CreepsMcPasta Creepypasta Radio - I'm a Private Investigator, and my client asked me to stalk her. It only got weirder from there.

Episode Date: May 11, 2024

CREEPYPASTA STORY►by ChristianWallis:   / im_a_pi_and_my_client_asked_me_to_stalk_he...  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...SUGGESTED CREEPYPASTA PLAYLISTS-►"Good Places to Start"-    • "I wasn't careful enough on the deep ...  ►"Personal Favourites"-    • "I sold my soul for a used dishwasher...  ►"Written by me"-    • "I've been Blind my Whole Life" Creep...  ►"Long Stories"-    • Long Stories  FOLLOW ME ON-►Twitter:   / creeps_mcpasta  ►Instagram:   / creepsmcpasta  ►Twitch:   / creepsmcpasta  ►Facebook:   / creepsmcpasta  CREEPYPASTA 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

Let's get the obvious out of the way. Being a PI sucks. It's not what you think. It's pretty much harassing women. Men hire PI's to go harass their wives and girlfriends. Once in a blue moon, you get asked to find a missing dog or to harass a man instead. But that's it, really. Sometimes I'm looking for hard evidence of infidelity.

But a lot of the time, my clients just want to rattle the soon-to-beenacted. BX, to make them paranoid and jittery and less reliable in a courtroom, or less likely to pay attention to the small print agreements that stiff them out of their holiday home. So that's my job. I'm a pawn, and it is almost always on behalf of the kind of men who think women reading a book in public are secretly looking for male attention. I don't have an office. I did for a short while.

But things are tough, as I'm sure many of you know, and PI work isn't exactly lucrative. I don't know why I'm still doing this job, except to say I'm my own boss, and it's not easy out there. I went into this with vastly different expectations. If anyone wants to hire someone who's convicted of insurance fraud or training to be a police officer, let me know. Otherwise, I'm on my own, following people in cars and sleeping in dingy motels. So, when someone reached out looking for a guy to stalk them, I just figured it was a fetish thing. I got a nephew who went to art school and makes big bucks painting cartoon characters doing messed up stuff. He ain't painting the Sistine Chapel, but he pays the bills and looks after his family.

I figured if that work is good enough for him, it's good enough for me. So, I met the woman and was surprised at how normal she looked. It was in a public place, a park with a nice bench, and even though it was starting to rain a little, we didn't let it bother us either. We sat there, two tape recorders running, and hashed it out. She said she liked me If she hadn't She would have gotten out of a car That was flattering coming from her

Good looking woman Professional I didn't know at the time But I quickly figured out She was a forensic accountant Anyway We got talking She never gave me her motivation

But I would later come to understand her as an amateur narcissist. She was new at loving herself. She was smart, accomplished, and she was actually rather beautiful, provided he didn't spend a great deal of time agonizing over things like symmetry or eyebrows, and instead paid attention to how a smile reaches the eyes or how laughter sounds when it catches someone by surprise. But she grew up dirt poor and spent her teen years unable to visit the dentist or access a gym, or even eat home-cooked food that wasn't microwaved.

Plump frame, blotchy skin, hair kept short with a pair of scissors because her and her mother relied on the shampoo and soap they stole from the motel where they shared cleaning shifts. When she fumbled awkward questions at some of the better-looking boys in a class, she rarely met with success. That's not to say she was an outcast either. She had a social life. It's just poor kids have to grow up early. Prom is a luxury.

Eating isn't. If you know, you know. Otherwise, you might be surprised by how tough it can be for some kids in this country. Anyway, she got out of that hole, fought tooth and nail, got an education, a good job. And by the time she finished the victory. lap and took stock of her life. She was 35 years old and a thousand miles from the trailer she was raised in. And she looked good. The woman in the mirror was a stranger that she wanted to get to know.

I think hiring me was an act of self-love. I think if she could have, she would have sat in a car and watched herself get a cup of coffee, spying closely at the professional-looking woman, doing a little half-run, half-skip to get out of the rain. The way she stood in line rocking back and forth on her heels to the music in her air pods, thinking no one would notice. She wanted to admire herself, but unable to time travel or clone herself. She instead resorted to hiring me as a kind of proxy.

