Creepy - Roaches & Parts

Episode Date: June 11, 2026

Roaches (starts at 2:06)***Written by: JT Johnson and Narrated by: Nichole Goodnight***Content warning: child abuse, insects***Parts (starts at 27:36)***Written by: Joseph Yenkavitch and Narrated by: Owen McCuen***Support the show at patreon.com/creepypod***Title music by: Alex 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 simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence. and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. Hey, what's up, y'all?

Okay, so right off the top, I know the feed has been weird for a little while anyway with the interruptions, which I find oddly comforting, but I'm strange, and the last couple of episodes suddenly disappeared for about half a day. Okay, that one's actually on us.

We switched hosting sites, and in the transition, there was some overlap stuff, etc. Anyway, we're trying to get the bugs worked out of the system with that and our ad placement, et cetera, but all should be corrected soon enough if it hasn't been already. It has been crazy hot and humid lately, like late July, early August type weather. And everything just feels moist.

Moist. I mean, this is a horror podcast, right? Moist. I'd say more, but... I think we'd start to teeter on that line of erotica that anyone who's ever met me in real life knows I cannot pull off in the least. There's a reason to hide down in the bowels of a largely disused radio station in my free time. Anyway, while you all think about words you hate hearing people say, let's get to today's stories.

First up, from writer J.T. Johnson and narrated by Nicole Goodnight, Creepy Presents, Roaches. There had been bugs in almost everything at Nona's house. Little gnats stuck dead to the sticky rim of the jam jar. Flies dropping one at a time into whatever might be frying in the food gunked skillet beneath the swaying sticky strip. The bugs were in other parts of the house, not just the kitchen. Roaches walked up and down the rusty shower rod in Nona's bathroom. Their long, little antenna twitching and creeping over the edge.

They'd like to hide in the folds of the shower curtain, too. sometimes landing on my foot and screwing around the tub while I struggled to get away from it. They hid in the hairbrush or on the bed, under the pillow and in between the sheets. They were everywhere, it seemed. On the weekends, my mom would come and bring me back to her apartment. This was on the nicer side of the city, with big windows and no bugs. My mother was young and she had no gray in her hair, and she dressed not much different from the girls I saw walking to and from the high school.

When I was with her, it was an endless string of fun. Music, pizza, movies, rollerblading, and petting puppies at the Humane Society. She baked cupcakes at 3 o'clock in the morning, drank Coke for breakfast. And when I worried that Nona might found out, she'd shoot me a sly wink that made me feel as though I was in on a secret. In the days of the bugs in living with Nona and weekending at my mom's apartment, I had come to see Nona as my mother, and my mom is something more like a sister or an aunt. I would relish in the bliss of eating ice cream topped with sprinkles and not having to question if they were little morsels of chocolate or little mats. I would ask about my dad, sure, and my mom would always say something witty or flippant.

Oh, that old schmuck? He caught a one-way ticket to somewhere else, kiddo. Him? Who knows what good old one-night Stan is up to? Probably fishing in Kokomo. Hey, let's dance. Turn it on for me, kiddo. I'd then grab one of her little cassette tapes and put it into her

boombox she called the good lady. For whatever reason, my mom didn't like Nona, would wrinkle her nose when she smelled my clothes before making me take a bath. She would say things like Nona's as a dump, or while making a kink at midnight that that old bat ruined my life. She only said those things after she'd consulted with Jim, as she called it. But once she'd had that drink, little things would slip out of her, things about marriage and dropouts, and I'm sure I was a big disappointment. I knew, even at a young age, that there was a tangled mess of a knot between my mom and my Nona, a history that had never fully healed under the calloused surface. Sometimes when mom complained about Nona, how disgusting her house was or how she had bugs,

I would ask, beg even, if I could just come live with her. She would get a strange little look on her face, her mouth setting into a thin line before she'd take my chin and squeeze once. You're better off with Nona, my little doll. She would say, sometimes with breath smelling like frosting or candy, or other times with the sharp smell of Jim. Besides, if you were with me all the time, I wouldn't be so fun. I asked Nona once why I couldn't live with my mom,

why I had to stay with her and her bugs. She had looked sad, sad and fretful, before telling me it was just how it had to be. She once explained to me while changing out one of the sticky traps that my mother had always loved parties. Big ones, little ones, birthday parties or the holiday ones. Your mother loved them. She would say this with a smile before dropping the fly infested trap into the waste basket.

