Creepy - Day 27 - Wet Sheets in Room 209

Episode Date: October 27, 2021

It should mean something...***Written by Linda Evans***Content warning: child abuse, sexual assault***Bonus episode: "The Suicide Barn" written by William Presley and narrated by Heather Thomas***Content Warning: Suicide/abuse***Check out the Grim Harvest podcast at: https://grimharvestpodcast.com/***Find our reward tiers at patreon.com/creepypod***You can also subscribe to us on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/creepypod***Sound Design by Pacific Obadiah***Title music by Alex Aldea***Intro/Outro Narration by Joe Stofko Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to the bloody disgusting network. 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 not 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 27. Wet sheets in room 209. Written by Linda Evans. A sign outside the door reads, Do unto others, with a saying left unfinished.

The words are scrawled into an oblong of wood and stapled to a worn-out post. You ponder for a minute. Sure the words should mean something, but they don't. So you shake your head and turn towards the house. It looms skyward into thick gray clouds, ivy covering aged bricks of brown and deep red,

while a stack of scalloped steps leads to the front door. You climb them slowly, looking from mistrouted fields to dense hedgerows and back. The door creaks when you push it open, like a scene from an old horror film. In fact, it's all like an old horror film. The battered house, the mist, the thick gray that hangs in an eternal twilight.

You don't know why you're here, but here is where they told you to come. so here is where you are. The stench of piss and stale alcohol fills the house, reminds you of the stairwell back home, the one you pissed in yourself when you thought no one was around, after kickout time at the pub when the stairs did the tenth floor seem to run on forever. You caught Tommy doing it once and clipped him around the ear,

dirty little sod. Well, you had to, because that nosy old woman on the third floor who didn't miss a thing had seen him do it, so you had to show what a good parent you were. A long corridor, more like a secret passage that runs under a castle, stretches on into the shadows of the dim lights hung between doors.

Lots of doors. nothing but doors, running a few yards apart on either side. The first had a number one fastened to the wood. One screw has loosened, and it hangs skewed to the left. You turn the handle and push, a rush of cold air nipping your cheeks. It's some sort of cellar, bare bricks with a film of thin fungus coating the lower edges. A naked bulb hangs from a cord on a twisted beam, dull orange showing through the city glass.

Somewhere in a shadowy corner, a man cries, and you strain your eyes to try and focus through the half-light. I want to go home, he says in a choked voice, deep in husky sobs following. A hand pushes against. your stomach. A small hand, but a big push, and you step backward. A girl, no more than 10, Tommy's age, shoves again, and her tiny voice snaps. Wrong room, wrong room! Just before the door closes, you notice she's wearing nothing but pink underwear. You wonder what's

happening as someone or something rushes by. A wispy shadow. half solid, not quite there. Look at your ticket, it whispers. You look at the slip of paper you've been clutching since you arrived. It has 209 written in thick black scrawl across it. That's a high number, someone says. But there's no one around. The next door is labeled number two,

and you groan as you realize you'll have to walk past 207 more doors to find out why you're here. You lick your lips, tasting dust and mold when you'd sooner be tasting the head of a cool draft. A shot sounds from behind the door

but you refuse to be afraid. It's what they want. But they can't do anything to you now. So what's to be scared of? You walk along the passageway. listening to the dull clomp of your footsteps against the tiled floor, watching spiders scuttle out of the shadows and scoot over the bricked walls. To the right a door is blacked and charred,

and screaming comes from inside, begging to be helped. You smell smoke, see it swirl from the bottom of the door, a flame-like crackle beyond. Go look, says a voice. But you ignore it and carry on. A memory flashes. Tommy shaking you. His voice screeching beside your ear.

A smoky flat. Cigarette down the side of the sofa cushion. No harm done, though. Just an accident? Not your fault. Further long, you come to a door different from the rest. Sat between 50 and 51. Water splashes.

from the other side and you push it open. The glare stings your eyes for a moment. A bright fluorescent strip overhead, and you squint until you can focus properly. A man leans over a bathtub dunking a sheet and rubbing it between his fists, while a boy waist-high kicks his shins and screams obsinities. The knuckles on his tight little fist bony and white.

A whisper in your ear. Carry on. You feel breath against your skin and spy the tail end of a pale mist as it slips out of eyeline. 209 is cellotaped to the door, the number wonky and uneven. You ease the door open and step into the dark car park. Cars and vans silhouetted and staggered rows. Ovalights here and there on the side of concrete pillars breaking the darkness. A woman's voice carries from the far side of a camper van and you walk towards it, hearing it but unsure of the words.