I had my own boundaries, of course. They covered anything that was going to get me in trouble. The gist of the contract After a nice week spent meeting after work and talking Was that I was the follower as often as I could And just Observer Photos, videos, secret recordings

Occasionally a little bit more Nothing physical For example One time I inventoried a handbag After she left it in a taxi by accident I'm not a photographer her, but something about all those knick-knacks laid out on a motel bed snapped with black and white Polaroid. It looked good, like something you'd see in a fancy gallery, avant-garde, as my nephew would

say. She loved it, paid me a bonus for it and everything. Anyway, this carried on like this for about six months. There were interesting times. Ailing her across train stations, racing across open parking lots to install a tracker on a car, standing on a bridge and dropping an air tag in her bag as she walked past. It was a little bit like being a spy. She even paid me to buy high-end equipment. Crazy stuff. One camera I could sit on my balcony and read the texts on her phone from a block away.

Occasionally there were days where I couldn't, I wouldn't keep up the required intensity. Stalking requires a lot of cardio When that happened When I didn't feel like following her into a crowded place Or sprinting halfway around town following a car I do research I'd investigate who this woman had once been I created fake Facebook profiles

And tracked down old school friends Spoke to former teachers, lovers all of that The whole job was a matter of mapping her out like she was a country, you know. And a country isn't just hills and rivers and borders. Countries have history. She was happy with my initiative. The text she sent me when I showed her the research folder was a glowing commendation.

First one I'd had in a long time. It was nice, someone telling me good job. She had a real way of making me feel like a kid getting a gold star. I didn't realize at the time, but I was putty in her hands, head over heels, bless my stupid heart. Of course, I didn't know what I was getting into, but I'd had just enough time to grow overconfident. I made the mistake of thinking that I wasn't going to find anything in a past that it gave me trouble sleeping. Boy, did I get that one damn wrong. Her mother.

That's where things took an odd turn. Now, I knew from news reports the mother died in their trailer while her daughter was off staying at some boyfriend's place for a few days. Natural causes, it read. I wanted to know a little more about what natural causes there were. Figured, if there was some congenital thing, it seemed like maybe I ought to know. You'd think the way the trailer park owner reacted to me asking about it.

I tried asking the Russian government for proof of a democratic election. Thin, really little woman who gave me hell the moment I mentioned a name. What do you want to know that for? Who's asking? Who's paying you? Why do you want to dig this up? Oh, she ripped me to pieces. I put it down to the natural sprinkling of crazies in the standard population

and took a different act, started calling up the older folks in the park. residents. Every single one of them put the phone down on me the second I mentioned the name. Well, more of them,

except one. Some people want to talk and this odd bugger was one of them. He had a lot to say about everything from the president to social media and I let him ramble on before starting to press my point. Told him at the start

I was a historian looking into the local area. That made it so it wasn't too suspicious when I began asking about this and that, slowly making my way to the death of a 53-year-old woman a couple trailers down from him some years ago. Again, soon as I mentioned a name, there was a change in the air, even over the phone. For a second, I thought this old guy was going to hang up just like the others, could hear him smacking his dry lips as he moulded over. Francine didn't deserve what happened to her, he said after a while.

She was a good woman, didn't treat the daughter too good neither, but didn't deserve what happened. Maybe if they'd found her earlier, some of those fellas in white coats could have got more evidence, put that little wretch of her as a way. But, from what I understand, weren't much left of her at all. Then he hung up, leaving me with a whole lot of questions. This frustrated me. I had, until now, had a fair bit of luck at this new profession of mine.

They say be careful what you get good at. Sad truth was, I was getting good at stalking, and this was my first real roadblock. I remembered the way I felt when she told me good job, and it bothered. me, I couldn't really say much about this critical part of her life. That and... Well, maybe I still got a chip on my shoulder about being a failed policeman. If you give me a problem, I can sometimes drive myself crazy, looking for a fix. So, I hopped in my car and drove to the trailer park, down near on the other side of the country.

Don't know what I was hoping to find. no way the trailer was still there and it wasn't. But what I found odd was the lot hadn't been replaced. There was a hole in the ground about the right size and nothing else. Just an empty spot where the trailer had once stood and the trailers on either side weren't occupied either. I could tell by politely and legally looking through the windows. Most of them were cleared out, but a few ones.

They still had plates and other knick-knacks left hanging around, like the owners had left without bothering to pack. You shouldn't hang around here, mister. The girl who appeared stood a good twenty feet away, shouting over the wind so as to be heard. Smell can make you awful sick. I wrinkle my nose, aware of the odour she was talking about, had been since I approached the empty lot. A faint, musty smell that made me think of an exotic pet shop.

