Creepy - When Using A Public Cabin In Rural Alaska...

Episode Date: January 10, 2022

...make sure you are alone***Written by Kyle Harrison and Narrated by Nate Dufort***Bonus episode: Mittens written by Samantha Arthurs and narrated by Heather Thomas***Find our reward tiers and how to get your bonus magnet at patreon.com/creepypod***You can also subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/creepypod***Sound Design by Pacific Obadiah***Title music by Alex Aldea Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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When using a public cabin in rural Alaska, make sure you're alone. Written by Kyle Harrison and narrated by Nate DuFort. Living below zero is not meant to be fun. It's definitely not for everyone, and I certainly wouldn't be here if it wasn't for a rather nasty divorce a couple years back. The average temperature here is negative 20 Fahrenheit, with an added 10 degrees in wind chill or more if Mother Nature's feeling especially feisty. And that's on a good day.

Thankfully, I had the skills to get a fairly decent job for this area, that of a forest ranger. The position's a bit different from the usual. kind in other places since we're so remote. Most of the time I'm traveling across the snowy wilderness, stocking up public cabins with supplies. These cabins usually have what some call back-country accommodations, and by that I mean, we supply the bare minimum, and the rest is up to you. This includes food, water, and bedding, so don't expect getting a five-star Hilton unless the last camper that stopped by was kind enough to leave you something. Accessing them isn't easy, and that's because these aren't really meant for your ordinary traveler. To even make it up here,

you need to be prepared. I can't even tell you how often I find frozen corpses of hunters just a few miles from these cabins, killed over simply because they didn't plan ahead. One of the biggest things that I have to contend with besides weather are wild animals. These creatures are smart and like to break into the places to steal anything they can get their grubby little paws on, which is why we stress that campers and such shouldn't leave anything behind. Isn't simply to make this whole enterprise unpleasant for you. It's to keep the site safe. I'd gotten a call from my operations manager about just such a situation, where a report came in from one of our troopers about a cabin that looked broken into by a bear or something.

the officer was already on the trail of the offender when i was tasked with heading out to make sure the cabin itself was still up to snuff travel ordinarily is a three-part process first i had to wait for one of the bush pilots to take me to the closest drop point just to avoid an extra thirty-mile trek through rugged terrain the flight is crazy with fog and winds and takes about an hour to reach the nearest fuel site that is still another fifteen miles from the cabin that was reported from there i wait for a slutter trying to stay warm by standing as close to the pumps as possible while the plane fills their tank i know that their job is likely ten times harder than mine having to go deliver goods to people that live in even further remote areas for some this place is a paradise and others it's hell i'm sure you can guess where my opinions lie When the slutter arrives, he tells me that he can take me to a two-mile marker that is meant to be a game trail for the cabin. It doesn't look like it's been used in a while, but I thank him and pay him for his services. I know that because of the way this business works, I'll have to wait until tomorrow before seeing another sledder to head back. At this point, as I move forward, I am completely alone.

Or so, I think. There's some comfort with loneliness, I will admit. The wind is all you hear as you trek across the wide open Alaskan wilderness, and there isn't a soul in sight. It's soothing to realize that nothing can hurt you. But I have to be on guard constantly, aware of my surroundings at all time. Every branch that is broken in or a scratch against a trunk of a tree is telling me a story about what happened here.

something that could change the scenic landscape, into a hellscape. But there aren't any telltale signs to make out as I approach the cabin. In fact, it would seem that this one is completely abandoned, not even the hint of the break-in like the report claimed. It didn't make sense. I can't be sure until I get inside, though, so I head toward the main entrance and wiggle the door handle. It opens with ease, revealing a very simple,

rustic interior. There isn't so much as a footprint on the ground or even a tuft of hair to show that an animal's been through here. The cabin appears untouched. But I know that can't be right because I notice a hunting rifle wedged behind the door and a canteen of drinking water. So someone has definitely been here, I realized, as I put my own gear down and decided to take a look around. The first thing to do for any cabin is make sure you have plenty of firewood, so I made my way toward the tool shed, a few meters from the main property. And along the way, I did my best to search for any sign that there was another person nearby.

The wind was much quieter now, giving me a chance to listen and meditate on what to do next. I hated the fact that I might have come here for nothing. but maybe whoever it supposedly broken in was long gone. It just didn't seem like there'd be much for me to do except sleep and head home, I realized. Not necessarily a bad ending for the trip, I told myself. I opened the shed and found the axe was missing. My guess about another person being here once again, raising red flags. And I immediately felt the need to watch the landscape.

It was so silent You could only hear my own Tromping through the snow As I returned to the main cabin I told myself to be calm And to think Was someone in the tree lines Watching and waiting

I wondered as I stepped back to the cabin It was a bit more hurried This time feeling as though my mind Was playing tricks on me as I returned To my utter disbelief There were more furnishings now a rug, some coolers, and a mattress. I'd only been outside for less than ten minutes,

and I hadn't seen anyone approach the cabin. I thought as I got my own pistol off my hip and checked the rest of the tiny property. There wasn't another entrance into this place, so how would they manage to sneak past me when I went to the tool shed? I peered toward the tree lines. The whole area looked deserted.

But these new items in the cabin did not make me feel at ease any longer. I was being watched. I was sure of it, and I knew I would need to keep vigilant the rest of the evening. No sleep for me. That wasn't going to be easy, though, as I knew I would need to journey out again for fresh food and water,

or else I wouldn't be able to make it through the night. I could potentially starve myself, but I knew that would make me more vulnerable to whatever is out there. roaming in the wilderness. I decided as I left out the front door to prop up a trap of sorts to see if I might be able to catch the perpetrator in the act of entering and leaving.

A simple trip wire with a bell attach would do the trick for any animal. But I knew this was likely a skilled hunter, so I had to think outside the box and have the wiring set up inside where it'd be difficult to see. It would probably only work once, but it'd get the job done, I thought.

I looked toward the snowy fields that surrounded me and felt uneasy. The entire territory was deathly still now, not even the sign of a deer on the trail or birds in the sky. Like everything had come to a stop. Grabbing the hunting rifle, I decided to make a quick run to the nearest forest for dinner and then get back as fast as I could. The longer I stay out, the more exposed I am. I only went maybe a mile.

aisle from the cabin, using the deep woods to the east as cover to watch a grove of trees and pick off a few squirrels. It wasn't much, but in this wasteland, I knew not to be picky. As I shot my third, I heard the bell ring from the cabin and didn't even get a chance to grab the kill. Instead, I was running, leaping through the snow to find out who or what was there waiting. The door was wide open and I saw boots to the side of the bed, immediately feeling on edge as I shouted to the door. This is Ranger Tom Freyer. Come out of there peacefully.

And there won't be a problem, I urged. I could even see wet footprints of someone that had entered. There was no response, and I cautiously peered through the empty entry. I ventured inside, shocked and confused, to see the cabin mysteriously empty, except it now had even more furnishings. Canned food, flowered plants, and hunting trophies on the wall.

it felt like this was the sort of thing that would take months to do and yet whoever was stalking me had done so in mere minutes i shouted again that they showed themselves but didn't get a response was i losing my mind night was falling fast but i was too alert and paranoid to sleep i sat on the bed and watched the door listening and waiting for something strange to happen by now i was convinced that someone was toying with me and I was sure they would be seeking shelter soon enough. The temperature gauge I brought with me read negative ten, and I knew that didn't account for the whipping winds. But the darkness didn't provide me with any answers, only more questions for the strange events that were happening. I did my best to stay awake as long as I could.

Gun pointed near the door to wait for the intruder. I kept telling myself it could be a misunderstanding. Maybe the trooper had seen a smaller animal mess with the cabin, and now a regular bystander was roaming the countryside and had stumbled across the cabin. But they refused to enter. In oddity, I was having difficulty accepting, given how cold it was. No sane person would face the cold on a night like this. But of course there was no guarantee that the person that stalked me was actually in their right mind, I thought. Then I heard what sounded like scratching on the outer walls.

Then it sounded like tapping. A repeated, almost patternistic method to their madness. Morse code. I froze and kept the weapon aimed. These places don't allow for anything to lock the door in the event that someone needs them for an emergency. And honestly, I simply wanted this confrontation to be over rather than, deal with his taunting any longer. Come out then, I insisted.

It was then, as I sat there, and heard the strange noises. I realized it wasn't simply an attempt for me to be drawn outside. It was communication. I listened and searched through the cabinet so I could find something to scribble on. Simple pencil and paper would have to do the trick. L. E. V. As soon as I finished writing it, I felt a cold sweat dripped down the back of my neck.

The woodburn stove was going, and I didn't even remember placing any firewood in it. The intruder was giving me a warning, and this was my chance to listen, I realized. But I had no idea where to go, nor do as I sure that this wasn't a trap. The nights here are far worse than anything you might. endure in the day and even with the best of gear, traversing the snow in the middle of the dark was a bad idea. Not just because of the animals, but because of how easily you can get lost. The wrapping against the outside of the cabin became more incessant. I wondered if there was any chance that survival to escape would even be possible. I pushed open the front door and shouted toward

the empty horizon. I am not leaving until you show yourself. In response, I heard the sound of a shotgun, and I dropped to the ground. I couldn't tell for sure where the hunter was firing, but it felt like I was right in their line of target practice. Instantly, I slammed the cabin door shut and clutched my own weapon to my body. The shots at the side of the cabin repeatedly, the mystery hunter, trying to scare me into the open. I wanted to get out of here, but now I wasn't sure outside was any safer. and then things were just beginning to get weird within my confined space. Already had felt like my mind was playing tricks with me about the interior of the cabin.

I went to the small kitchen that was sealed off from the rest of the area, assuming it would act as an extra shield for the attacker to break through and buy me more time. Instead, as I opened the door, I found that it led nowhere. I stared at the blank wall, confusion rippling across my body as more gullas. Gunshots rang out. The door flung open and I heard this strange howling. Something was inside the room with me, but I couldn't see it. It pushed against me the way a strong wind would.

It made me fall to the floor and drop my weapon. Then I saw supernatural phenomenon begin to occur. Had I not experienced it with my own two eyes, I'd call myself a liar. But I knew that no force on Earth could cause the items in the cabin to begin to levitate. It was as if some great invisible force was tossing items at me, screaming at me to leave. Was it just an animalistic growl, or was there someone else there? Someone from beyond the grave haunting this wilderness. I heard scratching against the windows and the cabin began to rattle, almost like a quake was hitting it, a virtual impossibility in this region.

I realized as I stayed completely still and watched the cabin begin to sink to. toward the snow. The floor was disappearing and my invisible attacker was trying to escape. The windows shattered and the logs began to split in two. The ground was opening. Bits of wood and destroyed chunks of floorboard were being sucked into a strange abysmal whirlpool that was forming a gap between me and the front door. I thought I saw footprints run off in the snow. The stalker escaping ahead of me. I pushed my back against the wall trying to desperately call for aid on my radio. This felt like a bad fever dream, a dangerous hallucination that would take my life. I wasn't even sure if anyone would hear me, but I had to try. Mayday, Mayday, Ranger Freyer here. I'm over in

cabin 305, requesting assistance. I shouted into the device as the sinkhole made a roaring noise. I was peering into a black hole that seemed to be growing deeper and deeper with each passing minute. Then, something unimaginable appeared beneath the darkness. There were rows of teeth as sharp as sharks that could be seen near the bottom of the pit, rotating and snarling as I gauged how far a jump to the entrance would be, and the items that had mysteriously been inside the cabin now were cascading downward, swallowed up by this cosmic monster. I tried one last time to get a response to my cry for help,

but the radio only gave back static as I prep the jump. Then I saw a shadow cross the front door of the cabin. The intruder had returned. I steled myself and leapt across the hole, using all of my strength to make the jump. It felt like the shadow was yanking me to safety. Something unseen making sure I didn't die. And I was just barely making it,

even with this unseen help. I crawled over the edge of the pit and caught my breath, the radio coming to life with a response. I clutched it and tried to hear. hear what my rescuers had to say, but it sounded like my own voice echoing back. The voice said as I moved out the front door. The night had shifted today. The entire Alaskan wilderness no longer looked like the icy land space I was familiar with. Suddenly, I was in a wasteland, a place beyond what this world could comprehend. A mixture of colors and shapes

that were swirling in and out of reality as I stumbled to keep upright. It reminded me of a time in college, when I'd actually taken psychedelic mushrooms for a trip, and I regretted it. Everything looked like a parallel world, foreign and strange. The trees were either upside down or hanging in the air rather than rooted in the ground. The sky was split open, and stars were. were moving to and fro across the sky. There were creatures with thousands of eyes in the heavens, reaching down to consume the sinking cabin.

A massive pillar of fire rising into the air as the final bite of the rural building were crushed by the darkness. The radio screamed louder. My voice again. It urged. I dropped it in the snow and started to run. It felt like the landscape was strange.

stretching on forever. The clouds wouldn't move from the sky and nor with the sun. