Creepy - Mr. Morris Digs a Hole

Episode Date: September 14, 2026

Mr. Morris Digs a Hole***Written by: Jules Rowlen and Narrated by: Nate DuFort***Content warning: abuse, suicide, animal cruelty***Note: this story is a sequel to the story "Hell Hounds"***Old Haunts***Written by: Cameron Sauder and Narrated by: Nichole Goodnight***Content warnings: child abuse, suicide***Prepared with Love***Written by: Vesper Sange*** Support the show at patreon.com/creepypod***Title music by: Aled Aldea Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. Please join me in welcoming and thanking new patrons.

Deathstroke Constantine, Johnny Knight, Vicky D., Catherine Woody, Natalie Schneider, Katie Soja, and Gray Area. All patrons receive early commercial-free access to all episodes as well as their shout-out. To see how you can get access to weekly bonus episodes and logo merch, please check out our reward shares

at patreon.com slash creepypod. All right, first up, a grieving widower desperate to reunite with his dead wife makes a supernatural bargain that slowly transforms his home and neighborhood into a nightmarish realm of monsters, violence, and damnation. From writer Jules Rowland and narrated by Nate Dufort, creepy presents, Mr. Morris digs a hole. Something is rotten in the kitchen. Casseroles from the neighbors are festering on the counter.

They rot. just like I rot. Inside them, a juicy mess of maggots in green mold. Inside me, the drying husk of a soulless man who hasn't the energy or will to end his life properly. I keep waiting for my heart to just give out, and it never does. I thought dying would be easier. Wilma went so fast. I foolishly prayed for the same. My head pounds as if my brain is ten sizes too big for my skull. Dehydration. My current occupation is an awful, slow way to go. I've heard of people sitting in the bathtub and slitting their wrists,

but I don't want to be found bloated and green three months from now when the cable man comes to retrieve the cable box for unpaid service. And I certainly don't want any well-meaning neighbors coming to collect their casserole dishes and finding my naked, wrinkly body instead. I think about death all the time now. Mine. Hers. Days passed in a blur of news and infomercials and Jeopardy at 6. We never missed Jeopardy, and I won't let Wilma down now. The theme song throbs in my temples and I dream about knives and pills and poison. We never owned a gun. but wouldn't that be something?

Loud but quick. Death is fast as a speeding bullet through my aching skull. My stomach is becoming hollow and I can't remember how long it's been since I've eaten. The toast on the morning of her stroke. I was 12 days ago. My stomach is a shell. I'm a shell. I'm not a man.

This is not life. This is something else. else. I don't know what I'm waiting for. I'm not going to change my mind. I don't mind the idea of bleeding out if I'm fully clothed in the kitchen instead of waterlogged in the tub. One more jeopardy, I think. One more for you, Wilma. Then I'll be seeing you. The music at the end of the show plays me off the couch and across the living room. My muscles ache, like they're filled with tiny knots that pull and stretch each time my feet hit the floor. There's comfort in knowing I won't have to make this walk again.

The stench from the rotting food feels warm on the verge of combusting. I'm reaching for the knives when the knocking starts at my front door. I bet one of my nosy neighbors called in a welfare check. If I don't answer, they'll bust down the door before I finish the job. The knife drawer is warped, and I don't have the strength to wrench it open. I'd sob if I had any tears to cry. That's when my dry eyes glance at the stove and I get a new idea, one that won't stain the linoleum floor.

I turn all four burners on but don't light the flames and the gentle breath of natural gas fills my nostrils. I drag the welcome smell deep into my lungs while the pounding at the door continues. I'm hoping to be too far gone to be saved by the time they make it inside. After a few more breaths, I don't hear the pounding anymore. There are such beautiful stars in front of my eyes. Then the floor rushes up to meet me. I hadn't thought of the energy it would take to stand for so long,

but maybe I've had enough gas to do the job. The room looks funny, slanted and shadowed. I wonder how that picture above the kitchen table doesn't fall off the wall at that angle. Or is it me? Am I the one tilted? I can't feel the floor underneath me or the cabinets behind me. Is this death? Or is death a man?

The one in the long black trench coat that's suddenly in my kitchen? I smile at the reaper or try to, before the tail of his coat and gulf. golfs me and I willingly say goodbye to the world. Hey, wake up. The voice is far away, echoing around me as if I'm at the bottom of a canyon and the words bounce off the sides before hitting my ears. I can feel my arms and legs and the pounding in my head. No, come on, old timer, shake it off.

The voice is closer now. It draws me back from the abyss, that wonderful, perfect blackness that surrounds me. It's getting lighter already. A cold hand slaps me in the face. I feel the sting. Feel the way my neck snaps to the side. Feel the other side of my head hit something hard. The kitchen cabinet? I don't smell the gas, just the sour-fetted rank of the casserole pans and something that reminds me of burning garbage. Mr. Morris, wake the fuck up! I jolt, finally plucked from the in-between and back into the kitchen. There's a mouth just inches from my face and warm breath.

I gag as the mouth smiles and I get a whiff of something deeper than rot despite rows of gleaming white teeth. The rest of a man's face comes into focus, and I think I'm looking at a young James Cagney from his angels of 30 faces days, big eyes, high cheekbones, and serious pointed nose. He sits back and I noticed the trench coat. He must be an off-duty cop since he isn't in uniform. Damn the well check and damn my neighbors.

I was so close. I hear ticking from the spinning of the big wheel on wheel of fortune in the next room. No, I sob. No, no, no, Wilma. The man finds a glass, fills it with water and puts it to my lips. I close my mouth and shake my head. I want to die and I don't want anything else slowing me down. He raises his eyebrows, his own lips, a pursed line of disapproval.

Saying we need to talk, he pushes the rim against my mouth until the glass clangs against my teeth and I open, allowing a slosh of cool water to coat my tongue and throat. I choke and water dribbles out the side of my mouth and under the sweater I've been wearing, after the funeral. Wilma's funeral. I start to cry. I've never cried in front of another man before, but I can't help it.

Please, I sob. And he sighs, and I can tell he thinks I'm a sad, pathetic man, and that's okay, because that's exactly what I am. Put me out of my misery. I want to beg. I just want to die. I know, the man says, Why do you think I'm here?

