Creepy - Whatever Happened to Gerald Russell?

Episode Date: July 30, 2023

Whatever Happened to Gerald Russell?***Written by: Nicki Brumback***Bonus Episode: "When The Sun Shines" Written By: Eric Nash and Narrated By: Alicia Atkins***Check out our reward tiers at patreon.com/creepypod***Sound Design by Pacific Obadiah***Title music by Alex AldeaM Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous chilling and disturbing creepypastas and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened or are simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. He presents Whatever happened to Gerald Russell Written by Nikki Brumbach.

So, here we are. We've reached the end. You waited patiently, but I know what you're really after. When the idea of writing this memoir was presented to me, I agreed under the condition that I would include as little about my father until the final chapter. I knew all along that this was really about capitalizing off my last name. But my story's been hidden so long behind his memory

that can anyone really blame me for wanting to take hold of the narrative for once? It wasn't a difficult decision to leave Gerald's influence on my life out of this book for the most part. For the first seven years, the man was just a figure on a television screen and in magazines or a blurry profile observed from stage left. After that, he was the whispered words of concern between my mother and grandmother. The reason I wasn't allowed to open the curtains or turn on the radio. Then, he was a ghost.

Thousands of people turned out for his funeral, crowding the streets and singing his songs. The fans left bouquets piled at our gate, destined for the landfill. In death, his slate was wiped clean. It was as if they had all forgotten what he'd done. A sinister metamorphosis into a saint just by kicking the bucket. Jerry Russell, lead singer of the screaming skeletons. Husband and father. The son of an Appalachian Minor,

plucked from obscurity as a young man and turned into a star. He left behind a child. enough money for a steady stream of drugs and booze for a lifetime, and greedy paparazzi that still craved what remained of the Russell legacy. When my father and mother met, they were two teenagers in a small backwoods town with nothing to do but get in trouble. Mom was a high school senior, and dad would have been too if he hadn't dropped out. During the day, my grandfather dragged dad along to his brother's hardware shop,

where he spent the hours stocking his shelves and educating his, mothers on the perfect snow shovel for their needs. At night, Dad snuck out to pick up my mom and fool around in the car behind the 7-Eleven. Glamorous. Afterwards, Mom said Dad would sing to her and dream about making it big. Everyone you talked to from back then says the same thing. Dad had all the talent for stardom, but no real hope. That kind of thing just did.

It didn't happen to boys from their neck of the woods. But it did happen. And that's where the rumors started. Because one day Jerry Russell was in nobody going absolutely nowhere in life. And the next, he was making records. People around town like to say that in those early days, Dad could be seen around town with a pale stranger in a dark suit. Some say this guy wore a hat that obscured his features.

that he disappeared if you tried to focus on him too hard. I don't know how much truth there is in that. What is for certain, is that after that, dad would disappear for a few days at a time. Each time he'd come back with some stray he ran into at a bar or on the street, Dave, Curley, Pepper, and Rico. All of them report being drawn to my dad in a way they didn't really understand. They said it was fate.

There were photos of them from back then. Right up until she died, Mom will pull them out and run her fingers over them so gently, like she was afraid they'd fall away to dust. I'm sure you can imagine what they look like. It's a lot of denim and leather, long hair, and cigarette smoke. A bunch of teenagers draped all over each other on a beat-up couch, empty beer bottles littering the coffee table.

By this point, Mom had graduated, and the whole group were living together in a little yellow house held together by prayers. The roof leaked when it rained. They were happy there, I think. Dad wrote what was to be their first hit, devil in the details, on that front porch. Bit on the nose, if you ask me.

It definitely didn't help the rumors that there was something sinister going on in the background. Also, troubling some of the more spiritual members of that little community was just how quickly the group had gained notoriety. Within a year, the ragdeg band calling themselves the screaming skeletons was going from playing bars to real gigs. At first, they mostly did covers of old favorites. But Dad wrote like a madman.