What do you mean? Smell makes you sick. She said it like it was self-explanatory. Woman who died there left behind an awful stench, made the neighbours sick and the neighbour's neighbours and so on for a couple trailers in a row. No one likes to live there now. Still can't. Had a couple move in a year or two back and they got sick too.

Daddy says this is a bad one Not even the rats go near that hole The smell wasn't pretty But this trailer park Look like the kind of place where hubcaps went missing regularly Figured they would have been used to bad smells What made this one so special? I looked over at the girl

Where is your dad A few minutes later I was stood outside a trailer Waiting pensively The little girl had disappeared appeared inside to fetch a father, and since then I've been sat listening to the quietest trailer park in the whole world. Crickets in silence, traffic on a distant highway. Place was dying, that much was clear. When the father finally made an appearance, he said nothing for the first

few minutes. Litter cigarette offered me one. I refused on account of having quit some time back. After a while, he spoke up. I'd invite you in, but you've been hanging around that old lot. Not sure I want you inside my home. No offence. None taken, I replied. Sally says you're a historian. The man wasn't terribly old.

Mid-thirties had a guess. But he looked me, up and down, like I was a teenager, caught throwing eggs at his house. What are you really? P.I., I replied. Ha, now that makes sense. Some relative looking for answers. Other Henderson's had a sister with money.

That's exactly it, I lied. She didn't buy the official story. Nor should she, he replied. Henderson was fitness a fiddle, day moved in. Weren't no justice in what happened to those who got sick. And poor Francine, they say she died of natural causes, Man, even back then, I knew it was nonsense, and I was just a little kid. They smell alone.

I think it's bad now, but, at the time, before they came in with a crane to lift the trailer up hole and move it to the dump, it was something awful. There was talk of moving the whole park. Of course, no one gave enough of a dam to give us the go-ahead and actually do it. What did she die of? Don't know The only thing I'm sure of Is that girl of Francine's lied

Said her mother was live and well When she left before the weekend And it was always on good terms But that was nonsense We heard him fighting for weeks before for one And of course the body State it was in Ain't no way he'd have been rotten for just a few days

He offered me another cigarette I refused He lit it up instead Second one in what felt like just a few minutes May me itchy just to see I wanted to say something Anything to get a little bit more But I told a big lie

Pretending to be there on someone else's behalf And didn't want to catch myself out So I just sat and listened to the quiet bus Of his little patio light After the second cigarette was done He reached into his back pocket and took out an old photo. I hope you find justice for Henderson,

and the rest of them, he said. Only real bit of proof I ever had of something fishy going on. He handed me the picture. It wasn't easy to see what I was looking at, a pile of old leaves, maybe, mulch. I squinted at it for a good few seconds, but couldn't make heads or tails out of it.

What? Took that the day they arrived to get rid of the trailer, had to stand on my friend's shoulders just to reach. What is it? I asked, my skin starting to crawl as I picked out details. Whatever I was looking at, it was slumped on the sofa with floral wallpaper in the background. It was about the size of a man, but riddled with holes and cavities the size of golf balls.

my whole life, I'd never seen something that looked like that. Why, that's Francine, he said, or at least what was left of her. He let me keep the photo. I'd guess that was the only interesting thing that had ever happened to that man, and he'd been waiting to share it with someone. All I had to do was give him an excuse. He seemed to take some pleasure in passing it on, certainly found my reaction. to be amusing.

I must have gone pale as I grappled with thoughts of what had happened to make a body go bad like that. Back in the hotel, under a good light, I checked that picture again and again. Something about it made me deeply uncomfortable, knowing a woman was under all that. All those holes and crevices must have been made in a flesh, and what had happened to a skin that had turned it such a funny texture. Looked furry, like the kind of thing that grows on top

of a long-forgotten cup of coffee. A part of me considered asking my client about this, but I knew that wasn't the way to go. First, she probably wouldn't tell me good job if I had to ask. She hired me to do a certain thing, and that didn't involve politely requesting information right from the source. Second, well, I'd read the police reports, what was publicly available anyway, and she'd made it clear she'd left on the Friday and came home on the Monday. And?

