bloodline had given him something extra an almost supernatural awareness of wrong things, of dangers that normal dogs might miss. He had proven himself. The night he caught an intruder trying to break in through Lucas' window, and again when he dragged Nina away from a downed power line in the backyard. But those threats had been simple, natural things. His training could handle things that made sense in a world of normal shadows and everyday monsters.

Speaker 1: 2:01

Now, as Scout lay on his bed in the corner of Lucas's room, ears pricked toward the distant sound of sirens, he caught a scent on the wind that made his primitive brain howl in warning Something was coming, something that violated every natural law. Every instinct bred into his bones, and this time teeth and muscle and loyal heart might not be enough to save his pack from what was rising from the corruption-soaked earth of Oak Grove Cemetery. But Scout would die trying. That's what good dogs do. Scout's nose woke him first. The night air flowing through the bedroom window carried something that made his hackles rise, a scent that shouldn't exist in his territory Artificial Sharp. It burned the soft tissue inside his nostrils like invisible fire. His eyes snapped open, head lifting from his post at the foot of Lucas's bed. The wrongness pulled him to the window. Below his pack's yard lay bathed in moonlight, but below their fence red and yellow light strobed through the trees near Oak Grove Cemetery, the strange smell grew stronger, carrying undertones of scorched rubber and something else, something that made his stomach quench with primitive warning. A low whine escaped his throat. Lucas stirred but didn't wake. Good, the pup needed his sleep.

Speaker 1: 3:30

Scout's claws clicked softly on the hardwood as he padded downstairs, squeezing through the dog door Miguel had installed last summer. The night air hit him like a wall of needles. The massive thing that had brought the wrong smell lay on its side across Maple Street, its silver skin gleaming wetly in the emergency lights. Scout knew trucks. They regularly rumbled past the house, but this one was different. Warning symbol Scout didn't understand decorated its flanks and from its ruptured belly poured a liquid that moved wrong. Scout's sensitive eyes caught the way it seemed to crawl rather than flow, how it sought out the lowest points in the ground with an almost hungry purpose. The fluid cast its own light, a sickly green phosphorescence that made his fur stand on end. Worse was how it smelled like death and lightning and rotten eggs all at once, with an underlying sweetness that reminded him of the time Nina's chocolate milk had spoiled. Men in bulky suits that covered their entire bodies were spraying foam on the spill, but they couldn't stop all of it.

Speaker 1: 4:42

Scout watched in horror as rivulets of the glowing liquid found the old drainage channels that led to the cemetery. His keen ears picked up the sound of it eating through ancient iron grates, a hissing, bubbling noise that seemed to carry whispers. The cemetery soil drank the poison eagerly. Scout could hear it seeping down, down, down past roots and rocks, past the wooden boxes humans buried their dead in. But worst of all was the change in the earth's scent. The rich loam smell that had always marked this territory was transforming into something chemical and wrong. And underneath that wrongness, scout's sensitive nose detected something else, movement Deep below the surface. Things that should lie still forever were beginning to stir. A new sound made his ears prick forward the subtle grinding of old bones shifting in their graves. The sound was too soft for human ears, but to Scout it was as clear as breaking glass. He backed away from every instinct-screaming danger. The chemical light was seeping up now through tiny cracks in the oldest graves, casting strange shadows that seemed to reach for him with hungry fingers. The wind shifted, bringing him a blast of pure wrongness that made him gag Rot and chemicals and something else, something that spoke to the deepest part of his brain Of territory violated and pack threatened, scout turned and ran for home, his paws barely touching the ground. He had to get back to his pack, had to guard them because somehow he knew that whatever was awakening in those poison-soaked graves would soon be hunting for fresh meat to join its twisted resurrection. Behind him in the depths of Oak Grove Cemetery, the earth continued to shift and bubble as ancient remains began to transform into something that should never exist in the natural world. And deep below the surface, the first fragments of awareness stirred in the chemical soup that had once been formaldehyde and preservatives. Awareness and hunger.

