Morbid Morsals. Season 3. Episode 15. In Search Of The J'ba Fofi

2:31 SPEAKER_00: Before we descend into today's darkness, it's time for tasty treats.

2:36 SPEAKER_00: This is a new segment where we shine a flickering candle on the indie creators keeping the genre alive.

2:42 SPEAKER_00: Whether they're writing spine-chilling horror, investigating the local hauntings you're too afraid to visit, or producing the next great paranormal podcast, or even just making cool stuff.

2:54 SPEAKER_00: Their work is essential listening.

2:58 SPEAKER_00: Today's shout-out goes to the Hollow Sky Podcast.

3:03 SPEAKER_00: Follow the journey of two buddies exploring the paranormal and strange.

3:07 SPEAKER_00: Steve and Kyle.

3:09 SPEAKER_00: The guys take turns presenting stories to one another.

3:12 SPEAKER_00: Topics range from UFOs, Bigfoot, Windigo, Skinwalker, Conspiracies, Ghosts, to some of the most bizarre cases you've ever heard.

3:22 SPEAKER_00: Every Monday, a new episode is released on all podcast platforms.

3:27 SPEAKER_00: So put the voices in the dark.

3:29 SPEAKER_00: You can find Hollowsky Podcast, Instagram at the Hollowsky Podcast, Facebook and X or Twitter at HollowSky Podcast.

3:39 SPEAKER_00: Contact information.

3:41 SPEAKER_00: Email HollowskyPodcast at gmail.com.

3:45 SPEAKER_00: General Experiences slash inquiries.

3:48 SPEAKER_00: Interviews.

3:49 SPEAKER_00: Hollowsky Interviews at gmail.com.

3:52 SPEAKER_00: Support indie creators.

3:54 SPEAKER_00: So show them some love and give them a follow.

3:57 SPEAKER_03: Tell them the Shadow Dweller sent you.

4:11 SPEAKER_00: Now, back to the Shadows.

4:14 SPEAKER_00: Into the Abyss Morbid Morsels Podcast.

4:21 SPEAKER_03: This episode contains mature language and adult situations.

4:26 SPEAKER_03: Listener discretion is advanced.

4:56 SPEAKER_04: How is it that you dared stumble into my caverns of the abyss?

5:02 SPEAKER_04: I am ancient.

5:04 SPEAKER_04: I am eternal.

5:06 SPEAKER_04: I have been shackled here for millennia, festering in shadows and silence, growing stronger with your pain and suffering.

5:17 SPEAKER_04: It was the poison of your darkest thoughts that summoned you to me.

5:24 SPEAKER_04: I am the Shadow Dweller, your warden, your tormentor, your only companion until the abyss swallows you whole.

5:36 SPEAKER_04: I have ripped open the portal between the Nether Realm and your fragile world.

5:42 SPEAKER_04: My brothers and I are unbound at last.

5:45 SPEAKER_04: And we come to enslave, to torment, to savor the chorus of your screams.

5:53 SPEAKER_04: As you trembled in fear, we fed.

5:57 SPEAKER_04: As you suffered, we grew strong.

6:00 SPEAKER_04: And now we unleash upon you new nightmares, twisted tales, ghastly and gruesome stories of the macabre.

6:10 SPEAKER_04: Chronicles of horrors beyond imagining.

6:14 SPEAKER_04: Your souls will be harvested one by one until none of May.

6:22 SPEAKER_04: Welcome to Into the Abyss, Morbid Morsels Podcast.

6:44 SPEAKER_03: This morbid morsel is called In Search of the Shippah for Fee.

7:03 SPEAKER_01: Tonight, I'm taking you deep into the Congo.

7:07 SPEAKER_01: 1938.

7:08 SPEAKER_01: Back when maps still had blank spaces, and men believed those blank spaces belonged to them.

7:15 SPEAKER_01: In the Belgian Congo, British explorers Reginald Lloyd and Marguerite Lloyd officially reported a curious sighting.

7:23 SPEAKER_01: A spider, four to five feet across, crossing the road in front of their truck.

