Creepy - Day 11 - Forget-Me-Not & Mother is Home

Episode Date: October 11, 2023

Forget-Me-Not***https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/***Bonus Episode: "Mother is Home" Written by: Juan Cardenas and Narrated by: Michelle Kane***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. Listener discretion is advised. Creepy presents. The 31 Days of Horror.

Day 11. Forget me not. He loves me. He loves me. She loves me. She loves me not. It loves me. It loves me not.

Forget me. Forget me not. There's a place not far from where I grew up. An old memory of a house swallowed up by the trees. We called the place Forget Me Not. No one wondered why. If you ever went there, you'd see he was surrounded by scorpion grass. Just a field of flatly-faced flowers, colored blue, pink, white, also known as Forget Me Nots.

Supposedly, Forget Me Nots represent true love. And giving someone this flower means you truly love and respect them. It's a testament to your relationships and promises the other person that you'll never forget them in your thoughts, a symbol of fidelity and being truthful to someone you love. It's only now that I think that's more than a coincidence. No one ever went in to forget me not. Those creepy as hell and looked like a strong wind would knock it down. There are rumors that some teens had died there, but I think most towns have something like that. I quit my job during quarantine, another stat in the great resignation.

I tried to make my side hustle my career only to find myself moving back in with my aging parents. It was awkward to say the least, but being true wasps, we never talked about it. I mostly stayed out of the house, avoiding the palpable passive aggression as much as trying to figure life out. 40, single, and unemployed. Lighten up both Tinder and LinkedIn, obviously. Most nights I go drinking with a couple old friends from school who never left town. Teddy was single, and Mike not so secretly hated being a family man. Neither were difficult to talk into a beer and a bump.

Funny thing about reconnecting with old friends is how much you just talk about the past? I guess none of us really like the present all that much. I'd been home a couple of months, and the three of us had probably already gone out drinking 20 times by the time Forget Me Not came up. Teddy brought it up for some reason. I think he was talking about real estate or something. I think I was surprised the old place hadn't fallen to gentrified housing development, saying something about how no one had ever been inside to even know if it was worth anything. Mike and Teddy just stared at me before Teddy stared laughing, seeing he was impressed.

I was buzzed, lost, and annoyed, as he laid out a story I didn't know to Mike. According to Teddy, back in high school a dozen of us went out there to drink and fuck around. I'd volunteered to go first, trying to score points with Betsy Gray. They said I went in and pulled a dick move by not calling out and saying I was okay. Then somehow snuck out the back of the house and circled around them and just stood there until someone noticed me, scared the shit out of everyone, according to Teddy, who was almost in tears laughing about it. And when they asked me what I saw inside, I claimed I never went in, almost starting a fight about it, totally ruined the whole night, and I never even broke character the next week

in school when I asked about it. Teddy raised his mug and said he was impressed I could play the long game for 20 years. Then and there, I would have put my hand on a Bible and swears. war I'd never been and forget me not. I remember that night. I remember that fight. But I didn't go into Forgive Me Not. But before I could defend myself, Mike and Teddy lost interest almost immediately after the story, moving on, arguing about the Packers. It wasn't nearly as easy for me to drop it.

Which brings me to... Well, I don't even know. All I know is that I woke up... Two days, two days later, in my own bed, covered in filth like I'd slept outside. I couldn't think about any of that until later, though. My forearms stole my attention and whatever remaining shred of sanity I still had. My arm was covered in dirt and dried blood. My blood, it turned out.

It was a nurse at the ER who first realized there were words carved into my arm. Presumably by me, she cleaned the wounds right before my tetanus shot. I'll never forget that totally oblivious tone in her voice as she asked, does this say forget me not? I think she asked more questions after that, but I wasn't paying attention. As soon as I could, I texted Matt and Teddy. But the more time the past from the nurse reading those words etched on my arm, The less important it all started to feel until it was almost comical.

The words were out of sight under the bandage wrapped from elbow to wrist. In fact, I'm pretty sure I was laughing as I typed, Fuck! What happened Tuesday night? I expected to list all the drinks that had thrown down my throat or a lost bet that ended in my Johnny Walker fueled self-mutilation. All I got in response was, What?

From Matt. I'll save you the ensuing text thread. The short of it is that I got drunk and left the bar around midnight. That was it. They hadn't heard from me since. I looked at my phone. No calls and only one text from Teddy the night before asking, cocktails?

Oh, fucking depressing. I'd lost 36 hours of my life, and no one knew or cared. that I was gone. Too embarrassed to ask more questions, and with no idea what else to do, and with nothing but time, I rolled out of the parking lot around noon and decided to go out to forget me not, hoping something would jog my memory. I was surprised how quickly I got there. No wrong turns, even when the woods got particularly dense. Before I knew it, I was standing just outside the field of flowers. I expected something to click, but my mother was mind was blank, not even a hint that had been there before. There was nothing special about the

house, just a broken-down two-story the world had forgotten about, just as I remembered it from high school. It was getting dark, and I knew better than to just wander inside with no plans or objective other than hoping I'd remember something. As I turned to leave, I noticed there was a tear in the leg of my jeans. I must have snagged it on a branch as I'd like. left my car. I took my phone out to get some light on the suddenly very dark sky. That's when I noticed the miss calls. Three. All from my mom. Tyler, where are you? Are you still at the hospital?

Tyler, I called the hospital and they said you left hours ago. Tyler, this isn't funny. If you're going to live under our roof, you will show us some common courtesy. The clock on my phone read 8 p.m. 8 p.m. How was that possible? It couldn't have been more than 20 or 30 minute drive from the hospital. A few minutes of walking through the woods. I can't really explain the sort of panic that caused, almost like it was so overwhelming that I couldn't feel it. It was there, blanketing my every thought, but my body just didn't react to it. I patted at my pants to make sure I still have my keys when I noticed that my arm wasn't bandaged anymore.

There in dried blood were the words, forget me not, and sloppily carved letters, and under it was a single vertical line, like a letter I or L. I'm not sure it wasn't there before, and a thin, dried line of blood ran down from it. I looked back at the house,

then back down at my arm, there was another mark. on it. The first line was dry, but the second one dripped down my arm. Before I could process any of it, as if I had any chance of figuring out what was going on, my phone buzzed. I looked at it. A dozen missed texts going back the last ten hours, all from my mom, the last one saying that she was going to call the police. Suddenly I felt very hungry and thirsty. Like I hadn't had anything in days. The fuck was going on.

There's no way I was going to call her. So I just texted her that I was fine. My phone had died and I just got a chance to charge it again. She immediately texted me back asking where I was and to come home immediately. I walked right to my car, drove down the road and went to the outdoor supply store. I had no idea what was going on. But in the last few days, I'd been scarred three times. all while outside of forget-me-not evidently.

I grabbed a survival backpack loaded with enough stuff to climb a freaking mountain on a sleeping roll, relieved I still had some room left on my credit card to pay for it, and headed back toward the house. As I started to walk back up to the house, started to realize that I had no idea what the hell I was doing there. What did I think I was going to learn or figure out? Enough doubt crept into my head that I turned back toward. toward the car and that's when I noticed it. My pack felt light, lighter than it had been when I'd

first bought it. How was that possible? I dropped it on the ground and noticed that it was worn, like it had been used and returned. How hadn't I noticed that before? The insides of the pack were stuffed haphazardly like someone had done it in a hurry. There was a torn open pack of hand warmers and meal replacement bar wrappers. Then I noticed that the The sleeping roll looked funny. If you've ever gone camping, you've probably experienced the sheer frustration of trying to roll up your sleeping bag tight enough to fit it back in its bag. The sleeping roll was pouring out of the bag like a half-open can of biscuits.

No. No, that's not right. I grabbed it off the shelf. It was unopened. There'd even been a zip tie holding the zippers closed. I kept digging through the bag until I found the receipt. I was going to bring it back to the store and complain about whatever sort of sleight of hand they'd pulled on me. And that's when I saw something written on the other side.

It was gray, thick lines like charcoal or ash. It said, why am I here? The receipt was dated for today. At least that's what I thought until I looked at my phone, down to only 5%. No, the receipt was dated yesterday. I ignored all the messages from my parents as I looked at the house, then back at my bag. That's when I saw the lines on my arm. They weren't just lines.

