Roaches & Parts

This is Creepy.

“A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepy pastas and urban legends in the world.”

Whether these stories truly happened, or while simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories made in teen graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. It's up y'all. Okay.

So right off the top, I know the fetus been weird for a little while anyway with the interruptions. Which I find oddly comforting, but I'm strange. And the last couple of episodes suddenly disappeared for about half a day. Okay, that one's actually on us. We switched hosting sites and in the transition, there was some overlap stuff, et cetera.

We're trying to get the bugs worked out of the system with that and our ad placement, et cetera. What all should be corrected soon enough if it hasn't been already. It has been crazy hot and humid lately, like late July, early August type weather and everything just feels moist, moist, I mean, this is a horror podcast, right, moist.

“I'd say more, but I think we'd start to teeter on that line of erotica that anyone who's ever”

met me in real life knows I cannot pull off in the least. There's a reason to hide down in the balls of a largely disused radio station in my free time. Anyway, while you all think about words you hate hearing people say, let's get to today's stories.

First up, from writer J. T. Johnson and narrated by Nicole Goodnight, creepy presence,

roaches. There have been bugs in almost everything at Nona's house, little nats stuck dead to the sticky rim of the jam jar, flies dropping one at a time into whatever might be frying in the food going to skillet beneath the swang sticky strip. The bugs were in other parts of the house, not just the kitchen.

Roaches walked up and down the rusty shower rod and known as bathroom. They're long, little antenna twitching and creeping over the edge. They'd like to hide in the folds of the shower curtain, too. Sometimes landing on my foot and screwing around the tubal I struggled to get away from it.

They hid in the hairbrush or on the bed, under the pillow and in between the sheets. They were everywhere, it seemed. On the weekends, my mom would come and bring me back to her apartment. This was on the nicer side of the city, with big windows and no bugs. My mother was young and she had no grain or hair, and she dressed not much different from

the girls I saw walking to and from the high school. When I was with her, it was an endless string of fun. Music, pizza, movies, roller-blading and petting puppies at the Humane Society. She baked cupcakes at three o'clock in the morning. I drank coke for breakfast, and when I worried that Nona might found out, she'd shoot

“me a sligh wink that made me feel as though I was in on a secret.”

In the days of the bugs and living with Nona and weak ending at my mom's apartment, I'd come to see Nona as my mother, and my mom is something more like a sister or an aunt. I would relish in the bliss of eating ice cream topped with sprinkles, and not having to question if they were little morsels of chocolate or little nuts.

I would ask about my dad, sure, and my mom would always say something witty or flippant.

"Oh, that old schmuck?" He'd got a one-way ticket to somewhere else, kiddo. Him? Who knows what good old one-night stand is up to? Probably fishing in coke a mile.

"Hey, let's dance, turn it on for me, kiddo." I'd then grab one of her little cassette tapes and put it into her boom box, she called the good lady. For whatever reason, my mom didn't, like Nona, would wrinkle her nose when she smelled my clothes before making me take a bath.

She would say things like, "Nona is as a dump," or a while making a kink at midnight that, that old bat ruined my life. She only said those things after she'd consulted with Jim, as she called it. But once she'd had that drink, little things would slip out of her. Things about marriage and dropouts, and I'm sure I was a big disappointment.

I knew, even at a young age, that there was a tangled mess of a knot between my mom and

my Nona, a history that had never fully healed under the calloused surface.

Sometimes when mom complained about Nona, how disgusting her house was, or how she had bugs, I would ask, "Beg, even, if I could just come live with her. She would get a strange little look on her face. Her mouth setting into a thin line before she'd take my chin and squeeze once. The ear better off with Nona, my little doll."

the sharp smell of Jim.

“Besides, if you were with me all the time, I wouldn't be so fun.”

I asked Nona once why I couldn't live with my mom, I had to stay with her and her bugs. She had looked sad, sad and fretful, before telling me it was just how it had to be.

She once explained to me while changing out one of the sticky traps that my mother had always

loved parties. Big ones, little ones, birthday parties, or the holiday ones, your mother loved them. She would say this with a smile before dropping the flying fisted trap into the waste basket, but for your mother, the party never ends. She just goes to a different one, not truly, but you know what your Nona means.

She'd look at me after saying that, old eyes the color of moss pushing into my own, and babies, my darling. They don't belong at the parties that never end. As I got older, I tried harder to keep Nona's house, our house, clean. I kept most of the food, even the cereal and bread in the fridge.

