CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio - "For therapy, my wife and I had to share five secrets. Hers were darker than expected" Creepypasta

Episode Date: July 11, 2022

CREEPYPASTA STORY►by ChristianWallis: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosleep/comm...Creepypastas are the campfire tales of the internet. Horror stories spread through Reddit r/nosleep, forums and blogs, rather than word of mouth. Whether you believe these scary stories to be true or not is left to your own discretion and imagination. LISTEN TO CREEPYPASTAS ON THE GO-SPOTIFY► https://open.spotify.com/show/7l0iRPd...iTUNES► https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast...CREEPY THUMBNAIL ART BY►SUGGESTED CREEPYPASTA PLAYLISTS-►"Good Places to Start"- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7YCb...►"Personal Favourites"- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEa2R...►"Written by me"- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX6RA...►"Long Stories"- https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list...FOLLOW ME ON-►Twitter: https://twitter.com/Creeps_McPasta►Instagram: https://instagram.com/creepsmcpasta/►Twitch: http://www.twitch.tv/creepsmcpasta►Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CreepsMcPastaCREEPYPASTA MUSIC/ SFX- ►http://bit.ly/Audionic ♪►http://bit.ly/Myuusic ♪►http://bit.ly/incompt ♪►http://bit.ly/EpidemicM ♪-This creepypasta is for entertainment purposes only-

Oh, my young, that I'm in three days. I'm all moor as I'm not on think. Oh, that to seeer that morning off must. I'm all mooh as I'm just on tomorrow. Oh, from the night at a paddle tournament. Oh, I'm a moor as I'm not mad as I'm on think. Have you it mollick to come? Give you yourself then a boost.

With biocure, Maxhot Liquid. Three op-puppendant plants. Magnesium, Izer. An energy booster, to immediately again again to come out. BioCure, Maxxot, Liquid. Foodings Supplement, Did you do it? Did you mail them? Terrence leaned against my cubicle and raised an eyebrow.

I was going to put them through the letter box, I said, struggling to remember when and what I told him. Seemed like a waste of time to go to the post office and actually mail them. She'll get them all the same. He nodded. Marriage is tough, he said. How long? Sixteen years. He whistled between clenched teeth. That's a fair stretch. We had to do counselling ourselves. Nothing serious, you know.

But it's easy to stop looking at the other person as, well, a person. Sharing secrets is a good way to open that communication back up. That was a fair point, and I nodded to show my agreement. Not that I wanted to get into any of this with my boss. It was personal business. I wasn't even entirely sure how he knew. knew we were having problems, let alone what homework we'd been given by the therapist. Look, I began to say, while gesturing half-heartedly to my computer.

I've got work to. What did you write? he asked. What was your secret? The question caught me off guard, and I'm sure my face showed it. But Terence was unfazed. Come on, tell it, he added. I decided to lie. I wrote that I don't enjoy a cooking as much as I say I do Oh please he groaned while rolling his eyes We both know she doesn't do the cooking

How the thing about marriage? He said while suddenly pulling over an empty chair And sitting on it so close to me that our knees touched The thing is you've got to learn to trust one another over and above anything else Does that make sense? Up close I could see sweat beating on his forehead. No, I stammered. Put it like this, he said. You haven't had her first secret yet. You might be wondering if she was going to post it to you, like the exercise required, or if she was going to slip it onto the kitchen table one morning, or if she would just hand it to you

one-on-one, no expression, nothing to say other than this is yours sort of thing. But that doesn't really matter, does it? You need to learn to trust that she's going to get it to you no matter what. That's the bond between you. So why concern yourself about the details? Why worry about the how and the why of it all? You need to put your faith in her. Still smiling, he reached into his pocket and removed an elegant cream envelope the size of a playing card.

My name was written on the front in my wife's perfect cursive. Terence gently placed it on my lap and went to get up. But as he leaned out of his head, chair, he stopped just as his face was closest to mine. I've had that in my pocket since the day I hired you, he said, before walking away with cheery confidence. Astounded, unnerved, but not quite afraid. Not yet, anyway, I opened the envelope and read what was inside.

