Creepy - Compelling Distance & Crossmatch 2824

Episode Date: February 29, 2024

Compelling Distance***Written by: Joshua Bryant and Narrated by: Heather THomas***Crossmatch 2824***Written by: Lyle Hopwood and Narrated by: Megan McDuffee***Support the show at patreon.com/creepypod***Title music by: Alex Aldea Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

No. This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepypastas and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened or are simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. which listener discretion is advised. Creepy presents.

Compelling Distance. Written by Joshua Bryant and narrated by Heather Thomas. I had invited him as an expression of difference. Polly brought marshmallows. Dave brought weed. Humphrey brought a first aid kit. And I brought him. I'd met him at work.

He didn't go to university. with the rest of us. He could have been a little older, or a little younger, but he certainly wasn't the same. His name was aunts. He wasn't very tall. He wasn't very talkative. He did smile, but he never touched or allowed himself to be touched. Polly, Dave, and Humphrey did not like aunts. I'm not sure how I felt about him. I was just so used to the patterns of school and work and the camping trip during summer, that I felt compelled to do something different. Throw a stone into the ever-still water.

We drove out in Humphrey's old van, going deep into the woods. Music came in and out on the radio, straining through layers of static. It was warm and our windows were rolled down. I looked out at the blue sky. No one was talking. I was sitting between aunts and Dave.

Dave reeked of that body spray he was so full, fond of, and I felt that if I were to strike a match close to him, he would catch fire. So I scooted a little closer to aunts. I thought my movement had been too subtle for him to notice. He was even facing away from me, his eyes peering out the window. Yet when I moved, so did he. I laughed a little. Polly turned around at the passenger seat and looked at me over her sunglasses. She asked me what I was up to. what I was plotting. Come on. I quit the kid pranks years ago, I replied, still looking at the back of Aunt's head. Polly scoffed. Humphrey even made a sarcastic remark that I ignored.

Aunt's hadn't moved again. I drew even closer to him, more cautiously than before. Again without a glance in my direction, he retreated. He was now pressed hard against the van door. There came a shift in the air. one that forced the stink of Dave's body spray out of my nostrils, and allowed a new scent to briefly pervade. It came from aunts. It was metallic, like steel dust gathered beneath the metal worker's bench, rusty and sharp.

Then it was gone. I suddenly noticed that he was looking at me, two eyes in the shade of his hood, mouth unsmiling. It seemed he was asking a question. I met his gaze. asking a silent question of my own. No answers were given.

Dave interrupted by ramming an elbow into my ribs and shoving a joint at me. He asked if I had a lighter. Rolling my eyes, I pulled a matchbook out of my pocket and threw it at him. Everyone rolled their windows up and soon the van was filled with smoke. I didn't participate. Neither did notce. I never liked the smell and stuck my face inside my shirt in an effort to escape. tape. Polly laughed at me. Dave jammed his fingers into my sides. I told them to stop, laughing so as not to

frustrate them. I knew they were only having a good time. Polly began grabbing up my shirt, trying to pull my face out. Dave was taking huge drags off the joint and puffing the smoke all over me. They hooted and laughed, their antics making the van sway. formerly I would have playfully retaliated But I'd known them for three and a half years at that point And understood what my role was So I just took it Pretending that I was having as much fun as they were

The van hummed along the road 80 miles an hour The in and out music now cranked as high as the speakers could take I wondered how the van would look wrapped around the trunk of a tree How we would look inside of it I wondered why I had agreed to come. I'm feeling kind of sick, Aunt said suddenly.

I'm going to roll the window down. Dave and Polly immediately quit their horseplay. The window squeaked open and there was a blast of cool, fresh air that engulfed us. I pulled my face out of my shirt and took in a loud gulp of air. Humphrey turned the radio down

and stared at Aunt's and I through the rearview mirror. His red eyes were narrow with Disapproval. Dave and Polly had withdrawn to their seats, sullen and scowling. I looked over at Aunt's. I almost moved closer again. If I had, we would be pressed together, thigh to thigh.

Aunt's dropped a hand onto the seat in the small space between us. It was wrapped in a loose fitting black leather glove. My eyes traveled up his drooping coat sleeve. I found him looking at me again. This time he was smiling, the wind coming through the open window, whipping the dark strands of his bangs back and forth over his eyes. Okay, I said, smiling back. Dave asked, what was okay? I ignored him.

