STAD Ep. 9-Smut And Then You Die; A Fictional Cautionary Tale

A cemetery that doesn’t exist on any map should be easy to avoid. The problem is Saint Lazarus Cemetery doesn’t wait for you to find it. It finds you, right when the Mississippi fog rolls in and the church bell dares to ring thirteen times. 

We’re Pearl and Holly, and we’re serving a fresh piece of original horror fiction set in New Orleans, the perfect city for a supernatural urban legend with teeth. Simone and her friends think they’re just walking the Garden District before midnight, until an iron gate appears across the street with a warning stamped in rust: “The dead remember every promise.” One step past the threshold, the noise of the city drops away and the cemetery turns into a silent marble maze of mausoleums that feel more like houses than graves. 

From there, the story escalates fast: crypt doors swing open, grey-skinned figures watch without blinking, and a little girl clutching a headless porcelain doll asks one question that echoes from every shadow. When an eerie woman in white explains that these aren’t tombs at all, but doors, the nightmare shifts from haunted to hungry. And just when dawn makes it feel like escape is possible, Mardi Gras proves the city of the dead has a long memory. 

If you love New Orleans horror, Southern Gothic vibes, creepy cemetery folklore, and short scary stories with a final sting, hit play. Subscribe, share this with a friend who loves spooky fiction, and leave us a review. What part of Saint Lazarus would haunt you the most?

Transcript

No Submissions So We Write Fiction

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Good evening. I'm Pearl. And I'm Holly. Today you guys get a little fiction because no one has sent us anything. So thanks for um making me practice creative writing class. Right. Not fan fiction, Pearl Fiction. There's a difference. There's definitely a difference. It's very um novice. Well, I have not I have not sat and tried to write anything since I graduated from college. Right. With my degree in English. So, and I did take a creative writing class. But, you know, all my stories seem to land in the psycho thriller.

SPEAKER_01 0:54

In the genre of the psycho killer.

SPEAKER_00 0:57

So I I really hated when they asked, like when they picked the genre for you to write.

SPEAKER_01 1:03

I was like, no, let's do a romance. No, they died.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

I don't do romance. Not even a little bit. Not not even in any like there's no story I've ever written that has anybody even kissing someone. They don't hold hands. There's no smut. What? Nothing.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Not for our smutty girls.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

I'm sorry. I mean, I could I could try, but it's probably not gonna come out well. You'll be able to tell I did a horrible job.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

It'll be smut and then you die.

SPEAKER_00 1:48

Smut and then you die. Yes. You know something, somebody's getting stabbed. Right. There's gonna be an autopsy. There might be a booty call where someone dies at the end. What you doing?

SPEAKER_01 2:05

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Uh so this is me begging for participation, guys, girls, they's thems. I don't care who you are. I don't care if you think your dog could write us something. That'd be great. That'd be great. We'll take it.

SPEAKER_01 2:25

So one time my owner didn't come home for two whole hours, and I had to hold the peas in. Yeah. Perfect story. Perfect.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

I thought I was going to die.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

I thought she would never return. I was going to be alone for the rest of my life without pets. Or a place to pee. I would never see the grass again.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

Never frolic.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

No more rubbing my face in dead frog guts.

Dog Stories And Puppy Muzzle Talk

SPEAKER_01 2:58

Oh, I did see a thing yesterday on Instagram. And I'd already loaded up your Instagram with lots of stuff, so I didn't want to send you that as well. You know, because when you open it one day and you're like, oh, Ollie sent me like 10 things. Um there is a face mask little thing that you can get for your pets now for your dogs. Uh huh. So they can't go out and eat sticks and twigs and deer shit and all the other stuff. So you just put it around, it's a little drawstring thing. Does it make them look like little puppy Hannibal lectors? Kind of. But they literally have a mesh bag over their heads. Oh my goodness. Yes. So they can go frolic, they can do what they want, but they can't get like ingest stuff. And it's also good for places where they have um, I think it's called foxtails, and they can get the little things stuck in their nostrils and they won't come back out. Right. So it keeps the them from getting foxtails stuck in their nose. That's awesome. I'm gonna go. So I will I should have sent it to you, but I'll find it.