Unlike you, Terence has never had any choice in the matter. What the hell? and I stood up to try and find where my boss had gone. He was standing in his office, staring right at me, one hand on the sliding door that leads to the balcony outside. He smiled and gave me a wave before opening them and stepping out into the open. Then he began to jog,

and like a swimmer taking a dive, he jumped headfirst over the railing. They laid a rubber sheet over what was left of him. I wondered if at some point someone would have to come along with a special equipment and scrape my boss off the street. Until then, they couldn't just bag him,

not in that state, and certainly not all of him at once. I think it would be best if you don't drive home. The police officer was a stern woman in a forties, luminousant yellow jacket, hooded eyes, a thin line for a mouth. I found it hard to maintain eye contact with her. You've been through a lot, she said.

Do I need to make a statement? I asked, and the jittery washed out sound of my own voice surprised me. Helpless and afraid, like a child after a big temper tantrum. The CCTV footage is fairly clear cut, she replied. We might contact you at a later time, but we can't see any reason this won't be ruled as self-inflicted. right now I'm most concerned about you. Do you have someone you can call?

She glanced at my wedding ring. No, I said, with a firm shake of the head. I'd like to see a doctor first. That's the smart thing to do, the policewoman replied. You look like you're in shock. She took my arm and guided me to her car, her bright yellow monstrosity. I'd grown up hiding from cars like that, ducking,

under bushes and stopping out joints or emptying cans of flaga into the soil. Climbing into the back felt incredibly wrong, but I let her guide me into my chair and felt oddly grateful for it. What I wanted in that moment was for the world to start making sense again. She seemed to exude her confidence, like she'd seen it all and knew what to expect. She turned the ignition and it started to rain. I thought of Terrence's remains, going runny in the water, swirling down drains like raspberry ripple, and I had to shut my eyes and clear the images. Are you sure you don't have anyone to call?

The policewoman asked. I opened my eyes and saw her angling the rearview mirror to get a good look at me. My wife's away on a work trip, I lied. I'll talk to her after the doctor. I just don't want to worry. her about nothing. She appeared to chew on this for a while before speaking again. It's hard, she said, having a spouse who's always away for work. My husband, when he did come home, oftentimes it felt like he weren't even there at all. Quiet, disinterested, good with

the kids, but when it was just us, he shut down, I nodded, unable and unwilling to engage in conversation. He was a good man, just not a feely-feely kind of man. Mind you, if I had one of them, I probably wouldn't like... I zoned out, put on my head against the window and closed my eyes. I focused on the sound of rain against the glass and let my mind go blank. Unlike you, Terence has never had any choice in the matter. The words were an intrusion, and I sat up straight to try and stop them sticking.

All it takes is a look now and again for a gentle squeeze of the hand, or even just the fact he comes home at all. I guess what I'm trying to say is that love isn't always expressed the way you expect it to. Jeez, I thought, she's still going on. I mean, look at a dog, right? She continued. They expect love to be expressed by sticking a nose with their ass. But over time, they land that being scratched behind their ear is just as good. the food, the water, the shelter.

Our love may not be in the same language, but they understand it just as well. They know, and that's what I think you need to take forward with your wife. Same way a dog owner has to make lots of decisions on the dog's behalf, when to have a bath, when to go for walks, when to be disciplined, when to be castrated, when to be euthanized. Well, your wife has to make tough decisions all the time too, and you may not understand them,

but you just need to remember that it's all done out of love. Thoughts were trickling into my mind a little too fast. What's happening? What did the letter mean? Why is this woman saying these things? Why does she look so afraid? I looked outside and saw that we were pulling into an old industrial estate. In the distance the city rumbled.

But out here on the other side of the river there was muffled silence. Even as a kid, we didn't come to places like this. Where are we going? I asked. I tried to get a closer look at my surroundings. The rain was so heavy that the world had turned a sudden twilight, and I could barely make out the shape of the road through the water-dappled window. She laughed. You've been staring at the window so long, but you haven't once looked at the seat beside you.

My heart sank. I could have sworn the seat was empty when I got in. Surely I would have noticed. I looked and saw it. A letter. You should be a little more observant, she said, as we rolled into an empty lot. It's sole occupant, a red brick building with faded white letters. Even through the rain, I could recognise their name on the side.

It belonged to my wife's family, a long abandoned milk bottling plant. Then again, maybe not. Who knows? She let out a nervous cackle. Maybe being unobservant is what's kept you alive for so long. A little dumbstruck I reached over, took the cream envelope and opened it. Everything I have, and by extension, everything you have too, it's because of them and what we do on their behalf.

When I looked up, the policewoman was gone. I hadn't heard the door go and the keys were still dangling in the ignition, but the engine was no longer running. I took the letter into my pocket next to the other one and noticed an umbrella and flashlight had appeared on the seat beside me where the envelope had sat just moments ago. I wondered if it was possible that I'd zoned out enough that I'd failed to notice the policewoman leaving, or even leaning over to put a few things on the back seat.

It didn't seem feasible, but then again, my head felt all wrong ever since Terrence had approached my desk. Maybe my memory was just a bit spotty. Maybe I'd miss the policewoman leaving and wondering off somewhere. Maybe she had an answer that meant all this would make. sense. I just had to find her. I opened the door and stepped out into the rain. With nowhere else to go, I approached the old bottling plant. It was a mishmash of jagged chimneys and broken windows, its walls covered with threadbare graffiti that screened obscenities at the world. Once upon a time, they'd bottled half the milk for the city in those walls. Other properties

with a family name still dotted the city. Some still active. Others abandoned like this one. All of that was my wife's domain. The sole daughter of wealthy parents who didn't even live to see her enter a teens. She'd been running the family's estate since before we met.

She was an impressive woman, my wife. I'd seen old men with bulldog faces since scuttling out of our kitchen with their tails between their legs. rich and powerful men put in their place by the woman I shared a bed with. I'd be lying if I said I didn't find it thrilling. Hello, officer? I shouted the words into the darkness with one hand on the doorframe.

Thunder boomed behind me and the rain fell even harder. I could hear it inside the building where it must have found its way through cracked tiles and broken windows. For some reason the sound made me think of camping. Inside, an old conveyor belt took up most of the floor, trolleys full of old milk bottles. One had overturned and coated half the ground with smashed glass that crunched under my shoes. Up high, I saw an office that overlooked the work floor. A metal stairway that once led to it had since collapsed and lay in one corner.

a heap of rusting iron. Unless someone climbed the wall or brought a ladder, that office was off-limit and had been for decades, an isolated island that drew my curiosity. When I show my torch at the window, I caught sight of something retreating from the light, a passing shadow maybe, an animal I hoped, but it killed any desire to try and get up there.

I cried out. Once more, in the hope that I'd find the policewoman, and I wouldn't have to stick around for much longer. Hello? Is anyone there? I spun in a slow circle and listened carefully. My light found some graffiti covering an entire wall. They don't like the light. The words plucked at something in my chest and left me feeling hollow. Was this the same they as in the letter, I wondered?

I glanced back at the office window revealed nothing, although I wasn't even sure why I looked. What did I expect to see? Beneath the graffiti, I found a set of stairs that led to a lone door, a scrap of luminescent yellow fabric hanging off the door handle. Is anyone down here? My voice sounded increasingly desperate. I had to push hard against the door to create a gap big enough for me to squeeze it. through. With just my head around the jamb, I got a glimpse of the obstruction. Dozens of old boxes and filing cabinets had been dragged and dumped against the frame, a poorly constructed barricade.

I climbed over it, carefully picking my foot holds like I was descending her deadfall. On the other side was a derelict corridor with broken bulbs in the ceiling and peeling wallpaper. Several doors ran along both walls. I tried the closest room and found a 70-style office with most of its fittings removed. Plaster had been smashed and wires were in the process of being stripped. A few plastic bags full of copper wire were piled up against the wall. In another corner lay some cardboard flattened like a bed. I wondered if whoever had slept there was the same person who'd gone looking for copper.

And if so, why had they left it all behind? The only other thing of note was an old safe as tall and wide as a man. Its vault door, ajar. I pulled it open and found that the safe was hollow and without a back. Behind it, a hidden tunnel carved into soil, its walls buttressed with sagging wooden beams. Screw that, I muttered quietly, before pushing the door shut and moving on. The next room was almost completely empty, no carpet or linoleum, not even plaster on the walls. Something rust-brown stained the floor in a metre-wide splash.

It surrounded an old drain like a halo. Nearby was an old dentist's chair with frayed leather straps that had been turned over on its side. For a second, I thought I can taste the spray of aerosol blood. But I put it down to my imagination. I tried another door and found an empty space with three boxes covered in a white sheet stacked against the wall like a pyramid. It was a display. Hundreds of handprints had been pressed onto the plaster behind it, printed in either blood or feces.