My eyes ascend up his trench coat to his taught James Cagney face. I tell him I won't go to the hospital. A smile stretches his cheeks. There are too many teeth in his mouth. You're not going to the hospital, Mr. Morris, he assures me. No, sir. You're going south. This man, who calls himself Mr. Jackals,

gets me to a kitchen chair and puts on a pot of coffee. I squint and try to make sense of my unwanted savior. He's not quite right. Something in the way he holds his neck in the absence of any lines in his face and hands. I shiver as he sets a steaming cup of coffee in front of me and sits beside me at the table. Who are you? I ask, though I don't want to know. I want this to be over, whatever this is, and get back to the a business of dying. He tells me his name again with a broad smile and pushes the coffee closer. I sip and it's like life hitting my body again, hot, bitter, and unwanted. Another sip in my hollow stomach lurches. I'll need food before I drink any more. While I tremble on the kitchen chair,

Mr. Jackal swoops around my house, opening windows to let the gas out. There must still be plenty in the air because the room spins and I would have toppled out of my chair, maybe hit my head just right and ended this nightmare if he hadn't caught me and set me upright. Mr. Jackals, the clever witch, eyes me like he's reading my mind. There's a knock at the door and he warns me not to do anything stupid while he answers it. He'll just bring me back again. I quietly cry, tearless sobs into my hand, and too soon he returns with a bag of Chinese food, setting cartons in front of me. It smells wonderful. It smells terrible. I want to vomit. I don't want to eat. I don't want to live. Can't he see that? He uses a plastic fork to stir a pile of

brown noodles that smell like soy sauce in the floor of a taxi cab and tells me to eat it. It's all for me, except for the crab rangoons. He loves those fucking things, he says, and starts shoving them into his mouth whole. His lips are shiny with grease when he lays into me about choosing hard ways to die. If I was smart, I would have let the car run in a closed garage. At least that's what he tells me. Mr. Jackal stuffs another rangoon in his mouth and surmises that I must not really want to die. I'm just waiting for someone to save me. He points at himself with two greasy thumbs as if he's the one to do it. My head nearly hits the table.

Eat on your own or I'll spoon-feed you until your guts burst with low mane. Now, that's a rotten way to go, he warns. I believe he'll do it too, and I don't want to die that way if I have a choice in the matter. I pick up the fork and bring a spoonful of taxicab noodles and stringy vegetables to my lips. It tastes like it smells, but the beast in my guts, doesn't care how the slickness coats my tongue. It wants more. My traitorous hands stuffed my face,

taking me farther and farther from sweet death. Mr. Jackals crunches on another crab rangoon and starts what feels like a sales pitch. I tell him that unless he's got a bottle of arsenic in his jacket pocket, I'm not interested. He found me sucking down natural gas. Doesn't he realize I can't be sold? That is, until he mentions her.

Wilma. I stop eating, and this man who shouldn't be in my kitchen leans across the table with his offer. You'd do anything to have her back, he says, and he's right. Well, I can give her to you. I don't understand, I mumble. Wilma, down to the last wrinkle, right back here with you, sitting on that couch,

cooking your meals, sleeping in your bed, as if she never left. I'm willing to return her to you in exchange for a service. I lick my lips. Is he an angel, the devil? If I'd gone to church more, I might recognize the man in front of me for who or what he really is. Still, I'm curious and find myself asking what service. And he tells me. He tells me I need to dig a hole.

I think he's joking, but for once the man looks serious. I notice a long black bag on the floor near the stove and spot a shovel inside where it has come unzipped. He sighs and says, Listen, Mr. Morris, Miles. Can I call you Miles? If you can lift a shovel, you can have your wife back. He lays out the rest of the details

while I eat. The hole should be in my backyard. Doesn't have to be wide, but it must be deep. I argue that it's winter. Some of my common sense is returning with the food in my belly. He says he'll take care of the frozen ground. When I ask, what's the point of the hole? He starts in with part two of the deal. Room and board for him and a few of his friends. This is where he loses me. I'm getting tired and we've strayed so far from Wilma. I'm not even sure what we're talking about anymore. Mr. Jackals pulls me to my feet and down the hall to my bedroom. When I wake up, my mouth tastes like the floor of a taxi cab,

and I think I've just had the worst nightmare, until a voice shouts morning salutations from the doorway, and I find Mr. Jackals, a nightmare himself, standing there. My heels, ankles, and knees protest, and my back cracks in about 20 different places as he helps me stand and pulls me down the hall to the kitchen where he's disposed of the rotting trays of sympathy casseroles. There's a lingering funk in the air from the mold and maggots, mixed with last night's Chinese and today's eggs and toast waiting for me on the table. I need to get my strength up, Mr. Jackal says. Today, I start digging the hole. Now, I'm not convinced this isn't a nightmare, a different kind, I suppose, than losing my wife.

The kind where I'm held captive by the only madman in the world with no intention of killing his hostage. After breakfast, he shoves my arms into a warm jacket and we had outside. I haven't been in the backyard since last fall when the leaves needed raking. Today it's full of snow, except for a path cut straight down to the brown grass underneath, leading to a circle of brown grass about five feet across in the middle of the yard. A brown tarp is strung above this circle, and at the edge of it, shovels and pickaxes tumble out of Mr. Jackal's big black bag. The cold winter air clears some of the cobwebs from my brain,

and I think it's possible I died last night, and I'm about to dig my own grays. rave. I stop before I reach the tarp, and Mr. Jackal reminds me what this is all for. My Wilma. I grab a shovel. Mr. Jackals reaches into a carton of crab rangoons and tells me his friends are going to be so excited to meet me. I push the pointed tip of the shovel into the center of the circle and stop. Your friends? He explains it all again. Room and board for his friends are part of the deal I don't actually remember agreeing to, and of course, the hole. At the bottom, I get my Wilma. How will I know when I hit the bottom, I ask? You'll know. It marks the end, Mr. Jackal says. The end of digging, I assume, but no. He swallows the food he's crunching on and

mutters, the end of this old god-forsaken place. My shovel pierces the surprisingly soft ground, and I lift the first dirt from the hole, sealing the deal and my fate. I've been digging for four weeks when Mr. Jackal's first friend arrives. After some tense negotiating, we decided that I won't take lunch outside the hole if digging ends by six every day so I can still watch Jeopardy, how Wilman I used to. Mr. Jackals was reluctant to agree, but now we watch it together when he seems to enjoy it. I get the feeling he knows all the answers just lets me chime in to keep me interested. I don't like Mr. Jackals much.

This is a business arrangement after all, but the nights are easier when I'm not alone, and I'm so tired from digging that I have no trouble falling asleep. The first friend, an obnoxious punk who arrived one evening in the middle of Jeopardy and talked through the rest of the show was maybe 20, skin and bones, bright red hair, a face full of metal piercings and tattoos of flames, blue, green, and red, covering every inch of his otherwise pasty white skin. Five minutes listening to him whine about how long it took to get here, and I am thankful that Wilman I couldn't have children because we didn't end up with one like him. He looked like one shock after another for his parents, every piercing and nail in their coffins,

every tattoo a minute closer to death. I want to die more than ever since he arrived. Mr. Jackal says the kid is harmless. I'm not so sure. Compared to the kid, firebug, he's called. Mr. Jackals is a breath of fresh air. Literally, the kid reeks of whatever he's smoking. It isn't long after he arrives before the fire start.