Two feet stick out from the end of the camper, men's shoes, dark lace-ups, his trousers bunch around his ankles. Don't scream and I won't hurt you, she says. A petite blonde half his side sat astride him, skirt around her waist. face, blouse open. The knife against his throat looks so big wrapped in her tiny fingers. She looks around, up into your eyes, enjoyment fueling her smile. This is 206? She says before fastening a hand around the man's throat. You walk back to the door with his gasps growing quieter and hers growing louder. then silence falls as you pull the door closed behind you.

A metallic ping sounds as the number six drops to the floor. 209 is across the way, warped wood showing through the cracked and peeling light blue paint, a square of modeled glass in the top half. Up until now you haven't been worried, but the fact that the door is identical to the one back home makes you feel a little uneasy. There's no handle, and you reach into your jacket pocket and pull out a ring of house keys

and unlock the door. The stale smell hits a second before the pain in the right side of your head. One minute you're standing. Next, you're lying in a heap by the skirting board, head throbbing, wondering what the hell just happened. You're hauled to your feet by the scruff of the neck, but by what is it? is anyone's guess. Your vision's going crazy with all sorts of flesh as in wavy lines.

A slapping noise. A second pain in your ear rings. Someone's saying something, but it's too quiet behind the ringing so you can't make out the words. You're grabbed by the arm and dragged across the room before being thrown to the floor. A door slams, and you lay still for a while and try to figure out what's happening. when your head clears a little and you can see something other than shadows and outlines, you sit up and look around the room.

It's lit by a solitary candle on a small bedside table, just like the one your wife used to light for Tommy when he said he was scared of the dark, like the one your mother lit for you. It lights the center of the room and leaves the corners and shadows. You stand and climb onto the bed, a massive, giant-sized bed, and breathe in the stench of dried urine. It reminds you of your own bed when you were a child, when you tried so hard to hold it until morning. But the shouting and fighting from the other room, the smashing of glass, the slapping and punching, and... That's why you hated it so much when Tommy did it.

A television plays in the other room. At least you think it's a television. It sounds muffled and distant. Voice is growing louder. An argument. Unclear words. But the anger and venom is easy to make out. You're scared, though you're not sure why.

They can't do anything to you. Not to a dead man. But you thought that earlier. That nothing could hurt you. But the pain was real. You felt it. Not just physical pain either. Something inside hurts, but you try to push it aside, not think about it. But it's here, and it stays here.

You want the toilet. It crept up on you, the feeling. One minute not there, then suddenly urgent, and you really need to go. You're not a kid anymore. you don't need to be scared that they're arguing and you can't go to the bathroom. In a second, it's too late, and the sheets grow warm and wet. Now you've started and you can't stop, and the patch grows into a sodden mass. The door bursts wide, slamming into the wall, startling, forcing a lump into your throat.

You stare open mouth, not believing what you see. Tommy Your Tommy stands in the doorway hands on his hips face screwed up breath's echoing around the room but he's big

so big his frame filling the doorway as though he's an adult but he isn't he's still a boy an adult sized boy it's me Tommy you tell him it's me

your dad. But he doesn't hear you and doesn't want to hear you. And he strides with his long legs to the side of the bed and looks down. You remember the wet heat rushing to your cheeks and you lean to one side

hoping he won't see. But he does. And when he speaks his voice is loud and menacing. Not the tiny little mumbling voice you were used to. He screams. He screams that you're a baby and dirty and stupid and useless,

and before you can reply, he pulls you from the bed by your arm. Our grip so tight, the blood stops running to your fingers. He rips the sheet from the bed and drags you across the floor, feet stumbling behind. In the bathroom, he fills the tub using just the hot tap and throws the sheet in. Steam rising in thick clouds. He tells you to get awashed. but the water's going to burn so you refuse. He can't make you.

Nobody can. You're an adult, a full-grown man. But Tommy's man's eyes, and you're a child against him, and the water scalds when he grabbed your arm and plunges your hands into it. You don't know why it hurts. It shouldn't hurt. Nothing should now, but it does, and you scream.

And you do as he says. Your arms throb and sting as you rub the sheet. And all the time he screams beside your ears. Tells you how bad you are. What a useless, no brain dim wit. And you rub and dunk and rub and dunk and want him to stop. And there's a nagging little voice in the back of your mind that wants to agree with them, but you won't let it.

Because it wasn't your fault. Footsteps near and a woman steps in the doorway and leans against the frame, resting a bruised and battered head against the wood. Her eye is swollen in purple and blood trickles from a split lip. Her long dark hair matted and lank. She was beautiful once. She looks at you with eyes that stare through to the wall behind, vacant and empty.