They were tally marks. Six lined up next to each other, and one running diagonal through four of them. Seven. Seven what? I went to my bag to see if there was anything else, and that's when I noticed a tip on my right pointer finger was gray with soot. I'd written the note on the receipt, but what did it mean? I couldn't help but think I'd been in the house, but how would that be possible?

How could I go in there and not remember? Had I finally slipped into full-blown alcoholism and my life was just a walking blackout? No. Not that it wasn't a possibility in the future, but I knew that wasn't the case either. I was just grasping at straws. I knew that if there was an answer, it had something to do with the house. Everything had started going strange the moment I'd started talking about it again. I went to my car and rifled in the glove compartment for something to write on.

I grabbed the old owner's manual. In the back there were a few pages for notes. and a rare bit of luck I had a couple of pens in the console, one red and one black. Must have taken him from my old job. I uncapped a black pen and started a write on my hand. I couldn't remember anything that had happened to me, so I tried to leave myself a note. I simply wrote, Write down what happens on the back of my hand.

Then I stuffed the pen in manual in my front pocket so I wouldn't lose them before walking back to my bag. I was going to go inside the house and figure out what the hell was going on with me. Or would I be going back in the house? Well, I contemplated that a new question formed in my head. Why am I looking up at the sky? That only led to more questions. Why was I laying down all of a sudden? Had I fallen and hit my head?

No, I was just laying there, looking up at the cloudy, sky, the faint outline of a sun just barely poking through the cloud cover directly above me. My throat was dry and my stomach had a weird pain in it. Just like before, I was hungry and thirsty. Jesus, I was so fucking thirsty. I could barely think straight as I struggled to get up to my feet. Slowly I made my way back to my car, put it in reverse and drove the fuck away from Forget Me Not.

I didn't see my pack anywhere and I didn't get it. care. When I got home, I heard something I'd never heard before. My mom's screaming at me. I'd never seen a razor voice about anything ever outside of trying to out-sing some of the other moms at Sunday Mass. There were promises, threats, vows. Anything and everything it seemed like she'd always wanted to say to me poured out of her mouth as my father sat in his chair, silently watching the storm thundering away. She called me a no-good drunk. How could any sensible or loving son possibly make a mother so worried to go on a week-long bender

and not even have the decency to call? A little surprise she didn't try to put out an amber alert. I just nodded along before going to the shower, running it with my mouth open for about 20 minutes. I felt like I lost weight as the dirt and grime I hadn't even noticed washed off my body and into the drain, and I grabbed whatever food I could carry from the pantry and went to my room in a daze. It wasn't until around midnight as I lay in my bed awake, confused, and possibly in shock,

that I looked at my phone. It was dad as I'd expected, but the screen was also cracked. I just didn't have the energy to care. I also noticed something else in my pocket. The user manual, I had some strange idea about using, for the screen. for goals unknown to me in that moment. I tossed it on my bedside table and the pages flopped open to a dog-geared page near the end in the note section. I read the following and alternating black and red ink.

What am I supposed to write in this? Where am I? Did I write this? I don't know who wrote this. Who am I talking to? Tyler? My name is Tyler. I think I'm writing this, but I don't remember.

Are you in the house when you're writing this? I'm in a house. Where are you? Outside on the steps. What are you doing out there? I don't remember. What are you doing in there? I don't remember either. Do I live here? No, you live at home with your parents.

What can you remember? Nothing. I'm just here. Are you okay? I don't know. Are you okay? I don't know. Are you okay? I don't know. Are you happy in there? Yes, I think I am. Are you happy out there? No, I don't think I am. That was the last line written in red ink. After that, it was all black ink. Then you should come inside. I'm going to stay here. I don't remember outside, but I don't think I want to. I'm almost out of food.

I don't want to leave. I have no water. I don't want to leave. I have to leave, but please read this. You won't remember this, but you're happy here. You are alone. But you can bring more people. They won't remember either.

There will just be. People think a haunted houses is something evil, something angry, a structure that stands as a memory to pain, something demonic. But regardless of what you might think, that's not what Forget Me Not is. It's not anger. It's love. It loves you.