I wiped clean the sticky jam jars and made sure to turn over the blankets to check for the roaches.

“I sprayed their assault cans with the dead bugs on the label.”

I fought with the landlord about the unlawfulness of renting a home with these conditions. For years I went to school praying a roach hadn't snuck in with me, hidden in my hair or in my backpack. By the time I had reached high school, my weekends with my mom had become strained in far apart.

Indeed, the party never ended for her.

She eventually lost the pretty apartment on the other side of town. This had been perluted by an explosive argument one afternoon when bringing me home. I was in the eighth grade at the time and it had been a particularly strained visit. Mom had consulted more than usual with Jim, and had been on a sort of rant from Friday to Sunday.

I had a life. She had sieved as she splashed Pepsi into the gym, her eyes blurry and glaring at me. I had promise. I had potential. She set these words in long slippery tones, her head bobbing.

Lost in a world of history, I had not yet been a part of. And now look at me. Just look at me. When back at Nona's I'd stood in the hallway where they couldn't see, listening while mom demanded money.

Money, she knew Nona had. She had bellowed that part.

Nona, who I had never heard raise her voice once, just kept saying she was sorry.

"I'm sorry, Cara, I'm so sorry, I don't. I can't." My mom had done something then, allowed crash of glass in the delicate tinkle of shards dancing onto the floor stopping Nona's words. "You won't," my mom had yelled.

Nothing else breaking, following her rising voice. Mom said other things, Nona did too. And at one point, my name had been brought up in a spiteful hiss. My name had been used the way people say "fuck" and "shit." I'm sure at the time I heard it quite well.

But memory and the mind have a way of carefully boxing away things that hurt too much. After that, I didn't see mom for a while. When I did again, she looked different. She had lost weight. For already trimmed figure now looking almost emaciated.

The weekends of cakes and Sundays and rollerblading had been switched out for sitting on broken down couches, watching talk shows, and eating the dollar store burgers from whichever fast-food place she had decided to work at, she'd cut her long hair short and had a habit of scratching raw patches into her neck and arms. Time went on, Nona got older, the house got dirtier, the bugs harder to kill.

For a long time it felt like my life had been glued to a carousel that could only get worse as it continued to turn and turn. I left Nona's when I turned 18. I had toiled with the notion of going to college, but in the end, I didn't go. I didn't even try.

I had friends, friends who tried to encourage me to come along, friends who said I could crash on their couches or hang in the dorm rooms, I had to climb their offers. I knew how far the apple could fall from the old rotting tree. I found jobs where I could, as a barista, a dog walker, I delivered pizza and for a while I took calls at a small dental office two hours away from Nona's.

I lived in little apartments at this time, I kept them clean and laid out traps even though they had never been a bug to justify it. I called Nona in the evenings, then on Mondays and Wednesdays, and then slowly over time I called only on Sundays, then I didn't call it all for a time.

“Nona became a piece of me that felt dirty, like a secret I desperately wanted to remain”

hidden in the swamps of my mind.

Most of the time she thought I was mom, asking me how school had been, if that boy was treating me nice. When she knew me as me, she would ask how I was, when I would be coming home to see her and if I was happy.

The word "happy" never quite fit right in my mouth, either too big or too awkward

to chew around.

“I was content, I was safe, and I lived in a place with no bugs, but "happy"?”

I wasn't sure, but I said yes, all the same. Mostly because I wanted Nona to not worry, I never asked about mom, but Nona would mention her from time to time. She'd tell me where mom was living, if she was in rehab or out again. I didn't care either way.

As far as I knew, my time with my mother had come to an end years ago. The call had come in the late evening. The woman on the line informing me that Nona was behind on her rent. When I asked how late there had been a study ruffle of paper, then along sigh, no, three months.

Could you tell her she needs to get back up to standing?

Tell her, then, you can't give her much more rope on this.

I've got my own bills, you know, and I felt a cold pit in my stomach, Nona's face filling my mind as I listened to Lindi go on about bills in her own woes. I told her I'd get it taken care of, assuring her that yes, yes, you'll get your money. But while we're on the phone, did you get an exterminator out there yet?

“You know those bugs have been a problem for a long time.”

When the call ended, I instantly called Nona, five in a row back to back. When she did an answer, I was in my car, a strange, cold rock pressing down in my mouth. I didn't want to acknowledge the worry running circles on my tongue, the way her face kept burning brighter in my head. I made the two-hour drive gnawing through my nails, contemplating all the things that could

have gone wrong. Her hip had been bad, maybe she'd fallen. Had she hit her head, was she stuck on the floor?

