Creepy - Day 6 - Earworm & Straws

Episode Date: October 6, 2026

Earworm (starts at 1:18)***Written by: No One of Consequence and Narrated by: Nate DuFort***Straws (starts at 25:08)***Written by: E.B. Holloway***Support the show at patreon.com/creepypod***Title music by: Alex Aldea Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm John Grills from Creepy, and I listen to the Be Afraid Podcast Network. Creepy presents the 31 Days of Horror, Day 6. Now, this is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous, chilling, and disturbing creepy pastures 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. Nice to see so many people out on a Monday night. Let's get things started tonight with our first storyteller. Nate Duffworth?

It's But thank you It's been really great getting to know your town I wanted to tell a story tonight About an earworm I am so Incredibly tired The kind of tired that makes it hard to function

Like you somehow manage to do regularly It's not just that I want to sleep I want to sleep The Sleep of the Dead When you live in a big city and have a job like mine. There's never a shortage of work. Like golf courses and funeral homes, my profession is recession-proof. I'm a pest control specialist. You know all those videos and memes floating around social media about employers that treat their staff like trash? Yeah, I work for one

of those. We are vastly understaffed, woefully underpaid and expected. to work 70 plus hours a week. As far as that whole time and a half pay for overtime, the company line is that we don't make enough to be able to afford that. What a bunch of bullshit. We have some pretty big contracts with major corporations in the industrial district. A couple that with only being half capacity for staff, so they aren't having to pay nearly as much in hourly wages.

Upper management is making a fucking killing. I know for a fact that those lousy assholes are getting massive paychecks, monthly bonuses, and who the fuck knows what else. Yet, I can't get time and a half for the 80-plus hours I work a week. I know what you're thinking. Dude, why don't you get another job? There's always a demand for people willing to handle toxic chemicals to get rid of roaches and all sorts of nasties that crawl around when you're not looking. Well, when you're a two-strike loser like me, there are not. a lot of options. Most employers aren't willing to give a felon a chance, let alone one who's been

in and out like me. I think it's one of the reasons my bosses don't have a problem treating me like shit. They know I don't have anywhere else to go. My offenses are many, but the ones that got me busted were of the narcotic variety. I've been clean since I got out two years ago, but man, it's hard. With the stress. of working so many hours, barely managing to pay my bills, and striking out in the dating pool every single time I make an attempt, recall with some groovy pills and a whole slew of other things is very enticing, if for no other reason, I'd love to get some fucking sleep. Normally, after a 14-hour day, I pass the hell out as soon as I get home.

Sure, one of the problems is that I have to be back at work six hours after my head hits the pillow, if I'm lucky, but it's far from the only one, especially over the last few weeks. One of my regular gigs is spraying for bugs at a massive manufacturing plant. They make small electronics and various things, but they treat the place like they handle classified government secrets with as much security as they have. For the most part, I think it has to do with them being under the Eldridge umbrella. The plant runs 24-7, and so when I go into spray, the place is booming with activity. During one of their 10-minute break periods,

I was spraying the outside when I passed by one of the eight smoking areas they have outside. Oh, man, I could smell it in the air. One of those guys was puffing away on a CBD vape. I know the place drug tests their employees regularly, but there's a shit ton of temps floating this location, so I'm not at all that surprised. Anyway, I overheard a small group chatting about music, and the particular subject of that conversation was a song I absolutely loathe. Shit, I stopped listening to the radio because they were playing it on every major station for months.

The fucking song isn't even that good. Someone in the group agreed with me, but the problem is, the damn thing is catchy. It's the kind of song that'll get stuck in your head, and no matter what, you can't get it out of there. I believe they call it an earworm, and this one is the worst to ever be introduced to the world. That one Korean song back in the 2012 was pretty bad, but this one has surpassed it by a wide margin. It may be at the top of the charts, but no one's happy about it. At least no one I know is. That's not exactly saying a lot, but this is my story, so deal with it.

Anyway, the buzzer went off signaling the end of their break, and everyone filed back inside quickly. I was left to continue with my work in relative silence. By that, I mean, I heard the distant sounds of 18-wheeler's being loaded and industrial machines humming right the hell along. It was closing in on midnight, yet the only way you could tell was by the darkness of the sky overhead. This area is busy at all hours of the day. As I continued to spray outside, I felt something brush past my ear. One of the reasons I even considered pest control as a career path is because I seriously hate bugs, especially flying ones.

I can't begin to count how many times I've been sitting outside, enjoying a smoke, and randomly get dive-bombed by some winged asshole. No matter how many times it happens, my reaction's the same. I swat at it, instantly getting very... angry and begin muttering curses under my breath. It's what I did in this case, but something was different this time. I started getting a headache. Normally, when a headache comes on, there are warnings to proceed it. I've managed to cut a lot of them off at the pass with over-the-counter medications,

but this time wasn't the case. It came on suddenly and grew to an annoying level, but not so bad that I couldn't continue working. Then the buzz of that damn song appeared in my head, and it rode the headache like a surfer to a wave. The chorus was on repeat, which is the only part of the song I really know. Tricks and treat are hard to beat, I think, are the words. It didn't make a lick of sense to me. It sounded like a Halloween song, but came out in the middle of July.

Strange as it was, its popularity only increased with the opportunity only increased with the of October where it proceeded to explode. There aren't nearly as many Halloween-themed songs as are Christmas, but stores were starting to play the damn thing as they brought out spooky decorations and mountains of candy. I still had three hours at the site before calling it a night so I could go home and catch a few hours of sleep before moving on to my next job. A place like this, my main concerns were roaches, crickets, flies, and ants. I've been spraying that place for over a year at that point, but something new was appearing. I first noticed them in the prior two visits, and like that damn song, they were getting harder to avoid. It seemed like they

were immune to the toxins I was spraying, so I had to change it up. At first, I mistook them for caterpillars or slugs, but they turned out to be a type of worm and one I'd never seen before. First off, this was a concrete landscape. Didn't make sense that they'd crawl over a hundred yards from the grass only to congregate around the base of the building. It was almost like they were trying to get inside for some reason, but from what I could see of the place, there wasn't anything inside the creatures would be after.

What made it even stranger was that the birds in the area didn't go after them, not even a little. Birds weren't the only ones ignoring these strange worms. I've heard the plant's employees complaining about all the bugs around this place, especially the June bucks. Holy shit, those things get so freaking bad here. Feels like something out of a horror movie. There were so damn many of them you couldn't not step on them.

Around every entrance and exit of the massive building, the concrete was splattered with bug carcasses and guts to the point where I thought the off-white was permanently stained. Once this season for them finally ended, the facilities crew spent dead. days power washing the concrete to get rid of it, and even then you could still see where they had been. The employees complained about this to no end, but they never said anything of the worms. It's not my job to understand the motives behind the pests I'm paid to get rid of, so I sprayed the

worms and tried to not let it bother me. Wasn't all that hard? Not with that goddamn song stuck in my head. Even venturing inside with the constant drone of machines working couldn't drown it out and my headache was only getting worse. I wanted to bang my head against the wall repeatedly and hard enough to dislodge it. Shit, I would have kept doing it even if I left a red stain against the stark white paint and not thought about it twice. I hate that song so much. Unfortunately, the earworm didn't go away after I left the plant. stayed with me all the way home, weigled its way into my dreams, interrupting my sleep constantly, and ruined my morning coffee. The headache was ever present as well, and at one point I felt

something drip off the tip of my nose and splash into my still-warm mug. I didn't think it was possible for an earworm to give you a nosebleed, but that's exactly where my mind went as I held a tissue to my nose. After a clearing moment of rationality, I remember that I was prone to nose, bleeds. Kind of a hard thing to forget, but with the relentlessness of this fucking earworm, you could forget your own damn name for a moment. Once the blood stopped freely flowing from my nostrils, the incessant headache finally dissipated. There was still a strange pressure in my skull, but it was exceedingly more manageable. I was so relieved that wasn't until I got to my next job that it occurred to me that the song was no longer playing in my head. Of course, realizing

that brought the damn song back to the forefront of my mind and I was once again assaulted with the annoyingly catchy tune. Things went on like this for a few weeks. Every once in a while, the earworm would find its way back to drive me insane, sometimes accompanied by a headache. Not every time, thankfully, but enough that I almost called an old friend of mine, Lee. Well, not so much a friend as a hookup. If I ever wanted to dive headfirst back into a blissful existence of pills, powder, and needles, he'd be the one to call.

As far as dealers go, Lee was pretty damn laid back. The only reason I got busted when I did was because he'd been out of what I'd been craving for and decided to discover new avenues for my needs. Big fucking mistake. At least I know Lee isn't an undercover cop. My second round in prison was a hard. fucking nightmare, and I sure as hell don't want to go back a third time. So, during my few off hours, I wasted my hard-earned money on cheap booze to deal with the insanity that plagued my

simple and fragile mind. Who would have thought a stupid song could be so disruptive? I was inclined to believe in such things. I think the damn music was enchanted. I began to notice patterns to the earthworm's effectiveness. The longer I was away from that, I was away from the that damn Eldridge plant, the longer I went without hearing the stupid song. By this point, I'd stop listening to music while I worked and instead turned to podcasts for my entertainment. Not so much the ones that have a bunch of people sitting around and talking about specific topics, sports, or other things I have no interest in. I focused on once telling stories ranging from science fiction, action, horror, and, yes, even erotica. There was a vast

a ray to choose from, but since I was wasting most of my money on cheap booze, I stuck to the free ones. This is why I didn't start getting into audiobooks, but I did manage to find some free ones that were worth a listen. Most of the time I was listening to this stuff, the earworm was gone. I wish it had worked while I was sleeping, but at least it was alleviating my waking hours. This wasn't the case when I went back to the damn plant. No matter what I did while spraying there. The earworm was so freaking persistent. It got to the point where more of the song was playing in my head, not just the chorus. Put on your mask and have a gas, stalk the streets, and ask for treats. I don't know how I was recalling more of the words. I never heard the damn song in its

entirety. Back when I still listened to the radio, I'd change stations the moment I heard the familiar tune. Hell, sometimes I'd ride along in silence rather than risk hearing even a single note. Spraying the outside of the building, the strange worms only seemed to be growing in number. Behavior was downright unnatural, and as I searched the company's database on my phone for info, I noticed a change. When they first began appearing, they seemed to be spread out evenly, but now they were more concentrated in certain areas. They wiggled and wormed their way across the concrete near cracks that broke out along the space where the foundation met the ground, For a time, I was strangely mesmerized by their movements.

In the largest clusters, they seemed comparable to a puddle of water being disturbed by a gust of wind. Young and old, there are no limits. Come out for scares and throw away cares. The words sang in my ear as I watched them wiggling. Some were breaking off from the mass and moving away from the building, returning to the grass they'd come from, or at least, That's what I thought was happening. I was at the back of the facility.

The only area where there wasn't a smoking shack, and I found the largest concentration of the wiggling nasties. Seeing the car-sized puddle of them made my skin crawl. I wanted nothing more than to douse them in gasoline and light a match. Since this would be considered arson and not pest control, I didn't do it, but damn was it tempting. I even had a spare can of gas in the back. of my work truck, so it wouldn't have taken much effort.

For a solid minute at least, I was frozen to the spot watching them. I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me because the puddle seemed to be growing, increasing in size by a quarter inch a minute. There were veins of them stretching across the concrete to the grass, but something was very wrong. The veins weren't flowing into the puddle, but moving away from it. That had to mean the worms were coming from the factory, but here's a disturbing tidbit. I never saw any of these worms inside the plant.

So where the hell were they coming from? June bugs, roaches, ants, spiders, and every other normal, everyday bugs I've seen crawling around inside the plant. Hell, I've even caught a few dozen rats over the last year, even a couple snakes. Not once have I seen a single worm inside. So what the hell? Was this place built on top of their original nesting grounds? I've been all over that place, and I never saw evidence of a basement.

Though there are certain doors I haven't been allowed through, so who the hell knows? I knew where the facilities crew kept their gear, and to get to the bottom of this, I went and borrowed a power washer. It took a long time to push the damn thing away from the building, but I managed it. When I did, I discovered there was a large crack, in the concrete. Now, when I say large, I mean, it was more than twice the size of any other I'd come

across. The thing was big enough to get my fingers in, but not my whole hand. Not that I'd be sticking any part of me in the damn thing. I may not be the brightest bulb in the bunch, but I'm not that stupid. There must have been a hole at the bottom of the crack because the water I sprayed didn't obscure the crack. It drank it down. I almost wish it had puddled because I watched as the squirming mass of the worms pushed themselves to the surface and began to overflow again. It was like a well of the things, and I used the pressure washer again. I did this two more times, all the while, that damn song kept going in my head. We come and come and come, wanting more and more.

You will never get rid of us. We will always come back. tricks and treats are hard to beat. It disturbed me how appropriate the song was in that moment. When I managed to get the hole clear for a fifth time and the water was sucked in again, I turned off the pressure washer and used my sprayer in an unconventional way. Instead of actually spraying, I took off the backpack,

unscrew the cap on the top, and upended the pack. I drained out the entire four-gallon tank into the crack. Some of it splashed back on me, but I didn't care. I was used to a certain level of exposure to this stuff, and even though this was far more than as healthy, I didn't concern myself with it. I stood there for five minutes, waiting to see if the worms squirm back out.

