Creepy - Mouse & Phrogging

Episode Date: January 9, 2025

Mouse***Written by: No One of Consequence and Narrated by: Nate DuFort***Phrogging***Written by: Aurora and Narrated by: Rissa Montanez***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.

No. This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepypastas and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened or are simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. He presents, Mouse,

written by known of consequence, and narrated by Need to Fort. A few days ago, my sister Rika went missing. I've called her phone dozens of times, but it goes straight to voicemail. Neither it's been turned off, or the battery is dead,

so tracking it won't work. Not that I really know to do anything like that. I'm just a blue-collar Joe and don't know the first thing about electronics, aside from how to use them for their intended purposes. Look, I know she's a grown-ass woman and can live her own life, but since our parents died when she was 16, I've looked after her as best as I can.

I'm only a few years older than her, but looking after my sister is something my dad ingrained in my brain at an early age. She was a bit of a bookworm in school and an easy target for the popular assholes, so she got picked on a lot. Me? I got in trouble a lot and suspended a few times for putting those pricks in their place. I was never afraid to get physical, and Rika was never afraid to tell me exactly what happened to her. She may have been made a victim plenty of times, but she never stayed quiet about it, at least not with me. me. There isn't anything she wouldn't tell me. No secret too dark. Since she graduated, the need for me to beat the crap out of douchebags like that dwindled down significantly.

Not completely, mind you, but plenty enough. Rikas' taste in men hasn't ever been that great, and the first time she called me to say that her boyfriend had hit her. I was in my truck and driving before I got off the phone. When I got there, I tuned him up pretty good right in front of Rika, and it eventually turned into a pursuit as he tried to get away from me. He didn't get far. Let's just say that guy hasn't been seen since. I will neither confirm nor deny that he's dead, just that he's not around to cause her

problems anymore. I kind of like that people have thought. think I'd go that far to protect my sister. We know some unsavory people thanks to where we grew up, so it makes potential predators hesitate before approaching her. The fuckhead that dared to lay a hand on her was Randall, and he caused Rika a lot of problems before that night. He used to show up to her work and made a scene for no damn reason, accusing her of cheating on him with her co-workers and generally being toxic to the point that he needed to be disposed of at a nuclear waste facility. I'm not saying that's where he is, but he sure is hell deserves to be.

Seriously, I bet my share of despicable people, and he was high on the list. Over the last six months, Rika's been working as a secretary at a car manufacturing facility. Things have been going really well for her there, but her personal life, still a bit of a nightmare. And every time I see her, which is at least every two weeks for dinner, she's telling me about a new guy she's dating. None of them lasts very long, and I don't get a lot of information about them, so it's not like I can just go around and rouse them to see if they had something to do with her disappearance. Once she stops seeing someone, they might as well drop off the face of the earth. Greek has had a handful of friends and I've reached out to all of them.

So far, no one knows where she went, who she could be with or why she randomly took off. They haven't heard of her hooking up with a new guy or anything like that, but they're keeping a lookout for any movement on her social media and all that kind of thing. I filed a missing person's report with the police, but so far, there's been no movement on that. It's only been three days since I last saw Rika. I'm starting to get worried. We had our regular dinner together on Friday, but later that night, I came across an old box of her stuff in the attic from our parents' place and thought she might want it.

When she didn't respond to my text message after an hour, I called her only for her voicemail to immediately pick up. Then I went to her place and found the front door unlocked and the apartment, empty. Her car wasn't in her assigned parking space either. Today I'm at the manufacturing plant she works at talking with her office mates. None of them know anything about where she's been and don't know of anyone she's been seeing. They all agree it's not like her to miss work like this. And the six months she's been there, she's never been late, let alone missed a whole day,

even if they work some demanding hours. It's not your typical nine to five, forty hours a week kind of job. hearing the same thing I've been hearing from everyone I start asking the harder questions do they know of anyone that has a problem with Rika perhaps an ex-boyfriend that won't stop calling maybe someone from the plant floor it's been overly flirty and maybe gotten a little handsy

anyone taking a particular interest in her that maybe she hasn't even been aware of that last question does spark something with the office workers There is someone here that has an interest in Rika, but she's aware of it. No one knows his real name, but everyone calls him mouse. He permanently works on the night shift, and most of the guys on the floor don't like him for one reason or another. None of them know anything about the guy, but from what they've heard, he's too quiet and sticks to himself. Well, this mouse just went to the top of my list.

You know who's too quiet and sticks to themselves? Someone up to no good. Okay, the logical part of my brain knows that's not even remotely true, but my sister's missing, and I'm not going to let a potential lead go. So far, I've come up with absolutely nothing, and I'm grasping at straws. But I've got to do something. I head down to the floor and talk with some of the employees. The floor operates on a swinging shift, so every month.

month, they switch from days to nights and back. For some reason, Mouse doesn't and stays on the night shift, the only employee that does this. Even the supervisor swing shifts. But not this guy. They tell me about them and I don't like what I'm hearing. Mouse is 6-1, weighs 300 pounds and is built like a linebacker. No one's heard the guy say more than two words to anyone. And the word is, He gets paid better than anyone, though no one really knows why. He's also got the easiest job on the floor, which tells me the guy has to be connected or something. Neither that or he's just one seriously mean son of a bitch, because one thing everyone is in agreement about is that the guy looks mean and menacing as hell.

I can just imagine it. A guy like that, watching my sister from afar, keeping tabs on her and learning her routine. He's probably the kind of guy that doesn't sleep so he can spend the daylight hour stalking her. I wouldn't put it past him to have photos of her from a distance or even hand-drawn pictures of Rika hanging on his walls. Would he bother drawing her dressed or is he the kind of sick fuck to draw her naked? Maybe he takes it farther and draws her in the throes of violence tied up and helpless, possibly bleeding. It gets my blood boiling. I watch a lot of crime dramas, so I know the messed up things fucked up people do.

Makes me think of those young punks from school that used to pick on Rika and how I'd humiliate them in front of the school, or, when I really needed to make my point, find them after school. There's this one football player, a big, tough prick that uses size and popularity to intimidate girls. I know of at least three girls he's sexually assaulted, but as far as I know, he never did anything like that to Rika, and I made sure he never would. I didn't kill him, but I did cut him in ways that made him useless to a woman. I leave the plant and try to come up with the plan, but all I can do for the rest of the day

is think about the sick things this guy could be doing to my sister. It's not like I can look up his address or anything since I don't know the guy's damn name. Instead, I keep trying to reach Rika, but her phone still goes right to voicemail, and none of her friends have heard from her. The cops don't have anything new either. I think about mentioning Mouse, but I've worked myself up into a frenzy too much, and I want to have a word with that son of a bitch before the cops get their hands on them. The night shift rolls in at seven, but I wait until 11 to sneak in. One of the guys on the floor tells me Mouse spends most of his time in a, utility room at the top, four floors up and overlooking the plant. While a few dozen people

move around the floor, I sneak my way up the catwalks and stairs. When I get to the room that has a window overlooking the plant, I enter as quietly as possible. The room is lit up with a single bulb in the middle of the five-by-five room. There's a desk against the far wall next to a ladder leading to the roof. Sitting at that desk is a very large man with short hair, a big forehead that hangs over his eyes a little too far, and a weird look on his face. It's definitely mouse.

He has a black marker in his hand, and I see the drawing he's working on. The artwork is crude, but it definitely looks like Rika. Then I notice all the other drawings hung up on the wall and my rage explodes. I launch myself at the big guy and start hitting him, screaming questions about what he's done with my sister. The big lug coweres as he takes the hits, crying out that he doesn't know what I'm talking about and begging me to stop, things like that.

I don't really hear him. My mind is already made up. He doesn't want to tell me what I want to know? Fine. Near the windows is a long chain looped around a thick pipe along the ceiling. I grabbed the chain and wrap it around it. around Moose's neck as he coweres on the floor. It takes some effort, but I get the big monster to his feet and shove him through the window.

The chain gets talked as he reaches the end, and it stays that way. I guess wrapping it around his neck three times was enough to hang him by. The noise from the floor is loud enough that no one heard me beating the shit out of this guy, but I'm sure someone noticed mouse taking a swan dive out the utility room window and coming up short. I turned to go up the ladder to the roof. but a noise catches my attention. Looking at the desk, I hear it again, something small and quiet coming from the desk drawer.

Reaching over, I make sure not to get my prints on the drawer handles I pull it open an inch. It's enough for light to shine inside and show me the kitten inside. It looks up at me and meows, begging to be let out. I'm sure someone will find it when they come up to get mouse down. It'll get let go and thankfully not tortured or even eaten by the monster I just killed. As I make my escape, I berate myself for not getting anything out of the guy about my sister. All those drawings.

So damn many of them, he's clearly been obsessing over Rika. None of the office staff worked nights, but they're bound to have stayed late some days. Perhaps this mean bastard came in early and watched her or something. Knowing Rika, she was nice to him in passing and he fixated on her for it. I don't imagine people were often nice to him with the way he looked. His stature was more the type to induce fear. That being said, he didn't put up much of a fight or any for that matter. I guess this was his first time dancing with a man.

Even though I just killed the guy, I feel completely defeated. My sister's probably dead and buried in Mouse's basement or something. Unsure of what else to do, I go home. When I get there, I find the box that got me to call Rika out of the blue still sitting on my coffee table. Feeling lost, I open it and look at the contents. There's a bunch of random things like CDs, a T-shirt, a science trophy from her junior year, and a gray book. The book gets my attention because it's one of those personal journals with a lock on it. As I pick it up, I find the lock isn't engaged.