The worries chased me like dogs.

The closer I became, the more certain I was, something had truly gone terribly wrong. My breaks let out small cries as I pulled into the empty spot beside her old Buick, taking notice of the one flat tire on the back. She had let her license expire years ago. The conversation replying as I set up and stared at the house from the safety of my car.

"I don't go anywhere." She'd explained over the phone.

“The voice breathless as if each word took more from her than it should have, and if I”

need to go somewhere, I have people I can call, who don't mind taking me if I'm in a pinch. Besides, she had chuckled then. A joke only she herself had been in on, and probably more dangerous behind the wheel now. My eyes, you know, and my arthritis. The conversation began to fade, fizzling out like an old song on an even older radio.

My heart sinking as I stepped out of the car. Momentarily lifting when I heard the sound of her TV from inside. I had made it up three of the five steps before the front door swung open. The bad hinge screeching loudly as the door slapped against the side of the house. I froze.

Whatever relief might have been attempting to unfurl, slowly weathered. My hands pausing on the rail. My eyes locked on the figure in the doorway. She was somehow thinner than before. A ghost of a woman I had tried to exercise for my life decades ago.

Her hair was long again. Pulled into a sloppy ponytail that had gone loose and frizzy at the nape of her neck. There were streaks of gray through it now, blowing like threads of silver against the fluorescent flicker of known as porch light. I inhaled.

A flood of words fought for entry into my mouth, clumping together to choke me as I looked up better. Well, look what the cat dragged in. Nice to see you too, Mom. My voice felt dry and not like my own as I finished walking up the steps.

What are you doing here? She had crossed her arms over herself, but with them alarmingly thin as she looked me up and down. There were new pop marks on her cheeks. Her eyes had become sunk in since I'd last seen her.

She looked skeletal. Her jaw jetting left and right in a sort of ticking motion as she looked me up and down. You got taller, kid. Your light laughs scratched at the back of her throat. Her eyes darting behind me, back to me, then behind me again.

Shit, kid. You, uh. Why are you here? You got any cash? Can I bump some?

I looked past her into the house that seemed sickeningly yellow. I thought it over, letting my words from carefully before I motioned behind her head and into the house. I'm here to see Nona. She nodded, the movement jittery and fast.

She had started bouncing lightly from foot to foot, her fingers tapping against her

The words, so when did you get out of rehab, clawed at the back of my lips, suppressed only

“by the need to see Nona, and you arguing with her would prolong it.”

Stop it, even. Mom shifted, back and forth, her shoulders shrugging. Sorry, you'll have to come back later. She's asleep. I frowned, and she forward, testing how firm she would be on denying my entry.

I drove two hours, Mom. Let me in. I'm tired. She blinked, fingers digging into her shoulder before she backed up a few steps. The door swinging idly as I stopped it.

Sure. Yeah. She's sleeping though, so. The house smelled different, new odors, bad odors, mingling with the ones I'd grown used to as a kid.

Nona had always had bugs, but we tried to keep the house as clean as we could.

“Eclanced at the dirty bags on the floor in front of the couch.”

Only then seeing the pair of dirty work boots still connected to the oil-stained jeans of the manslumped deeply into the place that was usually Nona's spot. He was pale and thin like Mom, his eyes sunken. The one on the left still sporting a bruise that looked maybe a week old. He looked at me with the same expression I'm sure I had for him.

My throat squeezing as I turned away, seeking out my mother who had now moved to stand in the kitchen. The table was messier than Nona would have liked, male piled up, toppled over onto dirty dinner plates and frozen meal trays. There was a glass bowl at the center filled with cigarette butts mounted up into little

hills. A larger roach rested at the edge of the table between two envelopes, antenna twitching curiously at me. I resisted the urge to kill it. There would be time for that.

But the more pressing questions had finally swam up to the surface. I turned, the sink filled with dirty plates and cups, a thin cloud of gnats warmed over the trash which had begun toppling onto the floor. Something small and gray darted behind the refrigerator.

We had never had mice before.

Nona is three months late, her landlady called. At last faced Mom, her eyes darting from the pile of envelopes on the table to me, her shoulders twitching three times in fast shrugging movements. I just came to get that sorted for Nona. Mom's face pinched up then.

