Creepy - Deadskin

Episode Date: March 16, 2020

Some pain is more than skin deep...***Written by I.V. Dorset***Content warning: self harm***Check out our reward tiers at patreon.com/creepypod***You can also subscribe to us on YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/creepypod***Produced by Steve Blizin***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.

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May 16th. This is my last night in the city. I don't plan on missing it. I'm writing this journal because I was told by a professional it might be a positive coping mechanism. When I asked what I should write about, what she said, feelings, fears, what she had for breakfast.

I don't plan on missing her either, but I paid too much for that advice not to take it. I got my first haircut when I was one. It was so long that barber refused to believe I was a boy. They had to hold me down. I screamed, cried, wound up with a chunk out on my left ear. We still have a picture of me in that hospital cradle with thick gauze layered around my head.

The accident happened halfway through the haircut, so only half my head was shorn. Mom had to cut the other half herself while I slept under the stupor of a child's anihistamine. They carried on like that, cutting my hair in my sleep until I turned eight and it was resolved I would sit in the barber's chair whether I had to be strapped down.

I screamed again, had to be held back from kicking. No lollipop, stuffed animal could distract me. I have hated every moment of every haircut I've gotten since then. I hate the tickle of that spray bottle they use. I hate the way barbers tilt your head down like they own it. But most of all, I hate the snip and crunch of the blades.

The acute sensation of my head growing lighter as pieces of it are surgically removed. no matter how much I learn about human physiology, I will never shake the feeling that my hair knows it's being cut, that it's sending fear impulses, telling my brain to defend it the same way it would defend any living part of my body. Sometimes I dream my hair is made a half-dead nerves, dried out but still pliable.

They recoil at the touch of scissors, sent unimaginable occurrence of pain streaming down through my skull and into my spine. I don't know why I always wake up yelling for it to stop, since it's always me who's doing the cutting. I guess it comes from that afternoon when I knew I'd become a doctor. I was nine. My family took me to a medical museum

when I saw the human nervous system on display. The only item of its kind was removed from a cadaver by two medical students in 1925, A painstaking process that took over 1,500 hours. It looked like a dried-out jellyfish with a million black wispy tentacles and a human spine. The idea that I contained such a monster, that it was not only inhabiting my body, but an integral part of it gave me a nosebleed. I knew then that my life would be an exercise in helping others forget about the details beneath their skin.

And isn't that what doctors are really for? to handle the details of others' bodies so they can go on thinking their whole people instead of a jumbled mess of bone and tissue constantly oozing and disintegrating. We pay doctors for the same reason we pay auto mechanics. We want to move through life without worrying about the logistics of our motion. May 18th. Now I'm officially out of the city, but I don't feel any less tired of being surrounded by people. snotty, wrinkly people. I don't suppose the people on this island will be any better,

but at least they'll be interesting. I'm riding on the ferry so it's difficult to write straight. Two full hours to Puder Egg Island. This isn't even as big a ferry as I used to take to Provincetown. That one had seats, an overpriced bar, two or three bathrooms. This is basically a fishing boat with a roof. Everything smells like it's been pickling in a vat of brine with fish, especially the people. I'm trying to focus on the horizon like they tell you to, but this boat rocks back and forth so much that I still keep getting sick.

At least I got most of it over the railing. These boots are rubber anyway. My nails are getting long. I'll have to cut them when I get set up on the island. I hope they have liquor, because I can't cut them. sober. I need to be just drunk enough that I can't feel it anymore. Not so far gone, that'll hurt myself. At least I'd know if I did. Some people aren't so lucky to hear the stories that brought me here. I can't write more. Too sick. The ferry doesn't even come all the way to the

shore. It's not like there's no place to dock, but it's pretty rocky and the waters are on the island. The whole thing is surrounded by cliffs. Gray cliffs with straped or red where the earthy metals have oxidized. We were met a quarter mile out by a fleet of motorized skiffs. There were six other passengers on the ferry. All of them seemed to know the people picking them up. They all got off before I was called over by the man with the only empty boat. I realized that this wasn't a service provided by the ferry company. He'd been sent for me. The ferry wouldn't even go to the island. People had to arrange their own pickup.

I guess it makes sense when only locals are going out there and everyone has a boat or knows someone who does. The man sent to pick me up was a real sea dog, straight out of one of those fishing shows. He was wearing a t-shirt faded beyond recognition. I could tell it once advertised the sports team, but I couldn't make out which team or even the sport. When he first opened his mouth, I thought he was speaking another language. Did no one tell me they spoke some incomprehensible dialect out here? After politely listening and nodding for a while, I realized the speech had the cadence of English.

It just sounded like he was talking through a mouth full of peanut butter. I thought he might just be a little slow, but then I got a glimpse inside his mouth. He had less than half a tongue. I thought they'd be harder to find, but the Islander sent one out to meet me. I guess someone tipped him off that I was coming with an ulterior motive. Usually they bite off their tongues when they're babies. Sometimes their lips too. This fellow had faint scarring around his mouth that suggested he'd been a biter.

His leathery arms were marked up and down with scars and scabs. He was missing both his pinky fingers. Being a fisherman is dangerous enough. Imagine doing it with your brain. body's warning system permanently shut off. We landed at a dock leading to a beach below a cliff line with peeling houses. There's one paved road. It has no name.

Along the road, there's a volunteer fire station. A boat mechanic shop and a store called Luckies that sells everything. Gas, food, medicine, and knives. My chauffeur brought me there, where I was greeted by Lucky himself. An old man with a big gut and long white ponytail. He covers his bald spot with a fisherman's cap. He's got one leg and limps with a group of aesthetic. I think he's one of them too.

Though it seems like everyone here's missing something. I guess places like this remind us of what life was like before doctors or safety regulations. I saw my chauffeur, who lucky called numnuts, smoking a cigarette while they gassed up. his outboard motor. People here seem less worried about making it to death in one piece. I can understand Lucky's speech with a little effort. He has his whole tongue, but he's definitely got a few chunks taken out of his lips. I bought some groceries, mostly canned food, some chips, coffee, a bottle of cheap vodka.

Numb nuts drove me to a cabin, the Rural Health Foundation built to house doctors. It dates back to the 80s. You can tell from the decor and mold. The walls are covered in kitsy seaside memorabilia, like a beach house. I can't imagine vacationing here. Even in May, it's so misty I can barely see the ocean from my window. My cabin is right by the cliff. I can walk to town in ten minutes.

But lucky said to call numb nuts whenever I need a lift and it'll drive me wherever. Before it got dark, I managed to take a walk through the meager woods that lie beyond. town. I'd seen another beach on Google Maps, but when I went out there, it was fenced off with a no trespassing sign. The fence was high and opaque, so I couldn't see if there really was a beach on the other side. Something else I noticed. There's no church. I walked the length of the road, saw most of the buildings, and not one of them is a church. During my summers in med school, I worked in a lot of rural clinics. I lived in Algeria, Alaska, and remote West Virginia,

in towns with far fewer people than Potarag. They always have a church or a mosque or something. How can you live this far in the edge without someone telling you there's a greater plan every week? There's not even a cemetery. June 2nd. Well, I guess Dr. Mindy would be disappointed, since I haven't been keeping up this journal.

But I've been busy. There wasn't much settling in before people found out I was here and started asking numnuts to drive me around so I could tend to their ailments. The clinic space I was given turned out to be a garage outback of Lucky's full of rusty boat fragments. After yelling at my RHF logistician on the phone for a while, I decided there was nothing wrong with running a house call practice. How better to earn their trust. The details would have been. doing aren't interest in. I'm basically just treating cuts and sprains

and the occasional stomach bug. Some of the children have pink eye. Some of the fishermen have carpal tunnel. Most of the elders are broken in every way imaginable. What's interesting is what they tell me while I'm treating them. And after, when they invite me to the dining room

for pickled fish and coffee. Pickled fish is the main source of protein and nutrients around here. I haven't seen anything resembling produce in two weeks. They've been more forthcoming than I thought, most of them at least. Lucky introduced me to his son Levi, who also has the condition. Neither of them have any idea what pain feels like, and Lucky can't tell the difference

between being hot and cold. He said he once scalded his face boiling a lobster because he didn't know to pull back when opening the pot. He says every man in his family has had it. I meet Levi's wife Grace, Mooh says she can take more pain than most people but still knows what it feels like. I hope for her sake that she's telling the truth, because she's about nine months pregnant and I don't have the resources to administer an epidural out here.