It loves me. It'll take away everything. that hurts you in the world outside its walls. When you're outside, you forget you are inside. And when you're inside, you forget you are outside. Sure, it'll take away the happy memories too, but that's just so you'll stay. So you'll know your home. So it can love you forever. He loves me, he loves me not. She loves me, she loves me not. It loves me. It loves me. It loves me. it loves me not forget me not

will never forget me for your bonus episode creepy presents mother is home written by Juan Cardenas and narrated by Michelle Kane

I'm trapped in my own home I haven't been outside in what might be a year now no this is isn't pandemic-related. I didn't even know that was happening. You see, I don't really know where the door is anymore. Most days, I just wade through the stuff and make it to the bathroom, kitchen, and mom's room, in that order. This morning was particularly difficult because the landscape had changed. I couldn't find my usual path. It was a bit darker than normal.

even though I knew it was morning. You see, I keep an old wind-up alarm clock with the two bells atop it to keep track of the time. I can make out something of a day-and-night cycle using the clock and bits of light that come in from the edges where the windows used to be. That clock rang this morning,

telling me it was 8 a.m. and breakfast time. So I carefully shoved aside the magazines, doll parts, electronic pieces, wires, soap boxes, cardboard, mugs, and the newspaper that I kept on my bed. That's when I realized that somehow the pathway I made to get to the kitchen and subsequently mother's bedroom was gone. It must have been some movement in the piles that we kept in this room. Maybe a rat or something caused something to topple over and cause a cave in. I heard my mother calling from her room. She was hungry. I needed to make my way to her soon or else she would be furious. The thought sent a cold shiver down my spine. I lived with her all my life, and to this day her screaming at me

puts me in hysterics. The last time I took too long to feed her, she screamed so loud that I couldn't eat, sleep, or even relieve myself for days. This thought put some pep in me. As I waited through her things in the near dark, I started to think about what I could do to feed her. There was definitely some tuna,

maybe even some crackers left in there. I winced because my foot was in pain. I was using the last bit of my right foot, my good foot, it still had two toes on it, to kind of shovel away the valuables still in the way. The big toe and the two right next to it were intact, but the white and green splotches of fungal infection were eating away at it, and they were irritated with every sweep of the environment, catching on plastic, roach droppings, paper, and clothes. I soldiered on. I was grateful to still have enough sensation to feel pain, and even the scurrying of the roaches that it disturbed.

I managed to get outside of the bedroom after clearing a path with my arms and legs. The effort left me too tired to stand, and I started to crawl on the ground. This I preferred, even though the skin on my stomach and legs was starting to peel and decay from the scraping on the floor. It smelled and stung. Kept me up at night. Crawling meant I had to go slower, but I got into the hallway, admiring how it looked, lined with books and souvenirs, sentimentally valuable goods from dried pens, t-shirts, and shoes.

Mother loved shoes. They were her only vice. She was an avid collector of sneakers, especially. She allotted a yearly allowance for herself to buy her shoes, and she proudly owned over 2,000 pairs of shoes. There was a time when we could access them, and she would try them on and make a fuss about which pairs matched with which set of clothing. Now she just kind of relished in owning them and nothing else. I think she still dreams of her shoes, lost somewhere in this house, and ready for her when she dug them up. I think I like shoes too. Maybe I do? I don't know. I don't have much feet left for it. Neither does mom. I imagined her back then and myself. She used to fuss over. me as well, that I was well-dressed, well-fed, and smothered with love, as she put it.

I was eternally grateful. I was so indebted to her. I could never repay her. I am doing the least I can by taking care of her and her things. I realized I fell asleep in a pile. I heard Mother scream again. This time she was pleading. Her cry was scraping against the inside of my skull and pushing against my soul. With renewed vigor, I started to crawl out of the space in the hallway, and then I heard a loud crash. My mind was racing and panic. Did mom fall over? Had she gotten so fed up, she got out of bed and was making her way over here? I was so close to the kitchen. I heard heavy footsteps and chatter. Then I saw the first faceless one. They were like humans, but they had all white bodies

with no features and no faces, just a white or maybe translucent head. I could, from my vantage point, tell that they were tall and wide with a shine to them. They talked constantly and it was hard to hear or understand what they said. Instinctively, I slowly backed into a crevice and covered myself in clothes. The rows of paper products, old toys, photos, magazine cut-ups, and receipts were yellowing. The cockroaches that lived in there were making black dotted colonies right in front of my face, and I could see the slithering, shimmering, and crawling against the newly exposed light. Did these entities come through the front door? Have they found it? Maybe I could leave now. Take mother and we can restart our lives. But what of these creatures? What are they here for?