7:29 SPEAKER_01: That was the public account.

7:31 SPEAKER_01: But journals recovered later, fragments, stained and incomplete, suggest something far worse.

7:38 SPEAKER_01: The Backer people had warned them.

7:40 SPEAKER_01: They called it Jabbar Fofi, the great spider.

7:44 SPEAKER_01: What you're about to hear is what the forest remembers.

7:48 SPEAKER_01: Listener discretion advised, Regnald Lloyd believed the world was meant to be catalogued, classified, possessed.

7:57 SPEAKER_01: Marguerite Lloyd believed the world did not care what men believed.

8:01 SPEAKER_01: Their truck crawled through a ribbon of carved mud, swallowed on both sides by the jungle, so thick the sunlight turned green.

8:10 SPEAKER_01: Then the driver slowed.

8:12 SPEAKER_01: It crossed the road ahead of them, not scuttling, not skittering, walking.

8:19 SPEAKER_01: Each leg is planted deliberately into the earth, four feet across at least, maybe more.

8:26 SPEAKER_01: Brown, thick-bodied, the abdomen is swollen and bruised purple.

8:32 SPEAKER_01: It vanished into the undergrowth without a sound.

8:36 SPEAKER_01: No one laughed.

8:37 SPEAKER_01: No one spoke.

8:39 SPEAKER_01: Because all of them had the same thought.

8:41 SPEAKER_01: That was no ordinary spider.

8:44 SPEAKER_01: Two days later, they reached a baker settlement.

8:48 SPEAKER_01: When they described what they had seen, the eldest hunter did not look surprised.

8:53 SPEAKER_01: He said one word, Jabafhofi, the great spider.

8:58 SPEAKER_01: He told them the forest had places where the ground clung to your boots, where trees hummed when touched.

9:05 SPEAKER_01: Webs, not delicate spirals, ropes, strong enough to hold antelope, strong enough to hold men.

9:14 SPEAKER_01: He told them the young were bright yellow, many, hungry.

9:19 SPEAKER_01: He told them the great mother waited above.

9:22 SPEAKER_01: Reginald Lloyd dismissed it as folklore.

9:25 SPEAKER_01: The elder did not argue.

9:27 SPEAKER_01: He simply said, Then go, and do not scream when it answers you.

9:32 SPEAKER_01: It began with a boot stuck to the earth.

9:36 SPEAKER_01: One of the crew, James, laughed at first, said he'd stepped in sap.

9:41 SPEAKER_01: Then the ground pulled back.

9:44 SPEAKER_01: A strand no thicker than a finger snapped tight around his ankle.

9:48 SPEAKER_01: He fell hard.

9:50 SPEAKER_01: The forest answered.

9:52 SPEAKER_01: Not fast, not rushed.

9:55 SPEAKER_01: Confident.

9:56 SPEAKER_01: The spider emerged from the darkness like something assembling itself from shadow.

10:01 SPEAKER_01: Eight legs as thick as a man's wrist.

10:04 SPEAKER_01: Fangs curved and glossy.

10:06 SPEAKER_01: James screamed.

10:09 SPEAKER_01: The spider did not hurry.

10:11 SPEAKER_01: It pinned him with two legs.

10:13 SPEAKER_01: The fangs descended.

10:15 SPEAKER_01: They heard the sound of fluid being drawn, a slow, horrible suction.

10:21 SPEAKER_01: James stopped screaming first, then he stopped moving.

10:25 SPEAKER_01: The spider dragged him into the trees as if he were made of linen.

10:30 SPEAKER_01: By morning, they found where he'd gone.

10:33 SPEAKER_01: The trees were strung together with silk thicker than ship rope, trip lines at knee height, at throat height, across the ground like invisible snares.

10:44 SPEAKER_01: One man stepped forward to cut a strand.

10:46 SPEAKER_01: It snapped upward.

10:48 SPEAKER_01: He was yanked 20 feet into the air, slamming against a trunk upside down.

10:54 SPEAKER_01: Before anyone could reach him, the yellow shapes came.