I guess I'm a real country doctor now. On call for late night deliveries and chainsaw mishaps. There are at least two other pregnant women on the island right now, so I'm making a note to figure out how high their pain tolerances are, so I know if I need to have more drugs sent out. Everything comes on the ferry, including all of Lucky's stock. He told me he just sells first aid kits, but can order more medical supplies if I need. I get the impression Lucky, and a lot of the other old timers don't seem much use in doctors. Still, he's been perfectly nice to me.

I think he likes having fresh blood on the island. After I met Levi and checked on Grace's unborn baby, Lucky invited me out on the porch and treated me to some of his homemade moonshine. The liquor made him talkative, so I asked a few more questions. I got some more info about his experiences living as what the islanders call a dead skin. He told me some gory anecdotes about uncles and grandfathers who lived and died without ever knowing physical pain. I asked him about the beach on the other side of the island. He told me it's some sort of federally protected migratory.

bird area. No one's allowed there. Eventually I got up the courage to ask him about the church thing. He said people on the island are too old-fashioned for that. I took that to mean that they believe spiritual education still has to happen in the home, which makes me feel more like I'm practicing in some quaint pastoral village. I couldn't figure out how to ask about the missing cemetery, though. June 12th.

I've given up on holding myself to the standard of daily writing. so I'm just going to update this journal every time I feel like there's something worth sharing. I feel a lot better to be away from the city, but I'm still having that hair dream. Even Lucky's Hooch can't save me from that demon. I've completed the first significant wildstones of my research. I managed to get a medical questionnaire distributed to all the households on the island. So now I have a breakdown of just how pervasive, congenial analgesia is on Poderac. The results don't sound fascinating until you're missing.

or someone like me, but I'm including them here anyway because the only people I can imagine reading this journal are me in the future and, less likely, some medical biographer posthumously documenting my groundbreaking work, Puerto Rigg Island. Population, 892. Residents with some form of congenial analgesia, 214%. with total or near total analgesia, 45, 5%. Residents with total analgesia and at least some insensitivity to temperature, 9.1%.

Those numbers are crazy interesting. The only other case study I have to compare Poderag is to Vitangi, a village in northern Sweden with a similar population. Relatively speaking, Potereg has about the same percentage of people with absolutely no sense of pain as Vitagi. has with any incidents of the condition, roughly 5% in both cases. That means almost five times as many people have the condition here than in Vitangi. Of course, the word in some form runs the gamut from the people like Grace,

who might take an extra second to recoil from touching a hot pan, to people like Lucky, who probably didn't notice he lost his leg until he looked down. Still, it's a huge number comparatively. The question isn't what's causing the congenial analgesia. The question is what's magnifying it to this degree. My working theory is that there is some environmental influence. The air is pretty clean and the water seems fine. But people eat a lot of fish out here.

The way the American and Canadian government treat this corner of the Atlantic as an industrial waste bend, who knows what's been accumulating and biomagnifying in their Sunday dinner. Some of my colleagues back at RHF think it's due to the shallow gene pool. But I got the impression from Lucky that people always make sure they're not too closely related before marrying. He took a bit of offense to the question, too. Probably tired of everyone from the city thinking he's an inbred hick. I'm hoping to further interview those have turned up with the condition. But I'm worried they'll start to think I'm here more to study them than to help them.

We'll see. Something else happened that I can't explain. I was behind Grace and Levi in line at Lucky's, and I saw that Levi's right pinky finger was tied off, almost like a tourniquet. It wasn't injured, but it was turning a dangerous shade of purple. They walked out before I could ask, but I told Lucky you should talk to his son about it.

