Creepy - Interregnum

Episode Date: March 6, 2023

Blood...and ice...***Written by: Justin A.W. Blair***Bonus episode: "The Last Toys 'R' Us" written by Juan Cardenas and narrated by Cole Burkardt***Check out our reward tiers at patreon.com/creepypod***Sound Design by Pacific Obadiah***Title music by Alex Aldea 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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Interregnum Written by Justin A. W. Blair. In the year 1911, I took passage on a whaling ship, departing from the coast of southern Chile to the island of South Georgia, onward then to Antarctica. Thereafter, to the heart of a fall genesis. I've never cared for the nautical, nor in the course of centuries committed to memory the vocabulary of seacraft.

The dramas of Constantinople spitting pine-scented fire. Yes, I recall them. But I could not describe them or others. Only recite, rudder, or aft sail. Words a child might pick up who grows old by the sea. It's difficult to make a distinction between what I remember and what I learned later. I have stood on the high backs of caravals lost to the Atlantic and watched the stars ensconced in night from salt grime decks of fishing ships buoyant on the Black Sea. Before my fare had been decided in the small port city of...

I had negotiated with the captain, a perpetually drunk Norwegian with a bulbous red nose and a habit of sloppy sneezing, to take over his private quarters. I explained to him my particular ailment that I must not be exposed to the sun for long durations. Shillings and pence in slow succession I laid on the wobbly wooden table between us. Each clink of specie against the knife-pucked surface of the table, his side holding beer, my own vacant.

Aborted each impertinent question, until all that was left between us was an empty mug and agreement. His pockets bulged with frigid coins. We departed on the morrow. I immediately procured a thrall upon arrival in the village. He loaded my sleeping chamber, encased in a manner to resemble a shipping crate, so as to not alarm any of the whaling vessel. The captain and crew were setting out to hunt whales,

and I had not seen such a venture by men. That wasn't my interest, as I take no interest in the sciences men devised to harvest flesh for trade. This ship was simply the mean struck close to Antarctica. In those years, there were only whalers and some ill-prepared explorers negotiating those seas. The seal harvest had all but ended, but whales still thrived among the waters around the cold heart of my destiny. nation. We made land on the island of South Georgia in a town invented to house industrial tryworks.

We did not tarry there long, though I was made to pretend to eat dinner with a captain one night. Night as such was a problem. There is little of it during the Austro summer, November through March. He had set out in late October, so there were still a few hours when I could be about at my full strength. Even then, I knew December and January would be nearly impossible for me. But it was the only season when the whalers departed to their business.

Our kind can tolerate low light for a few hours if necessary. And so I risked the season. As for South Georgia itself, I recall land. Raw beaches frenzied with birds, cold mountains and cliffs where algae clung. Snow and ice, and always the battering of gray waves on ship and shore. During dinner one night, the Norwegian told the story. The tryworks are a grotesque marvel, huge pots where the fat of whales are rendered down. The captain boasted to me of the dangers of the place,

and in so doing gathered credit to his courage as if his presence there didn't simply make him unfortunate instead of brave. He recited. Once, the season last, while men dragged a dead pregnant whale to render, the whale had burst from an excess of gases built up inside the carcass. It flung an unborn calf the length of a football pitch, striking a worker and killing him. The Norwegian laughed. Something in my face made the captain suddenly sleepy, slightly pale, and he begged off to bed after dashing back a last whiskey with his shaking hands.

We set out for sea the next day. I came out onto the deck during the last sun of the day to practice toleration of light. I don't know how much time it passed. We had met what the captain called the convergence, where the cold water meets warmer water, and in that embrace a great tumult. Now we were surrounded by,

by a sea which gave no indication of season or time. Blood, fat, and skin washed upon the deck in a slurry of chilled organs and viscera. I recall the feel of it as it crested my boots and flooded my socks. There were great pots on deck where men rendered fat, and the fumes shadowed the pale light of day which suited my situation. All of this blood would not argue too much with me given what I had seen men do. But it was the cries of the whale which haunted me through the Ecclesian smog. Surely, the men on deck willfully ignored them.

Could they not hear the consciousness calling out to their mammal kin? Why? And calling out to the harpoon stabbing them. Why? And calling out to the blue sky above and the dark water below steaming and bubbling with their blood. Why? No. Some men were grinning, some shouting with good nature.

Bored and grim faces appeared through the fog, blinking in and out of my vision. They could not hear. Why? Some were silent and some laughed loudly to cover a legacy of blood. My vision narrowed and something passed over the sun. I have slain thousands. If anyone on the ship had known I was vampire, that is the word most are accustomed to. Perhaps I would have been in danger.