The glimpses of morning news I catch while I eat breakfast. are about the fires that keep popping up in my neighborhood of Plank, Illinois, at the grocery store, on the high school football field, in a few neighborhood garages. A firebug who doesn't seem to sleep watches every broadcast with sharpened focus. The only blasted time the kid is quiet. I don't like it, and I don't like him. He's left so much soot behind on the couch that I've kindly asked him to use a metal folding chair from the garage instead.

easier to clean, and Wilma won't want to come back to a mess. April brings melting snow and unexpected warmth to the hole and an interesting philo named Felix. I've just finished digging for the day after a tremor rocked the hole and sent half a day's work crashing in over my head. If it wasn't for Mr. Jackals, I might have been stuck down there. He helped me out, brushed me off, and told me there was someone he wanted me to meet. I'm fresh out of a well-deserved shower when Mrs. Lewis, a kindly albeit strange old bird from one block over, knocks on the door, and Mr. Jackals tells me to let him in.

Him? Turns out our newest arrival wears folks like a suit. Mr. Jackals tells me to get used to it, that Felix, that's his name, is a necessary evil. Mr. Jackals and Felix spend a lot of time talking. Felix has a British accent as far as I can tell. That's the weirdest part, hearing that gravelly voice coming out of that sweet woman's mouth. As if sensing my discomfort, Mr. Jackals pulls me aside and reminds me why I'm doing this, even shoves a picture of Wilma in my face as if I don't think of her every time I push that shovel into the dirt.

I take her photo and sit down for jeopardy and they all join. Mr. Jackals on the chair by the window that Wilma used to sit on, now angled toward the TV, firebug on the folding chair, and Felix wearing the Mrs. Lewis suit on the cushion beside me, grinning from ear to ear. The days get longer in May, hotter. Mr. Jackal sends a hose down the hole with a nozzle that sprays gently enough to drink from when I'm thirsty. Not much has changed in the last month. I dig?

Mr. Jackals keeps me hydrated and fed and tries to hide the fresh burn marks from whatever things firebug has incinerated in my home. The toaster, a plant from the corner of the living room, the curtains in my bedroom, the small table where I used to set my coffee when I watched the birds. I don't know how long this has been going on. I noticed things were going missing, then one morning I popped inside for a break from the heat and saw the black burns on the carpet, the counter. the walls. Turns out Mr. Jackals is as good at hiding the damage as he is at making whatever food I want to appear in my plate at supper. I don't ask how. I don't want to know. I just hope this whole place doesn't go up in flames. I'd gotten used to sharing the couch with Mrs. Lewis for Jeopardy when, out of the blue, a new face shows up at six one evening. I don't recognize the man,

but he has a British accent. And I guess Felix. found himself a new suit to wear. June is an ugly month. The sun is so hot underneath the tarp, I suck down gallons of water from the hose and pray for a breeze, but I don't think anyone upstairs is listening, not when I'm digging a hole so far south.

I sweat so much I don't pee, and the salt stings my eyes as it runs down my face. Mr. Jackals plugs his nose every time he lifts the tarp to check on my progress. Any day now, he says we'll have our next visitor, and that's one arrival closer to Wilma. I'm deep in the hole when I hear the sirens. It's too early in the morning for that many police, I think, but the sirens don't stop. I climb the ladder out of the hole, a rickety wooden beast with more rungs appearing every day,

and lift the tarp as two police cars screech past my house. Mr. Jackals, in a suit and tie despite the heat, hitches up his slacks and says, It's really taken off now. He doesn't explain, just urges me back to the hole. It's about an hour before the sirens stop. They're somewhere close. Firebug must have lit a real doozy this time.

That or... I haven't the imagination for what actually happened. The news is on every station that night. A man named Henry Carver killed his wife and child and the young priest that presided over Wilma's funeral. I don't have the stomach to hear how he did it. Mr. Jackals is bouncing off the walls, sharing a bottle of liquor with firebug

who melts the wallpaper with the careless brush of his fingertips on the wall. They offer me a glass and I take it, not to celebrate, but to make it through the night. Felix doesn't return for Jeffers, On one of the commercial breaks, local news breaks in with a mugshot of Henry Carver, and I recognize Felix's latest suit. I drink my liquor, but it isn't strong enough to burn away the guilt. I think of Wilma and try to forget Henry's wife, his baby, and the priest, while tears spill over my eyes, blurring Ken Jennings in the first daily double.

A few days after the murders, I still can't stop thinking. thinking about the Carver family or the priest that left the world in tiny pieces at Felix's hand. Mr. Jackal says it's not my fault. Felix did what Felix does and it wasn't for me to understand or assume responsibility for. I think about ending at all. What would happen if I stopped digging or, God forbid, filled in the hole? I'm so deep now it takes longer and longer to climb up the ladder. and Mr. Jackals had to extend the hose with his magic or whatever it is that allows him to change things for my benefit.

He's a pinprick against the tarp when he hollers down the hole to ask how I'm doing. I'm getting so deep I can hardly hear him at all and every day gets a little hotter inside that pit. I'm much too deep now to sling dirt out of the hole. For some time, I've been using a bucket on a pulley system to haul it out. It's back-breaking and time-consuming, but I've got nothing but time, and my back and legs and arms are stronger every day. Sometimes Firebug waits at the top to dump the bucket for me, saving me a trip up the ladder. Sometimes Mr. Jackals, usually crunching on crab rangoons, will dump the bucket if he's already up there to check on me. It's the middle of July when the earth rumbles beneath my feet.

I jump on the ladder and scurry up the rungs before the sides of the hole cave in. They hold, for the most part. That night, I met Olga. Olga is the oldest woman I've ever seen. Rinkled skin hangs off her bones, nearly dragging behind her as she shuffles to the spot vacated by Felix for Jeopardy. She smells like... Death. Decay.

as if her saggy flesh has already started to decompose. I shift a little farther away from where she sits hunched beside me. Her lips crusted white and curling back over narrow green teeth as she smiles at a joke Ken Jennings makes with a contestant. Mr. Jackals is in rare form tonight, spurting every answer to every question before the rest of us get a chance to chime in, like he's trying to impress this ancient withered beast.

and I can't for the life of me, understand why. She reeks so terribly I think I might vomit, and it's the first time since I started digging that I go to bed before final jeopardy. Olga only stays with us a few days. Mr. Jackal says she prefers solitude, and that's fine with me. I hear she's taken up residence in a small house

down the block that had been empty for a while. Before long, children's faces on missing posters cover every post in the neighborhood. I try not to notice, just as I pretend not to make the connection to the woman who carts are stinking bones up the street and into my living room at six for the daily episode, gingerly fingering a necklace made of small white teeth. In August, I start asking about Wilma. Mr. Jackals has been so busy with the new arrivals, he hardly makes time to visit me in the hole and check my progress, which is slowed.

