Creepy - Fitzy's Coming & Tomorrow Before Today

Episode Date: June 13, 2024

Fitzy's Coming***Written by: J. Edward Gregal and Narrated by: Heather Thomas***Tomorrow Before Today***Written by: Joshua Bryant and Narrated by: Jimmy Ferrer***Visit our discord at: bit.ly/creepypodcastunit***Support the show at patreon.com/creepypod***Title music by: Alex Aldea Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello, my darkest of darlings. It's me, J.V. A.k. Jade Violet, one of the narrators for this lovely show. I'm just popping in to let you know that we have a shiny new Discord server. If you would like to mix and mingle with a few of your fellow listeners, or if you would like to interact with some of our show's narrators and writers, come join the creepy podcast containment unit, the invite link. to the Discord will be in the episode notes for this episode. Or you can type in bit.l.L.Y slash creepy podcast unit. All one word. That's bit.l.l. slash creepy podcast unit. Hope to see you there. And now, back to your regularly scheduled program. Enjoy. No.

This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous, chilling and disturbing creepy pastors 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. P.P. Presents. Fitsy's Coming. Written by J. Edward Griegel

and narrated by Heather Thomas. Fitsy's Coming. The cashier slurs through a breath betraying, neglected teeth and smoked cigarettes. You asked her to sign for the package and don't understand this reply. So you just push the slip across the counter as if she hadn't said it.

The smell hangs there between the two of you, turning your empty stomach. She looks at the paper. As she takes her time finding her own pen, ignoring the one you provided, you study her. The dark circles under her eyes, her weathered face,

the vacant stare, and her sluggish responses. You wonder what happened to her, how she ended up behind the counter of a crummy convenience store at the border of the suburbs and the sticks. She's got to be in her mid-60s. If she's younger than that,

the years have been hard. Very hard. Once she has her pen, identical to the one you put on the counter, she squiggles a wavy line in the wrong box. Good enough. Your truck is still full. You're less than halfway through your route,

and it's already afternoon. She pushes the paper back and looks you in the eye. Fitsy's, coming. Okay, you linger, trying to read her. Take care, okay? You separate her copy, hand it to her, and leave the shop. Outside the sun breaks through the gloom, but does little to stave off the chill in the air. A steady wind from the south carries darker clouds your way. Your stomach rumbles. You should have grabbed something to eat inside, but it's all too much today. If you let yourself stop, you might fall apart. You start the truck and crank the heater. The 80 station comes on,

playing an ad for a crime drama. You cross this stop off on your turn-by-turn directions. Look at your map one more time and put the truck back into gear. You want to sit and warm up for a while, but idling for too long makes you dizzy. From that exhaust leak, the company still hasn't fixed. You angle the side view mirror so you can see yourself. Your heavy eye makeup, which your supervisor already reprimanded you for, again, does little to mask the tiredness in your eyes. Your roots are showing, about half an inch of red emerging beneath the black, but the hair-dye has to wait until your next paycheck. Or the one after that. That woman inside. You suddenly understand why she got to you.

You saw a flash of your mother in her, the mother you haven't talked to in a year, the woman who is wasting away the next date over, so beaten by life, she's retreated into herself. Without the makeup, the hair dye. You see your mother in yourself, too, at least her if she hadn't gotten pregnant so young.

Unhappy with that image, you adjust the mirror and use the turn signal. A car approaches, but you have time. As you pull out, you watch it swerve to avoid something in the road before drifting to a stop on the shoulder. 2.7 miles until your next delivery. You wheel the hand truck toward the sound of classic rock crackling from the open door of the garage,

struggling to navigate around the puddles in the muddy driveway. The picked-over remains of old cars stretch all the way back to the woods behind the junkyard. One of the cars looks just like the car. the one your mother drove when you were small. You pause, your mind foggy and slow, and scratch your chin. For about a year, you had this great concern that someone was hiding under the passenger-side dashboard of that car.

Someone with a white face and black eyes, just waiting for your feet to come within reach. Your mother would scream at you for putting your shoes on the seat, but you threw such tantrums, she let it go. The snick of a lighter pulls you from your reverie. A man stands just inside the garage. His cheeks collapse around his toothless gums as he takes a drag from his cigarette. Uh, got a package for you?