I am not invincible, but my physical appearance is largely an illusion, only different in degree from an ordinary man. If entirely a spirit, I could have walked on water to Antarctica, but I clutch greedily a raiment of flesh. This is what many do not understand. A vampire is a hungry ghost grasping at the appearance of physical reality with century gnarled hands. We sustain our connection to life through blood. And in this, you must know us as a relation. I grabbed the captain's head and pulled it towards me, gripping it between my hands. Do you not hear them asking why?

The blocked-toothed fool failed to grasp the danger, I think. When he did, it was too late. I recall the way the captain's cap floated gently to the gut-strewn deck despite the raw gusts of arboreal wind whipping the deck. This execution garnered the attention of several of the sailors. There was no alarm sent up. The crew hesitated. and the calmness took over me,

and the plan that had been brewing in my soul since I had set off became as solid as pack ice. I will abbreviate this episode. I do not know if you are of gentle disposition, and I have no need to rehearse the massacre of 60 men. I took six of the men on deck as thralls. That is, I did not simply kill them, but infected them with my will, suspending them between life and death.

They lay stupid amongst the filth of the slaughter. Their eyes glassy. Their mouths working the remnants of prayers. Their hands working the conclusion of talisman, still human in many ways. Once it was done, I made corpses stacked neatly on the deck. I announced the remaining thralls we would go venture to the continent of Antarctica. They stared vacantly at me, their new captain.

There was no protest or sign of rebellion from my new slaves. They were beyond caring where they went next. During my bloody business, the whales had left the vicinity, their question unanswered. That night I stayed on the deck of the ship as it plowed. closer to the great continent of Antarctica. I answered myself alone. Why? Antietam staggered me for nearly 40 years.

I've never recovered all my senses from bearing witness to that battle. In the latter half of the 19th century, I slept in fad with no desire to travel about, no desire to forward my occult investigations. No desire at all. Finally, my curiosity concerning the mysteries of Antarctica as related to the vampires moved me to action. There are stories of this place, Antarctica, in a few vampiric volumes. Stories of something before humanity, something greater residing on the continent.

The scrolls spoke of the emperor of the fullness of time. Aon's rule. The one who was in the one who is in the world. waits. Hints of a being nesting an ice for millennia in that mysterious world. I meant to seek it out. I meant to ask you one question. Why? And demand an answer. I had no real sense of how long my journey would take. I could survive years on the dead and harvest my remaining thralls if need be. the ships I assumed would be reported missing. But as I surveyed the blank landscape of this southern reach,

I knew even if other ships were dispatched in search. We would not likely ever be found. I set my thralls the task of guiding the ship close to the continent. If our ship sank, I would need to wait perhaps for decades or centuries, haunting a downed vessel in the icy waters, until curious tides shifted my soul to shore. I had lived two thousand years. In the past, I had been struck by the appropriateness of a place

and simply stood or sat for an entire season regarding it. I spent an autumn in the hills of Kentucky watching leaves turn green to red to gold to dead from a cave's mouth. I lay on a belly bloated with blood in the man-made caverns of Cepidon. Ocea encountered the shadows of raindrops carved on rock for a decade. I haunted bogs in Scotland, listening to the swamp heave, looking for answers to questions in the burbling of peat. I could wait.

True, I would grow faint, gaunt. The physical form would wither away, and in the end, I might be nothing more than a shadow on the ice. I could wait. The Vampire's History of Antarctica. There are multiple histories. Human history suggests a continent of Antarctica as a late discovery. That is true with regard to human history.

My kind possess other history books. Beneath London, there's a collection of scrolls secreted in certain underground caverns that have providence from Alexandria, Summer, and Athens. Several of our histories describe those who have journeyed to Antarcticaon voyages of discovery. It is unclear exactly what these vampires sought in most cases, though there is one case where the Voyager explicitly stated, their purpose. A short passage from the diary of the Viceroyce Count. It.

My purpose to sail south. Clues to. Origin. The outlines of our mother's story. Queen of the Edomu Our father mute The vice-count was of a different school of thought Of my own

Sometimes the culture of a place Can have too much the deletrious effect On a vampire's mind If they do not seek out new locales The vice-count had lived in England Among the Christians for too long, I think His long cohabitation amongst the priest there Made him associate the mother of all vampires with Lily

who was but a reflection of the Sumerian idamu, a frozen desert, mountains, in the interior, human acolytes, thralls on the trek, I persisted. So it is that several before me had gone looking for the first vampire, believing it to possibly reside in the center of this continent unexplored. We grow less gregarious, as the first vampire. as a rule over time. It's true. Logic would suggest that a very old vampire, the oldest, might seek out the most desolate wilderness.