The tip of her dirty thumb rubbing quickly across the flash of discolored gums, her head shaking. Jesus Christ, your full grown grown upright, it's Mona, not Nona. Her tone had become pitched and nasally. It was the tone and older sibling might take with a younger one to make them cry. I swear to Christ, you were the dumbest baby, what baby can't even say Mona.

She snorted, a shadow falling over her eyes. I started down the hallway, intent unwaking Nona when Mom stepped in front of me, as wild like a dog backed into a corner. She was mumbling, I could catch bits of it, money, the dumb bitch I only wanted a little. They were strung together on cavity-coated breath, her cheeks flushing into a feverish

red. The hallway from what I could see was packed with dirty laundry and food wrappers. There's a smell reaching up from the floor reminiscent of roadstrappings, and now that new odor. Mice. Let me say goodbye to Nona, I drove all this way.

I was aware vaguely of the strange situation I had fallen into. I reached behind me, padding the phone in my back pocket once for reassurance, before taking another step towards the hallway, towards Mom's unmoving but twitching stance. She's a real bitch. Mom's voice was low, eyes narrowing.

You know, she kept all that money for herself, did you know that? And look at this dump. She kept you in this place. Christ and crackers, the bugs, you know I had one in my hair, no shitting, woke up with one of those big mother fuckers.

To this, she pointed towards the wall, where a thumb-sized road rested and carrying only on a picture frame in my hair. Hey, you remember my old apartment kid?

“Remember how we used to play music on that shitty boom box?”

Those were the days, right? You should have seen me, Lance. I was a lucker. Tell him, kid, tell him your mom was a lucker. The good lady, I said wistfully, inching closer to her, around her.

The boom box, you called her the good lady. Mom blinked, a flash of surprise lighting her eyes before it went out, her head nodding. Let's go make some sun days, like the good old days, let Mona. No, no, I corrected, already nearly behind my mom and freed a dart for known as room. I was around her then, my ankle nearly rolling on a pile of dirty jeans, something

alive scrumming under my foot before darting off into the shadows, I was walking fast.

Don't wake her, no stop, come on, kid, ice cream, such a bitch, such a fucking bitch.

“I pushed known as door open, nearly knocked backwards by the smell that rushed out of”

the room. Oh, shit, Molly, make a mess in there. She was talking into the dark room, but her eyes were on me, her mouth pulling to the sides, Mom, you shit yourself in there? See, kid, she's in a tough spot, real bad place.

Maybe come back. I shoved pastor ignoring the smell that filled the room like a thick fog. I reached onto the wall, flicking the switch.

It was the roaches I saw first, scattering like living shadows, they had been on the bed,

the floor, the wall, living freely in the dark, thriving even. I wandered with horror when the light had even been on last for there to have been so many. My second thought, reeling with shock, wandered where no one was, if not in her room. But then I saw the bed. A fat mouse, maybe even a rat by the size of it, was hunched on the narrow, thin dip of

known as shoulders. Its whiskers and nose were red and slick. I could hear the quiet gnashing of teeth against skin. The yellow flesh of known as earlobe tugging into the fat rat's mouth. Its of raw scalp poked out from the tuffs of gray hair, the marks like small strawberry

stains.

“Bite marks were everywhere, chunks of her face were missing, her eyes wide?”

No. No, she has no eyes. My head feeling swollen as I stared into the wide, gaping eye sockets. There was a squelching sound, followed by a thick glob of something dark red rolling out from one of the eye sockets.

It was a blood soaked field mouse. I threw up. It surged onto the floor in a hot splash. I couldn't stop. The smell, the sight of known as taking my insides and twisting them.

The mice had all returned to their chewing. Three of known as fingers were missing, too, had been nod to the bone. A roach, large like the one in the kitchen, came tumbling out from behind her, scurrying across the lump of blankets, only to be caught by a fast moving rat. I went to turn away when I felt the cold, hard end of something crack into my temple.

I fell, first on my knees, then my side, another hard blow coming down, this time hitting

the arm that I had flung up over my face.

“I saw a red, then white, then little glittering dots that took up too much of my vision.”

Disorientation had taken hold, and I was blissfully unaware of where I was for what felt like a minute before I felt the weight of something pushed down on me. Mom was on me. Eyes black. Her lips peeled back over her teeth.

Her hands were trying to get to my throat. The asshole from the couch now standing behind her, his back twitching as he watched from the hallway door. She was going to kill me. This thought was not one of panic but simple observation.

Her hands found purchase on my throat briefly, squeezing down before I was able to shove her.