It's almost unbearable at the bottom. The deep summer heat catching beneath the tarp, nearly roasting me alive. All Mr. Jackals will say about Wilman now is that it depends on me. I guess he knows I'm dragging my feet. I tell him it's getting hot in that hole, and he warns that it's going to get a hell of a lot hotter before I'm done. If he's right, I don't know how I'll stand it. by reluctance finally gets Mr. Jackals' attention because one particularly sweltering afternoon,

he aims a radio down the hole and plays me Wilma's favorite music. Sinatra and old Dino always put a spring in her step and it sets me digging hard again. He also makes sure a giant pitcher of fresh squeezed lemonade is waiting at the end of the day and serves me a bowl of ice cream every night with Jeopardy. I wolf a few spoonfuls down before Olga arrives because I can't stomach food with the smell of death clogging my nose. Mr. Jackal still treats her like some kind of queen. I don't think I'll ever understand it, and I don't want to.

We're a few weeks into August when all hell breaks loose. First, the rumbling in the earth, signaling another arrival. Then Mr. Jackals hollers down the hole to come up and celebrate. Only two more arrivals before I get my wife back. He doesn't try to hide the damage around my home anymore, evidence of firebug and his carelessness. He doesn't pretend the creatures I'm unearthing are anything other than foul beasts with no other way to enter the world than through the backbreaking acts of a desperate man. I'm surprised but unimpressed by the latest arrivals, a whole blasted family. We have to bring in all the chairs from the kitchen to accommodate everyone for jeopardy.

Mr. and Mrs. Jones looked like they were plucked from the 1950s, well, prim and proper and smiling from ear to ear, gracious to Mr. Jackals and to me as they take seats angled toward the screen, keeping a small, childlike thing on Mrs. Jones' lap. Looks like a little girl, but she doesn't move or smile or coo like any child I've ever seen, and a young boy on the floor by their feet. We watch and they laugh with the contestants, and Mr. Mr. Jackals gives the boy some of my ice cream, and the kid eats it as if he's not bothered by Olga's smell. Mr. Jackal says I can take the day off from digging to attend their barbecue, but they've invited the whole neighborhood, and I'd rather climb down into my hole than face their questions.

I've been digging for a few hours when Mr. Jackal starts hollering in a language I don't understand and pulls my hose up. I climb up after it in Mr. Jackal's cursing, in English now, about cats and sloppy work, and when I follow him into the front yard, I see what he's talking about. Cats everywhere, screeching, running, on fire. Some set shrubs ablaze, others have the decency to keel over in the middle of the street, leaving behind a sticky, smoking pile of bones, poking through charred flesh and barred teeth. The smell is nothing worse than firebug, nothing close to Olga, who I'm not certain isn't a rotting corpse. He doesn't need to tell me this is firebug's work. Kid got out of hand this time, he says.

One cat escapes the hose and stumbles in a fiery ball up the block. Mr. Jackals tells me to go after the fucking thing. Chasing burning cats isn't my job. I don't even have to remind him that. His face, changes so fast and so horribly that I'd rather not argue. I pick up one of the spare shovels at the top of the hole and leave my property for the first time in months. It occurs to me as I step off the lawn in the direction of the Jones's house, which used to belong to the millers, that I haven't so much as gone grocery shopping or mowed the lawn since Mr. Jackals and his band of hell creatures entered my life. Other than wipe my own keister and take my own showers, I've been waited on hand and foot. This jaunt in the midday sun stretches the muscles in my back that have curled up from

bending over a shovel every day. I don't like the way this place has changed. Kids faces plastered on light posts, trees and shrubs burned down to blackened skeletons. No flowers either, something I might not have noticed if Wilma didn't marvel at them every time we drove to the grocery store. Today, all the usual flower beds are withered and brown. For a moment, I panic and wonder what kind of world I'm bringing her back to if all the plants are dead. I follow screams to the backyard of what used to be the miller's two-story craftsman. Out of the way, please, I tell people who have gathered around the screeching feline. I step in with my shovel and do what needs to be done. The neighbors are appalled, of course. It should bother me what I've done, but I've seen some sort of

so much worse these past few months that I don't bat an eye at putting a dying cat out of its misery. I leave while everyone is still stunned, standing around the smoking carcass. I have a hole to dig. I meet Nikki in September. She's brought six dogs with her. Hellhounds. Mr. Jackals doesn't try to tell me there anything else. I should stop this.

Somewhere deep down inside me is a decent man who knows this is a decent man who knows this is wrong, but I've dug a pit in my own body and shove my soul into it. I've gone too far to stop now. I don't even know if I can. I made a deal with Mr. Jackals, and while I don't believe he's the devil himself, I don't think he's the kind of man that'll let me walk away with my life, my soul, if I don't finish digging. Nikki doesn't stay at my place. She's a lovely woman, but I'm grateful she's taken her dogs elsewhere. There wouldn't be anything left to my home for a woman to come back to if both the firebug and the hellhounds took up residence.

I hear she's got them locked up a few streets away in an apartment complex. Temporarily, she tells Mr. Jackals, while she searches for an appropriate co-handler. The hounds aren't supposed to be unleashed for a while, or so I've heard. That's why I'm surprised when alarms start ringing and police cars fly by and people start screaming about craze beasts tearing the streets apart. Jeopardy just ended and I'm heading to bed, but I can't on account of the noise outside

and Mr. Jackals cussing up a storm in my kitchen. He grabs my neck and drags me back outside. With the hounds out, it speeds up the timeline. The others are here to play. The hounds pave the way. The last arrival, he says, is bringing Wilma, and he doesn't like to wait. Who is it? I stutter.

The boss, he says, and my veins run cold with ice despite the summer heat. We head to the backyard when I should be showering and getting ready for bed. A spotlight shines into the hole. I dig and fill the bucket. Mr. Jackals raises the bucket and dumps it while firebug attaches another to the rope and sends it down. I dig and fill the bucket again. The Joneses arrive after midnight when my bones are about to give out,

and Mr. Jones takes my place in the hole. I collapse in a patio chair and gulp down the lemonade while the Jones's strange children play with Olga in the piles of dirt. Mr. Jackals continues emptying the bucket. Firebug sends another. It's 2 a.m. when Mrs. Jones brings out a tray of food and proclaims, It's Miller time! I think she means it's time for a beer, and I would certainly take one.

Mr. Jackal shakes his head and quietly explains that it's the millers on the platter, or what's left of the family after the neighborhood barbecue. Mrs. Jones, looking demure in her flower dress, sets the tray of human ribs on the patio table and uses the nail on a charred, severed finger to pick meat from her teeth. They throw me back in the hole after I've been dozing off for a while. It's against the rules, technically, for others to dig, and I must be the one to unleash the boss. The others stared down at me from above.

Exhaustion, like I've never known, threatens to put me down. I worry my heart might actually give out. Wouldn't that be something? To die just before I get her back? The sun is cresting on the horizon when the earth shakes, and it's terrible. I try stumbling up the ladder, but the walls are caving. in on me faster than I can climb. Dirt spills into my mouth and I think I'm going to be killed by it until I feel hands on my shoulders

pulling me up and out. Mr. Jackals brushes dirt out of my mouth and eyes. After a few ragged breaths, Mrs. Jones hands me a lemonade that I hope is made from real lemons and I drink. When the ground stops quaking, every single being in my backyard puts a hand on me and says thank you. Firebug snaps his fingers and sets the tarp on fire. Wilma, I ask weekly. Mr. Jackal sends me inside. The sky is different than any sunrise I've ever seen. Dawn of a new kind of day, I suppose, a day of monsters. The ones in my backyard aren't so bad. They almost feel like

friends. I don't know why I decide to go in the front door instead of the back. I think I sort of want to see it. What we've ushered in. In the red light of morning, fires burn in every direction. I don't hear police sirens anymore, but there is a lot of screaming, glass breaking, car horns honking, gunshots, unholy howling from the lungs of ancient beasts under Nikki's command. I flinch when I see the old woman from across the street face down on her front lawn. She's missing a leg, probably more. Another neighbor a few houses down hangs from the burnt skeleton of his birch tree. My porch light is on.

It's the only light on the street, I realize. My house is the only place unaffected by the nightmare that has landed in plank. Inside, I don't see the damage done by Firebug's careless hands, and there's no trace of crab rangoons or all goes rotting flesh. There's just coffee and the sounds of something stirring in the kitchen. Someone careful and concise. A woman who knows her way around the cupboards and my heart. When I round the corner and see her at the sink, washing dishes that have piled up on the

counter, I lose whatever breath had been holding me up and think I'd die. and gone to heaven. Wilma, my love, my life, wipes her hands on a towel, turns to me, and smiles. I think I smile back before my heart gives out. Life is pretty much back to normal for me and Wilma. Well, almost. We don't leave the house. I'm not sure we can. Mrs. Jones takes care of the grocery shopping. Wilma still does the cooking. Mr. Jackals takes care of everything else. In the morning, I watch the birds with my wife. Ours is the only lawn with trees and grass, the only safe place for the bravest birds,

the ones who haven't fled Plank to rest. Mr. Jackals uses his magic to hide the rest of the neighborhood from Wilma. It's only when he gets busy and lets his guard down that the smell of charred houses and cars and flesh seeps under the door. And it's only in rare moments when I look past the Blue Jays and Cardinals that I see the rubble. Fire still burn, but not like before. Now there's a river,

something that cracked open from within the earth with the last and final quake that runs directly past our house, and it flows orange and thick like magma from a volcano. The air conditioner runs all the time now, and we still sweat, but Wilma, God love her,

just smiles and says she's happy to be alive. In fact, she's so happy to be back that she does even mind that Felix found a new home within my withered body. He gives me plenty of hours with her throughout the day, time when I'm in the driver's seat, a gift only possible with his help. I'm fortunate he escaped the local jail and was nearby when my heart gave out. He's grateful, I suppose, for me setting him free. I'm grateful that he puts me to sleep during his gruesome erotic visits with Olga.

Funny thing, though, with Felix doing most of the driving, I don't mind a rotting smell. Actually, I kind of like it. We still all meet promptly at six, and for a half hour every day we sit together in a neighborhood that's burning down around us, safe in our little haven, willment my side,

holding my hand, watching Jeopardy. And next, a childhood disappearance resurfaces through a series of increasingly vivid nightmares, forcing the survivor to confront the whole, horrifying possibility about the monster from their past. From writer Cameron Souter and narrated by Nicole Goodnight, creepy presents,

Old Haunts. Sleeplog, June 22nd, 2021. I had the dream again last night, but I couldn't remember the details when I woke up. Only a cold, empty feeling remained, and the memory of that monster's face leering down at me. That's every night now since my first night in the village. Dr. Seward said I should try writing a dream journal to help me remember what happened in the two weeks I went missing all those years ago. She thinks writing and drawing whatever I can grab onto when I wake up might help to uncover more of what really happened, which seems to still be haunting my subconscious mind.

That's her theory, at least, and she's the sleep doctor, so I'm inclined to trust her. The problem is everything about those two weeks are blurry. I can remember a bit about the day I went missing, but every other. Everything else was foggy until I woke up in the hospital. My mom and dad crying over my stiff body. They told me I was safe, but I didn't know what from. I was a patchwork of old cuts and yellowing bruises. I guess I should start from the beginning.

Dr. Seward said I should write, whatever I can remember tonight to jog my memory, and then focus on the dreams as they come. On June 6, 2006, I went missing. I was eight years old at the time. It happened while I was attending the Brookside University Summer Camp program. We were playing games in the forest behind campus, but when the group returned to the school, I was nowhere to be found.

That was until two weeks later, when I was discovered stumbling around Lockwood Drive, covered in bruises and muttering to myself. It was believed at the time that I had narrowly avoided becoming a victim of small-time serial killer Norman Henderson, aka the Brookside Butcher, who killed four children. all campers, except his six-year-old daughter, between 2005 and 2006. My memories of the incident were almost entirely lost. Fortunately, I could recall Henderson's face, which led to his being caught and imprisoned at the St. Andrew's detention center, where he died by suicide shortly after.

Henderson worked as a program director at the camp, and abused the trust placed in him to conduct his foul business in the cellar of the Lionsden pub, Brookside's on-campus watering hole, Shortly after I was found, the bodies of his victims were on earthed from the cellar and given proper burials. But that's all common knowledge. Every book on Canadian urban legends mentions Norman Henderson in some way or another. The suburban dad gone nuts? The psycho teacher who killed all those kids all that time ago? Hell, I think my names appeared in one or two of those.

The hero kid who saved the neighborhood. Their words, not mine. What's not common knowledge is what happened to me during those two weeks. weeks, and why I still see Mr. Henderson's face leering at me in the dead of night. In the spirit of solving this mystery and curing my nightmares, what follows is my account of that fateful day. At least what I remember from it. Here goes nothing. It was a Tuesday. I remember that because we sang store jingles and played the drums with Miss Crawford, which we only ever did on Tuesdays. We'd gone out after lunch to play flag football on the field behind campus, and the

counselors told us it was time to pack up. I swear I only knelt down to tie my shoes for a moment, but when I looked up, the group had gone back to camp by the route through the woods. My brother, Garrett, stayed by my side, as he always did. He was only five, and this was his first time away from home for such a long time. The only other kids remaining were Justin and Cody, who'd make a regular trend of tormenting me during our summers together. And although I hated it, the currency of bullying dictated that Garrett had to inherit them too, now that he was here. Well, well, well, if it isn't Cockroach Cameron and her little booger Garrett, sneered Justin. Where'd everyone go? We were just about to have some real fun. Cody chuckled, punching his palm in like a cartoon character.