You scratch your chin while you wait for him to respond. You keep scratching until your fingers come back sticky. He nods. You push the hand truck inside. The cigarette smoke makes you cough. He bends over to pick up a box and looks at you. You're blatant, girl. He nods, the cigarette bouncing with each syllable.

You already know this, but you still touch your chin, nodding. In silence, he watches as you stack the rest of his deliveries beneath the calendar featuring a bikini-clad woman holding an oversized wrench. He looks concerned. Maybe about you, but maybe about something else. You hand him a slip to some. He does this, walks outside, and stares out into the junkyard. He drops his cigarette butt into a puddle and shifts his gaze between you and the junkyard a few times.

Fidsey's coming, he says. His brows furrowed, his eyes leaking. He runs a greasy hand across his head, pushing back his sparse, limp hair. It's like your grandfather's hair, you think? He looks like your grandfather. what little you can remember of him. And you wonder if this is what your father would have looked like too, if he'd made it past 50.

You open your mouth but you're so tired you can't think of what to say. You rub your sticky fingers together and nod to him, but he's already turned back to the junkyard. Clouds finally smother the sun. The breeze stings your chin as you climb back into the truck. As you turn the truck around, you see someone emerge in your mirror from the wool, across the junkyard. You stop. There are a blur of black and red, too far away to make out

any details. The man from the garage glances back at you, scratches his chin, and walks to meet this figure. He's still in tears. You drive away, dabbing at your chin with the napkin you found in the console. No one is home to receive your next three deliveries. The clouds make good on their threats, finally arrives. You try to keep the packages out of the elements and away from the eyes of opportunistic thieves. This doesn't always work. You've been docked in the past for packages going missing, and you obviously can't afford for this to happen right now. But if you don't leave the packages, they go back on the truck and get added to tomorrow's route, adding more hours to your 10-hour shifts. This daily calculus exhausts you.

You find yourself wondering if it even matters, deliberating over these decisions that yield bad outcomes, no matter what choice you make. It's crushing you. The way the money goes so fast despite the hours you work, you can't keep up. No matter where you look, you don't see a way out, any other job that doesn't take more than it gives.

Going back to school could help, might help. But you're barely getting by in what you make now. How will you pay for that? You're ruminating on the perpetual circle of your life when you pull up to your next stop. You grab the package, its label reading, pneumatics unlimited, and filigreed lettering, and approach the screened-in front porch of a shabby bungalow, covered in moss and peeling paint. The wooden stairs are slick, and as you're, carefully climbed them, you smell coffee.

God, you'd love a cup. As you peer through the screen door, onto the dark porch. Hello? Your voice is scratchy. Delivery? The door's handle is cold. You almost recoil. You can bring it in.

A woman's voice drifts from the shadows in the far corner from what looks like a pile of clothes stacked on a wicker chair. The rusty door spring groans as you enter and see a woman. under several blankets holding a chipped, steaming mug reading, I love Transylvania, a stake through the red heart. An aged tabby watches from her lap, staring at either you or beyond you. It's hard to tell. You freeze when you see the woman's face.

Add 20 or so years. Take away the makeup, keep the dyed hair and chipped black nails. And she could be you. She smiles. Her mouth going through the motions, but her wet eyes telegraphing, only detached misery. There's a dark space where her left canine should be. You spend what feels like a full minute looking at one another when she breaks the stillness by taking a sip of coffee. There's a chair at her side, a blanket neatly folded on its seat.

You want to quit. Wrap yourself in the blanket. Sit. Just exist. Sipping coffee. watching the rain falling on the trees lining the driveway, the water dripping from the overhang, inhaling petrachore, exhaling balance,

maybe finding a way to shut off the constant rumination just long enough to feel like you'll get out of this and be okay. Fitsy's coming. The woman, the old you says, denying you refuge from the cold, scouring wind of reality you imagined on this porch. Who is that? ask, holding out her package and slip.