But for your mother, the party never ends. She just goes to a different one. Not truly, but you know what your Nona means. She'd look at me after saying that. Old eyes, the color of moss, pushing into my own. And babies, my darling. They don't belong at the parties that never end. As I got older, I tried harder to keep Nona's house, our house, clean.

I kept most of the food, even the cereal and bread, in the fridge. I wiped clean the sticky jam jars and made sure to turn over the blankets to check for the roaches. I sprayed the aerosol cans with the dead bugs on the label. I fought with the landlord about the unlawfulness of renting a home with these conditions. For years, I went to school praying a roach hadn't snuck in with me, hidden in my hair or in my backpack. By the time I had reached high school, my weekends with my mom had become strained and far apart. Indeed, the party never ended for her. She eventually lost the pretty apartment on the other side of town.

This had been preluded by an explosive argument one afternoon when bringing me home. I was in the eighth grade at the time, and it had been a particularly strained visit. Mom had consulted more than usual with Jim, and had been on a sort of rant from Friday to Sunday. I had a life. She had seethed as she splashed Pepsi into the gym, her eyes bleary and glaring at me. I had promise. I had potential.

She said these words in long, slippery tones, her head bobbing. Lost in a world of history I had not yet been a part of. And now look at me. Just look at me. When back at Nona's I'd stood in the hall, where they couldn't see, listening while mom demanded money. Money she knew Nona had. She had bellowed that part. Nona, who I had never heard raise her voice once, just kept saying she was sorry. I'm sorry, Kara. I'm so sorry. I don't. I can't. My mom had done something then,

a loud crash of glass and the delicate tinkle of shards dancing onto the floor stopping Nona's words. You won't! My mom had yelled. Something else breaking following her rising voice. Mom said other things. Nona did too. And at one point my name had been brought up in a spiteful hiss. My name had been used the way people say fuck and shit. I'm sure at the time I heard it quite well. But memory and the mind have a way of carefully boxing away things that hurt too much. After that, I didn't see mom for a while. When I did again, she looked. Different. She'd lost weight. Her already trim figure now looking almost emaciated. The weekends of cakes and Sundays and rollerblading had been switched out for sitting on broken down

couches, watching talk shows, and eating the dollar store burgers from whichever fast food place she had decided to work at. She'd cut her long hair short and had a habit of scratching raw patches into her neck and arms. Time went on. Nona got older. The house got dirtier. The bugs harder to kill. For a long time, it felt like my life had been glued to a carousel that could only get worse as it continued to turn and turn. I left Nonas when I turned 18. I had toiled with the notion of going to college, but in the end, I didn't go. I didn't even try.

I had friends. Friends who tried to encourage me to come along. Friends who said I could crash on their couches or hang in the dorm rooms. I had declined their offers. I knew how far the apple could fall from the old rotting tree. I found jobs where I could. I was a barista, a dog walker. I delivered pizza, and for a while I took calls at a small dental office two hours away from Nona's.

I lived in little apartments at this time. I kept them clean and laid out traps, even though there had never been a bug to justify it. I called Nona in the evenings, then on Mondays and Wednesdays. And then slowly over time I called only on Sundays. Then I didn't call it all for a time. Nona became a piece of me that felt dirty, like a secret I desperately wanted to remain hidden in the swamps of my mind. When I did call Nona,

she would sometimes know who I was, sometimes not. Most of the time she thought I was mom, asking me how school had been, if that boy was treating me nice. When she knew me as me, she would ask how I was, when I would be coming home to see.

her and if I was happy. The word happy never quite fit right in my mouth, either too big or too awkward to chew around. I was content. I was safe. And I lived in a place with no bugs, but happy? I wasn't sure, but I said yes, all the same. Mostly because I wanted Nona to not worry. I never asked about mom, but Nona would mention her from time to time. She'd tell me where mom was living, if she was in rehab or out again. I didn't care either way. As far as I knew, my time with my mother had come to an end years ago. The call had come in the late evening, the woman on the line informing me that Nona was behind on her rent. When I asked how late there had been a steady ruffle of paper, then a long sigh. No, three months. Can you tell her she

needs to get back up to standing? Tell her, Lindy can't give her much more rope on this. I've got bills, you know, and I felt a cold pit in my stomach. Nona's face filling my mind as I listened to Lindy go on about bills and her own woes. I told her I'd get it taken care of, assuring her that yes, yes, you'll get your money. But while we're on the phone, did you get an exterminator out there yet? You know those bugs have been a problem for a long time. When the call ended, I instantly called Nona, five in a row back to back. When she didn't answer, I was in my car. A strange, cold rock pressing down in my mouth. I didn't want to acknowledge the worry running circles on my tongue,

the way her face kept burning brighter in my head. I made the two-hour drive gnawing through my nails, contemplating all the things that could have gone wrong. Her hip had been bad. Maybe she'd fallen. Had she hit her head? Was she stuck on the floor? The worries chased me like dogs.