It seems funny now, but those meaty hands slamming against each other then was the most of the most of most terrifying thing I'd ever seen. Back then, at least, when I was young and dumb. My older sibling instincts kicked in. It was one thing for me to get my ass kicked. I was used to it by then. But I didn't think I could handle seeing Garrett hurt by those baboons. I told him to wait for my signal, then run back to the university as fast as possible. He nodded, his chubby cheeks bouncing beneath his worried expression, eyes shimmering like a baby's. I shouted at Cody and Justin, probably calling them something stupid like buttheads, then ran right past them, deeper into the woods. It worked. When I looked back, I saw the bullies

hot on my trail and Garrett waddling up the hill. I darted through the trees, imagining the bullies just in arm's length behind me, able to grab me if I slowed down even a little bit. We weren't allowed to explore the forest on her own, so I didn't, know where I was going. I just followed the trail. I remember a few details, but only because of how distinct they were. I passed a massively thick and towering oak tree with only a few leafy branches jutting out the top of it. I hopped across a trickling stream via a path of carefully placed stones. I kept running, following the trail until I saw a road. It wasn't busy by any sense, but I figured I could follow it to safety, maybe back to the school. I started along only to find Cody and Justin

and blocking me yet again. They'd somehow circled around via the road and now taunted me with more threats. There was nowhere else to turn. So I scrabbled up the hill on my left where there seemed to be a vague trail. Dirt gathered beneath my nails as I clawed my way up the earth,

desperate to get away. I climbed over mossy stones and fallen trees blocking the path. At some point it got so narrow that I nearly slipped and fell down the hill. My lungs were burning with exertion when I reached the top of the escarpment. The final obstacle of which was

the jutting cement slab connected to the sewers via a sealed manhole. I looked back across the hill, out of breath, and celebrated my victory when I saw Cody and Justin turning back. But another feeling crept over me then, chilling and empty. I'd escaped at the bullies, but my surroundings were completely unknown. It must have only been four or five o'clock, but the woods were getting darker and colder. I trembled in my t-shirt searching my surroundings for something familiar. There was a circle of trees on my right with wooden cones built up around each of them. In the center of the bizarre structure was a dark spot worn into the ground. A hand axe flecked with rust was crudely lodged in a stump beside the circle of black earth.

The whole scene made my stomach squirm for reasons I couldn't fully decipher. I wanted to throw up, but there was nothing in my growling stomach to expel. I took the other path to the left, past a set of two trees connected at the base, both trunks covered with graffiti hearts. The landmark may have been sweet if it wasn't so cold and gray outside, but I could see houses over the horizon, so I knew I was nearing my escape. Not long after passing the graffiti trees, I felt something strange, a sense like I was being watched,

like something was standing right behind me, breathing down my neck. Scared out of my wits, I spun around. Now, I can't be entirely sure of what I saw. It doesn't take much for children to leap to impossible conclusions when they're afraid. but the memory is so distinct. It could have been nothing more than a shadow that my imagination warped into something else, but in the spirit of the record,

I'll write exactly what I thought I saw. It seemed... God. It looked like a figure staring out at me from between the branching trunks. A figure, not a person. It was too sinuous to be human. It leered at me with black eyes the size of tea saucers.

or not quite. The shining eyes themselves were only pinpricks of light, but they were housed in hauntingly wide and deep sockets. It must have been my imagination. It must have been. But at the time, my heart was pounding with a fear I'd only read in horror stories. I couldn't look for a second longer.

I ran as fast as I could along the trail. Finally, I saw something I recognized. The lion's den. I'd heard it was a bar for Brooks' house. students, but it seemed empty. Mainly I knew it from attending Mr. Henderson's arts and crafts class on the top floor. It was a nice enough building, but it seemed like a sanctuary when I stumbled up to it, panting and drenched in ice-cold sweat.

There was a door on the lowermost level tucked into a concrete inlet. Looking back, I know I should have kept going, tried a different door, or gone the extra few steps to the campus proper. But I was terrified. The first option seemed the only one. I shouldered through the door and entered a dark, musty room. It smelled terrible, like when I forgot to take out the compost bin for a week despite my mother's reminders. Earthy and sour.

A silhouette stood hunched over in the darkness. He spun around and I saw that it was Mr. Henderson. He descended upon me asking what I was doing. I told him I'd come from the woods, that I'd seen a monster, and his questioning doubled in intensity. I distinctly remember his teeth, spit. bubbling through them as he asked me what I'd seen. He was so angry and I didn't know why. But that's it. I'm sorry. I can't remember anything else. June 23rd, morning. Even as I write this, I can feel the dream slipping away. Perhaps my recent helped jog something, because those same

images came to me again last night. The long shapes eyes in Mr. Henderson's teeth. The eyes were most vivid. In the dream they stared at me with the lust that still sends vile shivers through my body. They were attached to a bulbous head obscured by shadows, peering at me through the gap between two trees, impossibly long wrinkled fingers curled around the bark. And even though I couldn't see the rest of its face, I knew it was smiling. The teeth were more literal, yellow stones grinding against one another, accompanied by an endlessly repeated phrase. What did you see?

I think it was Mr. Henderson's voice. Loud but not cruel. More disappointed, if that makes sense. I could feel his hand gripping my arm. His spit sprang onto my cheeks. The room was dark in the dream, but I could smell metal and something like rotten meat. It's nighttime now. I frightened myself writing out the dream, but Dr. Seward said I was making great progress when she read it.

I don't know what the end goal is here. Dr. Seward said if I can confront my memories and make peace with them, then the nightmares might go away. She says I should stay in the lab for a little while longer until there's more progress. I hate it here, so I'll try my best to remember as much as I can. The technician gave me a supplement to make my dreams more vivid. I hope this is all over soon. I'm feeling sleepy again, so I guess I'll leave this entry here. Wish me luck.

June 24th, afternoon. Last night was horrid. My nightmares were so animated. It was like experiencing those horrors all over again, and I know it now. I did experience it, all of it. Dr. Seward said it's just my imagination, but she's wrong. But if she's wrong? Oh, God. What does that mean for me? As soon as I fell asleep, the dream felt immediately different. I was sitting in what must have been the cellar at the lion's den, the same dark room as before. Only this time, My hands and feet were bound together with zip ties. So tight the plastic was bloody from cutting into my wrists and ankles. I felt the plastic scraping against my raw wounds.