She sets her coffee down and takes them. She signs the slip and hands it back. You're relieved that it's not your name, not your signature. And points. Your eyes followed the line indicated by her black fingernail, and see only the road, curving off into the afternoon gloom. Who is Fitsy? You ask with goose flesh on your forearms.

A tear slips down her weathered cheek. Go. She whispers. Go, please. You turn and go back into the rain. Your right foot slips on the slimy wood of the top step and you fall on your ass. When you push yourself up, you see someone on the road that wasn't there a moment ago. They're not that close, but you can tell something isn't right.

They're staggering, and they seem to be wearing a bulky black coat and some kind of strange red hat. Fitsy's coming! The woman on the porch yells, her voice cracking. Without looking back, you stand in a half run to the truck. The figure on the road is closer now, faster than seems right. Something long and white hangs from their face. You start the truck, back out onto the road, and chuck the mirror. The figure is still far, three or four hundred feet away.

There's a face there, but it's distorted. Are they wearing a mask? The hanging white part is, a jaw maybe, but it's hanging down low, too low, so low it touches the ground. A darkness yawns above it, an open chasm of a mouth, an emptiness. The carbon monoxide leaking into the cab makes everything tilt, spin. You crack the window, put the truck in gear, and drive away. You don't look back. As you grown, you pull into the apartment complex.

For just this one delivery, you'll have to find a place to park, walk across a courtyard, climb several flights of stairs, and if the recipient isn't home to accept the delivery, you'll do it all over again tomorrow, repeating the cycle several times until you're authorized to leave the package at the depot for them to pick up themselves. You circle the complex for ten minutes

before you find a place to pull over. You put on the hazards, grab your raincoat, the one that leaks no matter how much duct tape you line it with, grab the package from the back, lock up, and hesitate. The rain beats an uneven patter on your hood as you look up and down the street. A car passes a block down, but the only movement you see is water running into the gutters. You run toward the complex until you reach the courtyard. You're looking for building E. Around you in clockwise order are B, D, C, and A.

The frustrated sound you let out echoes across the empty courtyard. It takes another ten minutes to figure out that E is inexplicably attached to the back of A, accessible only from the street behind it, or a narrow-gated alleyway connected to the courtyard. The gate isn't locked, at least. As you enter, the squishing of your soaked socks echoes in the confined. space of the alley. More cavalier, careless, or desperate delivery people have left packages in the mail area down here on the first floor, but you don't want to risk it, not after losing

so much time on this single stop. You ascend four flights, leaving a dripping trail in your wake, and take a deep, hitching breath when there's no sign indicating in which direction apartment 432 lies. You take a left and lose a few minutes, before you take a left and lose a few minutes, before realizing you should have taken a right. You're shivering as you knock on the door, alternating between sweaty and chilled. You knock a second time and the door opens a few inches. The door is chained.

It's dark inside. And no one looks back at you. You step away. Hello? Delivery. Hi! A tiny voice says. A child's face peers up at you from just below the doorknob.

It's a little girl, red-haired and freckled. I have a package, maybe for your mom or dad. Are they home? She studies you, and then shakes her head. It's so slight, you almost miss it. I see. Is it okay if I leave it with you? Will you keep it safe and give it to them when they get back?

She shuts the door. You stand there long enough to grit your teeth before you hear the chain slide free. The door opens. The girl is standing on a stool just inside. She hops down and steps away. The apartment is cramped and extremely warm. A light at the end of the hall throws a narrow strip of illumination down the center of the room. The little girl backs into the shadows by a black ceramic cat, almost her size. I'll just put this here, you say, carefully placing the package on the floor just inside the room. Can you write your name? She shakes her head. She's four tops. Of course she can't.

That's okay. What's your name? You start filling out the slip yourself. She says her name. It's your name. And you feel hot. Too hot. You can hardly breathe.

You write something on the slip, separate the top sheet, and hold it out with a shaking hand to the girl with your name. She steps out of the shadows. takes the paper and then pulls you close, puts her little hand to her mouth and whispers. You mouth the words as she's saying them. Fitsy's coming. You stagger out of the building, sweating, shivering, scratching at the raised bloody welts on your chin.

This is it. You can't do this anymore. At least not tonight. You're sick. That's it. and you've still got an hour of driving back and looking for parking before you can get home, eat something, and crawl into bed. The other deliveries can wait until tomorrow. It's dark already. It's raining too hard. And you're sick. Water streams down the center of the alley toward the gate.

You waddle bow-legged to stay out of it even though your feet are already wet. The trickling water and pounding rain aren't enough to block out the gasping behind you. You don't look back, not even when the blood flows past you in the stream at your feet. You get to the gate and pull, but it won't budge. It doesn't make sense that it's locked from the outside, but it won't open. The gasping is now joined by shuffling, splashing footsteps. You turn and see it, only a few feet away now, its body hidden under shapeless cloth like blackened burlap,

its chalky white face partially obscured by straggly clumps of red matted hair, glistening eyes fixing you in place. Its lower jaw distended, impossibly, scraping the ground, black red blood oozing from the shredded chin. It's coming for you. You've known it's been coming for you all day, all your life. But it's gasping and sobbing. It wants to, and it doesn't want to, you feel that.

that somehow. Even when it reaches you, it stink like dried rot and old paper freezing you in place. It is reluctant, touching you, grasping but letting go a few times, as if building the courage to go through with it. But it finds the will to do it, its fingers clench your biceps, digging in, breaking the skin, and it slowly pulls you into its wet mouth, sobbing, choking. You are sobbing with it, the both of you locked into these roles, predator and prey. And only when the pain starts, do you feel it give in and embrace what it's doing? Every atom of your body is torn apart. Your scream simply the detonation of your being. You are destroyed, put back together, destroyed again and again. Every single moment, a white-hot eternity of suffering. And finally,

It ends. The black-haired girl looks so tired there across the counter, asking for your signature. She is someone you know somehow, someone who meant something to you, maybe, before your life took you where it did. You want to do something, tell her something. But the fog in your mind is too impenetrable for anything coherent to slip through. You look for a pen, sign your name, and then it comes to you. Fissie's coming. You slur.

Everything clear for an instant. The black-haired girl, scratching at her bleeding chin, fills you with the sense of loss you can't articulate. You want to help her somehow. Clean and bandage her wounds. Give her what little money you have left in your cash drawer. Something. You sign her paper, walk outside,

and it comes to you as you see the figure emerge from the woods at the edge of the junkyard. "'Fitsy's coming.' "'You tell her over her shoulder, "'crying now because you know your warning won't help her. "'Not in the way you want it to. "'The tired black-haired girl triggers an unexpected inventory, "'a blurry recollection of your years,

"'just because she looks the way you once did, "'and it's ruinous to comprehend the path you began at her age, "'the wrong decisions, the ones you were forced into, "'the ones you refrained, from making. And now you are on the wrong side of those decades. So much given away. So much taken from you. You want to warn her, even though it's inevitable, what's coming, because it came for you just as it's coming for her. But you still do. That is a choice you can make, even if it's futile. You choose to do it because it's right. Fitsy's coming. You tell her.

hoping that somehow she'll escape this time. The black-haired lady puts the package down by the door. You're scared. She frightened you at first, but you see now she is tired and sad and scared too. You're not scared of her. You're scared of what's waiting. That's what it is. You feel like you're floating down a river and you can't slow yourself, change your course,

and it's taking you somewhere you don't want to go. But you have no say in it. so you just float and hope that something changes. It comes to you when you think about sitting in your mother's car, the image that frightened you, that made you pull your feet up onto the seat. But you know that if it was there, it wasn't going to do anything to you yet.

It was waiting for another time, a later time. And you know that it's waiting for this tired, sad lady too. And it's coming sooner for her than it is. is for you. You want to tell her, because maybe she can get away, outsmart it. And if she can, maybe you can someday, too. And maybe a life will be there on the other side where you don't have to live in fear, where you can feel the sun warm on your skin, and think only of the sun warming your skin, safe and content. You pull her close to you, raising your hand to your mouth to protect the words.

Fitsy's coming. You tell her, hoping it works. You've finally caught up to her, this black-haired girl. The hood of her raincoat is pulled up and she's trying to stay out of the water flowing down the alley. She knows you're behind her, but she's not looking back. She won't do it.

Not yet. You want to turn away, walk off, and let the night swallow you. But it's not your turn. You stagger forward, your jaw dragging on the concrete, and it hurts you. Every step closer hurts you. But you're so hungry. You have needs, and there's no other way you can think of to fill them.

So you approach this girl, who is finally turning to face you. As you take her and pull her into your open mouth, there's a moment of clarity. You are powerful when you're like this. In the moments you have before the darkness takes you, you lash out at the gate. It moves slightly, the metal screeching as it deforms. What you have done isn't enough this time, but maybe the next time, or the one after that.

It will be enough, enough to break it, enough to prevent it from closing, locking, trapping you in the black-haired girl in this dark, wet alleyway, where the only choices are to consume or be consumed. Creepy Presents Tomorrow Before Today, written by Joshua Bryant, and narrated by Jimmy Ferrer. Toes.

Three. fingers seven when I wake up before I open my eyes I know he is there I can feel him standing in the door of my bedroom I did not hear him open the front door

did not hear him walk across my house I do not hear him now but I don't doubt his presence today is his 11th visit the 11th month of knowing him. His name is blue. I'm stalling, feigning sleep. But I know my trembling legs under the sheets are betraying me.

He chuckles. Then I hear his methodical steps moving across the floor and stopping at the foot of my bed. I cannot stifle the pain sigh issuing from between. between my lips. I sit up and swing my legs over the bedside. I do not look at him. I wish, not for the first time, that I had not signed the contract.

I look at my feet, two big toes and a middle one on the right. I look at my hands, four fingers on the left, three on the right. I still have both thumbs, for which I suppose. I know as I should be grateful. I bury my face in my palms. Blue is suddenly sitting beside me. He drapes a heavy arm over my shoulders. I feel his lips and cold breath on my ear. He whispers, There's no need to be sad. You've been so healthful to so many different people. You should be proud. Proud. I turned that word over and over in my head.

Then I'm remembering all his past visits. Remembering the day, it all began. I was walking home from work in a very poor mood. It was just beginning autumn, but the air was already chilly. The stiff breeze cut through my sweater and I was hunched against it. Despite my grumbling, the temperature was not what had me stirred up. My day had felt pointless. Eight hours in the office and I couldn't for the life of me think what the purpose had been.

There were the easy answers like I had to make money to pay my bills and eat. Yet I found this pragmatic outlook dissatisfying. I had felt that way for years. but on that particular day, it weighed most heavily on me. As I was crossing the bridge that overhangs the four-lane highway, I noticed a young woman standing beside the barrier, looking outward. She was dressed well, but her hair was tousled by the wind, and there seemed to be tears glisting on her flushed cheeks.

I walked quickly past her and only took her. took a cursory glance over my shoulder when we were several yards apart. Clutch tightly to her chest was a stack of miscolored envelopes. I looked away and carried on. When I got home, the sun was setting behind the city haze. I noticed there was a man at my door. He was tall and slim, wearing a very fine suit and a shiny pair of shoes. A stainless steel suitcase rested on the ground beside him.

A salesman, but not of the ordinary sort. I walked up to my front porch and he turned to greet me with a smile. At first glance he seemed handsome, but there was also something strange about him that unsettled me. We shook hands and I asked him what he wanted. He told me his name was blue. And he was wondering if I was interested in seeing what he had to offer. I scoffed.

Blue was hardly a name, and I was almost certain he was a scammer. Even his hair, though combed, seemed to be made of plastic. Plastic threads woven into his scalp. I almost told him to hit the road, but I stopped. His tie had caught my attention. It was iridescent. and it gave a wonderful illusion of moving imagery. I'd never seen a tie like that.

Blue laughed a little, bringing my eyes back to his. He asked again if I was interested. I looked around the dismal neighborhood and surrounding buildings. All lit a weak orange from the dying sunlight. Ah, what the hell? Come on in. I replied with a shrog before unlocking my door. In my living room, I sat on the couch and waited for his pinch. Blue stood across from me, posture ramrod straight, lips still drawn away from his teeth in a thin smile.