Perhaps, mastering the art of living without sustenance for centuries, the creature might achieve a state of near permanent dormancy. More intriguing to me, could our father surpass the great requirements of indolence and sit a throne in the heart of icy wastes for a direct. beyond even the vampire's imagination. The thralls retained enough of their minds to guide the ship off the coast of the continent. We embarked on smaller ships to the shore. A troubled countenance passed collectively over the party of thralls upon arrival.

Enough of their humanity remained for them to know they would never leave Antarctica. The gravel shifted beneath my boots. The beach was surrounded by ice. Cliffs climbed to the sky and above them, higher planes, bright with ice. Black and white birds dressed in the mode of the tuxedo berated our party from a ledge. The thralls set about making a kind of humble camp for themselves, and I determined it would be best to let them rest. I am not one for cruelty, after all.

We headed inland with haste. It wasn't long before we encountered the first crevices, which troubled our path to rest of the journey. Once I saw a thrall fumble with a compass, stare up at me from the interior of his frost-laden coat, and stare back at the instrument. It froze to his hand, and he never set it down again.

So we lost him to our party, but he remained unlost to himself for all time, I suppose. They dragged the bodies of their erstwhile crewmates to me beneath the moon. And when thin night obscured my form, I drank their cold blood, fangs piercing frozen skin to steal. This stink of smoke and whale flesh clung to their corpses, and that question echoed off the cliffs of blue ice back into my skull. Why? I drank. The thralls died.

There was only one direction. Further. At the poles you are surrounded by direction, but they are senseless for the circle of desolation has only one true path. Center A month or maybe more into our journey, I sensed the voice. We were still distant from the inmost interior of the continent. The trek was slow, and though I blamed the physical limitations of my slaves, it was the geography of the place I'd underestimated which slowed our progress and war against the trek.

the remnants of my human form. After 2,000 years of life, you can still be a fool. But since I had no one to answer to, I didn't dwell upon this fact. I had neglected to read a few accounts of humans who had ventured on this desert land. I did not think about a simple fact.

All of the vampires who had come here before me, those who ventured past the coast for any considerable amount of time, had never returned. Thus, they provided noage graphic details of the land, which I could have employed to my own gain. How the Viscount's diary ended up in our library in Bucharest. I do not know.

No one does. I had called the thralls and left the half-dozen corpses in stock miles back. The two who remained to me were ground down. Their boots had frozen to their feet long ago and were chipping away. Chunks of their lower extremities cracked off. Frozen flesh clinging to cloth, and if anyone had been tracking us, they would not require much skill. For we left a crimson trail.

I found the blood on the earth calming, for it was the only change in the color and the landscape contrasting to a unified family of colors. Blue, gray, white, sharp, frozen, bleak. and the monotony of the sun on the ice and the howling wind had lulled me for many hours and I found myself on the verge of somnance even in the night muttering why why why during the long day when the sun was not covered in clouds and the surface did not sing with storm I buried myself beneath the bodies of the thralls and made a casket of barely living bodies and dreamed of heaps of dead on the fields of Antietam again and again.

And so it went, until I found the grotto. I wonder if someday will be discovered by man. I think not, though given enough time. Perhaps. At the bottom of the crevice, I sensed something barking at the edge of my mind. brother and sisters chanting in sibilant tones, mimicking the frigid winds, singing not to me, but some other. One of the thralls stopped at the lip of the cliff before me. I sent him to tumble over the edge.

The fall, only 20 feet or so, would not have killed him. But that his body, being frozen solid, shattered across the floor of the grotto. I stole into the man's eyes, which worked for a time. A pale light I could tolerate had begun to show in the morning, but did little to illuminate the floor of the caves below. I could hear louder that song of the howling wind, a song never heard before by man. I determined to go down to that song. Carefully I explored the rim of the cave, turning to my last thrott.

I grasped him in a brotherly embrace and sunk my teeth into his jugular. I saw relief on his face. Red shrieked against the subtle polychromy of gray lands, staining my hands. Drinking my fill, I descended. Alone again entirely, I levitated down to the floor of the ice grotto. Here it was darker, and I resolved I would likely spend the day here away from the sun. I turned around in a circle, listening and looking, and then began to walk towards where I sensed the song and power. It was soon that the crevice expanded into an amphitheater of sorts.