Speaker 1: 7:02

The first signs of what was coming appeared three days after the accident. Scout had been restless, spending hours pacing between his packed sleeping rooms at night, drawn again and again to the windows facing Oak Grove Cemetery. The wrong smell hadn't faded. It had changed, evolved into something that made his teeth ache when the wind blew from that direction. Miguel and Kimberly didn't notice anything wrong when they let Scout out that morning. They couldn't smell how the dew on the grass had turned oily, couldn't hear the absence of birdsong that should have filled the dawn air. But Scout's nose told him everything. The chemical taint had spread through the groundwater threading through the soil like poisonous veins. He could smell it rising from the earth mixing with something else the sweet copper reek of old decay being pulled up from the depths.

Speaker 1: 7:59

The Martinez family went about their morning routine. Nina, her long, dark hair, still wet from the shower, shoveled cereal into her mouth while texting. Lucas built a fort out of toast and eggs, making Scout strain to catch any falling scraps. But Scout couldn't focus on their family breakfast dance. His attention kept dragging back to the window, to the cemetery, barely visible through the trees. Something was moving out there, something wrong. He saw the first real evidence when Kimberly sent him out to do his business. A dead robin lay in the flower bed, its body twisted in ways that violated nature. The bird's chest had split open, not from impact or predator, but from within. Its ribcage had flowered outward like pale petals and where its organs should have been, scout saw only a glistening green-black mass that pulsed slowly in the morning light. The smell coming from it made him back away, gagging Formaldehyde and rot, something that reminded him of the liquid from the crashed truck. Worse was what he saw moving in the mass tiny things like maggots, but wrong, their bodies translucent. They worked with horrible purpose consuming and reshaping the bird's flesh. Even a scout watched. He wanted to bark to alert his pack, but primitive instinct kept him silent. Making noise would draw attention. Making noise would make it notice them.

Speaker 1: 9:34

That afternoon Scout watched Nina playing with her phone in the backyard, his anxiety growing as she wandered closer to the fence line. The wrongness had spread. He could smell it in the roots of the oak tree, see it in the way earthworms were writhing up through the soil, their bodies distended and partially crystallized, leaving trails of luminescent slime that burned the grass. A neighborhood cat appeared on the fence and Scout's heart nearly stopped. Miserous Henderson's orange tabby had always been plump, but now its body was grotesquely swollen, skin stretched, tight and shining like plastic. Its movements were jerky and when it opened its mouth to meow, scout saw that its tongue had transformed into something segmented and iridescent. But worst of all were its eyes. They had turned milky white, with tiny worm-like creatures swimming in their depths. That made Scout's vision blur when he looked too long here. Kitty Nina called, reaching for the cat. Scout lunged, knocking her back just as the cat pounced. It missed her by inches, landing where she had been with an unnatural heavy thud. The sound it made wasn't a cat's hiss, it was the wet clicking of mandibles. Scout Bad dog Nina scolded, but Scout stood his ground. Hackles raised deep growls rumbling in his chest. The thing that had been a cat regarded them both with those milky eyes, its body twitching and rippling as something moved beneath its skin. Finally it turned and leaped away. Movements still wrong, still jerky.

Speaker 1: 11:28

That night Scout lay awake listening to the sounds. No human could hear the subtle crunch of transforming bones in the distance, the whisper of things moving through soil and, worst of all, the wet, hungry pulse coming from the cemetery. The chemical, sweet stench was stronger now, carrying notes of meat and metal and madness. In Lucas's room, scout pressed close to his young charge's bed, every muscle tense. Outside, through the window, he could see pale shapes moving in the cemetery. They weren't human shapes anymore and they were getting closer.