He held a suitcase under one arm, and with the other hand, he produced what looked like a glass prism from his coat pocket. It was rather large, barely fitting in his hand. and there was a faint light shivering inside of it. And then it floated up from his palm. My mouth fell open. I almost said something, but the light within the prism was growing more luminous. I hushed. It drifted closer to me, bobbing up and down.

The light within like a burning rainbow. Suddenly two beams of light erupted from the prism, and shot right into my eyes. My body grew rigid and I couldn't blink. I was frightened, but it was impossible to move. I couldn't even shout for help. Images began flooding my mind. They were incomprehensible at first.

But after a few moments, things of substance started to materialize around me. My living room melted away. I found myself surrounded by a fog that was growing thinner and thinner, revealing a desolate landscape. I was in the middle of what had once been a grand city. There were towers made of a vivid silver metal that, there were towers made of a vivid silver medal that, through some unknown catastrophe, had been rendered little more than devastated shells. What looked like vehicles of some sort. They couldn't be cars since they lacked tires, lay scattered about or piled on top one another, like withered remains of poisoned insects.

All above this ruin, there was a blackened sky through which only the thinnest outline of the sun was visible. All of it was enough to shed an ominous shadow over my heart, but it wasn't the only thing the prism showed me. The destroyed city gradually faded away and I found myself in another. location. It was some kind of bunker. The floor, walls, and ceiling were cement, but the light that half-heartedly lit the place was like a blue flame that could not have been electric. There were children here, dressed in raggedy clothes with bandages on arms and legs and heads. They were shivering. A violent tremor began. The blue flame jumped and flickered. The children drew closer together.

The light guttered out. I blinked and gasped. I was back in my living room. Blue was putting the glass prism back in his pocket. There was a rueful expression to his lips now. I tried to ask him what all that was, what had happened. But I was suddenly overwhelmed by an incredible wave of emotion. Tears brimmed in my eyes.

Was the future, he told me quietly. I didn't want to believe him, but the images were still echoing in my mind. I couldn't forget that wasted city, nor the terrified faces of those children in the bunker. He told me I had an opportunity, an opportunity to help. He then asked when the last time I had an opportunity. had done something I felt was worthwhile. I didn't answer. I was still trying to calm myself down.

Blue then produced a roll of paper from his sleeve. He told me that all I had to do was sign that contract, make a small donation, and I would be helping those poor children suffering in the future. I took a deep breath and rubbed my face vigorously. I thought about the truth in his way. words, thought about the pointlessness of my day-to-day life. I looked at my hands. I clenched them into fists. Okay, I answered. I'll do it. Blue smiled broadly and handed me the contract. I enrolled it and signed the line at the bottom of the page. He took it back and returned it up his sleeve.

Now, how much money do you need? I asked, reaching. for my wallet. Blue laughed. I patted my shoulder. I noticed that his fingernails were black. With a smile, he informed me that money was useless in the future. What they needed was something far more personal. He took the pinky of my right hand and pulled it up for me to look at.

My stomach sank. Blue must have seen my reluctance. He chuckled lightly and let go of my hand. He took a step back and pulled a thin metal cylinder from his pocket. He pressed a button and a blade of a red light hummed out the end of the cylinder. It gave off little radiance, but it was obviously very hot. I promise there won't be any pain at all. Blue said as he held his other hand out to me.

I looked at my pinky. I thought of the children in the future and seemed an easy choice then. I gave him my hand and made a death sweep with the Red Blade. I felt nothing at all, though the stink of singed flesh was very intense. Blue laughed and pushed the button inside his little cylinder. The Red Blade disappeared. I was looking at my hand. Where my pinky had been, there was now just a blackened knuckle.

I touched it. It was only a little hot. I was confused. But there was a sense of accomplishment. Feeling that, though I didn't grasp the circumstances, I had helped something greater than myself. all by merely giving a finger. Blue, meanwhile, was gathering up his suitcase and preparing to leave. He was rattling off words so quickly that I missed most of them.

But one thing that was made clear was that he would be returning in a month. I was a little taken back by this. He reassured me, however, that the next donation would be just as small as this one had been. I was a little taken back by this. He reassured me, however, that the next donation will be just as small as this one had been. Then he marched out the door and vanished. He indeed returned the next month, right when I had just started to co-sign the whole experience to being a once-in-a-lifetime event. I was excited when I saw him standing at my door again.

We hurried inside. On my request, he showed the vision of the future again via the prism. By the end of it, I was even more convinced than the first time. Using the red-bladed cylinder, he took one of my toes. Before he left, Blue again said he would be back in a month. I was paying more attention to the empty space on my foot, and only nodded. So, we repeated this interaction five times. Each time I was a little more hesitant, but after a session with the prism, I was more than willing to part with another finger or toe.

It became quite like any other routine, like getting up for work or paying taxes. Soon it felt like it always had been something I did in life. The only thing from this time period that truly stands out was something that didn't have to do with Blue or my donations. to the future. It was in the dead of winter, snow whirled out of a heavy sky. Black ice covered the roads. Sidewalks had been salted, but I still tried carefully. By that point, I had lost several toes and found it difficult to walk even on dry days. I was walking along the bridge over the highway again. She was back, the young woman with the envelopes. She was standing in the exact same place as the last time I saw her.

She was not dressed for the winter and I could tell she was very cold. Her hair whipped with the wind, snowflakes caught in the strands like feathers. After I had limped past her, I looked back in time to see her lean partly over the barrier. She extended her arms over into the empty air and flung the envelopes away. The wind took them. Some fluttered into the sky like yellow and pink duffs. Others went spiraling down into the highway where slow-moving cars mashed them into the gray slush. I walked home and thought about this for a long time.

It was the sixth month when things changed. Blue arrived at my home an hour after the usual time. He knocked harshly and I let him in. He seemed flustered and a sheen of perspiration was on his brow. Feeling rushed, I quickly sat down and began taking my socks off. I found that I preferred to lose toes rather than fingers. He approached me and knelt down, but instead of the cylinder, he pulled a tiny saw with a wooden handle out of his coat pocket. He nearly put it to my flesh before I stopped him.

Whoa, what the hell is that? I asked, jerking my foot back. Blue sighed and looked at me. He ran his tongue over his front teeth as if I were being a nuisance. Look, he began. The light blade is an expensive piece of equipment. Can't use it all the time. A scalpel here will only hurt a little, and it'll be over before you know it.

Then he grasped my foot tightly and brought the saw close again. Perhaps he could sense that I was going to argue further because he started cutting without my consent. I had never experienced such pain before. My body became wiretaught. I clenched my teeth so tightly I tasted blood. My eyes stared at blue and his jagged blade slowly carved a toe from my foot. Hot red spilled all over my carpet. It got too much for me.

I started screaming, begging for him to stop. He didn't until he was finished. From his suitcase, he brought out thick heaps of gauze that he shoved at me. With trembling hands, I applied them to my foot, and they soaked up the blood. Still in a hurry, Blue reminded me he would be back again in a month. He left, not even bothering to shut the door behind him. Of course, this horrible experience drastically changed my perspective on things. I was fine with giving, so long as it was painless, or at least as long as the pain was manageable.

But I wasn't willing to be tortured, not even for the poor children of the future. So I was determined to... Well, so I was determined to tell Blue at his next visit that I would no longer be donating. I was very confident, until the day arrived and I saw him standing at my front door. He greeted me and his plastic grin made chills run out my spine. We went inside and I started trembling. He walked very closely behind me. In the living room I turned around and explained as politely.

as I could, that I would no longer be donating, and that I hope he understood. Blue nodded, stroked his chin. I thought for a moment we would just shake hands and that would be that. That's why I didn't think it was all that strange when he extended his arm towards me. Two metal discs flew from inside his sleeve. They streak through the air like humming birds, turning circles around me again and again. In a matter of seconds, I was bound tightly by translucent wire. The discs returned to blue when I collapsed to the floor. I shouted angrily, but I was truly frightened.