She was light, as if made of nothing more than coat hangers and cigarettes.

Her upper body spilled up and over me. One of her hands hooked into my hair, clawing wildly at the scalp. Fucking brat, little bitch. I had potential I had a chance. I just needed some cash. Demic, can't you fucking get it? She was panting.

Her reds vibrating between grouse and sobbs. Her hands clawing at my face blindly as I tried to get out from under her. I fought, throwing my hands and legs, nails and feet, trying to make contact with anything that might stun her long enough to get her off of me. I tried to roll onto my stomach.

The movement toppling her sideways and drawing the bedframe harshly. There was a quiet pattering noise. It was a sound of roaches and mouse droppings hitting the floor around me. On me. Everywhere.

She was on me again. Unaware or uncaring of the bugs crawling over her shoulders, upper neck and across her forehead. Her mouth had peeled as far back as it could go as she found my neck again. Why are we fingers wrapping down and taking hold? My lungs ached for air.

My hands clawing needlessly at her choking fingers. My squealed menacingly around us. The bedframe was shaking with each movement. My thoughts becoming panicked as a dark shadow began to bleed into the edges of my vision. I tried to talk, my voice swelling and dying out.

Something in my neck strained a quiet crunch sending a sparkle of pain up my spine. The movement came from behind her head. Tuffs of pale hair peeking out over the edge with each hit the bedframe tuck. The marred and decaying scalp came into view. Then the gaping sockets, staring down at me like oozing eyeballs in their own right.

The nose came next, not to the cartilage. Then the mouth. Lips chewed away to nothing but rubbery edges. Yellow teeth grinning down at me like a corpse come back to life. I saw.

What I thought I saw was the thin, mangled arm of no-na fling out. I hand-missing fingers and clung to by mice crashing onto mom's face.

Standing onto the floor with a wet plop that left a smear of reddish brown underneath her.

“The bugs spilled out of no-na like water from a faucet.”

It was a nightmarish surge out of her mouth, her nose, even the deeper bite marks along her arms and chest. The mice were there, too. Blood soaked and scrambling out from no-na's body, their squeaks frantic. They flooded over mom's legs, a perconvolcing torso as she screamed and kicked.

Mom could only hold her mouth closed for so long before another hysterical scream tore out of her. They moved fast then, and possibly so. Surging into her gaping mouth, muffling the scream into something closer to a low hum. Her neck began to swell and bulge as the roaches, and even if you mice, too, burrowed

into her. I could hear the delicate tearing of skin, the harsh crunch of cartilage and bone giving way to tiny teeth and even smaller pinchers. Her bugs flooded into the room, flanked by mice and rats, as if called by an invisible paper.

I ran. Terrified that once they were finished with her, they would move on to me, as can crawling with the sensation of tiny legs. I don't know when I quit screaming, I'm sure it was some time before the police finally arrived.

I had waited for them outside, slapping away the bugs that had clung to my clothes when I had run out of the house. The officers didn't stay in the house long after going into inspect what I had told them was in there. They all came out three shades paler, and with a look in their eyes, I could understand

all too well. I gave them my statement, and asked if I could please, "Please, go home."

I learned later that there was never any money.

No hidden savings or trust fund, known ahead of hiding.

“Mom believed there was, and where that idea had come from?”

I will never know. On the nights I can't sleep, haunted by the phantom bugs I feel crawling on my skin. I think of Nona, and all she had ever done for me. I know that somehow, as impossible as it may seem, Nona had helped me that night, protecting me from my mother, one last time.

And next, for my digestive incubation narrative I know I'm a cune, creepy presence. Parts. Everything is quiet, barely any hustle and bustling the hallway, although a nurse does peek into my room occasionally, calmness on her face. The few nurses I've seen have that same look.

I left my room one time but was quickly ushered back. No one got mad or anything, just let me know I needed to remain until the operation. I must say, though, that one time I roamed down the hall, I was surprised at how a few patient rooms there were.

“I asked my nurse about it, but she just said that people come and go quickly.”

I had a good inkling about the size of the place when I first arrived and mentioned

it to the driver who had picked me up at the airport. He muttered something about the place being specialized. Dr. Phelps, a thin fellow with a struggling smile, greeted me, thanked me, and didn't add any more information. No matter.

Right now I don't have an urge to go roaming, probably the sedative they've given me. For a moment, I had to stop and think about how long I'd been here. Two days. I would've expected the operation to happen rather quickly, it being the simple procedure it is, and that they don't seem overburdened with work.