A few more days, Nett finger could die. He said he'd talk to Levi, but I can't stop thinking about it. Even if he couldn't feel it, he must have been able to see it. Besides, it was knotted tightly and deliberately with what looked like fishing wire. Nothing about it squared with my understanding of reality. But I suppose that's true with a lot of my time on this island. They're an odd folk. But I'm growing to feel at home here.

June 15th. These people are fucked. June 16th. Okay, I've recovered from yesterday. My hands were shaking so bad I couldn't write down what happened. I'm not queasy about blood, otherwise how would I have gotten into this line of work? But I am queasy about self-mutilation. See those fucking hair dreams I keep having no matter how far I get away from barbers?

Yesterday. Which was a Tuesday. Not that it matters much out here. Grace called me and asked if I could come over. Said it was an emergency. She said she'd already sent Numb Nuts over and could I please come soon. I grabbed my bag and waited outside. Numb Nuts picked me up on his ATV and we drove down the road to Grace and Levi's,

which is right next door to the trailer where Lucky lives. Lucky was at the store, but Levi was home and yelling when I showed up. I could hear him through the thin walls of their house. When he saw I was there, he'd quieted it down and they came out to meet me together. At first it looked like a domestic violence. seen from a cop show, right down to the pile of junk in the yard. Grace was crying. Levi was scowling.

But I didn't see any marks on her. No black eyes or bruises. When I asked if everything was okay, Levi said yes. Grace said no. I froze in that moment because I realized I didn't know who to call even if she was being abused. The cops? There were no police on the island.

Just a volunteer fired a person. apartment and Levi was a member. Who else? A Coast Guard? Did they handle domestic disputes? Could I call the police from the mainland and have them take the ferry? I had no plan to deal with the situation, which is why I was relief when I saw a bloody cloth around Levi's hand.

I've seen this situation a million times in rural clinics. Rural man hurts himself doing something manly, rushes it off, maybe slips on a bandage, refuses to go to the doctor despite his wife's concerns. He ain't no pussy. Then it festers, gets infected, won't stop bleeding, and whatever. His wife insists that he should go to the doctor, but he can't give in now. I've seen men put themselves on the brink of death rather than let their wife be right. I know what to do in these scenarios.

I told Grace to go inside and rest for the baby's sake, then put Levi aside and gave him speech like I always do. Once the women aren't watching, most men gave in a little easier. He showed me the hand. Like I suspected, it was the pinky. But it wasn't putrefying.

It was gone. A blunt stump that smelled infected. One of the things they teach about emergencies is that you should only ever ask how the accident happened, not why. And seconds could matter. There's no time for why. That's a matter for later, for people to work out on their own or in front of a judge.

Your job is triage and treatment. Still, I had to swallow the why while I cleaned and cauterized the stump, realizing I'd have to remove some of the skin, so I gave him one of my strongest painkillers. He swallowed it dutifully, not even asking what it was for. Only after it was down his throat did I realize how stupid I'd been. I had wasted painkillers. The good stuff, which was rare and had to be specially ordered on someone who didn't feel pain. Alisa sedated him so I could work in peace.

Once was bandaged up safely, he was nearly passed out, so I left him to rest on the porch. Before I left, I went to check on Grace, who was sitting outside with numb nuts sharing a bag of chips. He was listening to her complaining about Levi and his stubbornness, responding with noises that sounded sympathetic. I told her Levi was going to be fine. I almost left it at that. Let numnuts drive me off without asking questions. But I had to ask how it happened. Grace got quiet when I asked and looked at numnuts apprehensively,

but he nodded in a gesture that said, you can tell him. Apparently there's a big fishing trip coming up. Half the island is going out deep sea fishing tomorrow for almost a month. It's an important time of year for them. Grace said it's a tradition for one of the island's fishermen, usually a dead skin, to tie off a pinky with fishing line the week before the trip and then cut it off when it dies. It's a blessing of some kind, a pagan ritual. No one knows where it comes from. After she told me, numnuts held up his hands and I understood why he was missing both pinkies.