This was the strongest stuff I had, and if it didn't work, I might just have to try the gasoline. Thankfully, they didn't return, and I made my way to my truck to refill the pack. It wasn't until I hefted the empty pack, that I realized I was bleeding from my nose again. This was worse than ever before, and it took several minutes to stop.

Now my way back to the truck, I caught myself humming, and, of course, it was the damn irritating tune that plagued my entire existence up to this point. The words played in my head so clear and annoying that, I swear, it wasn't just in my head. It was like I was actually hearing the song. but unless the factory was playing it on the loudspeaker spaced out at the edge of the building, it had to be in my head. Then I saw a couple people in the nearest smoking shack on my way to the parking lot. The two of them were puffing away at their vapes, but they weren't standing still.

They swayed back and forth in unison, as if unknowingly grooving to the same tune. Then I compared it to the tune in my head, and it clicked. they were in time with the song. At that realization, I stopped and gawked at them, unbelieving what was happening. How could they be grooving to the song in my head? If you don't have treats to give, I'll play my devil games and tricks it will be. The pair turned to me with smiles. They weren't just swaying back and forth.

They were singing the words out loud. Even with the distance between us, I heard them so clearly that I might as well be listening to them through earbuds. I wasn't even wearing them at the time. I felt something flutter at my ear. I batted at whatever it was, trying to get the flying bastard the hell away from me, but I couldn't manage to see it.

I felt like the damn thing was right on my ear, and I slapped at it with complete abandon. I had more damage to myself than whatever was pestering me, and it still felt like it was lodged in my ear. It took a lot of doing, but I managed to calm myself enough, to reach up and pluck the little bastard between my fingers. What I came away with wasn't a flying insect, but one of those goddamn worms.

The black body wiggled displeasingly in my hand, actively trying to crawl up my arm in order to get back in my ear. All the ones I saw on the ground were sleek and shiny, but didn't appear to be covered in slime like slugs are. This one was covered in something, but not a translucent goo like most slimy, critters. No, this was thick red, dark red, like clotted blood. Oh, holy shit, I hadn't caught this thing trying to get into my ear. I got it as it tried to crawl out. As far as I can figure, when I splashed myself with the contents of my sprayer pack, the exposure was enough to disturb my

parasite, not enough to kill it, but enough that it had to get out of me. Perhaps not permanently, but enough that it could get a breath of fresh air before returning to the home it made in my freaking skull. I was not about to let that happen. Throwing it to the ground, I began to stomp the shit out of it. I'm sure it was dead after the first hit, but I didn't care. This thing had violated me. I was angry and disgusted, so I stomped and stomped, taking out a lot of the aggression that been building over the last several weeks.

The worm was nothing more than a nasty smear on the concrete, by the time I lost my steam and stood there panting. I must have looked like a crazy person, but it didn't matter. The damn worm was dead. Once I calmed down enough to realize how I must have looked to onlookers, I glanced around. The pair of employees that had been singing were watching me. Their smiles were replaced by sad frowns,

as if they just lost a good friend. I really didn't know what to make of that and walked out to the parking lot. This really was one of my stranger days, and that includes the time I was tripping on acid and ended up hallucinating. I was in a haunted house version of Alice in Wonderland. It wasn't until I was holding the can of chemicals

while staring at the spare can of gas, wondering which I should fill the pack with when it occurred to me. The song was no longer playing in my head. Even thinking about it didn't bring it back to the forefront of my mind. Holy shit. It really was an earworm. The fucking thing had been singing to me for weeks. I wonder if that's why none of the employees complained about their constant presence,

but things like June bugs and roaches were a bother. Maybe they all had a passenger in their brains. I think I'm going to wear earplugs when I come back here from now on. It's not like I could not come back. I've been spraying this place for so long. I'm the only one my boss will send out here. I know the lay of the land strict rules as place in forces

and security knows me on site it'd be too much of a hassle to train someone else to take over this location it's not like I can get a better job somewhere else believe me I've tried and now we have a returning storyteller

tonight please welcome John back up to the stage I hope you all enjoy my story tonight this one's called Straws. The rain hammers down so hard I can't see the wipers on the windscreen. Each window glows white as I drive through the storm. I can't slow.

I have a sun now. A new porn sun? The car judders. Potholes in quick succession. One, two, three. Must have left the highway. I hold the wheel with my right hand and use my left hand to find the phone in my pocket. still no signal.

I accelerate, hitting further bumps, each more jarring than the last. Why can't I get a signal? Why now? I bang the phone off the dashboard, almost smashing it in my hands. I control the car slips. I hit the brake immediately and begin to spin. No idea if I blacked out, but the engine's dead. So I fire it up and accelerate.

Where'd any other day I would have parked the car, had a coffee or two, and allowed my nervous system to straighten out. I'd read about premature births. God knows I wish I hadn't. I've got to get to Hannah. To my boy. A spin in the car is nothing compared to what they've been through. I shout at my shaking hands. The car shudders and another jolt raises my eyes to the road.

I'm on little more than a track now. The rain's clearing, but I can see a welling and spilling from the potholes to pepper the narrow road. Even with the windows up, I can hear it gush. I scan the road sides for gaps, driveways through which I can turn. Weird. Metal. It's everywhere. Scraps and shards line the roadside and are stacked beyond it.

Beyond the metal glimpses of farmland, acres and acres of working fields. bang, as if the car has exploded around me. For the second time and a half hour, I feel myself wrestling to keep control of it. Slower now. The tighter's gone. Maybe two. I managed to pull to the side of the road, crashing into yet more pile of metal as I do so. I open the door, get out, and I'm immediately ankle-deep in filthy rainwater.

I walk around the car. three tires gone, punctured by the submerged spikes in the road. Tire shredders! My car's been deliberately stopped on my way to my new baby. I scan around, fist clenching. As soon as I see the people, I walk towards him, kicking dirty water as I go. They stand apart, a formation, and show no signs of movement. They're silhouetted, tall,

If I wasn't so angry, I'd be intimidated. Uh, no. As I get closer, I can see that they're not people at all, but statues of some kind, totems. I see flash of movement. Fast, above me somewhere. I don't realize that it's a house at first. Rusting window frames are pressed into metal sheets, piled haphazardly to a little overhead height. There's someone in there.

Movement again. I see her. A small girl flattened against the thin metal wall. The length of her hair giving her away. I can't see a way in, so called to her, asking her if her parents are at home. But she continues to hide, albeit in full view. No. Parents should know not to scare kids.

A door clicks nearby. I lock eyes with a girl and I know immediately. It's not me she's afraid of. The man stands there, polite, and I rant. I tell him about my journey, why I need to get home so fast. I shout about the spikes in the road. I swear, curse, and shake. He nods.

He presses a hot drink laced with alcohol into my hand. He's calm. He understands. I hate the way he's not more concerned, more apologetic. He can help, he says, and he takes me inside the metal house. He can't do anything about the wheels now, he explains. But he fully understands my position and apologizes for his village's part in it. I ask if I can use his phone, but he apologizes again.

They're cut off, deliberately so. And they have no phone lines. I shout again. What if there's an emergency? What if the thing that's actually happening now happens? They live close to the highway, he says. In case of disaster. But that's their only link to the outside world.

He's a surgeon, but some friends are visiting for dinner, one of whom is a sometime mechanic. He says you can see the onset of shock and wants to cast a professional eye over me whilst we eat. I continue to drink as I calm down. His face is old, worn, trustworthy. He smiles as they both bring in chair after chair from other rooms. The hot liquid flows through me and soon, as I calm down,

I begin to talk of my child of my stupid decision to work away this long into the pregnancy. If my boys to be healthy, then it's important that I am too, he says. I need to eat, drink, and rest, if only for a few. few hours. He fills my drink. It's more alcoholic now. He excuses himself then and, as though reading my thoughts, he promises that it'll only be for a moment or two. And I'm left alone. The room's been stripped bare around us. The wife did it as I spoke to her husband. Just the furniture remains. An extremely old, large wooden table fills the space almost entirely and around a dozen chairs surrounded. It is it. No pictures, no decoration. Just a table and too many chairs.