Well, what if that guy was right? Did she really leave her mother alive and well? I mean, people kill? Not just psychos. People like you and me. We do it every day And sometimes we even pull it off Only half of US murders get solved

That's a fact If anyone could be the right half of that equation It'd be her She was smart as hell my client Even at 17 she would have been a clever one Clever enough That she might easily have been able to cover her tracks Gone over to some boyfriend

Twisted his arm into giving her an alibi Sure, I could see that. I just needed to figure out what the hell was going on with that crime scene in the trailer. Thankfully, I got some friends still on the force, one of which I even have a bit of leverage on. At first, he couldn't find much on the actual mother. But then I asked him to see if he could take the photo I had, show it around, and see if anyone had seen something like it before.

That proved a lot more fruitful. A few days later, he came back with a strange one. But straight away, I saw the connection. I'll spare the details. Old man was found in a tub, all sorts of messed up, in some old apartment building. It had since been condemned on account of the body, which is fairly weird since bodies don't usually cause that much fuss, but less weird when you realize that said body was in such a bad state

it made three people sick and caused long-lasting structural damage. Whatever happened to this guy, it ate through the tub he'd been lying in and seeped into the floors and walls below, turned plasterboard to mulch, and apparently even caused some trouble for the sturdier elements like steel and concrete. I don't know how that works exactly, but that's what the file said. And going by the photos, I didn't feel like anyone was lying.

As for the photos, what can I say? May my skin crawl. No blurry little polaroid snapped by a kid. These were professional crime scene pictures that showed something in a tub that didn't register as human until my eyes went looking for details. He looked like a hairy paper wasps nest. only there were fingers and nipples and other little things that made it clear it had been built using a person as the framework. No face though. Just a head like a pile of used paper plates.

Looking at those photos made me learn a new word just to describe how I felt. Tripophobia wasn't just one guy either. Building was linked to the disappearance of the ground floor tenant. some computer geek I didn't worry about him too much but what did catch my eye was there was only one woman

living in the whole place second floor apartment the registered name was somewhat familiar close enough to a certain someone's that it raised the hairs of my neck police at the scene managed to get

a photo of her and sure enough there she was My client, going by a different name. Clearly, something fishy was going on, or else why the pseudonym? I figured it possible she'd maybe after her own mother. Parents and spouses make the most common victims. But what connection was there to that second corpse?

And what about the missing guy? It was like a horror movie was following her around, and she was just blissfully unaware. condemn buildings and festering trailers made for a far cry from the professional accountant who enjoyed oat milk lattes and used sweetener instead of sugar to spare her teeth. But there was no denying that she was connected. There was photographic proof she lived in that building. If I wanted to get ahead of this to really understand what was going on, I had to figure out what had happened to those bodies.

I had pretty much exhausted my favours with the police, and truth was, they didn't know any more than I did. But it turned out the building was still standing, condemned, but they hadn't demolished it, partly because no one wanted to take responsibility. But I reckon it might have had something to do with the biohazard warnings, slapped on every single window and door. Good thing I brought a gas mask.

I waited for sunset, geared up, and entered through the unlocked door. First thing that hit me as the door sung open was the smell. Similar to the trailer park, but full pelt and hot as well. Made me think of lizards and poorly kept terrariums, strong enough to make my eyes water even through the mask. One thing was clear as they took a look around the hallway. The building was diseased. Not just run down or decrepit, like the usual urban decay.

This was something else. Look like the inside of a clogged pipe. You know how limestone fills it up? It was a bit like that. This oily, rusty, coloured fluid had seeped down the walls and left them glistening and soft. Ropey stalactites of the stuff hung down from the ceiling like old party banners, and I hedged around them, afraid of what might happen if one touched me.

Best guess was that stuff was digesting the place. Anything soft or organic was going or gone. Old umbrella frames were left standing in one corner, the fabric burnt or dissolved away. The carpet was reduced to just a few patches no bigger than my hand, and a bunch of old cardboard boxes piled up under the stairs, had turned squat and half liquid, almost flowing down and around each other. The worse came when I took a look around the back room. More of a broom closet, I guess.

Wouldn't have gone in, but something caught my eye. A well-worn shoe that wasn't covered in oily stuff. sign of recent activity. That and the way the door was ajar just raised my suspicions. So, I took a look. Even now, the timeline alludes me. But someone, a vagrant most likely, given the way they were dressed, died a nasty death in there. Chemical burns come to mind.