I've calmed down since yesterday. My job isn't to stop people from hurting themselves. It's to fix him up when they do. Maybe they think it works, and that's all that matters. I doubt any of the men out here are circumcised, but I was, and in the name of a religion that means nothing to me now. Who's to say that's any less barbaric? At least they're doing it voluntarily. Still, I told Grace to ask if they'd let me do it next time, so at least it's a surgical removal and no more infections happen.

She said Lucky would never allow that. It has to be done by the dead skin himself. I asked if they at least let me supervise and clean the wound. She said she'd get back to me. Numb Nuts and I had helped Grace back into the house, none to her bad. She's going to pop any day now. I suspect it will be the next exciting thing to happen to me. For my own sake?

I hope it is. June 18th. I was right. The baby showed up at night in the middle of a storm. Grace went to labor and not two hours after Levi left for his fishing trip. I couldn't fathom leaving knowing you to have a son or daughter when you came back. But no one on the island seemed to judge him for it. Lucky showed up as to Grace's parents, Isaac, and Evelyn.

It was a long labor. But he didn't seem to be in truly unbearable pain until the last hour when the storm picked up and rain started drumming on the roof. The power went out the second I pulled it out of her, so we had to cut the umbilical core by candlelight. That's why I took an extra minute to notice the call. It's a rare occurrence, maybe one in 80,000. But I'd you briefed on how to deal with it when they teach how to deliver babies. Usually it's harmless, just a residual piece of amniotic sac stuck to the baby's face and shoulders.

The Islanders got very excited when they saw it. I've heard it's considered good luck in a lot of cultures. Whatever pagan rituals these people are still following must believe that, because they were hooting and hollering over it like a Christian who found the Virgin Mary and his French toast. They insisted to be removed in one piece, though I warned them there was an elevated risk of pulling off some of the baby's skin. Somehow this didn't bother them. I pulled it off slowly, but it still took a few chunks out of the baby's face. I couldn't tell if it was bleeding or not because it was covered in blood and other fluids of birth.

I was crying less than normal babies and didn't cry anymore when I ripped off some of its newly grown flesh. Grace thinks it might be a dead skin, especially because of the boy. I explained to her that we don't think analgesia has passed down on the Y chromosome. I choose to bliss out and exhausted to listen. I managed to get the weight and other important details while they fond over the baby. Then I spent the night on hold with RHF to get paperwork for birth certificate. Eventually, mother and baby fell asleep and we gave them their space. Isaac and Evelyn slept on the fold-out couch and Lucky invited me outside for celebratory drink.

Sure enough, the Moonshine got him talking again, and he told me that the call will mean a lot to the islanders when they hear about it. He said the islanders believe deadskins born with a call can hear the voices of the ancestors. On the topic of ancestors, I asked about why there wasn't a cemetery. Lucky looked at me a long minute and admitted that he'd lied before because he didn't think I could be trusted. But the way I treated Levi's finger and the call

made him feel like I wouldn't judge their ways. He told me that, though the beach is an important stopover for migratory birds. That's not why the fence is up there. The fence is up there to protect the ancestors. who live down on the beach. When someone on Potarag Island dies, they're cut up into pieces and thrown down onto the beach,

where the scavenger bird picket them and their bones weather in the elements. Maybe I was loopy from adrenaline and moonshine. But I told him I saw nothing wrong with that. I even mentioned that it sounded a lot like a sky burial, which is a sacred ceremony still practiced by Buddhists in places like Tibet and Mongolia. He liked that.

It must have made him feel like his people weren't so odd after all. I still believe what I said. After helping pay for my grandmother's funeral, I don't blame these fisher folk for wanting to let their loved ones enter the food chain rather than just rot underground. We're all food for something in the end. So better be in danger of birds than worms and weevils. Still, I'm worried about the way the elders looked at that baby.