But they know what they're doing I'm sure. If the place isn't all that impressive size wise, the company presentation that got me here certainly was. First clash brochures backed up by knowledgeable contacts. Since I'd done so much work helping people get money for these operations, I wasn't surprised

at all when I was contacted. Donating myself had already been on my mind for some time, so I was already a willing subject. The flight here cost a bit, but I'd been itching for a trip anyway. Seems like a tooth for. And the mountainous scenery around the hospital was the perfect getaway.

They also promised me a very affordable place to stay while I recuperated. It feels good to be doing something for someone, nothing in return, just the satisfaction that another person will live a better life. We've all got two kidneys, and you can live a long life with just one. Perhaps I should be saving one for my two brothers, but they're the healthiest people I know.

Exercise, eat well, hike, all that stuff, they'll probably never see the inside of a hospital.

I wonder, who'll be getting my kidney? Mine's a nice healthy 45 year old one, in a way I hope it's not going to some old rich guy. Well, not that he might really deserve it, but I'd like to think it's going to provide a long life for someone.

some new way to make the world safer for people.

“Even if it's a regular guy with a nice family, kids he and his wife love and are bringing”

up right, well that's great too. I heard someone in the hall, low talking, it's not time for supper. I hoped it might be Dr. Phelps doing some rounds so I could ask questions. He came in yesterday to see me, but I haven't seen him since. I asked the nurse if he'd be showing up before the operation, and she made it seem like

he might, although her face that otherwise. I'd have to say her face showed little emotion every time she came in. And same with the others, papers shuffling made me turn, and I saw a nurse in my doorway. She had a clipboard and stood there for a moment checking off things. Every so often she looked up at me and nodded.

Finish her scribbling, she turned her head toward me and stared, almost as though seeing

me here in this room for the first time.

Then she mad her faculty told me that my operation would happen next morning. I started to speak, but she started to turn away. This time, her expression changed. No longer did she know I was there, but now I seem to be erasing me from a mind. My figure this wasn't going to be my permanent nurse.

Not quite what you'd expect from nurses, but maybe she was having a bad day. No need to complain. At least they check everything. No need worrying about their manners when they do. I don't think they missed any tests at all since I arrived.

I did get smiles when everyone proclaimed I was a healthy specimen, at least it can happen. I smiled too. Supper would be nice, but the food's been great, I can say that much about the place. It's certainly not an institution where they keep costs down.

“Now that I think of it though, you can't have anything until after the operation.”

I should have remembered that. Those sedatives are getting me a bit confused. No matter, they did promise me the best steak I'd ever had afterwards. Earlier I heard a noise. A thin sound, along with a wobble that told me a gurney was coming down the hallway.

It entered a room and the door closed. A new arrival, I assumed. It gave me a light-hearted feeling, knowing in a short time someone else in the world would gain a new lease on life, or at least a better existence. When the door opened and the gurney reemerged, banging, against something, I wonder

what this new arrival was giving up. A kidney is nice since the one laugh can function just fine, but maybe this person is giving up a portion of his or her liver, or even segments of a long, pancreas, or an intestine. Maybe it's just tissues like skin, bone marrow, and possibly blood-forming cells.

I enjoyed running down the list, marveling at what science can do. In my mind, the list grew longer, adding heart valves, bone, veins, and tendons. Unfortunately, the big ones, complete ones, like the heart, lungs, pancreas, everything, I guess need to be done after your dad. Those are already in my will.

As I thought about this, I decided it would be nice to talk with this new patient. Anyone coming here to donate a part of themselves that others might live or live better as a top-notch human in my book, I waited, hoping a nurse would pass by so I could ask who came in. The hallway remained quiet, however, so I decided I'd meet the person and slipped out

of bed. Immediately I staggered backwards, plopping down on the mattress as dizziness made the room spin. I waited a minute, then slowly stood and made my way to the door. Peaking out, I saw the hall was empty.

All a bit on steady, I moved down the hallway one hand running along the cool, tiled wall.

The first room I checked was empty.

I didn't want to go too far from my room, but I was rewarded when I opened the second door. I figure lay on the bed. His head slowly turned to me, but his body remained motionless. He didn't smile, and then turned his head back to gaze at the ceiling. He seemed barely aware of anything.

"Don't mean to bother you," I said, "but I just wanted to meet you. You're obviously here to donate. I admire that. My name's Dixon, George." He didn't say anything and kept staring at the ceiling.

