Hello, my dark darlings. I'm Marquia, and this is the Something Scary podcast. To our veteran listeners and those just voyaging into the dark with us for the first time, welcome. When winter arrives, most people cozy up inside and enjoy the holidays. But when you are left outside in the cold, the chill can creep inside your bones.

The blaring silence of the frigid outdoors can turn a winter wonderland into hell frozen over.

First, the frosty touch of death, followed by a set of twins dying to survive, then panic in a

crowd. Finally, in our featured story, monsters trapped in ice. I receive hundreds of creepy story submissions every single week,

and of those, the scariest ones, make it into our podcast,

along with the story that we've chosen to animate and post over at YouTube.com slash snarled.

If you have a tale you're dying to share, send me an email at something scary at snarl.com.

So, want to hear something scary?

Hell Frozen Over

Snowmen can bring joy in the icy cold,

but beware of any you did not build yourself, because you never know

what terrible things it's really made of, like in this story inspired by Shadow.

When I was a little girl, I was playing outside, pretending to be a witch or a fairy, when something magical

happened. A six-foot snowman had just appeared at the end of my drive. Living in Nevada, I had never

seen snow before, and it was over 100 degrees outside. Although it made no sense,

I wasn't afraid. I was playing a magical game. Maybe I conjured up this thing. I wandered over to it

marveling at how it wasn't melting when things became more chilling.

As I reached out to touch it, just to prove it was there.

It turned its head and spoke to me.

And it wasn't anything like the animated frosties you see on the holiday movies. It had a deep, menacing voice

as it rasped. You will be mine. Still, more in awe than shock for the moment and perhaps not

quite understanding the implication, I continued to reach out and

...