The closer I became, the more certain I was something had truly gone terribly wrong. My brakes let out small cries as I pulled into the empty spot beside her old Buick, taking notice of the one flat tire on the back. She had let her license expire years ago, the conversation replaying as I sat up and stared at the house from the safety of my car. I don't go anywhere, she had explained over the phone, voice breathless as if each word took more from her than it should have. And if I need to go somewhere,

I have people I can call who don't mind taking me if I'm in a pinch. Besides, she had chuckled then, a joke only she herself had been in on. I'm probably more dangerous behind the wheel now. My eyes, you know, and my arthritis. The conversation began to fade, fizzling out like an old song on an even older radio. My heart sinking as I stepped out of the car, momentarily lifting when I heard the sound of her TV from inside. I had made it up three of the five steps before the front door swung open. the bad hinge screeching loudly as the door slapped against the side of the house.

I froze. Whatever relief might have been attempting to unfurl slowly withered. My hands pausing on the rail. My eyes locked on the figure in the doorway. She was somehow thinner than before. A ghost of a woman I had tried to exercise for my life decades ago. Her hair was long again, pulled into a sloppy ponytail that had gone loose and frizzy at the nape of her neck.

There were streaks of gray through it, now, welling like threads of silver against the fluorescent flicker of Nona's porch light. I inhaled. A flood of words fought for entry into my mouth, clumping together to choke me as I looked up at her. Well, look what the cat dragged in. Nice to see you too, Mom. My voice felt dry and not like my own as I finished walking up the steps. What are you doing here? She had crossed her arms over herself, the width of them alarmingly thin as she looked me up and down. There were new pockmarks on her cheeks. Her eyes had become sunken since I'd last seen her. She looked skeletal. Her jaw jutting left and right in a sort of ticking motion as she looked me up and down.

You got taller, kid. A light laugh scratched to the back of her throat. Her eyes darting behind me, back to me, then behind me again. Shit, kid, you, uh, why are you here? You got any cash? Can I bum some? I looked past. passed her into the house that seemed sickeningly yellow. I thought it over, letting my words form carefully before I motioned behind her head and into the house. I'm here to see Nona. She nodded, the movement jittery and fast. She had started bouncing lightly from foot to foot, her fingers tapping against her hip.

The words, so when did you get out of rehab, clawed at the back of my lips, suppressed only by the need to see Nona. I knew arguing with her would prolong it. Stop it even. Mom shifted, back and forth, her shoulders shrugging. Sorry, you'll have to come back later. She's asleep. I frowned, inching forward, testing how firm she would be on denying my entry. I drove two hours, Mom.

Let me in. I am tired. She blinked, fingers digging into her shoulder before she backed up a few steps. The door swinging idly as I stopped it. Sure, yeah. She's sleeping, though, so... The house smelled different. New odors. Bad odors, mingling with the ones I had grown used to as a kid. Nona had always had bugs, but we tried to keep the house as clean as we could.

I glanced at the dirty bags on the floor in front of the couch, only then seeing the pair of dirty work boots still connected to the oil-stained jeans of the man slumped deeply into the place that was usually Nona's spot. He was pale and thin like mom. His eyes sunk in. The one on the left still sporting a bruise that looked maybe a week old. He looked at me with the same expression I'm sure I had for him. My throat squeezing as I turned away, seeking out my mother who had now moved to stand in the kitchen. The table was messier than Nona would have liked. Mail piled up, toppled over onto dirty dinner plates and frozen meal trays. There was a glass bowl at the center filled with cigarette butts mounted up into Little Hills. A larger roach rested at the edge of the table between two envelopes, antenna twitching curiously at me. I resisted the urge to kill it. There would be time for that, but the more pressing questions had finally swam up to the surface. I turned, the sink filled with dirty plates and cups, a thin cloud of gnats swarmed over the trash which had begun toppling onto the floor. Something small and gray

darted behind the refrigerator. We had never had mice before. Nona is three months late. Her landlady called. I at last faced Mom. Her eyes darting from the pile of envelopes on the table to me. Her shoulders twitching three times in fast shrugging movements. I just came to get that sorted for Nona. Mom's face pinched up then, the tip of her dirty thumb rubbing quickly across the flash of discolored gums. Her head shaking.