I couldn't tell. They radiated outwards like an explosion. Hundreds, maybe thousands of hands. and they varied in size from an adult man's to the chubby paws of a toddler. This was not the work of a single crazy person. It felt religious, cult-like, the workers perhaps. I approached the altar and saw that there were faint imprints of dust where objects had once sat central to the entire scene.

When I turned to leave, I caught sight of another message that had been scrawled on the wall behind me. Those who dwell in the dark, love you. Beneath the words was something that resembled a cave painting of a maggot crossed with an elephant. This was another nope moment for me, and I left the room as quickly as I could,

terrified at the way the darkness seemed to solidify as my mind processed the words. There were a few doors. left, three on the wall opposite me, and one at the far end of the hall. I considered checking each one, but I found it hard to imagine the policewoman waiting patiently in one of these rooms with a sensible explanation. I was about to try anyway, when I heard the faint clink of glass bottles rolling around the factory floor.

I hesitated, not sure what the best response was. It was probably just a policewoman up there. I told myself, but feverish imaginings kept me from running up there to find her. Slowly, the corridor filled with a smell that made my nose wrinkle in my eyes water. Sour milk poured over sun-baked roadkill. It inspired a disgust, more powerful than anything else I'd experienced. An evolved repulsion meant to keep curious apes away from black carrying shapes lurking in the undergrowth. Every instinct I had was at war with a rational part of my mind, and in the ensuing panic,

I froze. The paralysis only broke when the barricaded door jerked open an inch. Something was on the other side, and my mind raced with images of what I'd seen that day. Not just the altar or the gurney with the bloody straps, but Terrence as well. broken, smashed, pulped, smiling fearfully as he leaned close to my face. What forces could make a man do what he did? Before the door could open any further, I decided to hide, carefully slinking towards the office and the secret tunnel.

I opened the safe and tried not to panic at the sound of the barricade coming apart just a few metres away. I'd already turned my torch off by this point, but a copulent green shimmer was slowly filling the entire basement. I slid inside the metal box and tried to pull the door shut behind me. Not all the way. I had images of myself suffocating. Quietly, I maneuvered through the tunnel with my breath held. Much to my relief, it was barely 50 feet long.

On the other side, A room. Stone walls straight out of an ancient temple. Ancient slabs of stone as big as a man laid on top of one another. And all around me laid dozens of archways with sloping grounds that led deep into the earth. And yet, juxtaposed against this mausoleum piled up against the farthest wall was a misshapen pile of children's backpacks. Lilac, pink, green. yellow, red. Whoever owned the Mario 64 backpack at the foot of the pile would be old enough to have children by now, I thought.

But somehow I suspected they never got that far in life. The pile rose as high as my head, and there at the top of the slope was the source of what little light I had. A grill set into the ceiling. I had to hope it led to safety. All thoughts of the policewoman were gone by now. I would have stolen the car if it meant getting the hell away from whatever it made that smell.

The bags made a poor ladder. For each successful foothold I found, it took six or seven failed attempts. I could feel the entire mountain compressed beneath my weight. I stopped only once when that god-awful smell finally found me. I risked the torch and briefly shone it behind me. And glimpsed something awful filling the tunnel. I didn't let my eyes linger, not even for a fraction of a second, but whatever it was, it hit my sensory organs like a breeze block. My eyes rolled back in my head, my diaphragm shrank until my lungs screamed, and the next thing I knew, I was hauling myself out of the grill and into fresh air.

Whatever was down there, it felt almost radioactive. I had no control over myself. I stumbled to my feet, glanced around the empty lot, and realized I was mere feet from the door of the bottling plant I'd fled. Nearby lay the police car, although now the headlights are on and the sun had nearly set. I stumbled towards it, desperate to flee. I didn't bother getting in the back. I opened the driver's side and clambered in.

Someone had set the heaters to run And I was thankful for it as I sat there shivering Before I put it in gear and drove away Something nagged at me from the passenger seat Another letter I took this one out without fanfare I know what they are capable of And a few children is a small price to pay

I thought of the mountain of backpacks And I took the letter into my pocket I'll give you a shot The doctor grumbled. Not much else I can do. Just a bunch of scratches. It'll help if you told me what happened. I got shoved into a dumpster, I replied.