Speaker 1: 12:12

The deer made Scout understand just how wrong things had gotten. He found it at dawn, drawn by wet, sucking sounds coming from behind the Martinez's garden shed. The stench hit him first rotting meat and chemical preservatives mixing with something else, something that made his primitive brain scream danger. The deer was still alive, if you could call it that. Its flesh had gone soft and pulpy, sloughing off in wet chunks to reveal something writhing underneath when muscle and sinew should have been. Scout saw only glistening masses of tissue that pulsed and shifted like worms beneath a translucent membrane. The animal's eyes had melted, in their sockets leaking a yellowish fluid that smoked when it hit the ground. Its mouth gaped open, jaw distended and hanging wrong, tongue split into writhing tendrils that groped blindly at the air. But worst was how it moved. The legs had split and fused bones liquefying and reforming into too many joints, all bending the wrong way. As Scout watched, horror struck. Its neck began to unravel like wet paper, spraying a mist of chemical-tainted blood. The spine was exposed, but it wasn't bone anymore, it was something soft and ropey that twisted with horrible purpose. A sound made Scout whirl around.

Speaker 1: 13:52

Nina stood at her bedroom window getting ready for school. His pack was still acting normal, unaware of the horror spreading through their territory. They couldn't smell how the chemical taint had saturated the soil, couldn't hear the wet, meaty sounds of transformation happening beneath their feet. The basement was the worst. Scout could smell the wrongness seeping up through the foundation. Sometimes in the darkest corner he caught glimpses of something growing Wet, fleshy masses that pulsed in rhythm with the distant throbbing coming from the cemetery. He had tried destroying them, clawing at the walls until his paws bled, but Miguel had scolded him and blocked off access to that corner.

Speaker 1: 14:42

That afternoon Scout noticed something wrong with Miserous Henderson's son, tommy. The boy had been playing basketball in his driveway, but his movements were jerky and wrong. When he turned to wave at Nina, scout saw that the skin around his neck had begun to bubble and split, forming weeping sores that leaked a familiar yellow fluid. The smell coming off him was like formaldehyde and spoiled meat. Nina didn't notice, but Scout did. He saw how Tommy's fingers had started to melt together, the flesh becoming soft and translucent, saw how his eyes had developed a milky film that didn't quite hide the something moving behind them. The boy's transformation had begun that night Scout heard it the wet, sliding sound of something massive moving through the sewers beneath their street. His ears picked up the meaty pop and squelch of changing flesh, the soft patter of dripping fluids and, underneath it all, a pulse stronger now coming from the Oak Grove Cemetery. The corrupted deer had been just the beginning. Now Scout could smell others neighborhood pets, wild animals, even humans, all starting to change the chemical catalyst from the crash was spreading, turning living tissue into something that violated every natural law.

Speaker 1: 16:20

When Lucas came downstairs for a glass of water, scout pressed against his legs, whining softly. He could smell the taint in the tap water. Now see the oily film it left on surfaces. His pack was drinking it, washing in it, unaware of how it was preparing them for transformation. Through the kitchen window, scout saw movement in the cemetery. Pale, glistening shapes rose from the oldest graves, their forms constantly melting and reforming like candle wax. They weren't human anymore. They were something new, something hungry, and they were coming closer, drawn by the living flesh they needed to complete their metamorphosis. The chemical, sweet stench of their approach made Scout gag, but he stood his ground. He was the pack's protector. Even if he had to face these horrors alone, he would find a way to save his family from the corrupted thing that was spreading through their world, consuming and transforming everything it touched into monstrous new forms of existence. In the basement, something pulsed in the darkness, wet and hungry, growing stronger with each passing hour.

Speaker 1: 17:41

Nina's transformation began at dinner. Scout smelled it first, that sickly sweet chemical reek suddenly blooming under her skin like a rotten flower. She was picking at her spaghetti when the first spasm hit. Her fork clattered to the plate as her fingers began to soften the bones beneath turning liquid. Nina Kimberly reached for her daughter, but Scout was already there. Hackles raised, watching in horror as the change accelerated. Nina's scream turned wet halfway through, her jaw, distended with a meaty pop, teeth falling like rain onto her pasta as new ones, jagged and numerous, punched through her gums and numerous punched through her gums. The smell of formaldehyde and decay filled the kitchen as her flesh began to ripple and split. Oh God, miguel grabbed Lucas, pulling him back as Nina's arms elongated, the skin becoming translucent enough to see the writhing masses beneath Her eyes rolled back, revealing only yellowed whites that began to leak a viscous fluid.

Speaker 1: 18:58

Scout's protective instincts screamed as Nina's body started to lose cohesion Her torso split vertically, ribs spreading like wet paper to reveal something pulsing inside, something that had once been organs but was now a mass of glistening tubes and questing tendrils. The stench of chemical preservation mixed with the copper tang of blood. Kimberly lunged for her daughter, but Scout intercepted her, knocking her back as Nina's form collapsed entirely. What rose from the puddle of liquefied flesh was no longer human. It moved on too many limbs, its body, constantly shifting and flowing like melted wax. Nina's face remained stretched across a surface that rippled with hungry purpose.

Speaker 1: 19:51

The thing that had been Nina lurched toward Lucas, but Scout was there, teeth bared. He could smell the cemetery's influence in her, now the same wrongness that had been growing beneath their feet. His barks echoed through the house as Miguel and Kimberly fled upstairs, with Lucas, leaving Scout to face this horror alone, led upstairs with Lucas, leaving Scout to face this horror alone. The basement called to them. Scout could smell how the wrongness had concentrated there, forming something vast and hungry. In the darkness, ninus' transformed body oozed down the stairs, leaving trails of dissolving flesh that smoked against the wood.

Speaker 1: 20:33

The thing in the basement corner had grown. What had started as small fleshy masses had become a pulsing mountain of corrupted tissue, tendrils of chemical-soaked meat writhed from its surface and in its center Scout saw something that made his primitive brain recoil, a core of concentrated wrongness, glowing with the same sickly light that had poured from the crashed truck. It was a heart, a new heart for a new kind of life, born from chemical preservation and rotting flesh, and it was calling its children home. Nina's form shuddered and flowed toward it, drawn by its pulse. Through the basement window, scout saw other shapes approaching, the corrupted remains from the cemetery, the transformed animals and humans all converging on this point of twisted rebirth. But they hadn't counted on a dog's loyalty to his pack.

Speaker 1: 21:37

Scout launched himself at the heart, ignoring the tendrils that whipped at his fur. His teeth found purchase in something soft and vital. The taste was indescribable Formaldehyde and decay, and something even more rotten, something that should have remained buried. But Scout held on ripping and tearing as the massive flesh mass convulsed around him. Nina's transformed body tried to stop him, but her new form was unstable, still adapting. Scout's primal instincts guided him as he fought, targeting anything that moved with savage efficiency. Above he could hear Miguel working to start a fire, following Scout's earlier attempts to destroy the growths. The smell of gasoline cut through the reek of corruption.

Speaker 1: 22:32

The heart burst under Scout's assault, spraying chemical-tainted gore across the basement. The reaction was immediate. Every transformed thing in range began to collapse, their borrowed animation failing as the central core died. Ninus' twisted form dissolved into a puddle of rapidly decaying tissue. The massive flesh mountain shuddered and began to deflate like a punctured blister. As Miguel's fire caught hold above, scout limped up the basement stairs, his fur matted with substances that defied description. The corrupted flesh was burning, filling the air with toxic smoke. But the wrongness was finally dying. Scout could smell it retreating, the chemical poison weakening as natural decay reasserted itself. He found his pack huddled in the front yard watching their home burn, lucas's arms wrapped around Scout's neck and for the first time since the truck crashed, scout allowed himself to relax slightly. They had lost Nina, but the rest of the pack was safe. The thing in the cemetery would rot away naturally now, its chemical animation destroyed. But that night, as fire engines doused the last of the flames, scout's nose caught something on the wind, a whiff of formaldehyde and sweet decay coming from somewhere new in the city, somewhere else where the barrier between life and death was beginning to dissolve.