The hallway widening until a great circular area unfolded before me in the gloom, a structure not formed by nature. It was there. I saw my kin arrayed before me. I approached the first vampire and studied him. My ancestors were remarkably well-preserved being set inside the walls of ice itself, separated by regular distances as if placed there carefully by something much larger, like playthings or dolls. Their postures were set in an attitude of prayer, kneeling to something, bowing, their heads down.

I could hear their song. Though their lips did not move and their lips did not move, language was foreign to me. For the first time dread filled me. A dread different than the question, why? Because it seemed there might be an answer to the monosyllabic interrogative within the steadily repeating chant. This language was not of this world, not of the realms which lay beside it either. The places humans call hell or heaven. This is no angelic tongue, harpses. It was no angelic tongue, like Baroque with clear sounds sharp as ruins, nor was it the resonant dialect of the satanic, smooth as trance. It was something which had invaded the souls of my brethren,

for I was sure that the dozen or so bodies I studied were all like myself, the ones who had come seeking through the centuries. On the opposite end of the amphitheater, there was a tunnel that led further into the ice and down. I nearly left off the place, turning back then. For a vampire, however, curiosity is one of the few analgesics we have at our disposal, so I persisted. Against any reason I could fathom in this tunnel, the temperature began to increase. The corridors seemed to respire from something deep below.

Hieroglyphs, which I could not read, made me imitate a shiver, piercing the sides of the channel which I walked. A very faint part of me, which two thousand years ago was human, screamed to turn back, to seek out the company of man and to do as little harm as possible, to live among them. But no. Finally before me lay the sovereignty of solitude which I sought, and the answer to the question why, if I had only stayed. There were among my brethren.

Maybe I could have learned the song. But then in time, I'm sure I would have been taught the lyrics which would have driven me beyond madness. Another voice began to shriek its accompaniment and counterpoint and now I felt myself pulled further into the icy bowels of this place. I reached out my hands. My nails scratched trails on the corridor. I have seen madness in man. and I have seen madness in my kind.

Battle rage, the berserker way, a Caesar who bathed in blood nightly, though he was not a vampire. And there are inflictions of the spirit amongst vampires and even some common men, which are so rare it would take me time to describe. Can you imagine what seizures of the spirit can occur to one of my own

who is buried alive for centuries? Can you comprehend centuries in the company of the dying? But what I saw in the grotto was the shadow of unspeakable things. The air grew old. The tunnel widened. The chanting of the song was irate, though I had put distance between myself and the buried. Father, I called. Mother, I called.

No progeny. or mine was found there, but something elder to everything I've witnessed. I once knew a vampire who watched the walls of Jericho fall. I once knew a vampire who lived beside the Indus, of the people we call Harapan. He was well over 5,000 years old, and speaking to him was like listening to the role of the dice in interpreting chances numerals. I heard another claim they had met a vampire. who heard Adam relate the story of his leaving the Garden of Eden.

What lay before me, obscured by darkness, so thick my eyes could not penetrate. May these all seem so young? A thing which knew no hunger. It began to edge around my mind, and even the first alien syllable of its story was enough to make me scream out and scrabble backwards weeping. At the heart of this place was something too old to bear. As I ascended, pulled back, lured back into that being who was the song and the writer of the song and the one praised by the song, I understood the ruins. This was the layer of the one who was patient.

And as I fled, I began to understand the language it spoke. It offered to answer my question. It had an answer to millennia of blood and cruelty and waste. It could answer. And I knew then the question why was the gift where we shelter. Man, whale, vampire, all. And the answer is the only horror. It took all my reserves to launch myself from the pit,

and I would have died in the light of the day if the sun did not hide its face behind clouds and imitation of my horror. I ran until I had to discard my human form. Flying at night is wraith, falling, fluttering, exhausted, scuttling over ice. Memories of centuries assailed me, though now impervious to geography or temperature. During the day I lay curled upon myself, leathery wings covering my head and eyes, sobbing through a type of half-sleep of the disembodied, struggling to forget what I had heard in the grotto and failing.