Polly threw a peanut at me and hit me in the face. Everyone erupted in laughter. Aunt's even chuckled. though it did not strike me as particularly mirthful. Yet, neither was it dishonest. On impulse, I picked up the peanut and threw it at him. It fell into the collar of his jacket. I can't be entirely certain of what I heard next.

The air rushing into the open window obscured sound, and Dave and Polly were still scream laughing. But it seemed to me that something rattled, as the peanut made its way into aunts's clothes, like a pebble rolling down a sheet of tin. I froze in place trying to understand what it was I heard. Once had stopped chuckling, his face like stone. Humphrey suddenly began slowing down.

I looked out the window and saw that we were coming up on the turnoff for the campsite. We rattled up the dirt road, red dust following behind us like a persistent thought. Dave and I bumped against each other several times. But, aunts always seemed just centimeters away, close enough to imply he was real, far enough to cast doubt. We reached the site and Humphrey parked the van. He killed the engine and we piled out. Polly ran around, giggling like a little girl. Dave had lit another joint.

Humphrey was pulling the equipment out of the back, and I was helping. Aunt's was standing at a distance, his dark form shadow-like against the backdrop of elm and oak. I felt strangely that his stillness was not idle, not thoughtless, but rather patient, and wary. We got the tents out, and I realized there were only three. Polly and Dave were sharing one. Humphrey and I each had one for ourselves. aunts, however, only had his sleeping bag and backpack. I looked over at him and he seemed to already know what I was about to say. He told me he wanted to sleep under the stars, a shy smile appearing, then disappearing, on his face.

After the tents were all set up, Humphrey declared that he wanted to go hiking a little before we sat down and made the fire. We had a couple hours of daylight left, and it seemed like a good idea to all of us. So, we got our water bottles out and set out on a trail that led deeper into the forest. Humphrey was in the lead, as usual, with Dave and Polly following with their arms over each other's shoulders. I came next. Aunt's brought up the rear. I kept taking glances over my shoulder at him.

His eyes were downcast most of the time, but at various intervals he would look up and our gazes would collide. I would smile. He would quickly look back at the ground. It was a humid evening. Mosquitoes buzzed thick about our exposed skin. I kept having to take pulls off my water bottle and wipe the sweat from my brow. I was dressed in a tank top in a pair of shorts.

My three friends seemed in a similar position. The only one that was quite unbothered was aunts. For the first time it hit me just a little bit of a short. how strange it was that he was dressed in a thick coat, the hood drawn over his head, denim jeans that were too long and dragged behind his heels, and those black leather gloves. Thinking deeper, I realized that I had only ever seen his face. Everything else was covered up. At work he wore long sleeves. He always had the gloves on too, even in the height of summer. Obviously my mind wasn't on the trail. I wasn't looking where I was putting my feet. I hadn't even noticed that we were

walking along the edge of a dried riverbed. It was something like a 12-foot drop. I slipped, and suddenly there was nothing below me but air. I shouted, felt my stomach lurch, and I flailed my arms about in a futile attempt to catch myself. Then there was something gripping my wrist, something sharp that gouged through my skin and made me scream in pain. I looked up, eyes squinting through the hot agony that was lancing up and down my arm. I saw a gloved hand holding my wrist tightly, blood welling from beneath its grasp. Within a moment, I was pulled back onto the trail. Outs released my arm and stepped backward, allowing the other three to crowd around me.

I was on my knees, clutching at my bleeding wrist. Humphrey knelt beside me and looked at my wound. It was as if aunts had grabbed me while holding a fistful of shattered glass. I hissed at the pain, trying hard to hold back my tears and failing. Humphrey wrapped a bandana around it and helped me to my feet. We made our way back to the campsite. The silence hung heavy and tense, suspended on wires that were growing thinner and thinner and thinner. Suspicious looks were bombarding aunts, as if he hadn't saved me from a fall that could have broken a leg or ankle.

I felt sort of bad, but I was more concerned with getting my wrist patched up before defending him. When we had made it back to the van, Humphrey got out his first aid kit and cleaned my cuts with an alcohol wipe. I whimpered at the sting. Humphrey wrapped my wrist up in gauze and medical tape. I thanked him and he nodded. but his eyes were fixed on the person standing behind me. The sun was setting and Dave was making the fire. Polly was with him.