"Sorry to bother you," I said again, deciding he wanted privacy and started to leave. Holding the door handle, I heard his voice and turned, and a soft monotone with barely enough decibels for hearing.

“His sentence broke in only a few words I think I heard, asked to leave.”

For a moment such talk upset my pleasant view of what we were doing, I wanted to hear that being here made him feel special, that he was gaining far more than he was losing. Why, I asked, but he just let out a breath, like someone finished or unable to continue.

In the last, I remained upbeat.

“Don't worry about the operation I explained, adding, "What are you donating?"”

My thought I heard kidney and then sister, but his head shook, as I watched him try to lift his head, his mouth moving wordlessly, trying to add more. Still in positive mode, I said again, an easiest operation. His body seemed to collapse under the blanket, in a face squirming to let something out. His mouth silently opened and shut.

The door swung open, a nurse stomped into the room, angrily she escorted me back to my

room, repeating to me that patience were never to be bothered.

Since my operation was tomorrow, I needed to let the sedatives take effect and not do something that would harm myself. I don't know what could I say, neatly, I crawled back into bed. A minute later, the nurse returned with a syringe, just said, "A little more sedative." And plunged the needle into my arm.

It didn't take long to feel the effect.

“As I felt myself losing the sensation of the mattress, I kept thinking about the man in”

the other room. His unfathomable overrought actions did take the edge off my pleasant thoughts about what I was doing. Quickly, though, I shoved the possibility away and found myself feeling sorry for the guy.

I hated thinking he wouldn't be approaching this wonderful act in the best of spirits.

And I hope my little speech helped. The light from the late afternoon slowly faded and darkness filled the room. A small light near the door came on, it soft glow working in concert with the quiet. I tried sleeping, figuring that the sedative would hasten it, but, while I might have dosed now and then, the night was punctuated with wakefulness and an awareness of the

hushed atmosphere. Once I heard a door opening and closing, and the soft turning of gurney wheels nearby, my eyes closed and then opened again at whatever hour it was, thulps stood over me. He didn't say anything, just watched me with a notebook clutch to his chest. The space didn't show any emotion.

“I said something, but I think the sentence contained two or three ideas.”

The operation, the new patient, something with a "why" in it.

I did hear him say mostly to himself, "Fine, fine." I returned to the dark. But even in that state, somehow voices came to me. They drifted in and out, sometimes two or three at a time, sometimes one voice in a monotone. In between all this, I dreamed, mostly about the hospital and the few people I'd met.

And the new patient laying there, his face closer now, his lips moving frantically, his head shaking as if trying to loosen itself from his neck to fly wild eyed at me. At this time, though, I saw more than when I was in his room. I saw pleading in his face, and even if I couldn't hear it, the word "leave" came to me. The dream seemed completely devoid of the joy I had entered the hospital with.

I wanted that back, and heard myself calling out to anyone who would listen. I felt myself jostled, breaking me out of my dream state, and voices shushing me. When I opened my eyes, two nurses stood over me, rubbing a cloth over my body, with the faint odor of a disinfectant. I felt good about that, no infections that way.

I expected another prick from the syringe to keep me from moving around unnecessarily, but it didn't come. The two nurses parted, and Dr. Phelps bent down, placing a small gadget near my forehead. A moment later, he nodded with satisfaction. He did other things after which all three smiled at each other.

I could hear a gurney coming up the hall. That same sound, a little wobble in one of its wheels. My voice came to me. It's time I asked. Phelps nodded, but didn't smile.

And I didn't feel the allation I wanted to feel. The dreams it seemed had sacked me of that enthusiasm I had so wanted to keep. Nonetheless, I struggled to regain it. I couldn't let some amorphous negativity sap what I had arrived here with. It did come back, but it came burden with thoughts nestling in the background.

Two men came in, and I felt myself being lifted and placed on the gurney. A sheet was put over me. I suddenly felt cold, and the sheet was a welcome addition. Will I know who this is going to? I asked, but immediately shook my head.

Someone as knowledgeable about this as I was, knew those things weren't divulged. Now maybe it was the ego speaking, the little guy inside us that still wants to pat on the back no matter how much we say we don't want it. Rich or poor, I also threw out, but didn't get an answer than either.

I glanced over at the door over the other patient had been.

Even then something seemed out of it, but I had to push out of my mind. A moment later, two doors swung open, and we entered a brightly lit operating room. I expected more equipment, but at least the room seemed clean. I was lifted again onto a long thin table. The sheets stayed over me, as everyone did what they had to do.