Jesus Christ, you're a full-grown grown up, right? It's Mona, not Nona. Her tone had become pitched and nasally. It was the tone in older sibling might take with a younger one to make them cry. I swear to Christ, you were the dumbest baby. What baby can't even say, Mona? She snorted, a shadow falling over her eyes. I started down the hallway, intent on waking Nona when mom stepped in front of me,

eyes wild like a dog backed into a corner. She was mumbling. I could catch bits of it, money, the dumb bitch I only wanted a little. They were strung together on cavity-coated breath. her cheeks flushing into a feverish red. The hallway from what I could see was packed with dirty laundry and food wrappers. There was a smell reaching up from the floor reminiscent of roach droppings. And now that new odor.

Mice. Let me say goodbye to Nona. I drove all this way. I was aware, vaguely, of the strange situation I had fallen into. I reached behind me, patting the phone in my back pocket once for reassurance, before taking another step towards the hallway. towards mom's unmoving but twitching stance. She's a real bitch.

Mom's voice was low, eyes narrowing. You know, she kept all that money for herself. Did you know that? And look at this dump. She kept you in this place. Christ and crackers, the bugs. You know, I had one in my hair. No shitting.

Woke up with one of those big motherfuckers. To this, she pointed towards the wall, where a thumb-sized roach rested uncaringly on a picture frame. In my... Hair. Hey, you remember my old apartment, kid? Remember how we used to play music on that shitty boombox? Those were the days, right? You should have seen me, Lance. I was a looker. Tell him, kid. Tell him your mom was a looker. The good lady, I said wistfully, inching closer to her, around her. The boombox.

You called her the good lady. Mom blinked, a flash of surprise lighting her eyes before it went out. her head nodding. Let's go make some Sundays, like the good old days. Let Mona. Nona, I corrected. Already nearly behind my mom and free to dart for Nona's room. I was around her then. My ankle nearly rolling on a pile of dirty jeans,

something alive scrumming under my foot before darting off into the shadows. I was walking fast. Mom's breath hot and stale behind me as she mumbled more. Don't wake her. No stop. Come on, kid. Ice cream. Such a bitch, such a fucking bitch.

I pushed Nona's door open, nearly knocked backwards by the smell that rushed out of the room. Oh shit, Ma, you make a mess in there. She was talking into the dark room, but her eyes were on me, her mouth pulling to the sides. Ma, you shit yourself in there? See, kid, she's in a tough spot, real bad place. Maybe come back. I shoved past her, ignoring the smell that filled the room like a thick fog. I reached onto the wall, flicking the switch. It was the roaches, I saw first, scattering like living shadows.

They had been on the bed, the floor, the wall, living freely in the dark, thriving even. I wondered with horror when the light had even been on last further to have been so many. My second thought, reeling with shock, wondered where Nona was, if not in her room. But then I saw the bed. A fat mouse, maybe even a rat by the size of it, was hunched on the narrow, thin dip of Nona's shoulders. Its whiskers and nose were red and slick. It could hear the quiet gnashing of teeth against skin.

The yellow flesh of Nona's earlobe tugging into the fat rat's mouth. Bits of raw scalp poked out from the tufts of gray hair, the marks like small strawberry stains. Bite marks were everywhere. Trunks of her face were missing. Her eyes wide? No. No, she has no eyes.

My head feeling swollen as I stared into the wide, gaping eye sockets. There was a squelching sound, followed by a thick lop of something dark red rolling out from one of the eye sockets. It was a blood-soaked field mouse. I threw up. It surged onto the floor in a hot splash. I couldn't stop. The smell, the sight of Nona taking my insides and twisting them. The mice had all returned to their chewing.