They were balled up in one corner, eyeless, looking. up at me as I pushed the door open to take a close look. Pink flesh threaded with red blood vessels, yellow bones poking through here and there. From the looks of things, they've been trying to work the door open. You could see a history of their escape attempts left by bleeding hands. Rust-colored finger streaks ran all along the door's edges. Special attention paid to the hinges. I need broken the only window.

and tried hauling himself up there, only to realize it was barred from the other side. The jagged glass that still clung to the frame was covered in old blood. His palms must have looked like greater cheese. Eventually, he had given up and laid down in that mess, and the thoughts of it made my chest feel heavy and tight. I'd only been in the building a few minutes, and that stuff was already eating through my shoes. I could hear the thick rubber soles sizzle and pop with each step.

With that guy, I'd been forced to sit down in an inch-deep puddle of the stuff, likely because exhaustion had left him no choice but to tough it out. So how long had he tried to stay upright? Hours, days, weeks. Him getting stuck in there had to be deliberate. I was sure of it. it, a feeling in my gut. Someone had locked the door behind him and left him to die slowly. God only knows why. But did that mean they were still hanging around and waiting for a chance to get

to me? Looking around, I sure didn't feel safe or alone. The shadows seemed too deep, and the steady drip, drip, drip of that rancid oil oozing out. of every surface was too monotonous. Someone or something lived in that filth, and chances were they'd been responsible for that poor vagrant's agonising death. That meant getting out of that hellhole was a priority. So I made for the stairs and started to climb. If there were any answers in that place, it had been the apartment where the old man died. The crime scene tape was still hanging off the doorframe when I found it

And the TV and sofa Or what remained of them stood in the same place as in the photos Back in the day the old man had been a hoarder And I was surprised crime scene hadn't cleared all that stuff out It was all still there Only what had once been a chest-high maze of papers and magazines Was now just kind of hardened poled pulp, almost like magma dried mid-flow.

A whole damn place was covered in the stuff like coral reef, growing up the walls and even patches of the ceiling, looked a hell of a lot like a wasps nest, and it looked to be the source of that oily looking fluid. You could see it sweating out of every crease and fold in that strange hive. It was almost hypnotic to look at, glistening amber beads. oozing out of papery sheets that flowed like rock strata. There was a gentle, barely perceptible rhythm. Hypnotic.

I don't know why, but I reached out and ran the tip of my finger as gently as I could along the surface. It felt like the underside of a mushroom. All those papery gills, gossamer thin, soft and inviting. I wore no gloves and the brief moment of contact had deposited a single bead of that strange syrup on my fingertip. It caused the tingling sensation that was not entirely unpleasant. Even the blood that trickled down my knuckle felt warm and wet, like testing a hot bath with your hand. I liked it and I wanted more.

I went to reach out and push my arm into the nest. when a hand burst out of the nest and gripped my wrist. I was so surprised I didn't even make a noise, but instead wordlessly fell back as the hand pushed me away from the nest. A nearly skinless forearm followed, and soon after, a face emerged from the papery nest like a grime-covered nightmare. Black eyes and a lipless mouth. It was a man that could have passed for a corpse,

like a half-degested piece of meat. Terrified, I struggled to my feet and realized that this person had broken down near every bone in my wrist with that single grip. Your meat smells raw, he growled before heaving himself out of the nest in a disgusting parody of childbirth. My sanity flickered,

and the next thing I knew, I was on the ground floor with bleeding eyes and both hands frantically pulling at the door handle. My mind returned in pieces. I blinked red tears away, but didn't stop trying to open the door. I felt it. That urgent need to leave, like a suffocating man feels the need to breathe. But I'd messed up bad.

I'd sniffed out of the closet and saw the trap laid there, but hadn't seen the larger one sit for me. There was only one way in and out of that building, and I hadn't jammed the door open. Now it was shut, and nothing I did could get it open. With more time, maybe I could have pried the jam or even kicked it down, but my heart was racing and my vision was blurring. I wanted out of that place, a hot primal need to get the hell out. The air was too hot, my mask too stifling, sweat condensed on the inner plastic and made it damn near impossible to see,

and the pain in my wrist was a throbbing explosion that made sensible thought impossible. I'd realised early on into my little fray that I was under-prepared, with the scale of what that meant alluded me, until I was there, wrestling with thoughts of exposure and contagion and disease, fumbling at a greasy torn up with a broken hand, while suppressing thoughts of what might be crawling up my leg or back or neck. Panic threatened to consume me. The world and all the normality it represented was right down there.