He merely grunted as he pulled the cap of a syringe with his teeth before sticking the needle in my arm and pushing the plunger. How's Cephy doing? He asked as he wipes my arm down with a cotton swab. I shrugged. All right, I suppose. You know since you were kids right. what were appearance like?

Cold, funny, clever. Like Seffy, I replied. Uh-huh. After giving me my shot, the doctor stood over by his desk, back turned to me, and lazily filled out forms with a scratchy pen. The room was poorly lit and small. Outside, a torrential downpour that, if it continued, would quickly burst the river's banks and make the news.

There's nothing wrong with you, he turned and shrugged. Looking at you, I think you just need a glass of water and some sleep. I'll get right on it. I found it hard to move. I only had one other place to go. You need me to call a taxi to get you home, he asked. I just... I saw someone die today, I said.

Ooh. The doctor nodded like it all suddenly made sense. That was where you work, wasn't it? I saw the news. They brought him here. What? They brought him here for the post-mortem. This place mostly handles the city's dead. He said it like it was the mildest piece of trivia he knew.

Very little treatment actually goes on here. Only a few private patients are registered with us. You can thank Seffi for being on the list. A long silence. Something about this place was creeping under my skin. Maybe it was the poor lighting. Darkness behind every door and every corner. Made me think of the stuffy old manners

Persephone toured me through every time we visited some distant relative a wealthy socialite. Old money doesn't pour its resources away lighting every room in a mansion and sunlight won't go very far in a house with 62 rooms. Take the wrong turn

and you'll end up staring down a corridor so long it has a vanishing point. Ice cold and eternal twilight. Doesn't matter what time of day it is. Some places never feel bright or warm, and the clinic was no different. What few lights were on flickered overhead intermittently, and they only covered the corridor I'd been led down. Everywhere else lurked in shadow.

They don't like the light. I might have something to help, the doctor suggested, after the silence stretched on a little too long. give me a few minutes I'll see what I can do what? He marched out to the room and left me alone I waited

as the seconds rolled into minutes I felt like a fly stuck in a web waiting while the spider attended to other more pressing business apart to me felt like I should be struggling looking for a way out of this place the longer I stayed the stronger the feeling became

Eventually I stood up, unable to sit kicking my feet for any longer. I looked around. Old medical posters of the cardiovascular system covered the wall. Their corners peeling and their colours faded. The doctor's desk was a mess. Papers everywhere. I slid a few over and saw the inevitable. I figured, I muttered when I saw the cream letter lying amongst the things.

I took it, hesitated to open it, but did so anyway. After all, it wasn't snooping. It had my name on it. And I recognized my wife's handwriting. They could take anything they wanted at any moment. It read, they do not need our cooperation. They merely enjoy it. A part of me had spent the drive over putting some serious mental distance between me

and what I'd seen in the basement of the old bottling plant. But those words brought it all back like a rising tide that couldn't be stopped. Without wanting to, I retraced the memories, flashes of corpulent green and trembling white. Her silhouette glimpsed in the tunnel. The face. Jeez, he was almost human.

Do you want to come with me? The doctor was in the doorway. He didn't acknowledge. the letter in my hand. Do I have a choice? I asked. Yes, he nodded, but not the one you think. I followed.

I could give you a pill, he said as he walked ahead. A left turn, a right turn. He moved quickly through the hallways and downstairs. I felt like I was being led deeper into a maze. The clinic was huge. But what you really need, his perspective. A small room, a metal door as thick as my arm.

It was only when the doctor hauled it open with both hands, an ice-cold air washed over me, and I realized the room beyond was a walking freezer. It looked like it was full of some kind of body suits, maybe like the ones the hazmat guys wear. But then I saw the faces. I lus distorted, pale. They glared at me from the shadow.

I found my feet rooted to the spot and a wave of panic washed over me. Don't worry, they're just things. The doctor hit the light and I saw him smiling inside the freezer. On either side of him, who rose of what looked like Halloween costumes, rubber sheets of human skin dangling in loose outlines of the human form, shapeless and empty. There are many different faces among the racks,

old and young, an array of people laid out like appetizers. One of them had feet that didn't reach as far as the rest. A child. Marriage is tough, he said, as he ran a finger across one of the racks. I cringed at the sight of those things in motion. I'm surprised Persephoney bothered with it, given her station. Carefully, like a tailor, he took one of the suits off the rack and held it up for me.