A nurse puttered about near me. It was a small woman wearing a mask, white hair sticking out from under the cap. Her eyes turned to me, but they registered nothing. Neither from a smile I couldn't see nor worry, just blankness.

“How's the person who was in the room next to me I asked?”

He seemed so worried about the operation. I knew the word worry wasn't strong enough.

The woman glanced over at the doctor, I figured it was a doctor, but when he did nothing,

she turned to me and said he was just fine. After a moment, she added that the outcome was just fine. While I'd be able to see him, I asked. The nurse didn't answer. No one else spoke to me except the small, here we go, when a nurse placed an inhaler over

my face, and the room dimmed and went out. I've been under anesthesia before, and this was no different. Nothing is remembered. It's the darkness and oblivion of death. Slowly, light began to penetrate, but my vision remained unclear.

Then so I could make out that I was no longer in the operating room.

“All I could see were a few dim lights overhead, colored reflections amidst the blinking”

and a ceiling crisscrossed with metal beams. I obviously wasn't in my own room. Voices sounding hollow as the word for bouncing around a large hall came to me. They were nearby. I heard jumbled sentences, half sentences from people not needing to explain things completely

to each other. I did catch the words, emptied out, and too. I tried turning my head but found it difficult. Even my arms and legs seemed fastened to the bed or wherever I was on. Still I was able to twist my head and turn my eyes enough to catch a glimpse of what was

nearby. Nothing was clear in the room. A light somewhere shone, but it did nothing to let me see anything. I did make out what seemed to be a gurney next to me. Now I noticed a few colored lights blinking beside me.

I twisted my head harder to see the person next to me. Nothing along his torso moved. I must have made a sound or tried to talk because the voice is near me stopped. I tried to talk but couldn't and realized something had been inserted in my mouth. Had something gone wrong, I thought panicking.

I felt people moving near me. At that moment I twisted my head far enough to see the ash and faced person next to me. I felt sure it was the man I talked to and then nearby room. I felt a bit better knowing he had done what he came to do. Someone would be happy.

Someone would have a new lease on life and he'd feel better now that it was over. I mumbled something and the voice is nearby stopped. Shortly after his bed moved and as he slid past, as I was body and head had been covered by a sheep, one arm dangling free. Even as I felt cold, unhappy realizing the man didn't make it, I knew I was fine.

It hit me, the colored flashing lights nearby must have been on a machine to aid in my recovery. Perhaps after a small setback.

“The oxygen tube in my mouth, if that's what it was, probably didn't even machine it.”

There was a prick from a needle going into my arm. I heard someone else say, "Beddy-bye until you're needed." I felt my gurney moving back to my own room, I hoped. Then I heard Phelps' unemotional voice telling whoever else was in the room to hold up and remove the IV from my arm, adding stasis was on hold and asthesia.

There was the rustling of papers and unintelligible murmuring.

Then, with a touch of amusement I had never heard from Phelps, I heard him say that this

one required a rush removal first, another dispassionant voice agreed. I thought about the words stasis as they began wheeling the away. I'd never heard of it before, but the meaning seemed out of my thoughts like something desiring to escape. It coiled a bit at the edge of my mind before coalescing into what it truly meant.

It essentially meant motionless, but there was a better term. Maintenance mode. I understood the fear on the man's face in the next room. I knew why he had wanted to leave, but knew he never could. He had figured it out.

My fist's clenched tight.

A grocery store for the wealthy.

“No questions asked, "Front of the line dollars do the talking.”

For me, it'll be waiting in the dark until there's no more to give."

A tear trickled down my face.

I wondered if anyone could see it. Would it make any difference?

“I muttered a swear barely getting it out.”

Then I didn't want to think anymore.

My thoughts dimmed as a long list began running through my mind. Liver, spleen, pancreas, intestines, bone, heart, marrow, all of the waiting to be plucked. All there for the taking.

“He positive lusts right might have felt for what was to be my earlier sacrifice, perhaps”

a small, thank you George Dixon. Now I felt like hearing laughter from gold and bejured bodies. I wonder how long I'll remain half way to death. For more information on this podcast, including how to submit your own story for consideration, please visit CreepyPard.com.

You can also follow us at CreepyPard on social media and YouTube. All stories told on this podcast are done so through creative comments share a like licensing, or with written consent from the authors. No portion of this podcast may be rebroadcast or otherwise distributed without the express written consent of the CreepyPardcast production team and the story's author.