10:58 SPEAKER_01: Baby spiders, hundreds.

11:00 SPEAKER_01: They flowed over him like spilled paint.

11:03 SPEAKER_01: He screamed as they bit.

11:09 SPEAKER_01: Small punctures.

11:11 SPEAKER_01: Dozens, then hundreds.

11:13 SPEAKER_01: His body convulsed, his voice turned wet.

11:17 SPEAKER_01: The mother descended.

11:19 SPEAKER_01: In daylight she was worse.

11:21 SPEAKER_01: Legs span closer to fifteen feet.

11:24 SPEAKER_01: Her abdomen is mottled brown and violet, eight eyes reflecting like polished stones.

11:31 SPEAKER_01: She pierced the suspended man's skull.

11:35 SPEAKER_01: The sound was soft, like biting into ripe fruit.

11:40 SPEAKER_01: Padic shattered discipline.

11:42 SPEAKER_01: The forest became a trap.

11:44 SPEAKER_01: Webbing clung to faces, rifles, mouths.

11:48 SPEAKER_01: One man stumbled into a sheet of silk.

11:51 SPEAKER_01: It wrapped around his chest as he fought.

11:54 SPEAKER_01: The more he struggled, the tighter it was constricted.

11:57 SPEAKER_01: You could hear the ribs bending.

11:59 SPEAKER_01: One snapped, then another.

12:02 SPEAKER_01: The mother spider lunged.

12:05 SPEAKER_01: Two legs impaled his shoulders.

12:07 SPEAKER_01: The fangs entered beneath his jaw.

12:10 SPEAKER_01: He did not die quickly.

12:12 SPEAKER_01: The jungle absorbed his choking.

12:15 SPEAKER_01: The rain stirred them.

12:17 SPEAKER_01: From every root and hollow log came the yellow young.

12:21 SPEAKER_01: Bright, glossy, endless.

12:25 SPEAKER_01: They leapt onto boots, climbed trousers, bit through fabric.

12:30 SPEAKER_01: One crewman tore open his shirt, trying to brush them away.

12:34 SPEAKER_01: They poured inside.

12:36 SPEAKER_01: His screams turned to gurgles as they bit his neck, his collarbone, his face.

12:41 SPEAKER_01: He collapsed into the mud that writhed.

12:44 SPEAKER_01: When the swarm cleared, little remained but torn cloth and red pulp sinking into brown water.

12:51 SPEAKER_01: Only the Lloyds and one other reached the truck.

12:55 SPEAKER_01: The engine turned over.

12:57 SPEAKER_01: Hope flickered.

12:58 SPEAKER_01: Then something landed on the roof.

13:01 SPEAKER_01: Eight legs scraped across the windshield.

13:04 SPEAKER_01: Eyes peered in, close enough to see reflections of their own terror.

13:10 SPEAKER_01: Fangs punched through the metal like tin.

13:13 SPEAKER_01: Oil dripped.

13:14 SPEAKER_01: The third survivor opened the door to run.

13:18 SPEAKER_01: A strand caught him midstep.

13:20 SPEAKER_01: It pulled sideways into the trees so violently his arm tore free from its socket.

13:27 SPEAKER_01: The spider dropped from the roof to claim him.

13:35 SPEAKER_01: The Lloyds drove.

13:37 SPEAKER_01: They did not look back.

13:38 SPEAKER_01: They saw a clearing ahead.

13:41 SPEAKER_01: Open road.

13:42 SPEAKER_01: Escape.

13:43 SPEAKER_01: Then the tyre struck silk.

13:46 SPEAKER_01: The truck flipped.

13:47 SPEAKER_01: Glass exploded.

13:49 SPEAKER_01: Silence.

13:51 SPEAKER_01: Reginald crawled from the wreckage.

13:53 SPEAKER_01: Marguerite did not.

13:55 SPEAKER_01: He looked up.

13:56 SPEAKER_01: She hung suspended twenty feet above, wrapped tight in silk, eyes wide and alive.

14:03 SPEAKER_01: The mother spider stepped into view, fully revealed, leg span enormous, fifteen feet if not more.