Don't look away. His words were impossible to ignore. I examined the front of the suit. A woman in her twenties perhaps. It was hard to tell. She had a small scar on her chest, blemishes on her arms and face, a ring of blood scapped around each eye.

Once the doctor was satisfied that I'd gotten a good look, he turned the suit around, and I saw a slit in the skin that began. began at the nape of the neck and ended at the coxics. The knowledge required to fit something as large as a van into a space this small. He slid a finger into the hole and held it open for me to see the crimson underside of flayed skin is a thousand years ahead of you. But to us, it's as primitive as rope.

My mouth went dry. I felt parts of me loosen. Without really changing, the doctor's features took up. on an unusual expression. I suddenly became aware that I was looking, had a bad costume, and I got the strangest sensation that he had far too many vertebrae. Persephone is asked that you remain unharmed, he said with a mouth that dripped tar. But deals are not made by proxy, and she doesn't have the authority to speak on either our behalf or yours. Her value to us is clear. We use her full.

family's assets to siphon meat, skin and pain from your rancid world. Why would we ever extend the same protections to you that we do to her, especially now that you've gone sniffing around our business? A halo of darkness extending around the doctor, his human form dissolving into shadow until only eyes and a mouth remain, like some psychotic Cheshire cat. I took a few steps back and fell the door behind me. It was half open. I found myself wondering if I was quick enough to do it, if I was ready to test myself against this living inkblot

that hurt just to look at. That question, by the way, he said with a voice like grinding rock, wasn't rhetorical. I turned and slammed the freezer door and locked it from the outside. I stumbled backwards and expected to hear the monster raging against the door.

but there was only laughter. The clinic was bigger in the inside than the outside. Endless corridors and rooms. Cold steel slabs, tables with sharp instruments that hurt just a look at. The place was mostly empty, but occasionally I would catch sight of a passing shadow or hear approaching footfalls and I will be forced to duck into the same room and hide. Fertive peaks revealed nurses and orderlies, wandering past with a casual boredom of someone at work.

They looked human, but I couldn't bring myself to trust them. Everything in that place had an air of the sinister about it. The rooms didn't help. One of them was like a kennel. Rows and rows of dog crates all lined up. I didn't think for even a second they ever once held dogs. Packs of crayons stuffed into the bars made that much clear. but I didn't have time to dwell too long on any of this.

I hadn't forgotten the doctor. He was surely coming after me, and I hadn't forgotten his question. For the first time since the day began, I found myself hoping to see my wife. Whatever twisted game she'd organised for me, whatever sick and inhuman conspiracy she was embroiled in, she might at least offer some slither of protection.

Those had done the dark, Love you. The same words as the factory. Only this time they were engraved in a brass plaque and bolted to a door. I pushed past it and looked inside, desperate to retrace my steps out of that damn place. A morgue, or at least some analogue, rows and rows of metal drawers for old cadavers. In the centre a steel table with straps for the ankles and wrists. From behind I heard muffled voices and struggling feet.

A young woman was sobbing. Two Audleys dragged her by the wrists, nowhere to run or hide. It was sheer luck that the man never looked up, too focused on keeping their quarry in tow. I had no choice but to enter the room and begin looking for a hiding place. Meanwhile, their footsteps and the woman's hysterical sobbing continued to get louder, and I realized with a dreadful lurch of the stomach that they were making for the room I was in. Desperation gave me an idea.

I opened one of the metal drawers and saw a pair of skinless feet glaring back at me. I tried another and another until at last I found one empty. I pulled it open and climbed on top, suppressing a reflexive gag as my mind took notice of the foul-smelling fluid that had pulled along the bottom.

This drawer was only recently vacated, I realized, but there was no time to look further. I climbed inside, slid into the coffin-like darkness, and then pulled the hatch as close as I could without it actually clicking shut. Just in time, the door swung open, and the men dragged the woman into the room, and, with little effort, strapped her in. Her screaming only subsided when they left. In a way, I was lucky because when I finally opened the drawer and climbed out, her renewed streaks didn't seem to bother anyone and drew no attention.

I couldn't blame her for damn nearly losing her mind. She was living through a nightmare, and the sight of a mall drawer slowly opening and a body climbing out must have come close to pushing her completely over the edge. I ran over and begged her to be quiet. I told her I was stuck inside just like her. She didn't believe me at first, I think. Or at least, she didn't stop crying and shouting for help. Not even when I unstrapped her.