I dried my cheeks and tried to put on a smile. I turned around to regard aunts at last. His face was cast in complete shadow, and the only evidence of his eyes was a wet gleam in the twilight glow. His hands were jammed deep into his coat pockets. He was so quiet, I wondered if he was even breathing. Suddenly Humphrey was shoving past me,

stabbing an accusatory finger towards Aunt's face. Humphrey was shouting, demanding to know what the hell aunts had been thinking, demanding to know why he had torn me up like that. Hey! I intervened, stepping between them. He kept me from falling. You don't have to be an asshole. Humphrey shoved me aside again, a vein throbbing on his wife. forehead. Humphrey stood a good head taller and loomed over Anz. He was talking big, threatening to kick Anz's ass. I grabbed at the back of his shirt and kept screaming at him to stop. Anz never replied. He never took a step backward. It was as if he had been cut from iron. It was as if he weren't alive. Eventually, Humphrey lapsed into silence. I pulled him away from

aunts and said with more emphasis. He kept me from falling. He just accidentally scratched me is all. Now, how about we all calm down and make something to eat? Polly and Dave muttered in agreement, and Humphrey nodded, snorting out the last of his anger. He walked towards the campfire. I turned around and looked at aunts once more. Thank you, I whispered.

I think he inclined his head, but in the half-light it was hard to tell. He gave no other reply. He didn't end up eating with us, and we all wound up getting in our tents with a certain unease that night. When I woke up, it was cold. The blue morning light crept across the forest in increments that were neither strong nor long. I crawled out of my tent and saw that aunts was already awake. He was sitting by the dead campfire, hunched over, eating beans from a can with a fork. I was about to greet him when Humphrey emerged from his tent.

Dave and Polly soon followed. None of us were particularly eager to get any activity started, and we mostly beat around the bush until afternoon. Oance was kind of like a stain, one that lingered only at the extremities of sight. I wish I could say that I talked to him. I wish I could say that he and I interacted all day. But if he can pelt anything, it was distance. When the evening came, Dave pulled out a bottle of liquor. Humphrey and Polly were all over it.

I only took one shot and found that quite satisfactory. Of course, aunts refrained from drinking entirely. as the other three got increasingly intoxicated, the closer aunts drew to the fire. Perhaps he was cold, but in doing so, he was getting closer and closer to me. My head was spinning a little from the shot I'd taken, and I couldn't keep a stupid smile off my face. I kept staring at him. He was smiling back at me, and I wondered at how I'd never thought of him as handsome before. Yeah, he was gaunt and deep-eyed, but he was also clear and without malice. I tried to lean towards him.

He drew away, and another impulse struck me. Let's take a walk, I said. Just me and you. He hesitated for a moment. Our eyes met. Then he nodded, and we stood up. I was a little wobbly, but I was able to keep my balance. and I started walking into the woods.

Aunt's followed. I listened to the heavy fall of his boots on the ground, the rustle of his layers of clothing. We didn't talk. I wanted to say something, but nothing came to mind. I just kept looking over my shoulder at him, the dimming sunlight casting him in hues of golden orange.

He was watching me, too, but seemed content that there were no, words being shared. I'd never had an experience like that before. I haven't had one since. We walked for a half an hour. Then he stopped. It had suddenly grown very cold, and a biting wind was descending from the north. I shivered. I stopped and tried to make Ons's face out in the gloom. I couldn't. I waited for something to happen. There's a storm coming. He's a storm coming. he said, and his words were followed by an earth-shaking knell of thunder. I jumped and screamed a little.

I ran towards aunts. He stumbled backward, desperately trying to keep the distance between us from shortening. I slowed, then stopped. My heart was beating heavily, and anger heated my cheeks. I was about to say something, when the first drop of rain struck my head. Then the bottom fell out of the clouds. We both began running headlong back towards the camp. I was soaked to the bone in minutes, and for a while I was scared we were lost.

But soon I was able to see a weak glow beyond the trees in front of us. I realized it was an electric lantern burning in Humphrey's tent. I breathed my relief and raced towards where I had set up my own tent. I unzipped the front flap and threw myself inside, giggling and wiping rainwater from my eyes. I moved away from the entrance, expecting Aunts to jump in at any moment. I waited a minute, then three. Then it hit me that he wasn't coming in. I rummaged through my bags until I found my own lantern.

I flicked the switch, and my tent was illuminated by the warm yellow light. Holding a blanket over my head, I crawled halfway out and called out to Aunts. I moved the lantern this way and that, trying to see where he was. The rain was falling in sheets. My persistence paid off, eventually like a specter appearing from the murk. Aunt stepped out of the darkness and walked towards me. He looked like he had narrowly escaped drowning. What the hell's the matter with you?