He scribbled lyrics on napkins, his arms. arms, on the walls. The others, talented as they were, struggled to keep up. Mom and Aunt Pepper both said that the first few times the band's music played on the radio, back when that was still worthy of a celebration, dad would get real quiet. The others would be dancing around the room, flinging themselves around wildly and screaming along to their own voices.

Dad didn't. He'd watched the others with a smile, then get up and make his excuses before going off on his own. Their first television appearance drew in bags and bags of fan mail from all over the country. Recordings of their performance of sweet taste of fire, and the interview that followed can be found on YouTube, still drawing in thousands of views every day. They toured the East Coast, and it was all over the country, then Canada. Their first European tour was back-to-back sold-out performances. They started partying with models, actors, the rebellious sons and daughters of politicians.

Uncle Curley says that a lot of this period in their lives were a blur. The only way any of them could be sure it even happened was because of the photos in the magazines and, from one particularly wild night, the police report. When my mom found out she was pregnant, everything changed. That's not surprising. Babies changed things. Mom stopped taking along on tour and dad... Well, dad said he was happy, but grew distant.

He seemed scared. I was born on a stormy night in March. Apparently my dad took one look at me, held his arms, out, but then backed off like he was afraid to touch me, then just walked out. Mom was a mess, and Aunt Pepper spent ages comforting her. Mom was terrified that he'd gotten it into his head that she was cheating. The next morning, though, Dad showed up with roses in a brand new song. Oh no, a wicked man don't deserve something like this.

It's good to meet you anyway. That line plays in my head so clearly every single day. That's my song. It's one of the only gifts he ever gave me that didn't come through his manager. Mom tried to keep my childhood as normal as possible. We were living at that time in a house that had built for mom in upstate New York. Even with its remote location and high fences, determined paparazzi still got shots in me toddlers.

through the grass or my mother relaxing by the pool. The first crack started to appear in the facade. Dad grew increasingly paranoid. Articles started popping up about the great Jerry Russell's legendary temper. Never mind that no one had ever suggested my father had any anger issues before then. Still, it only seemed to make his fans love him more. They saw his aggression towards the photographer. refers as a rock star giving the middle finger to the system.

My family was worrying themselves sick, panicked that he'd end up locked up. When I asked my mom later about our time in that house, she shut down. It wasn't until I was in recovery, an early attempt at sobriety that lasted a few months, when she spoke to me about the incident. Your father started having nightmares, she told me. Mom had stopped drinking when she was pregnant, but Dad never gave up the bottle. He couldn't sleep unless he'd been drinking. He claimed one of the guest rooms at the other end of the house, far from Mom and I.

He had started screaming in the night, thrashing about like he was resisting invisible restraints. Not yet, he'd beg. Not yet. Mom would catch him talking to himself. frantic whispers born of anger and words that she couldn't quite make out she pleaded with him to get help go to a doctor but he brushed off her concerns then one night the damn broke dad was meant to be watching me just long enough for mom to grab a shower i was in my playpen he was bent over a coffee table covered in papers filled with lyrics she couldn't have been in the bathroom for more than the bathroom for more than the last one could have been in the bathroom for more than that she was in my playpen he was bent over a coffee table covered in papers filled with the She couldn't have been in the bathroom for more than a few minutes, but above the rush of water, she heard a noise.

Jerry's voice, shouting, worried that it was me he was screaming at. Mom jumped out of the shower and wrapped herself in a rub to come and check. I was still safe in my playpen, but Dad was nowhere to be found. Then a crash came from the kitchen. He was screaming at someone to get out, to leave his home. Mom grabbed me and ran for the phone. When the police got there asking for a description of the person who broken in, that acted confused.

No one had broken in. There was never anyone in the house but us. Sorry, officers, all a misunderstanding. Sure, I'll be happy to give you an autograph. It's always good to meet a fan. Mom refused to stay in the house another night after that. She packed the two of us a bag and went to a hotel. The very next day we were on our way back to their tiny hometown to stay with her parents.