I won't leave. I won't be forced out by these devils. and mother would be upset with me for abandoning her and her treasures. I heard clicking, reminiscent of camera shutters and flashes of light in the dark. The faceless ones were wading through the valuables that mother had accumulated. One started exclaiming, and I heard and smelt a spill from the gasoline canisters that we had kept for the lawnmower we used to own. I felt the slither of inspirers. Addle my mind, a cleansing fire. I tested my arms and legs as I laid prone under the trash.

They were sore, tired. The layer of muck and sweat and grime must have stunk. Part of me remembers the lack of smell. I was in no state to walk anymore. I could find one of the lighters in the kitchen. The fire might hurt the entities, but will destroy everything. Would that be so bad? I didn't hear the entities anymore, so I made my way to the kitchen again. The journey would take a while. This was where the pile first started, with childhood clothing, church donations and novelty plates being one of the first non-shoe things mother would collect. I tried to move quietly. in one of the aisles created by the broken wooden furniture, stuffed animals, plastic bags, and boxes. This was probably four to five feet high at this point of the house.

I was at the entrance to the kitchen, moving so slow, conserving my strength, my breath. I could hear Mother start to scream again. The faceless ones were not startled by Mother's screaming. I'm not surprised. They must have been robots, automaton's, or maybe just brainless homunculi. She was crying. The sobbing pierced my ears and I gritted my teeth. I picked up my pace. I could be in the kitchen in moments I just needed to move, maybe even walk, light the place on fire, the cleansing fire. The creatures would run. I would be a hero.

I was almost there. I could hear motion. I think they spotted me, but I am close. I am so close. I was too late. A faceless one plucked me up, exclaimed how light I was and stared into my face with a bright light that blinded me.

I caused a commotion I had caused a commotion, writhed and kicked. The excursiating pain in my foot didn't stop me as I kicked and I tried to move my arms around. I could hear them exclaim, this one's alive. Can you understand us? Who is that in the bedroom? How long has she been dead? I started to weep and scream. She's not dead. I screamed. You monsters! What are you doing to her? Please, she needs to eat or she'll starve. She'll starve, she'll starve.

I kept droning on the same thing until I was so out of breath and exhausted that I went limp in the arms of the two faceless ones. My head bobbed almost lifelessly. I could see the ceiling clear and free. The ceiling were no things. were in the way. I think I blacked out. Then I woke up and writhed some more. Then I pitched forward and continued to try to escape. Then one of the faceless ones crouched in front of me. I could see it

work at its own neck, pulling at things. And I heard the harsh noise of what must have been Velcro. It was detaching its own head. Stop the level of mold and gas, said one of the faceless ones. The faceless one, tearing its own head off, held up a hand, then tore the skin of its white flesh up like a person removing a hood. It's just for a moment, said a woman with gray hair and glasses. She had kind green eyes. I hadn't seen a person in so long.

Listen, we are here to help you. Who is the woman in the bedroom? Mother, I said. Your mother, Agnes? Mother. Agnes, is it Agnes, Aggie Hernandez? Your mother, Agnes? She was last seen alive over three years ago.

The thing in the bedroom, it has been. been dead for at least several months. We found crackers and bread in its mouth and a nest of rats living in its head. Your mother is gone. No, no, no, no, no. Mother is home. Mother is home. I shouted. I tried to get out of the faceless one's grasp. The speaking woman put her face back on. Sedate this one, call an ambulance. Mother is home. Mother is home. Strong arms held my left arm. Mother is home. A needle pierced the burning, itching, caked in dirt skin on my arm. Mother is home. The vision I had was disappearing. And I was seeing, Black is home.

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