Three of Nona's fingers were missing. Two had been gnawed to the bone. A roach, large like the one in the kitchen, came tumbling out from behind her, scurrying across the lump of blankets, only to be caught by a fast-moving rat. I went to turn away when I felt the cold, hard end of something crack into my temple. I fell, first on my knees, then my side, another hard blow coming down, this time hitting the arm that I had flung up over my face. I saw red, then white, then little glittering dots that took up too much of my vision.

disorientation had taken hold, and I was blissfully unaware of where I was for what felt like a minute before I felt the weight of something pushed down on me. Mom was on me, eyes black, her lips peeled back over her teeth, her hands were trying to get to my throat. The asshole from the couch now standing behind her, his back twitching as he watched from the hallway door, she was going to kill me. This thought was not one of panic but simple observation. Her hands found purchase on my throat briefly, squeezing down before, I was able to shove her. She was light, as if made of nothing more than coat hangers and cigarettes. Her upper body spilled up and over me, one of her hands hooked into my hair, clawing wildly at the scalp. Fucking Brett, little bitch, I had potential. I had a chance. I just needed some cash. Damn it, can't you fucking get it? She was panting. Her words vibrating between growls and

sobs, her hands clawing at my face blindly as I tried to get out from under her. I fought, throwing my hands and legs, nails and feet, trying to make contact with anything that might stun her long enough to get her off of me. I tried to roll onto my stomach, the movement toppling her sideways and jarring the bed frame harshly. There was a quiet pattering noise. It was the sound of roaches and mouse droppings hitting the floor around me, on me, everywhere. She was on me again, unaware or uncaring of the bugs crawling over her shoulders, up her neck, and across her forehead. Her mouth had peeled as far back as it could go as she found my neck again. Wiery fingers wrapping down and taking hold. My lungs ached for air, my hands clawing needlessly at her choking fingers. Mice squealed menacingly

around us. The bed frame was shaking with each movement. My thoughts becoming panicked as a dark shadow began to bleed into the edges of my vision. I tried to talk, my voice swelling and dying out. Something in my neck strained a quiet crunch sending a sparkle of pain up my spine. The movement came from behind her head. Tuffs of pale hair peeking out over the edge with each hit the bed frame took. The marred and decaying scalp came into view. Then the gaping sockets, staring down at me like oozing eyeballs in their own right. The nose came next, nod to the cartilage.

Then the mouth. Lips chewed away to nothing but rubbery edges. Yellowed teeth grinning down at me like a corpse come back to life. I saw. What I thought I saw was the thin mangled arm of Nona fling out. A hand missing fingers and clung to by mice crashing onto Mom's face. The rest of Nona's body spilled out of the bed after that, landing onto the floor with a wet plop that left a smear of reddish-brown underneath her. The bugs spilled out of Nona like water from a faucet.

It was a nightmarish surge out of her mouth, her nose, even the deeper bite marks along her arms and chest. The mice were there too. Blood soaked and scrambling out from Nona's body. Their squeaks frantic. They flooded over Mom's legs. up her convulsing torso as she screamed and kicked. Mom could only hold her mouth closed for so long before another hysterical scream tore out of her.

They moved fast then, impossibly so, surging into her gaping mouth, muffling the scream into something closer to a low hum. Her neck began to swell and bulge as the roaches, and even a few mice, too, burrowed into her. I could hear the delicate tearing of skin, the harsh crunch of cartilage and bone giving way to tiny teeth and even smaller pinchers.

More bugs flooded into the room, flanked by mice and rats, as if called by an invisible piper. I ran, terrified that once they were finished with her, they would move on to me, my skin crawling with the sensation of tiny legs. I don't know when I quit screaming. I'm sure it was sometime before the police finally arrived. I had waited for them outside, slapping away the bugs that had clung to my clothes when I had run out of the house.

The officers didn't stay in the house long after going in to inspect what I had told them was in there. They all came out three shades paler, and with a look in their eyes, I could understand all too well. I gave them my statement and asked if I could please, please, go home. I learned later that there was never any money. No hidden savings or trust fund Nona had been hiding. Mom believed there was, and where that idea had come from, I will never know. On the nights I can't sleep, haunted by the phantom bugs I feel crawling on my skin. I think of Nona, and all she had ever done for me.

I know that somehow, as impossible as it may seem, Nona had helped me that night, protecting me from my mother one last time. And next, from writer Joseph Yankovation narrated by Owen McKeown. Creepy presents. Parts. Everything is quiet. Barely any hustle and bustle in the hallway, although a nurse does peek into my room occasionally,

calmness on her face. The few nurses I've seen have that same look. I left my room one time but was quickly ushered back. No one got mad or anything, just let me know I needed to remain until the operation. I must say, though, that one time I roamed down the hall, I was surprised at how a few patient rooms there were. I asked my nurse about it,

but she just said that people come and go quickly. I had a good inkling about the size of the place when I first arrived and mentioned it to the driver who had picked me up at the airport. He muttered something about the place being specialized. Dr. Phelps, a thin fellow with a struggling smile, greeted me, thanked me, and didn't add any more information.