It was only supposed to be for a little while, but that's where I grew up. I played barefoot in the river, rode my bike to my great-uncle's hardware store, gloriously oblivious to my father's antics and the press. If he was playing a show in the city, Mom and Grandma would take me. Uncle's Rico, Dave, and Curley, along with Aunt Pepper, would stop by for a visit. They'd tell me all about the cool places they'd been on tour

and the fascinating people they'd met. The dad stayed away. It's taken a long time to understand that he thought it would be better for me that way. I got good grades in school. I pretended not to be bothered by the comment, about my dad being a drug addict and a loser. For a while, I'd stay up late to watch his interviews and performances on TV.

Then as those turned to news reports and gossip, Mom stopped letting me watch. We got a tutor, though. Back then, I wasn't sure why I had to stop going to school. I spent my days working with Grandpa on his old car. The very last time I saw my father in person. It was through my bedroom window. In the days before, I heard my mother on the phone with my other grandmother, No, no, I haven't heard from him.

Yes, the police told me to be on the lookout. I just can't believe he would do this. Then, in the dead of night, I was woken up by raised voices. My heart rushed, and I crept at the window. The porch light cut through the dark and there, Right in the front yard was Jerry Russell. He looked like he'd been through a war. His face was gone and he was practically drowning in clothes much too large for his frame.

His shoulder-length hair hung limp and tangled. I don't remember most of what was said that night. Just one thing sticks out. Barb, just... Please let me say goodbye. He didn't say goodbye that night. It took days for them to find him. But when they did, the media descended on our little town in a frenzy.

I made the mistake of looking up the details as a teenager. He was in the little yellow house, long empty. The weeds out front were overgrown and the paint was cracked and peeling. They found his body in one of the two rooms, the one he'd shared with my mother. His corpse was naked. and filthy. He was clearly malnourished. At first fall, play was expected, but eventually the case was dropped because of insufficient evidence. If anyone had any information relevant to the case, no matter how small, they were encouraged to take it to the police. It took a long time for the

family to get his body back from the coroner. We held his funeral in New York, where most of his friends were. I only vaguely remember the service. Complete strangers who knew my father better than I did gave speech after speech. People I'd never met came over to offer words of sympathy and explain their connection to a man I only remembered in the abstract. They held my hands in their own, patted my head or shoulder, pulled me into hugs before I had time to even register their faces.

For weeks after, I envisioned disembodied hands all over me, dragging me underneath my bed and down below the earth. We moved back into the house where I spent the first few years of my life. The weight of his presence could still be felt in every single room. His memory was a ghost that we had to learn to live with. So, now you're caught up to where this memoir began. again. Mother and child, alone in a house far too big, with everything and nothing all at once. But, dear reader, I have to ask your forgiveness once again, because this is still not the entirety of the story. I stated at the beginning of this chapter that I knew going into this

what the audience would really want. The story of Gerald Russell, as told by the child he left behind. I deliberated whether I would agree to it. After speaking to my wife and to my remaining uncles and aunt, I decided that I would do it under one condition. This would be an unburdening. My therapist advised against it. I believed out of the fear that the repercussions would send me spryptial.

firing back into active addiction. Having given him plenty of thought, though, I came to a certain realization. Everyone picking up this book already had an opinion. What can they hurl at me that they've not already said thousands of times over? What if they say that I'm crazy? I asked myself that more than once, and the answer was always the same.

I was a cocaine addict who crashed my car into the Mississippi River on a highly publicized bender. They already think I'm crazy. What if they think you're like your father? I asked myself this too, and admittedly, they had far more of an impact. I've spent my entire life trying not to become him, or my adult life, I should say. My teenage years were a mess. The fear that I would become some lunatic destined for a lifetime in the hospital or prison consumed me. Maybe I wouldn't even make it that far.