It opens to a random page and I find myself reading her words before I realize what I'm doing. According to the date, this was shortly after the time she called me about Randall. She recounts my altercation with him, saying how amazed she was that Randall folded so easily under my fists. so much so that she realized he wasn't as big or threatening as she originally believed him to be. A week after I beat the shit out of Randall, Rika called him up and asked him to come over to her place. When he got there, she gave him a beer that was laced with something that knocked him out in mere seconds. Then Rika proceeded to cover the entire living room with plastic and started cutting pieces off of Randall, little by little. According to what I read, it took her about eight hours to dismantle his body,

then another three hours to wrap the pieces, tear down and sanitize the room, then render everything down to nice, small, manageable parcels. As if reading this wasn't surprising enough, the next entries are about other sleaze bags she picked up in shady bars and did something similar to. By the time I get to the end of the diary, Rika's claim to have killed five people. Quickly, I grab my keys and get my ass over to her place. For as long as I can remember, my sister has kept a diary, and I need to get my hands on the others.

If the cops get their hands on these in the course of their investigation, her secret's going to come out. Even if she is dead, I don't want anyone knowing this about her. Well, I have to admit, at least a little. myself, there's more to it than wanting to protect my sister's image. I'm curious how many more there could have been, and how the hell she's gotten away with it for so many years. I knew my anger and rage was genetic,

but I never thought Rika got any of that, let alone became a goddamn serial killer. When I get to her apartment, I let myself in without thinking about it. I didn't notice any cop cars in the parking lot, So I assumed no one would be inside. I was very wrong, and at seeing someone standing in her kitchen looking very surprised to see me, I realized I was wrong about a lot.

Marty, have you ever heard of knocking? But what are you doing here so late anyway? Rika asks with a steaming mug of coffee in her hand. I don't say anything as I move across the living room. I just wrap her in my arms and thank God she's all right. This alarms her, so I get her to sit down, and we have ourselves a much-needed conversation. On the upside, I know exactly where to begin. I do express a need for complete honesty in all aspects, and I put a lot of emphasis on all.

After we had dinner on Friday, Rika went to a bar and met a new guy. They headed off right away, and she brought him back here, where things are going to be. got physical. While they're in bed together, the guy got really rough with her, after which she kicked his ass out. I stop her there, because I'm not buying it, not after reading her diary. To prove to her I know more than she's letting on, I hand her the diary I've already read and ask if she'd like to be straight with me. I even tell her I love her still, despite her extracurricular activities. Killing some low-life douchebags isn't going to change that. It does surprise me that I'm so accepting of this,

but it's probably because I'm so relieved to see her alive and well. Okay, so they had rough sex, but she didn't kick him out. Once they were done and he was laying in bed and enjoying the afterglow, Rika stuck him in the neck with a needle full of drugs. The guy was out in seconds, and she stuffed him into a steamer trunk. Using a dolly to get him down the stairs, she loaded the trunk into her car and drove to a self-storage unit outside a town.

The unit's rented in a different name and isn't part of a chain, so it's kind of low rent, meaning there's no security cameras. Instead of using her apartment as her killing grounds, Rika has the storage unit set up like an illegal surgical suite. The only difference is she's not here to perform surgery. but to torture, kill, and dismember.

Normally she can have her fun and clean everything up by Sunday afternoon, but there's something different about this guy. She took a lot of time with him, prolonging his death nearly a full day before ending it. It turns out the guy was a dirty cop, and he'd had his fair share of crooked activities, extortion, murder, both regular and statutory rape, evidence planting, drug mulling, and a bunch of other shit.

Rika made him confess to every little thing he'd done in his life from the first time he stole a candy bar when he was eight to planning on strangling her to death during round two of their rough sex night, which they obviously never got to. I appreciate her being so candid with me, but there's a few things I need to address here, like Mouse's obsession with her and if she was aware of it. If her MO is to go after creepy, sadistic sickos, then why hadn't she done anything about Mouse?

Was killing someone from work against the rules she has so clearly set up in her head? Mouse? Why would I do anything to him? He's got a crush on Alicia, not me. Now that she mentions it, one of the women I talked to in the office did look a lot like Rika and Mousse's drawings were crude. Oh, holy shit. Did I kill him for no goddamn reason?

Please tell me that's not the case. I'm distraught and it shows. It's my turn to tell Rika what I've been up to since she disappeared. When I finish, she drops a bomb on me. Oh, God, Marty, tell me you didn't really do that to Mous. You want to know why everyone calls him that? It's because HR made everyone stop calling him Lenny, like the character from Of Mice and Men. Mouse, real name Joel Schneider, was the nicest, gentlest person you'd ever meet.

He had some kind of mental handicap and was slower than middle schoolers, but he wouldn't hurt a fly. He just looked intimidating, and people were afraid of him because they didn't understand him. I get to the sink and violently throw up. I could deal with my sister being a serial killer, but me killing a mentally disabled man because I rushed a judgment? I don't think I can live with that. Creepy presents. Frogging.

Written by Aurora and narrated by Rissa Montanaz. There are rats in the walls. It has to be. I hear them scurrying around at night, gnawing on the wood, burrowing. in the insulation. I lie in bed at night, and I hear them. I listen for them, for their tiny paws and even smaller claws

to start scratching on the plywood, on the plasterboards around my bed. Sometimes I'll worry, they'll run across the bed at night, over me. And I wake drearily in the bleak hours of early morning, fully convinced I felt their soft touch on my naked skin. A fat tail in my calf, Sharp claws on my shoulder, their breath on my ear, but there's never anything there.

Perhaps at times, when my imagination gets the better of me, I conjure something from the darkness. A black silhouette, retreating back into the shadows fleeing from my sight. Always in the corner of my eye just out of reach. And that, too, worries me. But then again, it is a strange house and maybe I am a bit strange too. The house belonged to my grandma on my mother's side, and I inherited it, along with her ancient Lincoln Town car. There was a few months ago when she passed away from cancer. The cancer, my mom always said, like it was a thing akin to the boogeyman,

something monstrous that crept up and hunted her down, slain her and slain her and her own bed. And in a way, I guess it had. No matter what you put before it, cancer had ended her life, filled up her lungs, her liver, her kidneys, and gallbladder. The funeral was beautiful, although I worried it might rain. My grandma spent most of her adult life in this house. She married young and became a widow soon after. My mother was the the only constant reminder of my grandma's short-lived marital bliss, and she was sent to boarding school at a young age. Out of sight, out of mind. And although I think my mother has come to terms with the situation as a whole, the deep sorrow that consumed my grandma in her early

stages of adulthood left their relationship strained. How she and I connected on such a deep level, I'll never fully understand. But the worry, my worry, is surely a factor. She told me, once I started showing the symptoms, that we have a history for it. A family of warriors, of drunkards, and sorrowful souls. She had looked at me, seen me, and soothed me with her words. We as a family have a history. We as a history. We as a history. with it, sound and healthy bodies, but unfortunate sickness-prone minds. My mother and her mother before all struggled with it. Your mom as well had her fair share of worries and dark thoughts. But think not of that, but instead about how lucky we are that we have each other to lean on, Emma,

in hard times, such as now, to have a family that truly understands. Her words. Her words. stuck to me and healed over something that was cracked, at least for a while. Then they found the cancer. Healthy bodies, no more. And then she died and left me in all of this, in this big empty house, alone and aching, worried. The house sits upon a big green yard, the same as the houses surrounding it. Old gardens, old houses, all beautifully demanding the space they take up. My grandma's house, my house, is a big beast with a basement, two stories and a full height attic. It looms over the neighborhood, staring out across the yards with big leaded windows for eyes. Windows that seem to be watching. Keeping track of the neighborhood residents.

incidents. Wisteria clings to the brick walls, its roots burrowing their way into the mortar, and during summertime it turns the otherwise red brick house into a purple oasis. There's hydrangea, too, and rose bushes in the flower beds. Each year, they spread a bit wider, taking up a little more space. In spring, tulips and snowdrops burst through the lawn, popping up along the wooden fence and closing the garden. Down the back, just beyond the small stone wall, which marks the border for where my yard ends and the unclaimed municipal clearing starts,

you can see lilies of the valley, flowers in abundance each spring. They too spread a bit wider each year, and they grow wilder and more uncombed. She loved it that way, my grandma. And I love it too. There isn't a more beautiful view in all of the country, I'm sure. The house itself, though, is a nightmare.

Let in the paint, asbestos in the glue and mortar, radon in the concrete. The decontamination itself would be the price of a new house. Old pipes and questionable insulation occupy my every waking thought. The electrical wiring scares me half to death if I think about it for too long. It is a shame, but it is such a beauty that I can almost ignore the carcinogenic secrets resting in between bathroom tiles and furry carpets. Almost. But then again, I am a worrier. For the most part, I worry about my future. The economy, whatever's left of the housing market, about how even the best realtors in town walk through my front door looking anxious at the

thought of placing this giant up for sale. No one can afford anything, and no one can move. We are all in the same predicament, stuck in whatever home we currently find ourselves in. No matter how small or grand, it worries me. But everything does. I started finding the wasps a week after I moved in. At first, there were just one or two. to dried and dead on the window-sill.

I'd look them over as I scooped them up and discarded them in the trash. I'd worry about wast nests and leave my thoughts at that. Then slowly, I started finding more. There were three on the coffee table in the living room. Sprawled out on the doyly my grandma took such care not to stain. Seven in the drawer to my bedside table. Brittle and dead. I found five one morning in the downstairs bathroom, laid out in a small pile on the checkered tile floor.

I push that worry from my mind. I worry too much. I swear I can hear the buzzing at times, quick, drawn out, and bursts up to. I just push the worry away. I keep cleaning them, sweeping them up, and discarding them, never letting myself linger on their missing wings. and I tell myself, Nothing good can come from my worries. One evening, though, after a day spent sorting through whichever boxes of old books I were to keep,

and which I planned to hand over to the Antiquarian Society in town, I heard the buzzing once more. On my hands and knees, crawling on the dusty carpet in the library, I followed it. Every once in a while, the buzzing would cease, and I would freeze up, hold my breath, and angle my head every which way to pick up the faint noise. The quick buzz-buzz moved under the carpeted floor of the library,

into the dining room and toward the first floor landing. Inexplicably, my heartbeat picked up, pulse starting the beat in my ears. My skin grew flushed and my nostrils flared. The worry inside me hammered between my ribs. and I sat back on my knees, watching the cellar door. My body was on high alert. My mind was racing.

The adrenaline pumping through my body made my hands tremble, and the silent house seemed to grow eerily still. And then a soft creek made me jump, and I clutched my hands to my chest, the feeling of panic taking over. My body, preparing to flee. I stayed there in what must have looked like a prayer to the cellar door, until the evening spread throughout the house.

The buzzing had stopped, and my heart had settled. The worry then grew controllable and docile as my rationality stepped in. Feeling silly and slightly overdramatic, I had gotten up, stretched, and dusted the dirt from my jeans. I had almost made it out to the landing before the last, whispering worry of a thought had caught me in its snare. But, feeling bold after my ridiculous behavior earlier, and in an attempt to disprove whatever monstrous scenario I had imagined taking place,

I had walked right up to the cellar door and swung it open. Whatever smile of ease left my face froze, and I grew cold to the very bone. I left in a hurry that night. neither wallet nor jacket on me as I fled to my sister's house for the week following. She was the one who had found Dr. Lynch and set up an appointment. She was the one that had forced me to attend, as she went on and on about how she worried about me falling into old ways,

now that grandma was gone. I had tried to attest to explain my sudden behavior, my fear, my worry. But neither she nor a Dr. Lynch seemed inclined to indulge. my worry the way that I did. Having prior problems with one's mind seems to give your surroundings a permanent sense of pity. Poor Emma. Back at it again with her issues. Had I told them, it might have been different, but I doubt it. It would be, poor Emma, now she's really lost it. Let's lock her up again and forget about her until her mind turns right. So I had swallowed the words,

choked them down my throat and started taking the pills Dr. Lynch prescribed me until my worries, whispers, slurred, and fell quiet. But at night, in my dreams, I see them. Ten dead, wingless wasps laid out in a perfect row

on the cellar steps. Dr. Lynch and my sister had talked me off the ledge of selling at a loss. Where would I go? they asked. What could I truly do? My sister had walked me up to the front door and looked at me with that stern look of hers when the week was up. I don't think she has ever worried about anything. I worry for the both of us.

We make a good pair. Emma? Her tone had not been harsh per se, but it lacked warmth. I know this must be strange, living here. With all her stuff and things cluttering up the space, with suddenly owning a house, with bills and the smell of her perfume still in the living room, and I get it, but it could not spiral into whatever happened back then. Her voice wavered, almost cracked, like she was fighting back tears.

We don't address it. We do not talk about it. We never discussed my troublesome past. But looking at her then, I only felt ashamed. Shame for the past decisions I made in my teenage years. Shame for the inconvenience it still gives everyone around me today. Shame for thinking she never worries. A shame that I am someone that weighs too heavy on my family's minds.

It won't, I told her softly. And I haven't caused troubles for her since. Even though only a few months have passed, it's a start. And if the worry clings to me for too long, there is always Dr. Lynch and his pills. There are snakes in the basement. My friend's dog got bit by one today. It's got to be. She had brought him along since we were planning on making it a full day together,

sorting through the decades of a collectible junk my grandma left behind in the basement. I had prepared the moving boxes, the sharpies, the tape, and the box cutters. They were all laid out on the old carpet. on the first floor landing. As a kid, I spent scorching summer days playing between the shelving storage, encapsulated by those four cooling basement walls. The whiff of something old and dusty,

mixing with that familiar, comforting smell of the basement, all draping my senses. The dim light from cobwood-clad porcelain bulbs spread a soothing, warm glow and turned my eyelids heavy. And the soft creaking from the ceiling, as I could hear my grandma making her way through the house, left a big impression on me as a child. Nostalgia had us talking into the late summer evening.

The basement and its junk, forgotten. Dexter, her old fat terrier, spent much of the day asleep in the back garden. I don't remember how we noticed he was missing, but once we did, we searched all over the house. Feudal in our search, we recouped on the first floor landing discussing where we should search next. Until we heard the growling, kind, meek little Dexter was growling, down in the basement. Dexter, come here, boy!

We had called out, making our way down the basement stairs, uncertainty filled me to the brim. My worry, awake and scratching at my uncertainty. sides. He would not stop growling. And as the steps groaned from the weight, we had instinctively grown quieter, left whispering for that dumb old dog. Texter, please. Come here, boy. My voice, shaky, as I had grabbed the hand of my friend, her eyes wide and searching for whatever could elicit such a noise from her precious baby. Turn on the light. she had whispered. I had wiped my sweaty palms and my jeans

before I began reaching for the light switch, trying to will courage into the movement. But before I could turn on the light, a startling yelp came from Dexter somewhere in the darkness, followed by a terrified shriek from my friend. Seconds later, Dexter came shooting past us and up the stairs. My heart was hammering wildly behind my ribs

and my adrenaline ran high. And we had quickly followed suit and shut the door firmly behind us, never looking back. Dexter had retreated into the living room, where we found him bleeding and licking his injured leg. We had rushed him to the emergency vet clinic

and paced tracks in the tiled waiting room as we waited for news on his status. The vet had assured us Dexter was going to be fine. A cut, not very deep or a bite, perhaps. It's hard to say. He could have been in a tussle with a snake. At times we see pets with wider cuts made from a fang that's gotten stuck in the wound. He had looked bored.

Tired, maybe? It's in a location on the front leg where we see a lot of snake bites happening. Honestly, I don't know what else it could be. A sharp snail, maybe, a shard of glass. It was in the basement, you said? Late into the night I had returned home, exhausted and wearing a film of sweat and grime. I had looked at the disarray on the first floor landing as I made my way toward the stairs.

On the moving boxes, laying in heaps, on the tape and Sharpie strewn about. It wasn't until the next morning that I worried. The feeling sinking its canines into the panic pulse point in my clammy neck about the box cutters, and whether or not I had seen them as I cleaned up the mess. I have raccoons going through the garbage, or maybe it's the rats. But I somehow doubt that. It sounds like something big. If my worry keeps me up late into the night, I can hear them rustling in the bushes outside my kitchen window.

At times, I even hear the clang from the metal where I imagine garbage clunks against the bin once they've found a real treat to devour. I've always found raccoons cute, sweet creatures, soft, in a strange way. When I hear the bins clank together and the feverish rustling, I picture them ecstatically burrowing down toward their treasured feast. In the mornings, when I take my coffee out the kitchen door to enjoy summer mornings in the backyard, I look over their havocing meeting with the garbage. Sometimes there's trash bags open. old food containers strewn about.

I don't mind. I pick up the trash and retie the open bags. I have been thinking about putting in a camera, just so that I can watch them at night. In my mind, I have this vision of them, a small family of raccoons, perhaps a mom and her babies. But the worry tells me not to bother with such things.

It might send the wrong signal. At times, I've left out plates for them. I know you shouldn't feed pests, but these I do not mind. The plate is always sparkling white in the morning. Pristine, licked clean. Only once have I believed myself to have seen one. Almost. Unable to sleep, I wandered through the darkened house late one evening,

allowing the moon and streetlights to offer their guiding lines. as I meandered through the rooms. I felt peaceful, calm, very much unlike myself. The worrying was slumbering somewhere deep inside, and I was free to enjoy my home. The peace and tranquility it offered. I made my way down the stairs and the floorboards creaked softly beneath my slipper-clad feet. Once I entered the kitchen, I poured myself a glass of water. And I sat at the table. It was a hot night. The air was stifled.

And I leaned across the table to open one of the windows to the back garden. And I sat there peacefully for a while, enjoying the cooling breeze which made its way into the room to caress my sticky skin. And that's when I heard them. It started out as a quiet rustling of plastic. But it quickly became feverish. Digging, scratching, gnawing, metal on metal as the bins collided with each other as the raccoons tore through the garbage. It sounded like there had to be a whole group of them. It sounded big.

My worrying awoke as I listened to it, distorting the sounds I heard, whispering in my ear about nonsense ideas, impossible scenarios. Ridiculous things. still my heart raced and my pulse beat in my ears and to prove myself to lay that stupid worry to rest once and for all I made my way to the kitchen door stupid silly foolish worry I cursed to myself as I froze only a door between me and the noise such a flimsy thin old door the panic was clawing up my throat shaking ever so slightly, I turned the lock. And the noise settled, waited, listened. Nonsense.

I took one quick breath and flung the door open. And as I peeked my head out the doorway, I saw something big retreating around the house, fleeing from sight. A sob broke out for me then and there, and I hurriedly grabbed the door and flung it shut, half convinced something would grab me and throw me out into the night. Slumped on the floor, panic crashed over me like waves against Rockwall.

The worry ate me whole. Consume my very being and gnawed at my sanity. Raccoons, they grow big, and bigger still when they eat as well as mine, I told myself. If not a raccoon, then a dog. A shepherd, a mast. A Newfoundland? It has to be.

My neighbor down the road has a big, mean dog. What is it? What is that stupid dog? A St. Bernard. That's it. A big, big dog. That is all. I soothed and hushed the worry.

But it did not help. I cried, curled him on the kitchen floor until there was nothing left in me, until my voice grew hoarse, and my lips grew chapped from the salty tears. I cried until the shadows retreated, and the first rays of morning caressed my streaky cheeks. I saw Dr. Lynch that day,

and left with a new pill to try for the worry. It helped. Soothed it down to something small and tiny. Of course it was raccoons, Dr. Lynch had said. Or a dog, maybe, though my bet is on a real, fat old raccoon, probably pregnant and extra feisty. What other options could it be? Truly.

Think crass and logically now, Emma. The world is not a mean old place where everything is out to get you. It all has sane, boring explanations even. You allow this worry of yours to wreak havoc in your mind. Control you. The most boring solutions are always the answers to your questions. Remember the rats? He looked at me with that, no nonsense allowed in my office look, and I felt foolish. You were so worried about the scratching, the shuffling in the walls, making it up into a behemoth of a thought. Nothing sort of monstrous and evil, but it had to be. You were so sure. But when we analyze the situation, what did we come up with? with. It's an old house, Emma, where your grandma lived well into a state where she was unable to

keep up with it. And what is the first thing to show up in old houses such as yours? Rats, I had whispered, avoiding his gaze. He was right, of course. I worry. I am a worrier, and had told him such. It's in my blood. Not to fret, he told me. We'll try something new to combat it. Something heavier this time, perhaps. Talking more to himself than to me, he grumbled on as he jotted down those thoughts of his on his notepad.

Sometimes I worry about what he wrote. I'll write a prescription, and you can go pick it up this afternoon. Be sure to ask the pharmacist how to best avoid any side effects. Now, Emma, what do you think you saw last night? Truly, with logic as your sound reasoning, at this he had looked at me, with hope, with kindness. And it made me feel more at ease. But the worry was clawing on my insides.

A dog, I told him. The pills Dr. Lynch prescribed helped me sleep soundly through the night. No more thoughts about rats or raccoons that kept me up into the late hours. My sleep was dreamless, like falling into the void each evening, disappearing into a darkness so compact, so inky black, that not even the worry could find me. The downsides were all the rest. It made my brain sluggish.

My thoughts jumbled in my mouth a pit of sand. I awoke each morning. and sure of whether or not I had woken up at all. The first few hours of the day felt like I was waiting through a dream. It moved against me like the current of a strong river, trying to drag me out into the sea. Nothing felt worrisome, but nothing felt real. One morning, I stepped on a pile of dried-up wasps,

laid out in a neat pile on the first floor landing. I had heard the soft crush underneath my slipper-clad feet. I had looked down, stared at the wingless creatures, observed them, and felt empty, void. I had waited for the worry to stir, for that familiar whisper in my ear of things being not right. And when nothing came, I simply left them there, crushed, scattered all over the floor. I did not even ponder on the fact that they seemed to have disappeared when ebbled. fell, talking it up to the overall growing list of things I seemed to forget doing.

For a while, I felt at peace with it. It was a welcome respite to not feel the worry, a proverbial clammy hands closing in around my neck. But then, once forgetfulness turned into blackouts, the worry came back. It started with misplaced items. my wallet, my phone, my keys, my grocery lists. It then moved over into forgetting whether or not I had loaded the dishwasher. Did I start it?

How could I forget the entire act of emptying it each time? The laundry became a quizzling puzzle to which I found no answer. Clothes were misplaced, found in the strangest of locations, and my towels were seemingly in a never-ending rotation between the washer. and drier. With the uncertainty of remembering my actions, the worry grew again. But it wasn't until I misplaced my medicine altogether that I booked a new appointment with Dr. Lynch.

I could never remember if I've taken it or not. But I feel like it's running out too quickly? I'm not sure why my sentence came out as a question. I'd spent the previous 45 minutes going on about my worry. How is it back? Despite the medicine? or because of the medicine. I feel like the worry is breaking through stronger,

even though you up my dosage. But then a lot of strange things have been happening lately. I told you about the kitchen knife I found behind the sofa, right? I mean, why would I leave it there? Or the dead mouse in my toilet? Did it climb up in there with the lid closed and drowned on all its own? Or today, when I couldn't buy my medication anyway, I thought, I thought someone...

And that's when I stopped myself. Dr. Lynch seemed to have grown distant during my monologue. Perhaps tired of my never-ending circle to seemingly grow better, only to turn worse. His eyes had grown glassy, and his gaze had wandered far away when I discussed my worry once more. I took focus on his pen, softly resting on his pointer and index, as he rolled it back and forth with his thumb. worrying about why he wasn't taking notes. Sheepishly, I stay quiet, awaiting his response. We sat there, sharing the silence as it stretched between us,

until his eyes grew focused again, and a soft blush stained his cheeks. Perhaps embarrassed he was caught slacking. He gripped his pen tightly and scribbled down something hastily, turning into the picture of professionalism once more. This time, it did not calm me, as it usually would. But he still sent me on my way with strict words to not abuse my medication and to stick to the correct dosage. And things should clear up.

Confused, I left his office and headed home. And here I've been, all day, festering in that worry. There's a retractable ladder up to the attic, accessible. by pulling on a small metal chain in the ceiling from the second floor hallway. I remember looking through countless old boxes during the summers when I came to visit. Photographs and old diaries, moth-eaten fur coats and old starch shirts, yellowed and peppered with holes. There were old toys as well, though broken, books and letters, boxes and boxes of letters, all sunbleached and brittle.

I remember the dust dancing through the room as the sun shone from the small stained glass windows. The smell of old and forgotten lives resting as mementos and memories in stained carton boxes all around me. I never worried back then. But I do now. I stare at the metal chain that I watch excessively each time I pass, swaying from side to side. I stand there. Frozen, alert, attempting to calm my racing heart, telling myself I worry too much, and there is nothing amiss in the house. My house. The house I know inside and out. Nothing amiss, except for the rats

and the dead wasps, the lead and the asbestos and the radon. Nothing more. It is simply a lost gust of wind that found its way inside and rattled the chain. Of course that's what it is, I tell myself. After all, I've opened almost every window in an attempt to air out the heat. It calms me, soothes the worry. I do not reflect upon the silence and how I cannot hear the rustling of leaves as I make my way into my bedroom. Defeat oozing from me like.

an infected wound. Tomorrow will be better. Lighter, calmer, nicer. I'll make a new appointment with Dr. Lynch, or maybe I'll call a realtor and just sell this old house for any scraps I can get, and move in with my sister and live in her basement. Despite myself, the dangling chain won't leave me be, and I firmly shut the door behind me before crawling into bed. Falling asleep is like a fever, and the feeling like an omen hangs across my neck, softly squeezing my wind pipes, making it harder to breathe. It's clawing its way up from the blackened pit in my stomach.

The worry is awake and ravenous. It woke me, and at first I was unsure of why I felt so scared. Then I heard it. The soft, trample, a quiet shuffling on the carpet downstairs. Like a footfall, the worry caught me then, and my fear became so real, so palpable, I barely dared draw breath, quick, slow, shallow or deep, how does one breathe as to not be heard? I am frozen to the marrow of my bones, yet I can feel the sweat running down my temple, the clammy feel of my palms.

My old shirt, sticking to me as a cottoned, second skin. I am unmoving. Unable to move? Why can't I move? The shuffling is making its way through the downstairs hallway. Is it pausing? Waiting? Listening?

There it is again. It is a rat, I tell the worry. Or a raccoon. Perhaps that blasted, St. Bernard has made its way into my house. But my tears sting bitterly as my body betrays my mind. It knows what I cannot think into existence. Still, I have to try.

To tuck and soothe this worry into a restful slumber once more. I am a worrier. I worry about my mom, my friends, this cursed house. I worry about the asbestos, the lead, the radon, I worry about there being rats in my walls and a beast of a dog, eating my trash. I worry about the hidden wasp nest I cannot find, and the snakes slithering down in the basement. I worry about my misplaced medicines and rust in the pipes. I worry about the missing knives and the dangling attic chain.

I worry about the noise making its way up the stairs. The soft creaking of the floorboards, bending under a heavy. Wait. My heart is beating so quickly and it is making me feel faint, or maybe that's the lack of oxygen from trying to hold my breath. The fear sits on top of me like a heavy concrete block, and I cannot move. I cannot think. Trying to form a thought is like trying to catch mist. I feel heavy and light all at once, and all I am is a writhing, gnawing, festering black hole of worry. outside my bedroom door. I can hear it breathing. Do I dare peek? Does one open their eyes in a situation such as this? Look upon the monster that has made its way inside? Should I keep them

closed? Pretend to be asleep? The worry cannot tell me what to do. What do I do? I hold my breath once more as I hear the soft click from the turning of my doorknop. My pulse screams in my ear, and I feel a warmth seeping down my thigh. But as the hinge creaks in my bedroom door swings open, it all goes very still, quiet. I hear then the heavy wet breaths feel the vibrations from silent footfalls on the wooden floor, reverberating up the bed and throughout my body. the smell of unwashed skin and dirty clothes reach me and i feel the air tense and expectant as something moves through it towards me there's nothing left to do nothing i can do it is all too late i should have listened to the worry should have heaved and caved in i feel my bitter regretful tears as they caress my cheek.

I pull one ragged, shuddering last breath of air and open my eyes in an attempt to look to see before he is on me. 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

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