SPEAKER_00 3:56

Find that and send it to me. Yes. And then I'm gonna get one for honey. Because oh my gosh. Yeah, that little she'll eat a piece of Pomeranian freak. That the reason I said the frog guts thing, that was today. Yeah. Oh, there was a dead frog on the back patio, and she rubbed her face in it. Yeah. And then she she brought the dead frog carcass inside my house.

SPEAKER_01 4:20

She's like, I I I rub myself in this and then I brought it to you. It's mine. Pet me. She doesn't want me to have it.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

She wants to keep it herself.

unknown 4:30

All right.

SPEAKER_01 4:30

Well, see, perfect dog fiction. It's not even a present.

unknown 4:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:35

Right. I'm like, why do you do this? This is gross. So then I had to tell everyone, honey tried to eat a dead frog. You may not want her to give you kisses. Right. No kisses from her today. Stay away from honey's mouth. So today.

The Midnight Gate To Saint Lazarus

SPEAKER_00 4:55

I mean, obviously, I'm gonna write a story about New Orleans. Uh duh. Why wouldn't I? Greatest city in the world. No, not really, but easiest place to do something spooky. Exactly. So but it is top tier, so there we go. Yeah. So here goes a nothing. No one in New Orleans could agree when St. Lazarus Cemetery had first appeared. It wasn't on any old maps, and it wasn't on any new ones. Yet everyone knew someone who had seen its iron gates. Some had claimed it only revealed itself after midnight when the Mississippi River blew its breath of fog across the city. Others would whisper that if you heard a church bell ring thirteen times, you were already standing in front of it. The older folks never laughed about the stories. They simply said one thing. If you find Saint Lazarus, don't answer when it calls your name. Simone was seventeen years old. And when she was warned by her grandmother, she just laughed. She had lived in New Orleans her entire life. And to her, every neighborhood had its ghost story. Haunted hotels, phantom pirates, singing spirits, haunted brothels. It didn't matter where you went in the French quarter, there was one. Is that a haunted booty call? Going back to that romance.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

There we go.

SPEAKER_00 7:04

In her mind, ghost tours paid the bills. Ghosts didn't actually exist. At least that's what she told her friends. Especially on the night that she and her friends, Andre, Jules, and Cassidy, walked through the garden district just before midnight. Andre stopped. And he whispers, You guys. The fog had become unnaturally thick. Suddenly across the street, an iron gate that none of them had ever remembered seeing was there. The words overhead were rusted and barely there. Saint Lazarus. Below those letters was a sentence. It read, The dead remember every promise. In that moment, the gate swung open by itself, not with a squeal, but with a sigh. As though someone had been waiting a very long time. Once inside the gates, the city disappeared. The sounds of traffic vanished. No music, no insects.

Thirteen Bells And The Dead Awake

SPEAKER_00 8:44

Even the air felt different. Cold, heavy, carrying the scent of old rain, burnt candle wax, and wilted magnolias.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

I'm gonna go move in because that sounds delightful to what we have currently.

SPEAKER_00 9:03

Smells better than that New Orleans gravy on the other side of the game.

SPEAKER_01 9:06

Right, and the the the thick terrarium heat that feels like you're being cremated. Yes, I I will go move in.