No matter. Right now I don't have an urge to go roaming. probably the sedative they've given me. For a moment, I had to stop and think about how long I'd been here. Two days. I would have expected the operation to happen rather quickly, it being the simple procedure it is, and that they don't seem overburdened with work.

But they know what they're doing, I'm sure. If the place isn't all that impressive size-wise, the company presentation that got me here certainly was. First-class brochures backed up by knowledgeable contacts. Since I had done so much work helping people get money for these operations, I wasn't surprised at all when I was contacted. Donating myself had already been on my mind for some time, so I was already a willing subject. The flight here cost a bit, but I'd been itching for a trip anyway.

Seemed like a tofer. And the mountainous scenery around the hospital was the perfect getaway. They also promised me a very affordable place to stay while I recuperated. It feels good to be doing something for someone. Nothing in return, just the satisfaction that another person will live a better life. We've all got two kidneys, and you can live a long life with just one. Perhaps I should be saving one for my two brothers, but they're the healthiest people I know. Exercise, eat well, hike, all that stuff.

They'll probably never see the inside of a hospital. I wonder who will be getting my kidney? Mine's a nice, healthy, 45-year-old one. In a way, I hope it's not going to some old rich guy. Well, not that he might really deserve it, but I'd like to think it's going to provide a long life for someone. Who knows, maybe this is the person who will now discover a cure for cancer, or it creates some new way to make the world safer for people. Even if it's a regular guy with a nice family, kids he and his wife love and are bringing up right,

well, that's great too. I heard someone in the hall, low talking. It's not time for supper. I hoped it might be Dr. Phelps doing some rounds so I could ask questions. He came in yesterday to see me, but I haven't seen him since. I asked a nurse if he'd be showing up before the operation, and she made it seem like he might, although her face said otherwise. I'd have to say her face showed little emotion every time she came in. Same with the others.

Papers shuffling made me turn, and I saw a nurse in my doorway. She held a clipboard and stood there for a moment, checking off things. Every so often she looked up at me and nodded. Finished her scribbling, she turned her head toward me and stared, almost as though seeing me here in this room for the first time. Then she matter-of-factly told me that my operation would happen next morning. I started to speak, but she started to turn away. And this time, her expression changed. No longer did she know I was there, but now seemed to be erasing me from her mind.

I figured this wasn't going to be my permanent nurse. Not quite what you'd expect from nurses, but maybe she was having a bad day. No need to complain. At least they check everything. No need worrying about their manners when they do. I don't think they've missed any tests at all since I arrived. I did get smiles when everyone proclaimed I was a healthy specimen. At least it can happen. I smiled too. Supper would be nice. The food's been great. I can say that much about the place. It's certainly not an institution where they keep costs down. Now that I think of it though, I can't. I can't have anything until after the operation.

I should have remembered that. Those sedatives are getting me a bit confused. No matter, they did promise me the best stake I'd ever had afterwards. Earlier, I heard a noise. A thin sound, along with a wobble that told me a gurney was coming down the hallway. It entered a room and the door closed. A new arrival, I assumed. It gave me a lighthearted feeling, knowing in a short time someone else in the world would gain a new lease on life.

or at least a better existence. When the door opened and the gurney reemerged, banging against something, I wondered what this new arrival was giving up. Kidneys are nice since the one left can function just fine. But maybe this person is giving up a portion of his or her liver, or even segments of a lung, pancreas, or intestine. Maybe it's just tissues like skin, bone marrow, possibly blood-forming cells.

I enjoyed running down the list, marveling at what's science can do. In my mind, the list grew longer, adding heart valves, bone, veins, and tendons. Unfortunately, the big ones, complete ones, like the heart, lungs, pancreas, everything, I guess need to be done after you're dead. Those are already in my will. As I thought about this, I decided it would be nice to talk with this new patient. anyone coming here to donate a part of themselves that others might live or live better is a top-notch human in my book. I waited, hoping a nurse would pass by so I could ask who came in. The hallway remained quiet, however, so I decided I'd meet the person and slipped out of bed.

Immediately I staggered backwards, plopping down on the mattress as dizziness made the room spin. I waited a minute, then slowly stood and made my way to the door. peeking out, I saw the hall was empty. Still a bit unsteady, I moved down the hallway, one hand running along the cool, tiled wall. The first room I checked was empty. I didn't want to go too far from my room, but I was rewarded when I opened the second door. A figure lay on the bed. His head slowly turned to me, but his body remained motionless.