There was something in their eyes, a rabbit, unyielding faith that I've only seen in the loyal flocks who lined the audiences of televangelists. I didn't trust it. June 20th, no one on the island has been visiting the baby. They've been singing old songs on the lawn and frying haddock over greasy charcoal grills. Some of them seem to think the sunny weather is because of the baby. I got enough time alone to check on Grace's convalescence and performance.

some routine tests. I had to do the normal screenings for sight, hearing, etc. But I could tell there was only one since she was worried about. A few pinpricks and a lighter confirmed what we suspected. The baby can't feel. No heat, no cold. Nothing. Just like his grandfather.

If I thought they were excited before, I didn't know what to do after. I've heard of this phenomenon in deaf communities, where it can be a let-down if a hearing child is born to deaf parents. Some celebrate passing the disability to their children, because they've turned it from a defect to a mark of identity. I guess it's that way here. Plus the whole ancestor worship thing, which I've decided not to ask more about. My focus now is watching over this baby, documenting its development while I ensure it doesn't end up like numb nuts. I've already given Grace some literature for parents of children with analgesia, and she promised

to watch carefully once the baby's nails hardened and its teeth show up. July 3rd, Levi and the others return from their fishing trip with a serious bounty. Most of it they brought to the mainland and sold, but there's no shortage of tuna back on the island. I've been given more fillets than I know what to do with. The baby's coming along fine. They named Emezra. Levi's reaction when he learned he had a son was beautiful. I've never seen such a gruff, curtain vigil transform into a starry-died-dye dance so quickly.

Ezra cried when Levi picked him up, which was odd because he didn't cry much. I'm sure they'll bond eventually, as long as Levi doesn't leave again. August 28th. It's been almost two months, and I've been busy trying to carry on. my study of the islanders while keeping track of baby as for every move. I've been accomplishing more of the latter.

I feel like I'm learning more watching a baby dead skin than I could from a whole island of grown ones. They've calmed down a bit about the whole call thing, which is giving grace and the baby a well-deserved break from visits. I'm still not sure I trust Isaac and Evelyn though. I'm even beginning to worry about lucky. They keep watching the baby, especially when the baby. especially when Levi's around.

I heard them talking about how Ezra always cries when Levi picks him up. It's true that he's been a little slow to welcome his father, but I don't think it means anything. Babies cry about everything. Whether or not he can feel pain, he can still feel gas. I don't like the way the elders talk about it, like it's some shameful secret. It's the closest thing I've come to feeling like they're being hamstrung

by their unsuperstitions. August 29th. There's a storm brewing. So I've been exiled. Lucky came to my door early this morning and said he's worried my cabin might not make it through the storm because how close it is to the cliff. He said these could be the highest winds in 20 years and that any other structure built that close to the cliff has been reinforced. When I asked why I couldn't stay with another Islander family for a day or two, he said that he was afraid it would be too hard on their hospitality to ask for something like that.

I've slept on more than a few couches on late-night calls since I've been here. So that seemed odd. But I have to trust lucky. He hasn't steered me wrong yet. I'm writing this from a dingy little motel in the mainland, where numnuts brought me in his fishing boat. My shoes are still soaked through because the first wave the storm hit us on the way from the island. We still was inside of the island when the first raindrops hit,

though I had too far to turn back with the tide churning the way it did. as I took my last glance at the island before hunkering down below decks. I saw something on the island. I can't say what it was through all the mist and rain, but it looked like a crowd of people gathered on the edge of the cliff, right near the bird beach. It could have been a flock of birds, but they weren't moving like birds.

They were moving like an angry mob. Numb nuts turned the boat around as soon as my feet were on the dock, even though it was still spitting rain. He seemed to be in a big rush to get back. It feels like they didn't want me there for a reason. Maybe they were afraid of me getting hurt out there. Afraid they'd lose their relationship with RHF and have to go scrambling for another foundation

to send doctors out like sacrificial lambs to be fattened with fish and liquor. I couldn't say. I just know I'm having a harder time rationalizing these people's behavior than I used to. September 3rd. It's been raining for us. as long as I can remember. I've barely left my room. You'd think being stuck in a motel for four

straight days of stormy weather would make you write more. But I haven't been able to do anything but watch TV and stare at the walls. I've been living off the vending machine in the motel lobby, when I can manage to eat. Maybe it's a cumulative influence all that pickled fish or the fact I got myself through the first night of storms of the flask of Lucky's moonshine. Maybe I'm just suffering of multi-day hangover. Regardless, I feel like shit. Other fun news.