SPEAKER_00 9:14

Thank you. Right. The moonlight reflected onto hundreds of white marble mausoleums. They looked like silent houses. Every crypt had a front door. Cassidy whispers, we shouldn't be here. No one answered. At least not anyone in her friend group. Very softly, just behind them, they hear a voice that sounds like an elderly woman. That voice says, No, you shouldn't. They spin around, but no one's there. Only more rows of tombs stretching endlessly into the fog. They begin walking back towards the entrance. Except it wasn't there. Only another street of mausoleums. Then another. And another. The cemetery had become a city. Silent white buildings, narrow stone alleys, thousands of windows, none with glass. Every one of them filled with darkness. Somewhere deep inside that darkness, they could hear someone breathing. A bell rang. Once, twice, three times. It continues until they hear that thirteenth chime echo through the cemetery. At that very moment every crypt door swung open. The sound was like thunder across the graveyard. Inside the doorway of each mausoleum stood a figure. Men, women, children, dressed in clothes from different centuries. None moved, none blinked. Their skin was grey as river stone, their eyes completely black. Cassidy whispers, don't look at them. Too late. One little girl smiles. Her dress was yellowed with age. She held a porcelain doll missing its head. That's the scariest part of those porcelain dolls. Yeah. They're heads.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

Absolutely, I agree. Decapitate them.

SPEAKER_00 12:13

Will you play with me? She asked. Her voice literally sounded like it came from everywhere. Not just her mouth, but from every single open tomb, every shadow, every corner. Will you play? Will you play? Will you play? The echoes grew louder until the words no longer sounded human. Andre ran. The others followed. Behind them they could hear footsteps, hundreds, not fast, not slow, perfectly synchronized. When Simone dared to glance over her shoulder, every spirit was walking, not chasing, just walking. Yet they were somehow closer every time she looked. No matter how fast they ran, the dead never hurried

The Woman In White Warns Them

SPEAKER_00 13:10

because the dead never needed to. They ducked into a narrow passage between two enormous family vaults. Candles were burning inside one of them, fresh candles. Someone had lit them recently. At the center stood a small altar covered with white flowers and carefully arranged, obviously left in remembrance of loved ones. Next to it rested an old woman dressed entirely in white. She literally looked alive, very alive. Her silver eyes reflected the candlelight. She quietly says, You crossed the wrong gate. The cemetery is hungry tonight. Simone gasped. Can you help us? The woman nodded and said You must understand something. She pointed towards the darkness outside. Those are not ghosts. The footsteps stop. Silence swallows the entire cemetery. Then a knock. Three slow knocks from inside the wall. The marble behind them trembled. A hairline crack begins to spread across its surface. Another knock. The stone bulges outward as though something unimaginably large was pressing from the inside. The old woman whispers again, You've mistaken this place. You believe these are tombs. And yet another crack splits the marble. Dust drifts into the candlelight. They are doors. The wall explodes inwards. Hands pouring through, not dozens, thousands, gray hands, young hands, old hands, tiny hands, all reaching. Always reaching. Strong hands? Strong hands. I should have put strong hands in there. I should have known when I put tiny hands. I should have put a strong hand.

SPEAKER_01 15:27

That's what I was thinking. A strong hand, take it.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

The old woman scatters powder into the air and the candles flare. The grasping hands recoil just long enough for the teenagers to escape. Behind them the vault shutters as if something enormous had awakened beneath the city. They fled through the streets of marble until they reached a vast square unlike any they had ever seen before. At its center stood a colossal mausoleum taller than a cathedral. Its doors were open. Inside, no coffin, no altar, no floor, only an endless staircase descending in darkness. Whispers rose from below, not in English, not in French, not in

The Endless Staircase And The Shadow

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Spanish, languages older than the city itself, older than the river, older than anyone could remember. Something was climbing the stairs, slowly, but patiently, each footstep shaking the ground. The air grows cold, the fog begins flowing upward. Then they saw its shadow. It did not belong to any human shape. It stretches across the cemetery, swallowing the moonlight as it climbs. Just one big gigantic shadow. Every spirit in every mausoleum bowed toward it. Even little girl lowered her head. Whatever was rising, the dead feared it too. Then suddenly the gates appear, open, waiting. The four friends run without ever looking back. The instant they crossed into the street dawn had broken. So the sky had