He didn't smile and then turned his head back to gaze at the ceiling. He seemed barely aware of anything. Don't mean to bother you, I said. But I just wanted to meet you. You're obviously here to donate. I admire that. My name's Dixon, George. He didn't say anything and kept staring at the ceiling.

Sorry to bother you, I said again, deciding he wanted privacy and started to leave. Holding the door handle, I heard his voice and turned, and a soft monotone with barely enough decibels for hearing, his sentence broke into only a few words I think I heard, asked to leave. For a moment, such talk upset my pleasant view of what we were doing. I wanted to hear that being here made him feel special, that he was gaining far more than he was losing.

Why? I asked. But he just let out a breath like someone finished or unable to continue. His head turned again toward me, his eyes struggling to convey something his mouth couldn't. Nonetheless, I remained upbeat. Don't worry about the operation, I explained, adding, What are you donating? I thought I heard kidney and then sister,

but his head shook as I watched him try to lift his head, his mouth moving wordlessly trying to add more. Still in positive mode, I said again, easiest operation. His body seemed to collapse under the blanket. in a face squirming to let something out, his mouth silently opened and shut. The door swung open. A nurse stomped into the room. Angrily, she escorted me back to my room, repeating to me that patients were never to be bothered. And since my operation was tomorrow,

I needed to let the sedatives take effect and not do something that would harm myself. What could I say? Meekly, I crawled back into bed. A minute later, the nurse returned with a syringe. just said a little more sedative and plunged the needle into my arm it didn't take long to feel the effect as I felt myself losing the sensation of the mattress I kept thinking about the man in the other room his unfathomable overwrought actions did take the edge off my pleasant thoughts about what I was doing quickly though I shoved the possibility away and found myself feeling sorry for the guy I hated thinking you wouldn't be approaching this wonderful act in the best of spirits I hope my little speech helped.

The light from the late afternoon slowly faded and darkness filled the room. A small light near the door came on, its soft glow working in concert with the quiet. I tried sleeping, figuring that the sedative would hasten it, but while I might have dozed now and then, the night was punctuated with wakefulness and an awareness of the hushed atmosphere. Once I heard a door opening and closing and the soft turning of gurney wheels nearby. My eyes closed, then open again at whatever hour it was. Phelps stood over me. He didn't say anything.

Just watched me with a notebook clutched to his chest. His face didn't show any emotion. I said something, but I think the sentence contained two or three ideas. The operation, the new patient, something with a why in it. I did hear him say mostly to himself, Fine, fine. I returned to the dark. But even in that state, somehow voices came to me.

They drifted in and out, sometimes two or three at a time, sometimes one voice in a monotone. In between all this I dreamed, mostly about the hospital and the few people that I'd met. And the new patient laying there, his face closer now, his lips moving frantically, his head shaking as as of trying to loosen itself from his neck to fly wild-eyed at me. This time, though, I saw more than when I was in his room. I saw pleading in his face, and even if I couldn't hear it, the word leave came to me. The dream seemed completely devoid of the joy I had entered the hospital with. I wanted that back and heard myself calling out to anyone who would listen.

I felt myself jostled, breaking me out of my dream state and voices shushing me. When I opened my eyes, two nurses stood over me, rubbing a cloth over my body with the faint odor of a disinfectant. I felt good about that. No infections that way. I expected another prick from the syringe to keep me from moving around unnecessarily, but it didn't come. The two nurses parted, and Dr. Phelps bent down, placing a small gadget near my forehead. A moment later, he nodded with satisfaction.

He did other things, after which all three smiled at each other. I could hear a gurney coming up the hall. That same sound, the little wobble in one of its wheels. my voice came to me. It's time, I asked. Phelps nodded, but didn't smile. And I didn't feel the elation I wanted to feel. The dreams, it seemed, had sapped me of that enthusiasm I had so wanted to keep.

Nonetheless, I struggled to regain it. I couldn't let some amorphous negativity sap what I had arrived here with. It did come back, but it came burden with thoughts nestling in the background. Two men came in, and I felt myself being lifted and placed on the gurney. A sheet was put over me. I suddenly felt cold, and the sheet was a welcome addition. Will I know who this is going to? I asked, but immediately shook my head.

Someone as knowledgeable about this as I was knew those things weren't divulged. Maybe it was the ego speaking, the little guy inside us that still wants a pat on the back, no matter how much we say we don't want it. Rich or poor, I also threw out, but didn't get an answer then either. We left the room and moved slowly down the hall. I glanced over at the door where the other patient had been. Even then something seeped out of it that I had to push out of my mind. A moment later, two doors swung open, and we entered a brightly lit operating room.