Maybe I'd end up dead in a gutter somewhere. Any substance I could stick in my body to quiet that anxiety, I hoarded with unabashed greed. The thought of what I must have put my mother through still fills me with shame. The concept of self-fulfilling prophecy was completely lost on me. But my father would have never done this. What I'm doing now, he let the knowledge of what he had done die with him. Even when the secrets he kept harmed the people he loved. Never once did he own up to the mistake that both built his career and ruined his life.

So I'm going to do it for him. I will set myself free and you can take what I'm about to tell you as an elaborate hoax if you'd like when I was in my early 30s I decided to clean up my act it wasn't destined to last but recovery has its ups and downs I've just gotten out of a treatment program one of many that I didn't take nearly as seriously as I should have

I was overconfident in my ability to maintain control Foolishly, I decided the best thing that I could do for myself was confront the legacy Jerry Russell left for me, and I had to do it alone. I interviewed anyone I could think of that might have known my father. That's when I first heard the rumors of some crossroads deal when I was a young man. I tracked his career. I watched his interviews and read the articles written about him. I drug boxes and boxes of mom's old pictures and mementos from the attic. It became my new addiction.

I was using it to fill a hole. I learned about what he had done to that fan, tearing at his face with a pair of scissors and accusing him of being there to take him away. I could so easily imagine myself in his place. I pictured myself, eyes closed as I relaxed in a makeup chair I would have been waiting for my cue to go on set

trying to scrape together any bit of rest after days without sleep voices faintly plaguing the back of my mind then someone slips into the room someone I don't recognize the fear-induced adrenaline telling me to take a stand or find a way to get out

This person, I don't know. They have their hands out, and they're coming towards me. They're trying to call me down, but I don't know that. I don't understand anything they're saying to me. Those voices in my head are screaming now, and nothing can get through to my exhausted brain. There's only one thing in the world that matters in this moment. They are in front of the door, my one way out. The makeup artist has left their kit behind.

A pair of scissors gleam seductively in the light. I played that scenario over and over. I pictured the man beneath me, his face rapidly becoming something unrecognizable. I saw it in my dreams. I looked at that man up, dear reader. I wanted to know if he was still alive. He was.

He is still. I hope that he's found some measure of happiness. I wonder if it's as difficult for him to look in the mirror as it is for me. Although for altogether different reasons, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this is what brought Dad to the house that night. Determined, I made the decision that the only thing left to do was to go to the place my father died. That little yellow house where it all came to an end. There were so many questions left.

How could I move on with my life? I wondered. When I couldn't let go of the how and the why of it, I left behind my apartment in New York City with nothing. I hadn't bothered to pack a bag. I called no one to tell him I was going. I just left. The city fell away.

And for a moment, however brief, I was filled with this certainty that I would not be coming back. I dismissed the thought and continued on until I was once more in that little Appalachian town for the second time in a year. It was the most I'd visited since my grandparents had died. Stupidly, I got lost. My own hometown. That should have been all the indication I needed to tell me that I wasn't in the right state of mind, but I pushed on.

I was just about to give up, backtrack and get direct. directions from some gas station attendant or at the diner. The lone eating establishment this place could boast. That's when I saw the turnoff, I knew just where to go. The road wasn't paved. The car dipped and rocked and kicked up dust that took over my rearview mirror. At some point the radio cut out, and I shut it off to be rid of the static. I wish I could describe to you how I felt when I pulled up to that little yellow house.

but I can't. The emotions that filled me were mere flashes and a pan. They were one moment and gone the next. They were slippery and hard to define. One replacing another until I got out of the car and slammed the door on them. I wanted to leave everything in that car. Every thought, every feeling. If I looked too much into them,

they would smother me and I'd run home with my tail between my legs. I walked up to the house with all the enthusiasm of a condemned prisoner heading for the gallows. It was a small place, one that certainly hadn't been big enough to house the band. But just then it seemed to loom large over me. The paint was nearly gone and the roughsagged in the middle like it bore the weight of the world. The wood of the porch groaned and complained with each step I took. My hand froze just as I reached for the rusted knob. It could have been locked.