So deep they touched bone. My stomach gnawed itself from the inside. A door at the top of a staircase opened. And Mr. Henderson stumbled down into the cellar. His white dress shirt splattered with red. He had something hoisted over his shoulder, something oozing blood down his back. He tossed it beside me and started digging a hole in the cellarer. dirt floor. When I saw what it was, I threw up on myself. The small girl had been completely

flayed. Her skin stripped so only sinuous muscle remained. Her hands had been cut off, jagged stump squirting blood. Her face was worse. More than being skinned, her jaw had been torn off. She had no teeth left, only a tongue that flopped out of the gaping hole that had once been her head. The dream shifted then, thankfully. But I really realized I was heading to worse terrors. My mouth was taped shut, and Mr. Henderson carried me on his shoulder as he had held that destroyed girl. It was nighttime, but no stars dotted the black sky. Mr. Henderson's hands were as hard and cold as ice, holding me in place no matter how hard I squirmed. He took me to the circle of trees I saw before and tossed me in the center of it. I tried pleading

with him past the duct tape, moaning and crying, but his eyes were empty behind those thick, square glasses. There was no humanity left in that man. Mr. Henderson pulled the axe from its resting place in the stump, then held it high above his head. His expression was mournful, almost sad. I tried to scream as he brought it down. A voice cut through the darkness freezing Mr. Henderson mid-swing. It sounded like frayed wires scraping against one another, fairer than a whisper but absolutely clear, as if it were speaking directly into my head. No, this one stays whole. Something awakened in Mr. Henderson's eyes of fury unlike any I'd seen before. He looked up past the trees, his head peeling left and right until it settled on something. When I followed his gaze, I saw the

leering shape I'd seen before, standing just beyond the tree line. It was taller than I thought, maybe eight feet or so, and its eyes were dark. You! screamed Mr. Henderson, seemingly forgetting about me. Give her back to me! Give me my daughter! He rushed at the shape with his axe raised, but when he swung, the blade went right through where the figure's stomach should have been. It's not your time yet, said the shape. It chuckled, the kind of sound you might hear creaking deep within the pipes of your kitchen sink.

And in one slow motion, the thing reached through Mr. Henderson's arms, roaming its fingers into his flesh like putty. Mr. Henderson shrieked and dropped the axe before the shape reached its other gangly hand through his head. The abnormally long fingers poked out from his remaining tufts of gray hair, then squeezed. Mr. Henderson blubbered, yellow foam pulling in the corners of his mouth, and the shape dropped him to the ground, unconscious. During this, I wasted no time trying to get away, but my zip-tight hands and feet made it nearly impossible. I managed to crawl into one of the wooden structures around the tree,

then curled into a ball, trying and failing to study my breathing. I peered through the thin gap in the sticks, praying that what I had seen wasn't real. But then, through the slit, I saw it approach. Its eyes lit up from deep within its head as it looked at me through my hiding place. Then the creature pulled back its thin lips to reveal rows and rows of tiny square teeth. They were children's teeth, little yellow nubs that ground together as its mouth contorted into a vile, crescent-shaped grin. I blinked, and its face was right in front of my own, leaning into the wooden structure. its rotten skin was stretched so thin it cracked from the pressure,

and network of thin seam spiderwebbing across its face. It was bloated and puckered, as if a dozen layers of skin were squeezed beneath the outermost shell. Its hands were similarly stretched and swollen, with horribly long fingers that were as thin as a child's, but rippling with dozens of closely spaced knuckles. I felt its fingers curl around my shoulder, skittering across my back like tiny rats,

then came a warm and wet sensation as those fingers burrowed into my flesh, past the skin and into the muscle. Strangely enough, it didn't hurt. It didn't feel like much at all, actually, except an insertion of its physical being into the nebulous, fluid space of my body. I was numb, but it was a deathly cold numbness. The kind you might feel when you wake up after sleeping on your arm before wondering if the limb is even there anymore, or even alive.

The shape pulled me closer and closer. closer until we were one. It swallowed me whole. When the dream ended, I jolted upright back in the sleep lab. I could hardly breathe from the pressure on my chest and my whole body tangled with the ghost of remembrance. I thought to call out to Dr. Seward, or one of the nurses. But when I looked to the doorway, my heart stopped. It was lurking there, peering around the window between prison and sanctuary. The monstrous shape from my dream, grinning with all those teeth and staring with those hollow eyes. The light from the hall shone around what little of its body wasn't hiding behind the frame.

Its flesh pulsed like the surface of a membranous reptilian egg beneath which a nest of infant snakes struggled to burst free. It inched closer with agonizing sluggishness, long fingers rippling in anticipation as a scream built in my throat for what felt like hours. There was something else standing behind it, a shape I couldn't distinguish, smaller and less intimidating. But I couldn't look away from the creature for long, lest it lunge while I was unaware. Finally, I found my voice and woke up shrieking. It was just a dream. I ran right to Dr. Seward's office and told her everything, that I knew what happened to me, but she clearly wasn't expecting

me to say what I did. She began writing in her notebook muttering something about repression and fantasies, despite my urging her it was real. When I started getting irritated, she just looked at me and said, If a monster devoured you all those years ago in the woods, then how are you standing here now? I didn't have an answer. She sent me back to my room. It's getting dark now, but I don't want to sleep. I'm terrified it will come back. That shape. I feel something roiling beneath the surface of my conscious mind, some truth bashing against the limits of my skull. It feels dark. I'm worried if I let it out, something will crack and leave behind a yawning scar, within which any manner of unspeakable terror might lurk. Insanity festeres in that space.

But the weight of the day weighs so heavily. Perhaps if I just rest my eyes. June 24th, Abyss. I stand between spaces. I am in my bed. I am not. The shape stands in my doorway. It stares at me with many eyes. It stares at me with my eyes. I stand in my doorway. I stare at a shape that is not quite what it used to be. I see more. I see children of parents who've entrusted their lives to strangers.

I see them sleeping peacefully in their bunks, unaware of the spectacled man seething in the corner. I see an ancient snake with human flesh, disgorging its partially digested dinner. I see limbs imbued with new purpose writhing in acidic discharge. I see myself. I see the puppet Henderson sitting in a dark room. His index fingers plunged two knuckles into his eye sockets as he laughs,

as if scooping every speck of gelatinous flesh from their mucusy homes will erase the mad memories plaguing each waking moment. I see myself. I see a dreaming child. oblivious to the world, the real world, beneath the veneer of birds and beasts and trees and flowers. I see myself. I see it all. I see myself. Oh, God. I see myself. And finally, a starving survivor is rescued by an elderly man and his beloved dog, only to discover what survival really requires.

Martyr Vespersange. Crippy presents. Prepared with love. Steam curled over the table. The sense of spices slowly took over the room. Even the flame from the candle perched in the middle leaned toward it, growing hungry, with slow clunks of his wooden crutch, Henry limped to the table, carefully trying not to spill the water and the craft he carried in the one arm he still had.

He pinned it against his hip as he worked the crutches. The dense in the middle craft showed how often he had practiced. When he arrived at the table, he balanced on his one leg, carefully placed the crutch and advice made of duct tape and tubes, then set the water on the table. He sat down, inhaling, his lips curling upwards as he nodded. We have a good life, haven't we, Caleb? He said, while lowering his hands towards the ground and letting it hover there,

from the kitchen, with a wiggling tail, Caleb came in, her head bobbing slowly from side to side. Come, old woman, Henry tapped the side of his chair. Caleb carefully pushed her head against the hand and gave it a single lick. You want a bean? He plucked an elephant bean from his bowl and lowered it towards Caleb, who very carefully took the bean from the old man's hand, then lay down by Henry's foot, happily munching on it.

I tried some curry powder on it. He explained, while taking a spoonful of the bean and rice dish, blowing on it before eating. That spicy, isn't it? He laughed as Caleb coughed. Caleb's head went up in one fluid motion, her ears both pointing towards the door. Henry sighed. A soft knock, almost inaudible. Even softer, as if a quick burst of wind it hit the door.

The loud sound came from the foot of the door. The man heard he had his hand on the crutch. Caleb, get my gun. Caleb walked briskly towards the living room where a revolver lay on the table. Gently with her mouth, she took it and brought it back to Henry, who limped towards the door. Caleb was showing her teeth before the door opened. Henry nodded. Together with the flickering candlelight, the teeth drew attention away from her impoverished, thin body.

Henry held the gun in his hand, pointing it towards the door, with one quick nut. nod to the growling Caleb. He opened it. On the table, the bowl of bean curry kept spreading its scent. The steam vanished as soon as the door opened. The candle fought for its life to stay lit. Caleb stopped growling. Henry lowered his gun. On the steps lay a young man. His face so thin the lines of his skull were clear to see. He raised his head toward Henry and Caleb, a feat he clearly lacked the strength for. Please? The voice was soft, croaking from the dryness of his throat.

Help! Henry looked at the young man's body, then shrugged. What do you think, Caleb? He asked. The old dog stopped bearing her teeth and put her nose all over the man on the floor. Her nose moved over his clothes and across his whole body. After thoroughly inspecting him, she turned her head towards Henry, then licked the man's cheek once.

Let's get him to the couch. Caleb started tugging. Henry helped as much as he could with his one leg and one arm. The man was so light it made Henry shake his head. I'm not sure he'll survive. He muttered while looking at the cupboard. Is it possible we're going to waste an IV? He petted Caleb on the head.

She barked. You're keeping me human, Caleb. Henry sighed as he limped. towards a cupboard. Jorke opened his eyes. Everything was blurry, but he felt warm. He was in a room that smelled strange. Hartley of wet dog,

mixed with the sense of garlic, pepper, and basil. Druel rolled over his chin. Automatically, he tried to wipe it away with his arm, but it felt so heavy he only managed to raise it a short distance. He was already shaking from the effort. A sharp pain shot through his arm as if something was pulling him back. Wait! Wait, you'll pull your IV out.

He heard a voice say, light and friendly, before a soft tissue wiped the drool from his chin. You're right, Caleb. The voice said to someone outside Jort's blurry vision. Then came words that nearly made him cry. Let's see if you can keep some soup down. The steam of the hot broth tickled his nose. The garlic, pepper, and salt made him lift his head as if pulled by the scent. He slurped the sweet liquid in.

He tasted the fat, the creamy thick soup. Something was mashed into it. Potatoes, tomato. One spoonful of real food sent warmth rushing through his body. Thank you! Jorke cried after swallowing. Thick tears immediately made use of the fresh source of salt and moisture. After a second, he added,

please don't eat me remembering exactly what the world was jort heard the spoon stirring the soup then carefully lifting another spoonful from the bowl into his mouth i am and remain a vegetarian the old man said jort heard an amused vibration in the otherwise baritone voice and the other Jort swallowed again. His vision adjusted slightly. He could now see the man, the man with one arm. He smiled at him, then looked down. Caleb, come say hi, the man said. Jort felt weight settle upon his chest when a light, woof, sounded from somewhere outside his vision.

He laughed. Save your strength, the man said, giving Jort another spoon to the moment. Jort ate in silence, then sleep took him, less haunted than it had been in a long, long time. Jort sat upright on the couch. Henry sat in a chair in front of him. In only three days some of his strength had returned. The IV was out for the first time. Henry petted Caleb, who found a spot on the couch now that Jor was no longer taking it

up completely. She gave away her spot on the couch for you. smiled. She will expect regular petting in exchange. George nodded. The weeks of starvation did a number on his body, though he was slowly regaining the strength to walk small distances. He tickled under the dog's chin. She squinted her eyes and looked at him. Caleb, George said, I think I owe you my life. Then he turned back to Henry and ate another spoonful of stir-fried vegetables. "'Who's Liz?' Henry floated the question.

You kept saying her name in your sleep. Jort stopped breathing, looked at the man, and remained silent. "'I'm sorry,' Henry said. "'You can talk about it when you're ready.' Silence settled over the room for a few seconds, then Jort took another bite. "'Amazing, you still have this amount of food.' Jort chewed heavily. The first few bites of solid food had made him cough violently as he swallowed them almost whole.

I owned a grocery store and the resort nearby, he said. When the madness had all the tourists left, so I took it all. Henry stood up and limped to the kitchen, turning a few moments later with a bowl that he placed in front of Caleb, who attacked the food like it had personally offended her. Jort looked at the old dog eating. His eyes traced her ribs. He could count every one of them.

She does not look well. Is she okay? Henry sat back down in his chair. His eyes settled on Jort. On his grew in Jort's stomach. I'm sorry, he said. I didn't want to upset you. Henry sighed again.

His eyes darkened as they fixed on Jort. You would have found out eventually, he said. Unfortunately, dogs need meat to survive. I ran out almost a year ago. Jort waited a second, then looked into Caleb's bowl. Small chunks of meat drifted in the beans and grains. His brain tried to connect the dots. The source of the meat hit him like a shovel.

He stood up immediately, as if shock, by some unseen electric wire, much too quickly for his condition. He collapsed as fast as he had risen, only to be caught by Henry's strong arm. Henry lowered him back onto the couch. You're going to feed me to your dog? George's eyes flashed toward the door, then to the gun on the table. He grabbed it in a single motion. Henry did not stop him.

Caleb kept eating as if nothing had happened. Henry's eyes drifted to where his leg used to be. Then to the stump of his missing arm, Jort lowered the gun and opened his mouth. Henry nodded. Your arm and leg, Jort said. Henry nodded again. He petted Caleb. I do not think she knows.

But in order to keep her alive, it took some sacrifice, Jort finished. Henry, that is... He stumbled over the words. I haven't seen a dead animal for years. Henry continued. It was the only way. He smiled.

I do not regret it. Jorke closed his eyes. What will you do when you have nothing left to give? Henry swallowed. I have one more leg to give. His voice said, thicken now. Jorke could hear the wet sob he was holding back. She's 17. I hope she'll die of old age before she starves. Henry stood up and limped away, leaving Jort staring at Caleb, who was

licking her bowl clean. For more information on this podcast, including how to submit your own story for consideration, please visit Creepod.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 stories author.