They must be expecting a lot of company. Sure enough, a man enters and his eyes fix upon me. I try to speak to ask if he's the mechanic and how long my car will take to fix, but I can't seem to form any words. My mind is blurring too. I look at him again. Maybe he's the surgeon? I can't seem to remember what he looks like. He smiles brown teeth at me and laughs. It's a small laugh, barely audible over the building pressure in my ears, but it's constant. I try to rise again, but feel my body resist even more. His laughter continues as he takes a seat. I wait for the return of the surgeon, each blink flashing images. My wife, my son, my wife, my son. Another man enters. Younger this time, he wears a dark suit and a black tie. He sits immediately. He doesn't acknowledge me. Neither does he the laughing man. Instead, he stares solemnly at the floor. He's waiting. He swims out of focus. I'm getting drunk, I realize, so I keep quiet and try to suppress my paranoia. My eyelids droop. But my instincts are

to try and keep them open. My vision's failing. Through him smudging to a bleak watercolor. There are more figures here now. Perhaps I've slept? I didn't see the mentor. I don't know. I try to rub my blurred eyes, but my arms won't do what I tell them to.

Is the room silent or is my hearing failed as well? I can feel the temperature, though. The room is ice. Is there something else I should be worrying about? Something I couldn't keep out of my head until now? My burgeoning terror, the moment is all consuming. I know they're looking at me. The skin-colored patches in the shadows or faces.

The voice, when it comes, is muffled, and I can't make out the words. Muffled or not, the volume is deafening. It's the surgeon, but his voice is different now. More severe, more urgent. He immediately walks to me. He must be able to see my paralysis, my drunkenness. Spears of flesh, carefully, expertly, begin to circle my eyes. They look like fingers but feel different.

My skin feels dulled, deadened as if I'm wax. The nimble fingers continue to dance around my eye sockets. I try to follow their paths, but it makes me feel sicker. One finger then touches my eyeball, and the stinging sensation that I'd expect isn't there. I wait for the surgeon to speak, to reassure me, but the words don't come. The pressure grows as he presses harder, but no pain. Then a word I hear clearly. It's menace pervading the fog.

No. It's quick. My chairs tipped over backwards. Pairs of hands vie for space in my prostrate body. The surgeon's hands haven't left me. Fastening around my head. My scalp and my jaw. Protecting my fall.

A loud buzzing begins. Hair starts to fall down my face. At times mixing with a thick liquid. Blood. Then the buzzing stops. A hand leaves my head and reaches for something. Other hands press tightly against my shoulders. The puncture to my scalp.

When it comes, it's painless. Piercing follows piercing again without pain, and I feel string being threaded through my scalp. Each fiber abrasively rubbing my skin. Everything is smeared, hazy. The sound almost. muted. I stopped noticing. The sensations are no longer new, as if it's always been this way. At times I feel I'm not here. I'm trying to watch from a distance, but I can't see what they're doing

to me. I can't track the passage of time. Eyes hover into view. Eyes pressing against mine, peering in. They move away slightly. and other pairs join on either side. They're watching me. They blaze. His voice again pierces the darkness. Ready. They move me.

The haze is blue now. I'm facing the sky. There's pressure against my back. Something is pulled over me. And I'm upright. Smudges of green and brown everywhere. Then something else. Coldness.

Clear his day on my neck. The sounds become clearer. Voices, chattering. The greens and browns now distant trees. I can't move, but dropping my eyes, I can see the surgeon looking up at me. He stands with the others and smiles broadly. My nose is caked in blood and straw.

In my peripheral vision, I can see the figures I saw when I first arrived, as still as I am. I feel an itch in my scalp, and I'm suddenly consumed with dread. The pain comes, and with it my screams, inhuman in my own ears. The pain is everywhere, and everything I know is tainted by it. I scream for the pain, for the memory of it. my family, for my failure. It barely drowns out their laughter. I'm still screaming as they leave.

Seasons pass, and I wish for a death that doesn't come. Shapes in the distance I realize are others like me, and I watch as my car is stripped and broken. It's metal adding to the piles. Figures pass underneath me from time to time. they're keeping me alive and I wish I could kick them away. I neither eat nor drink. I feel my muscles dry and tear and my bones powder.

Yet I still live. The little girl will occasionally approach, crying. Then the day I have come to dread. A small explosion in the distance. Tires. She looks older now. She's been looking through piles of metal in the distance. She stops dead and drops something to the floor.

She walks away and I hope beyond hope that she stays there. But she emerges from the horizon once more. A little boy struggling to keep up with her ankles. She talks about me. A shred of happiness I can't help flutters in my hollow stomach. But get out. Get away. The sound scratch and rip the rotten lining of my throat.

It's inaudible. They don't notice. With horror, I watch as the surgeon emerges from the house. He carries two mugs. For more information on this podcast, 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 done so through Creative Commons Share-A-Lite licensing

or with written consent from the authors. No portion of this podcast may be rebroadcast or otherwise distributed without the express written consent of the creepy podcast production. team and the story's author.