I could have been forest-ended all right there. I was being insane. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a flash of movement, just at the tree line. I scoffed at myself and tried the door, and it was unlocked. More than that,

it swung open with a surprising ease given the state of the house. I stepped into a room, room that looked like it had been the sight of a natural disaster. There was still furniture, overturned and rotting. The place stunk of mildew and dust and... Something else. Something foul.

What am I doing here? What could I possibly hope to find? A sound came from deeper in the house. A quick rustle and then a thump before all fell quiet once more. An animal, surely, just a startled squirrel or a bird that made its home here. That would explain the smell, too. If animals had found a way in and there were no doubt be dead ones that had crawled into any nook and cranny to die, it had been nearly 20 years since they pulled my father's body from this place.

Little more than a shack, and it looked his own no one had been there since. My shoes left footprints in the fine layer of dust to coat the floor. It was in the hallway that I noticed something odd. There, on the ground, where marks gouged into the hardwood. I knelt briefly, brushing away dirt and debris to get a better look. I spayed my hand over them and went cold at the understanding that they were nail marks, clawed into the wood by someone desperate to escape. I followed those marks,

followed them to the back room where they disappeared beneath the door. The smell had grown stronger, and I gazed against the pungent odor of decay. I should have turned around. I shouldn't have opened the door. To this day, I cannot explain to you why I did. What I saw made me recoil.

The walls were covered in markings, drawn crudely on the flimsy wallpaper with some unidentifiable pattern. I can't tell you what they were drawn in, just that it was the color of rust. Among the mess, the occasional word would stick out to me. Payment, darkness, hell, and my name. name. My name was on that fucking wall. I stepped closer to it, transfixed. Not even a breath had passed between me stepping over that threshold and the door slamming closed behind me. I beat against it fruitlessly, slamming my shoulder and twisting at the knob, a caged animal. From behind me came another noise. When I desperately wanted to pretend I had not hurt. I wanted to

tell myself that this was all some terrible hallucination, and part of me, irrational though it was, felt that whatever I would see when I turned around would make it real, seeing it would bring it to life. The noise came again, and I turned slowly, trembling. Crouched in the corner of the room was a pale figure, its naked body seeming impossibly fragile. The skin pulled tight over its bones. Patches of hair were missing from the scalp. What remained was clumped together in thick mats. That pitiful, feral thing looked at me. I recognized him.

Not for who he was in that moment, but for who he had been. That person was gone. What remained was a creature. Saliva dripped from its open mouth. The place where his nose had once been was a pit right in the center of his face. For a brief moment, the two of us just looked at each other, and then he was up, running at me with a strength and speed he should not have had. I fell back against the door, a sound that was half scream and half sob wrenched itself from my throat.

I braced for impact, expecting to feel his hot breath against my face. The feeling of fingers clawing in my skin and tearing flesh from bone, nothing happened. When I opened my eyes, the room was empty, and I fled. I didn't go home at first. I pumped myself full of drugs, and I did not come up again for weeks. It was another two years before I tried again to get sober. It took. I've been clean for a few years now.

I met the love of my life. I told her about what happened to me that day in the house. She believes me. Or at least, she believes I truly experienced it, and I imagine that whether or not it was real is a different matter for her entirely. She supported me when I bought up the land the house was on and had the place torn down. Still, I won't go back to that town. Now you know.

I don't know if there's a satisfying way to end this. That's the thing about writing your own memoir. I don't know how it ends yet. Hell, I don't even know if there's something out there. I don't know if there's a heaven or a hell. I don't know if my dad sold his soul and what I saw was a manifestation of whatever was left here on earth. I don't know if it was a ghost. I don't know if my dad was just a mentally old man.