I hate to fight her to stop her making a run for the doors. They'll catch you, I hissed in a whisper. You have to be quiet or they'll come. She didn't manage a response. Both of us were shocked into silence by the sound of footsteps approaching from the hallway. When I opened the drawer, she was lying there, eyes shut and finally quiet. For the first time since I'd seen her, she was no longer sobbing or screaming.

The sound of her captors raising the alarm and running out of the room must have helped to realize this wasn't some strange ploy. I genuinely helped to avoid a grim fate. Thank you, she stammered as I guided her off the metal slab. A quick glance at my ruined clothes, and she whispered as an afterthought, I'm sorry. It had turned out there was only one empty drawer, and out of pity I let her take it. That had left me one of the occupied slabs, where I had been forced to crawl on top of its occupants and wait there, breath held, as its rotten fluid soaked into my clothes.

Let's just get the hell out of here, I replied. I think I know a way, she said. I asked her what that was, but instead she grabbed my hand and led me out of the corridor and down another. With some trepidation and double backing, she eventually found yet another cold-looking room filled with desks and chairs.

I tried this last time, she said, or pointing to a window high in the ceiling. But I couldn't reach it on my own. Do you think you could give me a boost? I didn't even bother answering. I grabbed a whole punch of the desk and had used it to break the window. I then knelt down and knitted my fingers together for her to stand on. She was halfway up with her head and shoulders through the window.

When I smelled it. Rotting, ancient. Behind us the door creaked open and there was a sound of uneven feet limping across the floor. The woman hadn't seen. she didn't know. She just kept asking me to give her a push. And, as the seconds dragged on and I failed to help her, her words and voice became increasingly desperate.

I hand at my shoulder, the doctor's voice. It wasn't rhetorical, he said once more, and his words drowned out the sound of the woman's screams as she turned and caught a glimpse of the thing behind me. Why should we extend any protection to you? my front door. It was night time. Beside me stood the young woman from the clinic.

When she smiled, it was with too many teeth and blood that seeped from the gums. She pressed the doorbell a second time, and it swung open. My wife, an earnest smile. Despite everything, she looked homely. Doctor, she said with a nod. Persephone That voice coming from a young and feminine face was unsettling

The doctor was rubbing my face in it He wore the woman's skin with savage joy They had made me watch him take it The doctor shoved me through the door And I stumbled inside I heard a few quiet words exchanged Between my wife and that thing And then the door was shut

And she was standing over me With one eyebrow raised Tough day, she asked. I could only shiver in response. Come on, let's get you cleaned up. They've been agitating after you for a while, she said as she tried me off. She was gentle with a towel, a kindness I don't think I deserve. They enjoy difficult decisions.

I'm thankful you made the right one. Are you human? I asked. Mostly, she answered, at least where it counts. Over time, you'll become like me, but we'll never be anything like them. We're just emissaries, I suppose, a halfway point. Do you love me? Of course, she smiled.

Why else would I ask that you be given a choice in this matter? I didn't have to. I didn't have to buy a building and fill it with people, just so you can go to work every day and feel full. fulfilled either. Didn't have to pull strings to get your father in the transplant list after his accident last year. Didn't have to ensure your sister's unpleasant boyfriend met an even more unpleasant end. I've always looked after you and I was right to. The choice you made today, I mean, it was one thing to save your skin by offering up the woman. That was inevitable really.

But what you've given up for me, that was touching. I remember. I remember. the doctor's words, wet and dripping, his voice seething with sadism. You could have your wife's position, he told me, and all that it bestows. But we don't need two caretakers for such a regional empire. She would be redundant. Offer her to us and show us that you are better suited for the role that she enjoys. It is either that or you will have to find another offering. It won't be half as easy, and the reward won't be half as great.

We need to find a child, I said. Not just any child, she replied, before suddenly bursting into smile and tears. Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, she cried as she hugged me. You could have chosen to give them me instead. It would have been easier, so much easier. And this way, I know that you really do love me. I promise you, in the long run. run, it'll be worth it. I couldn't bring myself to look into her eyes.

Now, are you ready for the final secret? she asked. She handed me the envelope and I opened it with wet, shaking hands. I am two months pregnant. They like toddlers, she said. The child must be old enough to have some semblance of a personality. They need to understand what is happening to them. We will have to wait until they're at least three years old before we hand... She kept talking as something inside of me died.