Speaker 1: 24:13

Three months after the fire, scout still patrolled their new apartment complex with obsessive dedication. The Martinez family had relocated to the city's east side, as far from Oak Grove Cemetery as they could manage. The insurance money hadn't covered much, but it was enough to start over, away from the memories, away from the mass grave that had claimed Nina. But Scout knew better than to relax. He smelled it first in the building's laundry room, that familiar sweet chemical tang mixing with the scent of dryer sheets and fabric softener. It was subtle, barely there, but it made his hackles rise. The water it was in the water again. That night Scout paced the apartment restlessly, watching Lucas sleep. The boy still cried for his sister.

Speaker 1: 25:10

Sometimes Kimberly and Miguel never talked about what they had seen, about how Nina's flesh had melted and reformed into something that denied nature. They didn't discuss the mass of corrupted tissue they had found in the basement or the things that had risen from the cemetery. Humans were good at forgetting horrors too big to face. But Scout remembered, and now he could smell that wrongness again. Remembered, and now he could smell that wrongness again.

Speaker 1: 25:38

It was different this time, slower, more insidious. The chemical taint had found its way into the city's water system, spreading through pipes and drain systems. Every time someone took a shower or ran the dishwasher, microscopic particles of the preserved corruption worked deeper into their flesh. Scout saw the signs appearing in their neighbors. Miserous Alvarez and 4B had developed a limp, her ankle swelling with something that moved beneath her skin. The Baker twins on the second floor had started speaking in unison, their voices taking on a wet, bubbling quality, and sometimes late at night Scout heard sounds from the walls, the subtle squish and pop of tissue beginning to transform. The maintenance man found the first growth in the basement yesterday a small glistening mass of flesh clinging to a water pipe. He had scraped it off, cursing about mold, not noticing how it had tried to crawl up his arm. Scout had watched from the stairs, remembering the horror that had claimed Nina, knowing it was happening again, but this time would be worse.

Speaker 1: 26:56

The chemical corruption wasn't concentrated in one place anymore. It had spread through the city's veins of copper and steel, seeping into homes and businesses, pools and fountains. Scout could smell it everywhere now, that sweet reek of preserved decay. That evening, as Lucas sat doing homework, scout noticed the boy's fingers leaving wet marks on his papers. The skin was becoming soft, starting to weep that familiar yellow fluid. Kimberly was in the shower, unaware that the water running down her back carried particles of twisted life, eager to remake her flesh, and Miguel's eyes had developed that milky sheen that Scout remembered from Tommy Henderson. Scout pressed his nose against Lucas's hand, whining softly. The boy's scent was changing the chemical sweetness blooming under his skin. Soon the transformation would begin again, and this time there would be no escape. No fire could burn out an infection that had spread so far. Through the apartment window, scout watched the city lights flicker. Somewhere in the distance, a siren wailed, the sound distorting into something wet and organic. The corruption was spreading, patient and hungry, carried by every drop of tainted water. Scout laid his head on Lucas' lap, feeling the boy's flesh beginning to shift beneath his palm. He would stay with his pack until the end, watching as humanity dissolved and reformed into something new, something preserved, something endless. In the bathroom, the shower kept running and Kimberly started to scream.

Speaker 1: 28:56

And so, dear listeners, we emerge from another dark corner of Carmen's crypt. But remember the horrors you've heard tonight are merely echoes of the terrors that await in the shadows of your own mind. If you enjoyed your stay in the crypt, why not invite a friend to join us next week? After all, fear is best when shared. Leave a review, if you dare, or share your own tales of terror on my social media. Who knows, your nightmares might just become my next story. Until next time, keep checking under your bed and remember. Bed and remember. In Carmen's Crypt, every fear comes alive and no one is truly safe. Sweet dreams, if you can still sleep at all.