Get your ass in here, I said. Silently and slowly, he obeyed. I told him to take his jacket off while I zipped the flap shut behind him. Then I pulled out my oversized sweatpants and sweatshirt and offered them. He looked from them to my eyes and back to them again. Oh my God, aunts, just take them. You've got to be freezing. I'll turn around, okay?

Just put them on before you get hypothermia. Finally, he spoke. You promise. I laughed and rolled my eyes. He repeated himself. and I realized just how serious he was. I promise, I replied. He smiled a little and took the clothes.

I turned around and listened to him undress. It sounded like he was ripping his clothes off rather than slipping out of them. The cloth of shirt and denim of pants, shredding away. What can I say? My curiosity got the better of me. It was just a peak. But it was enough. I shrieked and flung myself across the tent from aunts.

He was motionless. He wasn't even looking at me. I could hear his breathing over the tapping of rain on the tent. He hadn't put my spare clothes on yet. He was naked. But there was no skin, no flesh. Every inch of his body except his face and head were wrapped and barbed wire. He didn't have toes.

Each finger was a scrawny cylinder, tightly wound in rusty metal spikes. I clutched my bandaged wrist. I was consumed with the terror people feel when they know what they are looking at is so utterly deformed that it couldn't possibly be okay. Aunt's looked at me. I flinched. He blinked very slowly. A thick black liquid.

It brimmed at the corners of his eyes. Tears of blood began winding down his face. He stood up and made his way to the flap. He didn't unzip it. He just ran his hand down the material and ripped open beneath his palm. The storm blew in. He stepped out. I was still afraid, but I was also consumed with a terrible sadness.

I called out to him. Once, twice. Three times. He didn't answer, so I grabbed up the lantern and left the tent in pursuit. Aunt's was walking back into the forest. Humphrey was yelling from within his tent, asking what was wrong. I didn't answer. I chased after Aunt's.

He wasn't running so it wasn't hard to catch up with him. I grabbed for his shoulder and cried out in pain, recoiling a hand that was now bleeding from dozens of perforations. Aunt stopped and I began apologizing, my voice rattling on in the entropic rainfall. I held the lantern up so I could see his face. Aunt's didn't have eyes anymore. Barbed wire had pushed them out. Strands of barbed wire were ripping from his nostrils, writhing from between his lips,

wrapping themselves tightly across his face and around his head. I screamed and dropped the lantern. I wish I could say I tried to stop the wires. I wish I could say that I tore my own hands to pieces to keep them from shrouding aunts' face. But I didn't. I ran away. I ran to camp and joined Humphrey in his tent. He couldn't get a coherent word out of me. When the storm finally wore itself out, Humphrey went out to see what had happened. He came back, puzzled. He told me there wasn't anything there.

No aunts. No barbed wire. Nothing. Just my lantern half submerged in a puddle. The next day we went home. They all figured that aunts had attacked me, then ran off. I didn't really hang out with them anymore. I spend a great deal of time now thinking about aunts,

thinking about the smiles he gave, the gestures he made. I see other people like him, like stains at the extremity of sight, those who compel distance. I wonder how many betrayals a person must experience before the first strand of wire emerges, and how many more until they are consumed entirely.

Creepy Presents Cross Match 2824, Written by Lyle Hopwood and narrated by Megan McDuffie. The first mournful minor key trail of the landline wakes me. The second, Rams awareness into my sleep-uprived brain. On the third, I pick up the handset. Uh, blood bank. The cheerful voice of a junior doctor comes on the line saying he hoped he didn't wake me.

I don't know how they do that. They work longer hours than I do. I'm on call, that's what I'm here for. He goes on to explain that he has an RTA and A&E. He's sending four units of blood samples for cross-matching, road traffic accident. I yawn as I pull on my dance go clogs. I'm tired. On call is hitting me hard.

It's a young person's game, but I need the money. Sometimes I think it'd be easier to stay awake all night and do the day shifts as well. But right now, the possibility. a couple of hours between emergencies. Sounds like VIN. The lights are off in the labs. My badge unlocks the blood bank door. Lights turn on.

In the center of the room is a bench for cross-matching. That means mixing the patient's blood with a little of the blood from the line attached to the donated unit. We had reagents and saved the donated blood provokes a reaction from the patient's blood. If not, the unit gets labeled for the patient. During the day, a team of wide-awake people sit at computers that keep tabs on everything.