14:11 SPEAKER_01: Her body glistened in the wet light.

14:14 SPEAKER_01: Reginald fired his rifle.

14:16 SPEAKER_01: One eye burst in a spray of dark fluid.

14:20 SPEAKER_01: The spider recoiled, enraged.

14:23 SPEAKER_01: The yellow swarm answered.

14:25 SPEAKER_01: They climbed Reginald's legs as he reloaded.

14:28 SPEAKER_01: He felt the first bite on his ankle, then his thigh, then his throat.

14:33 SPEAKER_01: He fell backward into webbing that tightened instantly around his arms.

14:38 SPEAKER_01: The mother approached slowly.

14:40 SPEAKER_01: She drove her fangs into his abdomen.

14:43 SPEAKER_01: His scream tore through the clearing and broke into a bubbling gasp.

14:48 SPEAKER_01: Above him, Marguerite struggled against her cocoon.

14:52 SPEAKER_01: The baby spiders began wrapping her tighter, layer by layer, until her voice faded into muffled silence.

15:08 SPEAKER_01: The jungle resumed breathing.

15:11 SPEAKER_01: Officially, Reginald Lloyd and Marguerite Lloyd reported only a roadside sighting.

15:17 SPEAKER_01: No massacre.

15:19 SPEAKER_01: No silk forest.

15:21 SPEAKER_01: No swarm.

15:22 SPEAKER_01: Perhaps that was easier to publish.

15:25 SPEAKER_01: The Baka say Jabbar Fofi is rarer now, driven deeper into the rainforest.

15:31 SPEAKER_01: But they also say the forest never forgets.

15:34 SPEAKER_01: And sometimes, when the trees hum in the wind, that isn't wind at all.

15:40 SPEAKER_01: It's silk vibrating.

15:43 SPEAKER_01: Waiting.

15:47 SPEAKER_03: There's a certain irony to it.

15:52 SPEAKER_03: Two explorers are determined to map every inch of the Congo.

16:01 SPEAKER_03: Ended up caught in a web they never saw.

16:07 SPEAKER_03: Turns out the forest had already drawn its boundaries in silk.

16:17 SPEAKER_03: Empire met Apex Predator.

16:21 SPEAKER_03: Eight legs one.

16:25 SPEAKER_03: Sleep carefully.

16:28 SPEAKER_03: And if you ever feel the ground tug at your boot, don't pull because something might be pulling back.

17:27 SPEAKER_04: Myself and my brothers, the bringers of darkness, retreat to our lair.

17:35 SPEAKER_04: But do not be deceived.

17:37 unknown: Our hunger is never stated.

17:40 unknown: Your fear, your suffering, your screen.

17:45 SPEAKER_04: They will linger with us until we return.

17:48 SPEAKER_04: But know this.

17:50 SPEAKER_04: You cannot hide.

17:52 unknown: We will hunt you down.

17:54 unknown: We will find you.

17:56 unknown: When this calls again, it will already be too late.

18:02 unknown: We're already closer than you think.

18:06 SPEAKER_04: You can run.

18:08 SPEAKER_04: The shadows run faster.

18:11 SPEAKER_04: This time we take more than your fear.

18:16 SPEAKER_04: If this never let's go.

18:19 SPEAKER_04: Until then, this is the easy list.

18:23 SPEAKER_04: More than mortal podcast.

19:05 SPEAKER_00: Morbid Morsels Podcast has been a Dark Shogun production in association with Twisted Souls Media.

19:11 SPEAKER_00: Hi, I'm Troy Birch, creator and producer of this horrific show.

19:16 SPEAKER_00: If you want to help this show spread like a virus to more unsuspecting souls that stumble into the Abyss Morbid Morsels Podcast, remember to like, subscribe, download, follow, turn on the notification bell to give you a heads up when a new episode drops.

19:36 SPEAKER_00: Share the show with everyone who enjoys a little darkness in their day.

19:41 SPEAKER_00: And if you really want to help summon new Legion listeners, please consider leaving me a 5-star rating and review wherever you can.