Squatting by my head, blue-padded my cheek roughly and reminded me that I had signed a contract. He told me to stop being selfish. Then he saw it off the ring. finger of my right hand. When he was done, the wires slithered away from me. And he wound it up into a tight bundle. He tossed gauzed on to me and then left. Three more months like that passed. The pain was always excruciating. Also, things were becoming very difficult to do. I couldn't work properly anymore. I could hardly walk. I just wanted it in. Now, today, sitting on my bed with Blue's heavy arm over my shoulders and his cold voice in my ear.

I know I can't do it anymore. I have to stop it. I throw myself away from him, crumbling to the floor and a heap of fearful tears. I look at him at last. I look at his strange eyes and his thin smile, his glossy hair. his bored expression. The words come spilling out of my mouth as if detached from my brain. I am begging him to not hurt me.

I'm begging him for him to leave me alone. I started to sob. Blue takes a deep breath and stands up. He straightens his suit and loosens his iridescent tie. He tells me that there is another option. I look up, sniffling, wiping harshly at my eyes. Whatever it is, I'll do it, I say. As he retrieves his suitcase, he explains that I could simply give up one big thing,

rather than many little things. Before I can respond or protest, he tells me it will be as painless as the same. the first few donations, and it will be the last one. I sit up and struggle to my feet. Lou helps me with a firm hand, and I sit down on the bed again. I am quiet for several moments, contemplating at all. I didn't want to give anything else up. I also didn't want to experience that level of agony again. What would I have to give? I ask, fine. Finally. Blue smiles. He set his suitcase on the floor and opens it up. I cannot see inside of it. But I hear a tremendous whirring and humming. Like a laboring machine. He reaches inside and his hands are turned with what looks like a massive pair of scissors. And they are glowing red. Just your right arm. Below the elbow. he said

I look at my arm I feel my heart thud thudding quietly Blue repeats that it will be painless what the hell I reply go ahead

I offer my arm and Blue steps over quickly he opens the blades putting my arm between them I can feel their heat. They smell like hot iron. And then he snaps them shut. In a blur of movement, Blue stuffs a scissors in my arm into a suitcase. He's telling me so many different things about gratitude and how great of a man I am. Staring at the singed end of my stump, I say. Leave me alone. Blue does. I don't even hear the front door.

open and close. But after he departs in my bedroom, I know he is gone forever. I am not relieved. There is only a dull sadness and aching question for which there is no answer. I get up and get dressed with difficulty. I want to go for a walk. It's drizzling rain and the wind is like a wimp. Cold is a powerful echo of my mind. I stagger up. the street. My jacket and shoes soak through. I hardly feel it. Beads of water tremble on my hair and fall before my eyes. Everything is gray. I'm not thinking. I'm not feeling. I'm just walking with nowhere to come. I reached the bridge over the highway and began making my way over its length. I'm staring at the sidewalk.

watching my weak feet struggle along. Then I hear a woman crying. I look up and through the haze of water, I see her, the woman that had thrown the envelopes. She is dressed only in a white dress that is clinging to her skin. Her hands and face are red with the cold. Her hair is lank in streams of water fall from its ends. She's standing on the barrier looking down at the highway.

Before I know it, I'm trotting towards her and raising my voice to say, hey, wait, just wait. I stop a yard or so away, not wanting to put too much pressure on her. As soon as I called out, she turned her face towards me and her eyes met. She says nothing, but I feel she's telling me something. asking me something and i don't know how to answer her we can talk i tell her groping for words we can talk okay she takes one last look down and then returns her gaze to mine still crying she nods she begins stepping down but it is slippery in the wind like a heavy hand suddenly strikes her. Then she falls. I leap forward trying to catch her.

She's within my reach. I should be grasping her. My left hand catches the hem of her dress and it slips through my fingers. My right hand isn't there to catch anything. I watch her fall like a bird shot in flight. I watch her descend with the rain all the way down to the red headlights. the rushing cars, and the black asphalt. I start to climb the barrier.

Today, lost. 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 Sherrillite 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.