At night, a single, yawning individual walks into the gleaming, disinfected lab, and starts typing the... That's me. The tests take several minutes. Set a timer and look around the room, yawning. Everything's in its place, computers displaying screensavers, disinfected benches, refrigerators, brimming with blood. On the left, are new units from the Red Cross. On the right, units cross-matched for the procedures. Six units for each of the open-heart surgeries, two for each of the prostate resell.

In the bottom drawer, two units with half a dozen paper labels are attached for Mrs. Pereira, patient who may need a C-section soon. She's on her fifth baby and fourth transfusion, and she's developed a half-a-dozen antibodies. Almost any unit of blood would give her a transfusion reaction. We order special blood for her. negative for every minor blood group. In the third refrigerator are unusable units. There are a couple of half-empty ones for investigation.

Their labels noting the patients had an allergic reaction. And to everybody's regret, there's a unit cross-matched for Mrs. Pereira that expired and can't be used. Discarding a wasted unit of blood is a serious matter. It can't be poured down the drain and forgotten. Since Mrs. Pease is such a rare type, There's a chance a research group can use it, so we're awaiting their response for incinerating it and recording the disposal. Tonight's RTA is O-posit.

I pull four units from the refrigerator, barcoding each one so the computer knows I'm handling them, and clip off pieces of line into labeled tubes. I begin the cross-match. As is normal for young men suffering from an accident, there are no unusual antibodies. Less than 30 minutes after I get out of bed, four units hang in a cross-match. crate. The porter badges in to grab them and take them to the theater. How is he? I asked the porter. The porter responds to my question, explaining that he has no idea and that there's a big old mess on the floor in the triage room, so he thinks that he's going to need all of the units. They might ask for more

soon, but the fatigue is making me sway on my feet. I need the bed, even if it's just a few minutes. The next day, eight immunohemotologists bustle around the lab. It looks like aos, crates of units, refrigerator drawers open, racks of tubes. The computers keep tabs on everything. I'm wrecked, working with a partner and praying she doesn't have to correct me because I did the wrong thing. Around 11, the morning porter comes up with a milk crate, the name for the iron rack that we ferry blood units in. This one has two empty bags, one unused one, and one or one or one. almost drained. I recognize the name on the labels. It's last night's RTA.

Are you so wide? I asked the porter, stifling a yawn. The porter delivers the news to me that the patient hadn't made it, and that he crashed in the OR. One of the technologists takes the unused unit to check it. If it passes, it gets barcoded back into the refrigerator. The computer registers its return. My boss comes in. Treeker is tall, a short black, black, hair and a sleepy accent. Ivy League, well off, judging by her lupotans and the expensive skirt visible under her white coat, she gives me a once-over and a look that says I look as tired as I feel. Busy night, my reply, I'll get a second wind by lunchtime. She then lectures me about needing

to stay alert, and that we cannot have any mistakes. I know, Dr. Treaker, I say, she is the boss from hell. No sympathy. Only what can you do for me? Resentment rises, but so does the memory that I need pay rent. I'm going to be doing this double-ship work two weeks, forever. I'm perfectly capable of doing nights as well as the day shift. She smiles, coldly, more teeth than normally fit in one smile. Someone with that amount of money, bored orthodontics. It looks like a horse. I sleep from 9 p.m. to two in the morning. Then the irritating warble of the bedside phone. Knife attack, six units stat. I stumble across a dark quadrangled fast and jog into the main building. The ER doctor is standing outside the blood bank when I badge in. He apparently cannot wait for the porter to start

and hands me the blood sample. His patient is in shock and he needs eight ffts two. You can have four. My rapid typing says the patient is A positive, so I put four units of A positive fresh frozen plasma in the warmer. When a patient is in serious trouble, the problem is low volume in the blood system, not lack of red cells. FFP pours in fast to make up for what pours out, but thawing it takes time. Meanwhile, the doctor is hopping around like a toddler needing to pee. The attending physician must have put the fear of God into him. I rapid type the whole blood and throw it in a milk crate. He takes it and runs. On the crossmatch finishes, it'll all look fine on the computer. 20 minutes later I checked the cross-match.

There's a reaction to one of the units, which means the patient has an antibody to one of the minor blood groups. I try to think through it, but the porter comes in to pick up the FFP, blasting me out of analytical mode. Bone weariness descends once more. Everything will work out.