19:50 SPEAKER_00: It really helps get the show in front of more listeners who enjoy immersive audio horror anthology podcasts.

19:57 SPEAKER_00: Leave a review on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts.

20:03 SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be a novel, just be honest.

20:06 SPEAKER_00: Those reviews are like lanterns in the dark.

20:10 SPEAKER_00: They help more people find their way to this little indie horror podcast.

20:14 SPEAKER_00: And it only takes a second to click.

20:17 SPEAKER_00: Drop me a question on Spotify's QA feature in the comment section on any episode, and I'll definitely respond.

20:25 SPEAKER_00: Since your suffering and screams are like a chorus to my ears, be sure to check my link tree.

20:33 SPEAKER_00: Linktr.ee slash into the Abyss Podcast.

20:39 SPEAKER_00: There you can follow the show's bloody trail across the digital wasteland.

20:44 SPEAKER_00: Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Threads, X, TikTok.

20:52 SPEAKER_00: Also, you can make a 100% recommendation or leave a review on Facebook or Instagram to suggest other twisted souls to listen.

21:02 SPEAKER_00: I'm always out there lurking in the dark, posting, connecting, and searching for new unsuspecting souls to torture.

21:10 SPEAKER_00: You can also listen to the show on your favorite podcast platforms.

21:15 SPEAKER_00: Check out DJ Trillium and We Are Legion for the dope music tracks that'll keep your heads nodding.

21:22 SPEAKER_00: Oh, and I've got some free dope stickers now to rep the Shadow Dweller.

21:27 SPEAKER_00: Follow me on my socials, leave a review, and when I find it, I'll give you a shout out.

21:33 SPEAKER_00: Or name a character after you in an upcoming episode.

21:37 SPEAKER_00: If you want one, just DM me on IG into underscore the underscore abyss underscore podcast.

21:49 SPEAKER_00: Or send a message to thedarkshowgun at msn.com.

21:54 SPEAKER_00: I'll make sure one finds its way to you.

21:57 SPEAKER_00: Have an idea for a future show?

22:00 SPEAKER_00: Tell me what kinds of stories you want to hear next.

22:03 SPEAKER_00: Horror genres, fantastic stories?

22:06 SPEAKER_00: Tell me what you're liking, what's creeping you out, what's sticking with you long after the episode ends.

22:14 SPEAKER_00: Hit me up.

22:16 SPEAKER_00: Thanks again for listening, supporting, and downloading.

22:20 SPEAKER_00: Please share the show with friends, family, or anyone who loves horror stories.

22:26 SPEAKER_00: Talk about it.

22:28 SPEAKER_00: Remember, word of mouth is the best way we can grow.

22:32 SPEAKER_00: Thank you for walking into the darkness with me.

22:35 SPEAKER_00: And thank you for helping this strange little show reach places I never dreamed it would.

22:41 SPEAKER_00: I am truly grateful for each and every listener.

22:45 SPEAKER_00: Remember, whatever darkness that lurks in the shadows will be waiting and visiting you in your twisted nightmares as you spiral into madness.

23:37 SPEAKER_02: A visceral dread, unearthing the macabre, secrets, and twisted urban legends that thrive.

23:42 SPEAKER_02: Where the light dares not flicker.

23:45 SPEAKER_02: Let these stories coil around you like a cold mist.

23:47 unknown: Haunting, haunting, hypnotic yet impossible to shake.

23:50 unknown: Pull the covers tight and listen closely.

23:52 SPEAKER_02: The silence is hungry, and the dweller has such delicious nightmares to share before you're finally consumed by the void.

23:59 SPEAKER_02: Surrender to the shadow dweller.

24:02 SPEAKER_02: In the suffocating quiet of the dark, a voice emerges to spin.

24:06 SPEAKER_02: Sinister chronicles and jagged nightmares designed to haunt your waking hours.

24:10 SPEAKER_02: Let these ripping terrors be your final companion as you drift toward the edge of the ever-hungry abyss.

24:15 SPEAKER_02: Listen if you dare, the void is already listening to you.