The ferry, along with almost every other boat in the harbor, got destroyed in the storm, so I'm just waiting for someone to come pick me up. I can see the harbor from my window. I spend a few hours every day looking for a boat from the island, but there's been nothing yet.

None of my calls to Lucky's ancient cell phone, have gone through and I don't have any other islanders numbers saved. So here I wait, stomach gurgling and head aching, hoping I haven't been forgotten. September 4th. Today I found a book on local history next to the Bible and the dresser. It has no section on Polter, but the island is mentioned in the gazetteer, which has placed name origins for every settlement on this part of the coast. I copied a Palau.

Podereg Island, though pronounced by locals as Podorreg, this isolated island likely derives from the French settlers. It's believed to come from the phrase Po de laurage, or skin of the storm, possibly an old sailing term for the short bursts of rain that sometimes come before large thunderstorms. 19th century sources write the name as Podaraj, which was changed to Poderag on later maps. Skin of the storm I've heard that expression before from Lucky

He said some of the old-timers called people like him storm skins instead of dead skins It used to be thought bad luck To bring a dead skin out in a boat Because they were thought to attract storms Lucky said some still objected Levi and other dead skids coming along

That he thought it was a load of superstitious bullshit It's good to know that even people who claim to channeling the voices of their ancestors have the ability to cast off superstition. Still, now I want to ask if anyone knows whether the island's name comes from the condition or the other way around. Hopefully someone will show up soon to bring me back. September 6th, I'm back on the island. I'm writing this because I want there to be a record of what I saw here in case something

happens to me. I don't know if I'm safe. I get the impression they don't know either. They're waiting on their little oracle to burp up and answer. My cabin is fine. I'm here now. The doors are locked. Numbnuts came to get me yesterday because the storm seemed to have cleared.

Everyone thought so, but everyone was wrong. It hit us hard in the deepest part of the channel. It was all at once. One wave and we were in the water I didn't see numb not swim out from under the capsized boat I felt the wrong form but it was too cold and dark to find anything I haven't seen him since I got back on the island so you must have drowned I only survived because I found a life vest

floating next to the flip boat I swam all night in the direction of what I thought was shore but eventually I lost consciousness Somehow I got far enough in that the tides pulled me the rest of the way to the island. Only I didn't land at the dock or at the bottom of any of the cliffs. I landed on the Bowen Beach. At first it didn't look any different, just a beach with a few stray birds picking up the sand. It was only when I rolled over that I saw the unmistakable eye socket of a skull sticking out from the sand that I really grasped it.

It's one thing to hear about a beach covered in bones, but being there is something I'll never forget. Especially not after what I saw next. There's a cave on that beach. Nothing more than a little crack in the rocks, but big enough that you could get inside for shelter. I was walking toward it, trying not to step on the bones. When I saw someone who was standing right at the entrance. I waved to the person, but they didn't wave back. I was nervous to approach since I knew I wasn't supposed to be there, but I walked towards

a figure anyway. I was ten feet away before I realized it wasn't a person. I have to burrow into the most attached medical part of my brain to describe what I saw, because it's the only way I can remember without vomiting again. It was a scarecrow whose torso was made of a pickle barrel. It was the only part of it that wasn't flesh. The arms were human, severed roughly at the shoulder. The legs were human too, cut off at the thighs and crudely attached to the barrel to mimic a standing position.