When the day shift arrives, the stabbing victim is on his eighth unit of blood and sixth FP. Anything that could have caused a problem in the first six is underfoot on the operating room floor by now. so that's over. Dr. Treaker has a different view. She informs me that she checked last night's results

as I badge back in after a coffee. Why? She starts in with a lecturing again about how supervisors review 5% of all tests. That's the policy, but normally the lead tech does not the director. It points out that I issued six units after I type check and didn't recall the unit

came up in the cross mat. It was probably nothing, a non-specific reaction. They needed the unit's stat. She arches her eyebrow and snarkily repeats my answer of probably nothing, with emphasis on the probably. She's worked here for six months. The last director was a sweetie.

She used to watch kitten videos and cry from the cute overload. I didn't respond. Anything I say will be taken the wrong way. I feel defeated as she insinuates that she's questioning whether or not I am too depleted to do my job safely. by the book from now on takes a jab at my age saying that I'm not young anymore 35 think indignantly she then scoffs and tells me that one of the juniors can do my nightship

they have more energy she glances at simon a year out of college he's tan muscular athletic working in a laboratory under fluorescent lights will eventually cure that is she giving me a verbal warning over a matter of professional opinion Tell her I'll think about it. Until then, I'll keep the shifts I signed up for. I turn away, IDing things up, looking busy. The discard drawer is empty. The half-used units have been taken from transfusion reaction investigations.

But where's Mrs. B's expired unit? I got used to seeing it there with its paper labels, Y-A, F-Y-A-F-B-K-M-S, and all the others. No one could have used it. The computer wouldn't let them. I troll the records. With no barcode, I start using Mrs. P's name. Then find all units assigned to her. The computer says it's in the drawer.

I look again. It isn't. The thunderous wallop of the air ambulance drives all of their thoughts away. At 7.30 p.m. The day shift is gone. The smell of gluterolahide disinfectant crawls up from the benchtops into the back of my sinuses. What's up? school bus accident, train derailment with 60 people dead,

macabre thoughts, but I am really tired, and a night without sleep due to a major incident is not what the doctor ordered. It's a ruptured placenta previa, a woman in labor with the baby's head ripping the placenta off the unirone wall. The placenta is basically made of blood vessels, so this is a genuine emergency. I do the group, an antibody screen, and cross-matched four units. At 3 a.m., I walk down the ramp, a mercury light under the portico hisses at the moths circling in its silver cone.

I cut across the grassy quadrangle under a star-sprinkled sky towards the nurse's quarters. It's good that the hospital provides these beds for on-call staff because there isn't a hotel in the area, except the John Wu house where attics on day-release bed down. Next corner is the HIV Clinic. Across the road, charity-run needle exchange. At the entrance I swipe my bed. Something flitters outside the door as I close it. Another one of those moths. I navigate soulless corridors to the on-call beds,

where I get to sleep for almost two hours before the phone rings with that two-tone B-negative, I mean, B-minor, drill. I must be tired. When the day staff arrives, I slip away for a real coffee, not one from the machine. When I get back, not 15 minutes later, The boss from hell is there with her arms folded. Before I can even sit my copy, she announces that two B-positive units are missing. I look at her and explained that we had a labor.

She was A-Positive. Then around dawn, we had an RTA. He's... I can't remember. Oh, O positive. Why is she asking me? The computer knows every unit I took out of the refrigerator. As if reading my mind, she retorts with,

I know. Did anyone come in while you were working? I told her no, but I was asleep most of the night, for all the good it did me. I'm exhausted when this interrogation isn't helping. She is irritating. Her shrill voice reminds me of the landline by the bed, putting into my mind like a buzz saw, harving up my thoughts. I look her in the eye to show sincerity.

One glances enough. Her long face tilts up, although I am shorter. She's haughty, I decide. The way she carries herself as if she's better than me and expects me to agree. As I involuntarily glanced down, away from her eyes, she smiles in victory and I see those teeth again, too many of them, and too long, like an AI rendering of a boss. She takes far too much pleasure in reminding me that I'd drive myself too hard.

I have poor concentration, and that I refused her request to give away my on-call shifts. She ends her rant by telling me that she will have to write this up for HR. Thought sees on the word, human. Once I see a loose end sticking up, follow it, and it goes to a very weird place. Preker turns on one flawless heel and disappears into her office. This is what's known as a constructive dismissal. She's building a case by insinuating I'm too tired to do the job, and then using my lack of pushback as evidence that she's correct.