I could hear it, the distant hum of traffic, the amber glow of streetlights that lit up the biohazard posters. Not 30 minutes ago I'd been there, safe and far away from this waking nightmare. I was being reduced to a prey animal. Even in the moment I could sense it happening to me, being made into something lesser, but it was like my actions were no longer my own. When I finally gave up on that front door, I turned around and saw the shadows way back at the hallway begin to shift as something descended the stairwell. There was no other way out, no door, no window.

just me, a long corridor, and a nightmare coming right at me, something inside me, gave up, I don't know how to describe it. I'm still not sure if it was that building and that strange fluid that seemed to warp my own thoughts, or maybe there's just too much one person can go through, but I could practically hear the thin membrane of my sanity tear as I fell backwards into the door, and so, slid down, breathlessly awaiting my terrible fate. I almost contemplated turning off my light, but by then it was too late. I could see him coming towards me. He was legless, nothing from the waist down, except blackened viscera trailing up the stairs behind him. He pulled himself

towards hand over hand with hungry eyes. Before I knew it, he was on top of me. One hand gripping my mouth with a salty palm, the other stroking my hair. And then, in an instant, his demeanor changed. He bowled back with a terrified cry and scrambled away like I had just struck him with a blade. No, no, no, no, no, no, he muttered. No, no, you should have said, you should have said, I didn't know. I thought you were another one. I didn't know, I thought you were here for me.

I didn't know you were hers. He cowered away, peddling on both hands backwards, while keeping his eyes fixed on me. Tell her, I did not know you were hers. I could not smell until I was close, very close. If I hurt you, I'm sorry. Tell her I'm sorry. I did not mean to hurt you.

It is just I do not get to eat often, and I'm always hungry. The rapid gesture, he threw the key for the door at me. It skittered across the floor. and fell just short of my feet. Tell her I did not know. What are you? I stammered. He looked at me, curiously,

stopping his retreat, only briefly to gauge my expression. She likes to be seen, but I looked without asking, and I got what I deserve. Who are you talking about? I asked. He very nearly laughed,

but with such deformities, it was mostly a drool and gopher. You know, he gasped. Don't be stupid. You're in love with her, just like me, but different. You got permission. I didn't. But she was good.

She left me an old nest a living, and I have permission to eat anything I kill or trap myself. Hard now that people know to stay away. But sometimes, I guess. lucky. His eyes flicked to the closet with sickening hunger. What has this got to do with her? I asked. What color are her eyes? He replied, almost manic with excitement. Answer, answer, tell me, tell me, what color our eyes.

I stopped. The word felt wrong in my mouth. Blue, br- No, no, he chittered. None of those. Seemingly excited but afraid, he raced forward momentarily and gripped my lapels with twisted glee. Compound. He hissed with such forbidden pleasure. Her eyes are compound. She's jealous of us, you know.

Jealous, we get to love her. And then he disappeared into the darkness. And something inside me gave way in tight. entirely. And I passed out. I don't know much of what came after exactly. I was found a few hours later in my car, idling at a traffic light. I'd made some effort at getting away my own, but didn't get very far. No surprise here, but I got sick as a dog going in that place. A deep chest infection, the kind that scares everyone at least once in their life. Only fair, given how stupid I was. But forgive me, I hadn't anticipated nightmares beyond human comprehension. I challenge anybody to think that far ahead. You think junkies, you think flies, squatters. But that guy, that man slipping out of the nest and barreling towards me on two hands, my mind

going sizzle pop along with the soles of my boots. In real life, things like that always sneak up. up on you. So I paid the price. Six months. Geez, six long months. I got every fever you can think of. Sepsis, kidney failure, liver failure, month after month, drowning in my own fluids, coughing up stuff that made the nurses gag and leave. I asked the doctor what the long-term effects will be, and he wince before reading a list of things that didn't leave much hope for a happy retirement. And if it was hard on my body,

it was even worse on my mind. Those fever dreams. Doctors say, what I remember in that building, that was all just part of the sickness. Say I spent a good three days in a coma and strange dreams of the norm, which I might accept if it weren't the damned skin graft,

still healing in my right hand. No one can explain that. My client visited, just the once. There are a universally sad moments in life, and one of them is realizing someone you have a lot of affection for doesn't have it back. They have some, just not the same amount. It was always one way, though, wasn't it? I saw her every single day, but if I was doing my job right,