And what I saw was just the result of a brain fried by substance abuse. You can decide yourself, I guess. But I'm ready to move on from it. Good luck out there. For your bonus episode, Creepy Presents, When the Sun Shines, written by Eric Nash and narrated by Alicia Atkins. As my dad remembers it, he was walking with my sister, Anna, along the lane, returning from the little shop at the cove.

It was Easter, and my family was holidaying in Devon, as usual. The wholesome smell of cowshit surrounded them both as he blocked the sun's glare with his hand. Those hands. The mountainous knuckles, ridge-like tendons, valleys of wrinkles and creases, were landscapes promising adventure to me. He called to Anna, hurrying her along. They had been sent on an errand by mom and had to return with supplies. Come on, Glitterbug.

The timbre of his voice had always been resoundingly reassuring, even during the frequent fights between my sister and me. Cola-colored rivlets raced jaggedly down her shiny yellow raincoat and dripped into Dunlop wellies that shattered rainbow-slick puddles as she ran. The clear plastic segments of Anna's umbrella were spattered with muck. She carried that thing everywhere like some security blanket, although you can't jab someone in the ribs with woven bedding. I was always caught when I retaliated.

It was as if my own bruises didn't exist. She beamed like the sun, and everyone wanted to bask in her favor. Like everyone else, my father was charmed by her smile, which lit up her chubby little face, whatever the adversity. This perceived positivity, and her supposed selfless demeanor always distracted him. My own smile was as fleeting as the attention he paid me. I studied and excelled, only for my father to push harder. You can do better, Charlotte.

If Dad's pride ever swelled at my achievements, it did not smooth away his frown, nor did it crack his determination. The excuse for all of this? The curse of the firstborn. Or, as he called me, the experiment. As he told himself, failure is not an option for a first-time parent. I guess that by the time the second one comes along,

success has been redefined and outcomes all the excuses. People are good at that. He stretched out his left hand, the one reserved for her, as she galloped between the Hawthorn hedges, wellie's scuffing up stones to have them chase higgily-piggily after her. Let's get back to the cottage, Glitterbug. Your mum and sis are waiting. Glitterbug.

A play on words to indicate that he thought her a cute and shining thing, rather than some thoughtless lout who chucks McDonald's rappers out of car windows. She did that once, along the M3, on the way back from Legoland, and he spotted it fluttering in his rearview mirror. She blamed it on me, and he always believed her. His bug wouldn't do anything other than sparkle. It had been my idea to go to the cove. When I'd said, we could go, I meant me, us, together. I was in the garden when they left,

snipping rosemary for dinner. I expect they called to me, but I must not have heard. I never have learned to stop making excuses for them. In the lane, his arm trailed as he turned away, a gesture that I always read to indicate that help would be there whenever she needed it.

Her cool, clammy hand fed into his. One day, she'd reach an age when she'd refused to take, take his hand. He knew it come, and it frightened him nearly as much as he longed for it. He told me this later. I assumed he spoke with the both of us. When they reached the style at the field where the cattle grazed, my dad is adamant they heard the swash of water. Both father and daughter looked back along the narrow lane to see the puddle Anna had been splashing in, dance and jump, leap and spray. It looked like a sparrow in

a bird bath, Anna had said to our father, more like a buzzard in a puddle, replied Dad. Intrigued by the possible sight of a raptor taking a wash, the pair returned to the puddle, using the high grass verge to soften their approach. As they neared it, they hesitated, not from the difficulty of the terrain, but because they could not distinguish what they were witnessing. No flapping wings slapped the surface, nor was any ducking avian head visible. Nothing at all appeared to be causing the violent commotion, yet he insists it happened. Eventually, less and less water slashed until the motion subsided, rocking gently like a full bathtub. Side by side, Dad and Anna studied the undulations and attempted to decipher what bob beneath the surface

to disturb it so. The hand of a child, he swore to mom and I later, a small pale shape that began to sink and fade, until it was gone. Visible upon the puddle surface were the umbrella, his looming shadow, and the sky. Dad glanced at Anna before searching the reflection again. He swore he raised his hand and placed it gently on the side of her head,

felt the coolness of her hair on his palm. yet the dirty water showed nothing beneath his fingers. Dad? Why aren't I reflected in the puddle? The fact that parents sometimes don't have answers for a child's many questions had always been hard for him to reconcile. He felt it a personal failing. There was such a huge weight upon his chest to fulfill expectations,

most of which were self-inflicted. Though he doubted even the physicists capturing space particles would have had an answer for the truth he confronted in that water. That thought hadn't reassured him, he said. Dad? Trug of the line, Glitterbug. Puddle, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. Now.

A small pool of liquid, especially of rainwater on the ground, splashing through deep puddles. Dad convinced himself that his was a factual account. He still believes he lost his glit Anna, my sister, to a puddle down a country lane. In some twisted way he's right, I suppose. We did lose her to the puddle.

Or rather, what was in the water. Anna had caught measles before the holiday. There was some talk about canceling, but the thinking was that the annual spring break at my parents' little piece of paradise. would help their daughter recuperate. It must have registered with them that her immune system would be low. But see air invigrates, they said.

If they had ever known one could get E. coli 0157 from the cow shit and puddles, they'd forgotten it. They certainly had no idea that the infection could develop into hemolytic uremic syndrome. It wasn't long before Anna was admitted to hospital, with suspected acute appendicitis. And two weeks later, she died of a stroke. I had no idea how precious time is back then. It felt like I was going to be a kid forever.

But my childhood ended with my sister's death. That was 15 years ago. Many people's view of their childhood is funneled through a kaleidoscope of bright images, tumbling through the mind. Mine was refracted in a puddle. We mourned the loss of others like we mourn time. We see our goodbyes and we pity them, yet it could be said that, after a duration, our grief becomes a selfish act. I mean, how long do you want to stand on the doorstep waving farewell?

Eventually, we are sorry our loved ones are gone, not because they are unable to experience life anymore, but because we are unable to experience it with them. Inevitably, they'll be room for guilt, too. I often wonder what Dad would be like now if it were me that died. At least he would have his glitter bug, I think. Then I have to press those feelings down, push them under the surface. Forced myself to forget I asked the question. I could say that my grief is a reflection.

I could say I'm warning the loss of somebody else by proxy. Even though we could never stand being within a mile of each other, that mile barred with sisterly resentment, All I want is one simple embrace with Anna. And every time I imagine us close, my arms collapse and I trip over my heart. I always thought it would become easier to get back up. Dad returned to find the puddle the following Easter while Mom and I went to the new forest. That's how family holidays were after Anna.

Broken. The atmosphere between my parents like swollen clouds. Always rumbling, darkly threatening. Their argument sudden storms that lashed against my bedroom door, as I lay tearing up the slates of my sister's bunk bed, expecting, wishing to see the mattress bulge and shift under the weight of a body. I left home after my A-levels and went to study education with psychology at Bath. I met Matt, slightly older and employed, who brought me flowers.

I moved in with him around the time mum died. Cancer. When I quit school at the end of the second year and returned home, Matt made promises to follow. But he didn't. I realized that I was glad. My hands were full enough cooking Dad's meals and ironing his shirts. It may be true that the parent-child relationship often blossoms into friendship as time passes, but it can also wither.

These days I keep my room. I hear the ting of the microwave and the clatter of the pedal bin. The telly turned on for company, pounds my floorboards and bellows through the carpet. When I come home from work, I tidy his shoes in case we trip over them. He doesn't go to Devon anymore. On rainy days he visits the places she liked to go. He takes the water but with him,

the one he redesigned with carrying straps that he stores in the garage. Sometimes, when I'm not working, I follow him. I want to understand. On Friday, I enjoyed an Americano brewed with Lusty Gibbon in one of those trendy artisan coffee shops in town. I took a seat by the window and wiped away the condensation to look through the driving rain. On the bridge across the road stood a battered North Sea trawlerman. My dad.

He peered into his water butt. Rain raced jagged down his hat and collar and dripped into the container, though most splashed the concrete and skated drainward. He would stay like that until the rain stopped. I heard he once stood in the park for five and a half hours, gazing into his portable puddle. He was bedridden with flu for a week after that. A rainbow's diluted strips of Ockerwell

arched over St. John Spire as the mass of a cloud broke. The sun radiated its brilliance while the rain continued to batter the streets. The townscape was shrouded in a storm bruised light much as it had been 45 minutes after school finished on the Thursday before my 10th birthday. Then I sat on the pavement along Metravers Street, my coat scratching against the wall while my torn, wet exercise books lay tarmac stamped by tires. My dad had been driving between jobs when he saw me. He parked up, gave my ruin school stuff a good shake, and returned them to my bag.

Then he squatted next to me, his knees clicking in protest. He ignored my torn jumper, and instead told me a story of how he was bullied at school, until the day he gave his tormentor a black eye, which bloomed an iridescent purple than yellow for days to come. Standing on that bridge in the storm's stained illuminations, I no longer saw a broken man who couldn't accept the loss of his child. I saw the man who had raised me. I remembered how he showed me how to ride and swim and how to build a fire. I remembered how he taught his daughters that it's okay to be wrong, much as it's desirable to be right. I realized then, with a red-faced awkwardness that made me clinch my jaw, that bled.

Lame is just a blanket for a bed of fear and anger. I swissed the last drags of cold coffee around my mouth and grimaced. Outside, the rain splashed on my face and washed away any nervousness as I tried something I'd never done before. I didn't expect him to acknowledge my presence as my fingers curled over the hard plastic of the water container, but nevertheless I was glad he remained calm. I pictured a shouting match, a painful, public scene, awkward explanations.

Rain from my wet hair threaded into the corner of my eyes, wobbled down the tightrope of my nose to dangle and drop. I stared at him and me, side by side, then down at the surface where splashes multiplied, becoming circles within more perfect circles, spreading, merging anuli with curves unending, all within a cylinder. I saw me and him.

and thought of palindromes upon a page. She'll come when the sun shines, he said to himself, all the while persistent rain sounded like the gentle rustling of tissue paper. The fleshy side of my hand nudged against the grained skin of his, those wonderful hands that promised adventure. I wanted to believe what he believed. Perhaps then he would see me. The last of the clouds rolled across the surface of his surface of his sun.

small reservoir. There. There's my daughter. I knew he didn't mean me. I couldn't deal with this situation any longer. I sighed and had to walk away. I stared at his reflection one last time and raised my hand. Goodbye, Dad.

A shape, adrift, unlike the rest. I mistook it for another cloud. But then I realized it was under a little. The small pale shape became five fingers, rising out towards us until the surface rippled. Anna's outstretched digits reaching for the reflection of my own hand. I never believed I would feel them on my flesh. But there they were, icy, cold. The chill rushed up my arm.

A grass tightened on my elbow, fingers froze onto the joint, using it as lever. to reach my neck. My scalp contracted, my head pounded, penetrated by the coldness that congealed my blood and stiffened my marrow. I could do nothing but bow under the weight and be seared by Anna's multiple grasp as the child. My sister clambered out and pulled me in. All I heard were the splashes of my struggles as she glittered above me in the sunshine. She's smiling.

I couldn't argue with him. This time, it was not futility that muted me, but rainwater flowing down my throat. I spluttered, but still it gushed in through my tubes, choking me, filling my lungs and my belly. The waves have calmed above me. The curves and anuli that had disrupted the surface a second time have ceased. No one will search for me. The sun alone peers over the rim. For more information on this podcast, including how to submit your own story for consideration, please visit creepypod.com.

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