I expected more equipment, but at least the room seemed clean. I was lifted again onto a long, thin table. The sheet stayed over me as everyone did what they had to do. A nurse puttered about near me. It was a small woman wearing a mask, white hair sticking out from under the cap. Her eyes turned to me, but they registered nothing. Neither from a smile I couldn't see nor worry, just blankness. How's the person who was in the room next to me? I asked.

He seemed so worried. worried about the operation. I knew the word worry wasn't strong enough. The woman glanced over at the doctor. I figured it was the doctor, but when he did nothing, she turned to me and said he was just fine. After a moment, she added that the outcome was just fine.

Will I be able to see him? I asked. The nurse didn't answer. No one else spoke to me except a small, here we go, when a nurse placed an inhaler over my face and the room dimmed and went out. I've been under anesthesia before, and this was no different. Nothing is remembered.

It's the darkness and oblivion of death. Slowly, light began to penetrate, but my vision remained unclear. Even so, I could make out that I was no longer in the operating room. All I could see were a few dim lights overhead, colored reflections amidst them blinking and a ceiling crisscrossed with metal beams. I obviously wasn't in my own room. Voices sounding hollow as though words were bouncing around, a large hall came to me. They were nearby.

I heard jumbled sentences, half sentences from people not needing to explain things complete to each other. I did catch the words, emptied out, and two. I tried turning my head, but found it difficult. Even my arms and legs seemed fastened to the bed or wherever I was on. Still, I was able to twist my head and turn my eyes enough to catch a glimpse of what was nearby. Nothing was clear in the room. A light somewhere shone, but it did nothing to let me see anything. I did make out what seemed to be a gurney next to me.

Now I noticed a few colored lights blinking beside me. I twisted my head harder to see the person next to me. Nothing along his torso moved. I must have made a sound or tried to talk because the voices near me stopped. I tried to talk but couldn't and realized something had been inserted in my mouth. Had something gone wrong, I thought, panicking. I felt people moving near me. At that moment, I twisted my head far enough to see the ashen-faced person next to me.

I felt sure it was the man I talked to in the nearby room. I felt a bit better knowing he'd done what he came to do. Someone would be happy. Someone would have a new lease on life, and he'd feel better now that it was over. I mumbled something, and the voices nearby stopped. Shortly after, his bed moved, and as he slid past, I saw his body and head had been covered by a sheet, one arm dangling free. Even as I felt cold, unhappily realizing the man didn't make it, I knew I was fine.

It hit me. The colored flashing lights nearby must have been on a machine to aid in my recovery. Perhaps after a small setback, The oxygen tube in my mouth, if that's what it was, probably didn't need a machine. There was a prick from a needle going into my arm. I heard someone else say, Betty bye until you're needed. I felt my gurney moving.

Back to my own room, I hoped. Then I heard Phelps' unemotional voice telling whoever else was in the room to hold up and remove the IV from my arm, adding stasis was on hold, anesthesia. There was the rustling of papers. and unintelligible murmuring. Then, with a touch of amusement, I had never heard from Phelps, I heard him say that this one required a rush removal first. Another dispassionate voice agreed. I thought about the word stasis as they began wheeling me away.

I'd never heard of it before, but the meaning seeped out of my thoughts like something desiring to escape. It coiled a bit at the edge of my mind before coalescing into what it truly meant. It essentially meant motionless. But there was a better term. Maintenance mode. I understood the fear on the man's face in the next room. I knew why he had wanted to leave but knew he never could.

He had figured it out. My fists clenched tight. This was about products on a shelf or a gurney, if you like. A grocery store for the wealthy. No questions asked. Front of the line, dollars do the talking. For me, it'll be waiting in the dark until there's no more to give. A tear trickled down my face.

I wondered if anyone could see it. Would it make any difference? I muttered a swear, barely getting it out. Then, I didn't want to think anymore. My thoughts dimmed as a long list began running through my mind. Liver, spleen, pancreas, intestines, bone, heart, marrow, all of them waiting to be plucked. All there for the taking. Any positive lustre I might have felt for what was to be my earlier sacrifice, perhaps a small thank you, George Dixon.

Now I felt like hearing laughter from gold and bejeweled bodies. I wonder how long I'll remain halfway to death. 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 Creepard. on social media and YouTube. All stories told on this podcast are done so through creative common share-a-like licensing, or with written consent from the authors.

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