She only saw me once a month for our meetings. Our arrangement ended not long after. So I hope anyway. She left me like it was nothing but me. Ah geez. It felt like someone excavated my heart right out. Even after what she told me why she was there, even after what I did,

I could barely stand up straight. I was so heartbroken. There were times. after that I wish the sickness would just take me. Maybe that defeatism is why it got so bad. Who knows? She came to me looking for a recommendation of all things. She wasn't cold, far from it.

There was a sense of disappointment as she sat beside me and eyed me up. I liked the initiative, she said after a while. But the results leave me... impressed. What the hell happened in that place? I asked. And even though I could barely hear my own voice, she seemed like she heard every word. For a moment, the way she contemplated it, I thought I was going to get a straight answer. You know my mother said, men don't see ugly women. They know they exist, but they just proof them right out of their mind, like a magic trick. She said, said we worked better being a little plain, good enough to take home for a night, any more,

and we'd start to leave problems everywhere we go. That guy was a problem. Sue was trying to warn me about the dangers of attention, but silly me, I went and got addicted. I hoped with you, there might be a degree of separation, infatuation on a contractual basis. She took a deep breath, like she'd had a long, hard day. I don't know. Maybe Mom was right. It's ridiculous, I suppose. The fly shouldn't admire the spider. It either sees it and fears it or doesn't know what's coming until it's too late. I think Mom was telling me to go for the latter. It's no fun being invisible though. You spent all that time

looking at me, following me. What did you see? I looked at her until my eyes watered and something throbbed in my skull. I don't know, I tried to lie. Be honest. She looked right at me and something in the air changed. I don't know what. Hot. Jeez, it was hot, like looking at the sun.

I remember the heart rate monitor going nuts. And then. Then I remember God. Mossamee wings and serrated kite, a tick on the side of your cheek, a leech on your tongue, a horsehair worm that won't leave the skin. And then an instant later, my eyes refocused, and there was just a normal woman in front of me. Someone I could have loved, I answered, unable to stop the word spilling like vomit. Someone who I thought deserved love.

See, she said, who wouldn't like your version better? I was crying again, heart racing, world like butter, going soft at the edges. Whatever she did, it was like undergoing brain surgery in real time. I'd like a recommendation, she said after another minute or two of silence. I'd like to see myself. I look in the mirror and I don't see what you. do. I'd like an artist to paint me, a version of me at least. It won't be easy on them. All this time, you've probably looked directly at me for no more than five, ten minutes in total. Just didn't

realize it. Always the back of my head or my hair obscuring just so. That won't do. I want a portrait. I want to know what you see. What will you do then? I won't do anything. I won't do anything. Not intentionally, but if you ask someone to paint the sun, expect them to go blind. Whoever paints me will be painting the sun in their living room. Going blind is the least of their problems. Now, this up. You know someone. You mention them once in passing.

A cousin maybe, an artist in need of cash, I'm sure of it. Why would I tell you anything? Because you love me, she said, and because despite everything, you will get better and you will come back to me. Year or two, I think. You are adamant, I have no hold on you, and you will think that for a long time. In this period of freedom, you'll enjoy it only by my good grace and mercy. You did a good job, better than anyone before. I've read your notes and reports over and over and seen details of myself.

I didn't even know we're there. It's a thing of beauty what you did. And one day soon, you'll come back to me with some excuse for why you want the contract to continue. I tried to spit the word never, but managed, at best, a weak shake of the head, something that put a most peculiar smile on her face. It doesn't work like that. it'd be like trying to brute force your way through Alzheimer's, you'll be back. Even now you're mine, all mine.

I'm just being gentle, and you're going to give me the name and number of that artist because even though you know I could no more love you than a spider loves the fly, you are desperate to please me. Because when I broke the man in that apartment building, when I tore him in two and told him that he, would live there for as long as I desired, writhing without air for years and years, drowning in sickly fluid, and trapped helplessly in a hive. He's determined to maintain, even though I wouldn't be caught dead going back there. He was grateful, and with time.

You'll be grateful too, she put a pen in my hand. She smiled, mouth the word, good boy. And God help me. I gave her my nephew's number.