These appendages weren't rotting. They were dark, the color of a blackberry. At first I thought that they had just putrefied while hanging there in the cave. But then I saw the thick marks of tightly bound rope on the shoulders and thighs and noted the level of decomposition. They'd been tied off, allowed to die, and then severed. Just like Levi's pinky. From the way the legs were cut, angled, and ragged,

it looked like the legs had been cut off by their owner and that kind of pain without passing out. I wondered for a moment before remembering the people I was dealing with. Then I looked at the head. It's funny how when you study physiognizabeth, Long enough, you can imagine what someone's face would look like without the skin. Once you can parse facial features down to bone structure and musculature, there's really nothing to it. I've never mentally removed the skin from Levi's face, but I still knew in a moment it was

his head stuck there on top of the barrel. I knew before I even noticed the call draped over his skin. That rubbery membrane serving his poor surrogate for his lost face. I vomited more than my stomach could contain and found myself dry heaving on the floor next to the horrible figure. It was then I realized the stringy black and brown stuff on the floor wasn't seaweed. It was hair. A blanket of human hair so thick you could barely see the ground beneath. Even after the horror I'd witnessed, nothing made me want to walk back into the ocean on the sight of all that hair spread across the ground.

It was only a few hours before Lucky came by in his motorboat and gave me a lift back to the island. His ponytail was gone, along with his beard. He spoke more frankly than I'd ever seen him do all sober. I guess he figured if I'd seen the beach there was nothing left to hide. Lucky explained that they'd done what they'd done because it was willed by the ancestors. Who were using Baby Ezra to communicate which of the islanders should be sacrificed. Then he told me I shouldn't worry about Levi because he'd given himself willingly to the ceremony and felt no pain. He said it wasn't Levi's fault he'd been chosen.

Just like it wasn't my fault had washed up on the beach. Both were just things that happened. It was for the ancestors to decide what happened to me. Just like Levi. And that's how he left me. Alone in the cabin. awaiting the judgment of a baby. September 9th.

I still haven't left. I suspect they know I'm here because where else would I be? I can't even hide. These people know every corner and inlet of their island. Grace came by yesterday with the baby. She was wearing a hat, but I could tell she was shaved bald, just like lucky. She knocked and waited for ten minutes. I pretended not to be home.

She knew I was there. Even the baby knew I was there. I'm sure the ferry service will resume soon. Usually comes around the middle of the month. So I just need to last another week without letting that baby come near me. Running low on moonshine and I'm out of vodka. I've been taking painkillers to help me sleep. To help me forget?

I just need to come out the other side of this week attack. And the ferry will be brought. by to take me away from here forever. I've tried calling RHF, but phone service to the mainland hasn't been working since the storm. The second I get back there, I'm pulling whatever strings I have, getting potering taken out of RHF's service area. All service areas for all doctors, if I can. I might even try to get deliveries cancelled.

Though I don't know how I do that. This island is a wart on the soul of civilization. It needs to be cut off, scraped raw and burned with acid. I don't feel it anyway. These freaks I once wish to learn from. They've had feelings bred out of them. I've stopped having dreams about my hair. It's a new dream now.

In this dream I'm sitting on a tarp out beside the tall fence by the cliff above the bird beach. The villagers are surrounding me. Lucky and Evelyn and Isaac and Grace and Baby Ezra and all the rest of them. I haven't seen numnuts and Levi in the crowd as alive as anyone else. They're all hairless and so am I. They're chanting something, but I can't understand it. Their tongues are all cleft and shredded. In the dream I've got a hangnail.

A long, nasty one on my life. thumb. Instead of cutting it off, I start pulling at it in the direction. The skin peels off my thumb in a spiral. I keep pulling and the skin unravels off each of the rest of my fingers like a bandage. Then I'm peeling it off my hand, my arm, my shoulder, everything coming off in one irregular piece. And the crowd starts chanting louder. They don't know what they're saying, but as I tear the skin from my thighs, I see baby Ezra pointing at me. Unlike the hair dream, I can't feel pain in this dream.

I don't feel pain when I pull off my eyelids. I don't feel pain when I peel my face from my skull. I don't even feel the cold wind and the exposed meat in my body when I stand at the edge of the cliff, staring down at the beach of bones. They have taken away my pain. That's what scares me the most. For more information, including pictures and videos of the stories told on this podcast, or to suggest stories for future episodes,

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