Mardi Gras Tag You Are It

SPEAKER_00 17:29

become a pale gold. Behind them nothing. Only an abandoned lot overgrown with weeds. No cemetery, no gates, no mausoleum, just silence. But obviously they go home and tell their parents. Right. So police search after hearing their story. City historians find no record of Saint Lazarus Cemetery. Archivists exchange uneasy glances and one finally speaks. Every few generations, he said, the city of the dead opens another door. Months later, when it seemed like life was almost normal again, Mardi Gras. Crowds fill the French quarter, music echoes through the streets, masks glitter beneath strings of colored lights. Simone finds herself smiling for the first time since that night. But that smile doesn't last. She noticed something. Among thousands of revelers, four figures perfectly still, grey skinned, black eyed, just watching. Not a single soul seemed to notice them. A little girl steps forward, clutching a headless doll and smiles. I found you. Around the square, strangers begin turning their heads, one after another, smiling that same impossible smile. Church bells ring. They didn't stop at twelve. The thirteenth bell echoes over New Orleans, and from somewhere beneath the streets, someone knocked. And that is the end, my friends.

SPEAKER_01 19:31

It was Beowzip.

Behind The Story And Summer Grind

SPEAKER_01 19:33

Right, something. That was cool. That's some final destination stuff there. They were like, no, you're still on our radar. We're coming to get you.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

You never escaped the cemetery.

SPEAKER_01 19:50

The cemetery. It just let you believe you left. That's why Pantera wrote Cemetery Gates. That's what it was about. Yes. You know, Phil Anselmo was a New Orleans native.

SPEAKER_00 20:04

Yeah, there you go. It's you don't live in the city, you live in the cemetery. Yes. Or whatever. That was a good one. You might be alive. You might not. Who knows? So that's it. That's all I've got.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

I loved it. I was here for it. You had me on the edge of my seat.

SPEAKER_00 20:28

Yeah, that took um every bit of energy I had remaining for the last two weeks.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

But like, must write a story, must write a story, must write a story.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

I think I rewrote the story like six times. That's why when we recorded last time, I was like, we'll have to record this one later because it's not finished. I just didn't feel like it was done.

SPEAKER_01 20:50

But I mean, and we are we're we're in the thick of summer of our job. So we have um weeks. About four or five weeks of pure hell. So bear with us. We will have stories out. We're not gonna we're not gonna skip it.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

I'm probably not gonna write anything else. Right. We'll have stuff out, but I'll find something.

SPEAKER_01 21:14

So this is always the bear with us month. We're gonna we're gonna do it though. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

Why we're gonna make it. The finish line is there. We just can't see it. It's in the Mississippi fog.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

That's right. Nobody wants to go. It'll show up all of a sudden.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

While our heads are down. Yeah. Ugh.

Send Us Your Stories And Credits

unknown 21:43

I know.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

So send us something. Yes, please send us something. So we can just share your stuff, make Thursdays easy for us.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

Or every other Thursday easy for us. Write our Thursday episodes for us. There we go. Do it. It's only twice a month. So we need two of you every month to submit a story. That's it. Oh. And you can submit that to Hold MySweet Tea Podcast at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_00 22:12

Yep. Or anywhere on social media, you can message us. I mean, obviously, I don't think you want to make a comment on Spotify full of a story, but if you can't remember YouTube or something like that.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

If you can't remember the email address, it's in our name. Yeah. Doc at gmail.com. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

You need a link, message us, we'll send it to you. Just help us out because you like us.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:42

That'd be awesome. And you know who does like us and proved it?

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Patty Salzetta. Yes. She wrote our lovely theme music, and it is just the best thing ever. Didn't want to leave without saying that. Oh, absolutely not. We always we always tuck her in somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 23:06

Yes. And Sweet Tea After Dark is a Psycho B production. And just because we're good nighting doesn't mean that y'all can't keep frightening.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

Bye.