But inside I'm chasing that thread through my superstitious hindbrain. What if she's trying to pin the theft of blood on me? Vampires may not exist, but people who live the lifestyle do. Trans-Trans-Transylvanians, or so I read on Reddit, Krieger could be covering up a theft by insinuating that I'm unstable. In the bright technological haven of the laboratory, nocturnal horrors fade into invisibility. I watch my coworkers typing,

and cross-matching for the day's procedures. I know that Rose sometimes takes a drop of blood and feeds her good luck plant, which is now large enough for a giant panda banquet, so she's on to something there. But she wouldn't dare steal a whole unit. Grigor has a cousin with leukemia who needs platelets every week. There's no way to convert stored blood into platelets. There's Simon, the athletic guy, Treeker, has the hot for.

Maybe Simon is transfusing himself to get a competitive advantage. Then again, no one trends. fuses themselves with B-positive and A-negative. He's a blood banker and knows how sick you'd be. The coffee kicks in and I take my place at the typing bench, feeding the computer. Rose enters at that moment with a milk crate with the two missing B-positive units. You found them in O'Mahoney's cabbage. A refrigerator door opens, silencing the fan, and slams shut.

The fan resumes. A sneak look at the computer. The theater nurse for Mr. O. Mahoney, in surgery for C. ABG, coronary artery bypass grafting, found the missing units when updating its records. Golden Boy Simon cross-matched six for the patient, but put two others in the crate with them. You're supposed to barcode every unit that you take out of a refrigerator. It's not a lethal screw-up. The nurses would never hang blood not labeled with the patient's ID.

But it's a significant error. Will Simon get the hellfire top from Dr. Treker? I wonder about the outdated bag of blood. still missing. Neither a vampire or a roses little shop of horrors plant developed a dependency. 9 p.m. dark outside the window, sticky, sweet smell of Sydex lingering in the nose hairs. No emergencies so far when the post-ops are stable.

Time for me to badge out. A bed, no smell of blood or chemicals, just wriggle into the clean sheets and few hours' sleep. The quadrangle is deserted. The young moon peekaboo's through swift, dark clouds. Wooden stakes force young trees beside the path to stay upright, facing a hastening wind. A few drops of rain drive horizontally, and I'm grateful when I reach the door. I tap my badge on the lock.

No buzz. I hold the badge against the black square. Red light, no buzz. They pushed the door. It's locked. My badge worked when I got coffee at seven, and two hours later, it's a little. didn't, as if access was revoked at the end of the day shift. I walk back to the main building. As I raise my badge to the lab door, I see it has a green light. It's unlocked. Inside, I see

Treaker, sitting on a bench, high heels off the ground. She's looking at Rosa's lucky bamboo mini plantation. I've been fired? I begin indignantly. On what grounds? It wasn't me that let two units out the door without documentation. She laughs as she tells me that I'm not fired, but she's been trying to get me to give up the night shifts, and I just won't take the hint. I object, asking her, why if I'm not? She interrupts me, gushing about how Simon is so much healthier, and that she has taken all she can from me. I balk at the insinuation that Simon is healthier. She sighs, and again explains that once normal people get tired, that they give up the nightship and she can have some fresh blood.

But not me. No, I don't give up. She goes on to laugh and tell me she has no idea how I can still stand upright. The last jab comes when she tells me that she got more from the outdated unit than she gotten from me in the last three nights. I think to myself, Why me? There are others around at night.

In the halfway house, the needle exchange. She's always been able to read my thoughts. She answers me with contempt. dripping from her tone that she would never get blood from the HIV clinic. I must be kidding. I guess she switched from people to stored blood a long time ago when it was the safer alternative. That was before computers kept tabs on every unit. Nowadays it's easier for her to target lone technologists on the night shift.

I'm less valuable, less than the contents of the refrigerators. I need to find some way to warn Simon. My thoughts deceive me and she smiled. and tells me that I can't warn Simon. I can't warn anyone. No one will ever find me. This is a hospital with a very busy incinerator. Her eyes lock on mine, and I can no longer move.

And I know she's right. For more information on this podcast, including how to submit your own story for consideration, please visit creepypod.com. You can also follow up. at CreepyPod on social media and YouTube. All stories told on this podcast are done so through creative common share-a-like licensing, or with written consent from the authors. No portion of this podcast may be rebroadcast or otherwise distributed

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