You ask her for help. Plead with her. What she watches you cower and squirm, never moving. When you stop talking, she turns and walks away. And Tommy delivers a kick to your side so hard you think you hear a rib snap. Tommy drags you back to the bedroom and tosses you onto the mattress, wet sheet and all. When he's gone, you lie on your back cradling your arms and look at the candle shadows on the ceiling, feeling the wet soaked through to your skin, shivering and sweating at the same time.

You wonder when it will end and why he's doing it. He's your son, after all. Your own flesh and blood. But then you know why. You're falling asleep when the door creaks and opens enough for a sliver of light to fall into the room. You turn your head and see Susie peer through the crack. She's big like Tommy, but you're not scared of her. She was always your favorite.

your angel, your baby, a picture of dark curls and pink skin and frills and sweet smells. She pushes the door closed and leans her back against it till it clicks, and you smile as she approaches. Hey, baby, you say as she kneels beside the bed reaching a handout. Maybe she can stop Tommy. He was always so good looking after her when Mommy was. and disposed. He'd do anything she wanted.

I need you to help me, you say, and she nods, giving one of those precious smiles that melts you inside. Then she climbs him beside you and holds you to her, so warm and comforting, and you sigh and relax into her oversized body. Then her hand moves and your body tenses. your mind takes a second or two to register what she's doing when it does you try to pull away but she holds tight

whispering that it's all right that you shouldn't be scared that she loves you that'll be yours and her little secret your stomach lurches and you want to be sick you know it isn't right you don't do that not when she's your daughter Not when you are her father.

It's wrong. It was always wrong. By the time she leaves you hurt so bad that you can't stop the tears. And you roll under your stomach and bear your face in the wet sheet. You know now why you're here. You had to see it from their point of view. Feel what they felt. Hurt like they hurt.

And now you do. Now you understand. You've seen what it was like, gone through it, and now everything will be okay, right? Ail mist rushes to your side. An icy midwinter blast kisses your lips, chills through your bones. Then it's gone. Candlelight flickers.

Death shadows growing as the waxed windows. You sit up, eyes drawn to the dark corner, and you see a foot at the edge of the half-light. You lift what's left of the candle. Take it with you. You know what's there. In the corner beside the wardrobe lies Tommy's broken body. Right where you tossed it that night before they came for you.

Before they locked you away and sent you to the chair. You know what you must do now. Know why you're here. A lump sits in your throat and you try. to talk through it, try to say the words. Tommy, I'm sorry. But you were a good father. You know you were.

You tell him. See, it wasn't my fault. I... A sign outside the door reads due unto others, with the saying left unfinished. The words are scrawled into an oblong of wood staple to a worn-out post. You ponder for a minute.

Sure the words should mean something, but they don't. So you shake your head and turn towards the house. For your bonus episode, creepy presents The Suicide Barn, written by William Presley

and narrated by Heather Thomas. It's nothing special. another old horse barn and another hayfield at the end of another dirt road. I could send you a picture of the view from my window, and you wouldn't know if I were in Ohio or Oregon. Slayton, 1992. I put the letter back in my notebook with a nod. Shades of brown striped the unevenly worn structure, clashing with the purple sky above and golden field below, in a way that seemed so generic.

It was like stepping into the painting of everywhere and nowhere that hung in every great-aunt's living room. Perhaps that was what drove everyone who lived in this barn insane. Or, perhaps, there was something far more sinister lurking around the property. The families of the many previous tenants had hired me to uncover the truth, and after reading the letters that they had provided, even my rational mind was starting to suspect the latter option. With a mix of curiosity and apprehension,

I trudged over to the adjacent farmhouse. An elderly woman built like a fillet knife, answered the door before I even had the chance to knock. Deep lines rippled through her powder-white face, and her pin-curled red hair lent her an almost Elizabethan sternness. Are you the one who called earlier? About the hayloft apartment? She asked in a dry alto.

Yes, I'm Pat. I didn't catch your name, though. Let's start with ma'am. I... A groan drew my attention through the entryway and to an equally aged woman with a pudgy yet sunken face. She was hunched over in a wheelchair, her stringy white hair dangling, limp,

around her shoulders, her arms resting on the kitchen table to reveal a patchwork of burns and scars. Ma'am slammed the door behind her before I could take in any more. Don't mind the invalid. You won't see much of her. Are you two sisters? A grunt was all I got in response as she beckoned me off the porch. I'll give you a little tour. If you like the place, you can have it today. But I need two months up front. And the security deposit. That's another month and a half.

The old woman flung open a side entrance to the barn, leading me up a staircase and into a surprisingly well-maintained apartment. Even with furnishings that hadn't been updated since the 70s, it was not hard to find a peel in the completely open floor plan and cathedral ceiling. I wandered over to the twin bed in the corner and pulled another letter from my notebook. Once is a bad dream. Twice is a reoccurring nightmare. But three times?

That's real. It has to be. I wake up every night with the shadow person standing over me. That's it, just a shadow. It's got no features. I can see it, though, because it's somehow darker than the same. the loft. I can feel it, too. It's got nails. It runs them up and down my face just hard enough to hurt without leaving marks. Quinn, 1992. I next turned my attention to the window by the kitchen

table. It had been referenced by several of the former residents. You sit there, eyes stinging and head heavy, trying to down your third cup of coffee. Everything around you is snapping in and out of vivid faces. Breezes become whirlwinds. Creaking bored sound like shrill squeals, and raindrops remind you of cannonballs launching against the tin roof. Then a crow lands on the windowsill, and you see the intent to kill glinting in its eye.

It wants to dig its talons into your flesh and drive its beak into your eardrum. It wants to recruit a shrieking army to overwhelm you To drain the blood from your body Until you're a dried-up carcass on the floor Or maybe it doesn't Maybe it's just a bird And you're paranoid from the lack of sleep Of course there's also the possibility

That the shadow woman planted those horrible images in your mind It's hard to know what's real anymore Lane, 1993. Eventually I circled back to the front door and examined the knob, asking the same question I'm sure any same person would. Why not leave? I already told you that I can't come home. She won't let me.

Last time I tried, the doorknob got so hot in my hand that you can still see bits of my fingertips seared to the brass. I guess I could jump out of a window. What's a broken leg if it means getting away from her? But whenever I get near one, a set of nails digs into the back of my neck, as she blows a quick, raspy sigh into my ear. That must be her way of saying, I go where you go, and I can't bring her back to you.

Hayward, 1994. I then looked to the only other door in the apartment. It led to a cottagey, brown-paneled bathroom and a joining closet. I do everything I can to avoid the bathroom, but... Well, the kitchen sink can only take so much. Eventually, I have to go in and bathe. That's her favorite time to catch me. When I'm wet and naked in front of the mirror,

she'll turn the glass into some sort of television that plays the worst moments of my life on a constant reality. repeat. All of the beatings from dad. All the Thanksgiving's Uncle Gil took me into the back bedroom. Even the day Grandpa died. It's like she grows from my misery. Each time I see her, she's just a little bit more formed. She's actually starting to look like a child's clay sculpture at this point. Her blue naked body is womanly in all the right places. us still androgynous enough to not be obscene. Her face, the part that you can see through the veil of white hair,

has only nondescript craters where the eyes, nose, and mouth should be. And her breathing? It's so labored. Martin, 1994. There was a clear view of the bed from the bathroom doorway, and a shiver ran up my spine. As I realized I was standing where she had stood. I can feel that little gremlin of a woman staring at me every night through the crack in the door.

At least in the dark, I don't have to stare at her liver spotted folds in all of their nude glory. Too bad there's nothing that can disguise her breath. She's got lungs like a damn exhaust fan. Every gasp sends a gust of rotting meat whipping around the apartment. In and out, in and out. It's almost hypnotic to watch all of the bodies hanging from the rafters as they sway with the rhythm. I know it won't be long before I throw a rope around my neck and join them. Hide, 1995.

Notes tucked snugly under my arm. I began to examine some unusual scratch marks on the far wall. Have you had many renters? ma'am arched an eyebrow a few here and there and do they tend to stay long long enough i was about to ask if there had been any unusual deaths on the premises when a single page fell from behind my elbow the old woman's expression morphed from curiosity over my letterhead to disgust at all the names written down beneath You have no idea what you've walked into, she sneered. No hack with a PI license could understand the kind of force at play in a place like this. I picked up the piece of paper waving it in front of her face. Twelve young men and women, all missing, all lived here,

and yet not a single death reported on the grounds? You mean to tell me that every single one of them packed up and disappeared without a trace? Wherever they went, they went willingly. She pulled out a handgun and trained it on my forehead. I suggest you put those notes over in the fireplace and forget you were ever here. I pulled out my own gun, yet her only response was a low, throaty laugh. Loud footsteps began to encircle us. Mother, she called.

You have a new guest. Seconds later, I felt the trigger jam up behind my finger. The footsteps grew louder, as did the laughter. But it was no longer coming from the woman before me. For even more from creepy, including how to submit your own story for consideration, please visit creepypod.com. You can also follow us at creepypod on social media and YouTube. All stories told on this podcast are used under license

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