With Halloween just around the corner, The DailyER staff has spent a number of weeks searching for what spooks people the most. From ghosts to goblins to vampires, people are united in their fear of that which they do not understand.

While many of the Halloween festivities center around fabricated horror, one genuine revulsion stands above the rest. Chapped lips, what some have called the bane of human existence, seek to strike fear in the hearts of those who witness or experience them. It is for that reason that, when we found a man with chapped lips, we had to, for the sake of the holiday, share it with our readers.

Meet Scott Woods. Upon first glance, Woods may seem like a regular, blue-collar man. He works at a meat processing plant in Lincoln, Nebraska, and is a husband, brother and father of two daughters.

But don’t let Woods’ harmless appearance fool you. He is a chronically dehydrated man with an aversion to a variety of lip balms. His lips are, as a result, a living example of what happens to a body after it dies.

Woods, in an interview with The DailyER, spoke about what having chapped lips means to him.

“I just don’t understand why it’s newsworthy,” said Woods, each phoneme taking a unique, whistling path through the crevices of Woods’ dry, cracked lips. “I just don’t like the taste lip balm leaves in my mouth. And that white residue that sometimes shows up on your lips after is gross, too.”

As Woods’ lips met, they reportedly produced a slight clapping sound, as if two polystyrene foam packing peanuts had fallen on top of one another. His hardened lips reflected the hardened heart of a man on whom social norms had no sway. There was something truly sinister about Woods’ total rejection of self-care, and it served as a reminder that, sometimes, the truly monstrous things in this world are those which come from our lips.