I might have stayed for months or years. I did not know until finally I came to a cliff which spilled a river of blood onto the ice and into the sea. It was night, and the sweet hush of the scarlet river soothed my mind. I drank from it. the taste of salt and the memory of star blood. I slept beneath it for many years, drinking in the red against the desert of white, blue,

and song which I still hear on the edge of the wind. I still hear the word, why, in the wind, the tearing cold wind where I see my ancestors, their bodies blown to pieces by the land. We have gathered near this, red water fall of iron. It reminds us all these disinherited remnants of vampires of the warmth of blood. Our tongues are numbed and strangled by formlessness. We laugh at nightfall. We are haunted by that offer of an answer. It was the word in the mouths of the dying and Antietam.

In the oceans of the world and everywhere man has congregated in unholy. Holy masses. Humans come here now in certain seasons. They arrive by ship and stare at the strange waterfall. Do they sense us, the dispossessed, gathered here? There might arrive a chance to seize one, to drink again and restore my body and return home. And if not, I pray someday, add my story to the library. beneath the city of London. For your bonus episode, Creepy Presents, the last Toys R Us, written by Juan Cardenas, and narrated by Cole Burkart.

I was given a dare. Break into the abandoned Toys R Us in Queens. My friends would wait for me by the movie theater right next door. I needed to bring them something from inside. Any type of fixture, shelving piece, something cool. It's a big shiny glass building, dark and imposing, but still bright and playful with its blue sign with yellow and red lettering. The justiposition was stark and somewhat beautiful.

The door was locked, but I was persistent. I had some experience with lockpicking, and after a few minutes I heard the satisfying click of the lock. on the sliding door opening. I slid the door open just enough for me to squeeze through. I took one last look around me. The pools of light from the parking lot lamps were dim and few, and there were only a few headlights on the nearby freeway.

It was so empty. I swore it felt like the city had gone and fallen asleep. Inside, it was remarkably warm, almost humid. It was too dark to see anything beyond the threshold of the front. I used my phone light to shine into the place. There was a thick layer of dust, too much dust on the ground, and I could hear a distant humming, like an engine, constant. Walking in, it didn't seem to get louder.

It was almost comforting. I think the last time I was in this Toys R Us, I must have been ten or twelve, and my sister came in here with her boyfriend. Instead of wanting to play with me while our parents shopped, they took me here to look at and play with toys. It was fun. I remembered spending so much time putting dolls in my cart,

even though we weren't planning on buying them. I kept walking, because I couldn't find anything in the dark, but torn receipt papers, broken down plastic shelving, and non-distripped straps of furniture pieces, chair legs, baby cribs, just strewn about. I could just vaguely make out a door in the distance, with ever so slight slivers of light coming off them. Victory, I thought.

My friends will be so impressed with me. The door was a heavy white door. In deep dashes, it said genius low sigh on it. It took some effort to pull it open, but when I did, I suddenly couldn't see. Light rushed out like wind. It was so blinding. I, for some reason, remembered being too young to speak,

and I'm in a push cart, a plush teddy bear on my lap. I wouldn't let it go. My mom, by herself, and on hard times, just draped her coat over it and walked out with it. I played with it for years. My eyes got used to the light as I entered into a neon wonderland. The colors were so vibrant, so intensely familiar.

The lettering, the signs in blue, red, and yellow. Nothing muted or tan or dark, bold color like out of a kid's crayons. Rows of pristine new toys. Teddy bears, R.C. cars, skateboards, plush animals of all kinds, almost littered the area in front of me, which was not possible. The building was not nearly as big as the space I just stepped into. I turned around, and that door was gone, just more aisles and tiled retail floor. In between it all, a ferris wheel, towering and dominating the space.

Beyond it, more levels, uncountable floors of toys and games. Blurry with detail and overwhelming mass, it was painful to stare at. With the blue reverse R in the middle of the Ferris wheel and pulsing arrow lights on the spokes, the lights blinked on and off in a sensory overloading array of excess. I could see each passenger dondola was something different, pink and white Hello Kitty, blue, green, and red M&Ms, brown Mr. Potato Head, and there were figures in there, facing away, sitting silently. I couldn't make them out at this distance, this impossible distance.

Why was this store suddenly so massive? I didn't even think the flagship store was this big. I start walking towards the Ferris wheel. I can feel eyes coming from the cookie monster plushies, action figures, and the Lego people. Their gaze is real. It's heavy and taxing to be looked at by them, but I trudge on. I approach the Ferris wheel. Maybe whoever is on it can tell me what's going on.

But as I looked at the individuals, some kids, some adults, some dressed in hoodies and sweats, some in disco clothes, summon thick coats. I realize they have no faces to speak of. I gasp and run away from these figures. They don't give chase. They're just sitting in the Ferris wheel, as it limply spins around. I can hear the crunch of plastic being broken and moved aside.

Somewhere. I try to go away from the sound. There's an ice cream shop, empty, but when I look over at the freezer, They're filled to brim with tubs of ice cream. As I'm trying to open the case and see if it's real, I can hear the crunching come closer, and something heavy lands on the ground behind me.

An animatronic Tyrannosaurus rex is stalking me. It was brown and probably about ten feet tall. It moved like it was real, but I could see dears and steel on its legs, and every now and then a spark would fly out of its eye socket. It looked old and in pain. It had bits of its flesh open to reveal metal and certitude tree. It let out a metal grinding of a roar.

I ran. I tripped. I hit my head really hard on the white-tiled floor. I saw myself. I was a child. I see the same T-Rat's animatronic, but it's just a placid dinosaur, opening and closing its mouth in a corner as kids stand in front of it for pictures, parents with real non-phone cameras. It stares at me for just a second too long before turning its head. It's the Christmas season, and I can feel the cold, wet, gray sidewalk of Manhattan. The glimpse is over, and I'm starting to...

scrambling to my feet. It's dark again. The toy store at night without any of the super bright lights shining into my retinas anymore. I noticed the same T-Rex, covered in dust and on the floor, splayed out harmless but still menacing on the ground. I walk around it. The shelves are empty, the signs are missing letters. I can only see a few feet in front. There are a big, wind windows letting in moonlight. I try to look outside, but I just did a headache. I look away and start walking. I vaguely remember that I had to get back outside, back to my friends at the movies, but my head is still spinning from falling. Don't lie to yourself. Not anymore. There are no friends waiting for you in the movie theater. Said a disembodied voice.

There is nobody there. It continued. You came here because you are coming home, because you are not one of them. Hello? Who's there? I say. The voice goes quiet. Suddenly in front of me is a figure,

wearing a business suit and without a face. He doesn't speak, but I can hear his voice. booming in my head. You cannot leave. I ran back to where I came. Suddenly, it is bright and shiny and daytime again. It is 1978.

Jeffrey, the giraffe, is greeting me as I enter a store. It is a hot and humid day in Orlando. He's waving. I run through the store. My mom is screaming at me to slow down. This isn't me, is it? I think. It's present again. The figure is in front of me again. Even without a mouth, it is speaking to me clearly. Please, let me go, I implore. I cannot, he said. Please, I have a family. I have friends on the outside waiting for me. If you can just... What are your friends' names? Uh...

I stammer. I lose focus. Somehow I cannot remember. Like there's just a big hole where my friends are. It hurts to try to remember them and their faces. Who are your parents? Your siblings. Do you know your address? What did you do yesterday? I started to hyperventilate. I was on my knees now, straddling. to breathe. I am not one of them, I said. I, I was always here. Then I got lost. I went out, I went out there. Stay here. Stay here, stay, said the figure. He's my father? He's my mother? I am a five-year-old boy. My dad is a Chinese immigrant in Vancouver. He has taken me here to buy a new Lego set. It's so exciting I can't stop fidgeting.

There is no sky. I cannot fathom it. I'm a 15-year-old girl in a wheelchair. The Sony PlayStation has just come out. Dad is taking me here to pick out which games I would like. He has no face. I'm two years old. I let go of my dad's hand.

and started taking out all the stuffed bears from the display. He is a very short Middle Eastern man, but to me he is a giant. He is not amused, but he is also hesitant to stop my fun. He doesn't know what to do since Mom died. I don't understand this. I'm a 16-year-old. I am a boy, but I know in my heart I'm not. I'm stalking the shelves with Tittle-me- Elmo dolls.

I don't know it yet, but I'm a little bit. they're trying to be sold out soon. I don't mind the work, and it's secretly fun to see all these toys I'm too old for, but I won't tell anyone. This is the last job I ever enjoy. I'm walking down these aisles, and I walk a million steps with a million upon a million parents, babysitters, or just my own, and it is all a joy that can never be matched again.

The joy of a memory that sets a bar that is never to be touched. A warm feeling you can revisit, but never fully experience. I'm a memory that thought it was a man. I don't want to grow up. I am a Toys R Us kid. The store is closed and empty. Everything is dark and quiet. Even the quiet hum of the cars on the freeway seems too quiet for New York City.

Some people claim that if you visit the abandoned Toys R Us in the middle of the night, you can faintly hear the sounds of footsteps inside and the jingle of an old tune, a memory we cherish in childhood, but can never truly revisit. 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-life 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 stories author.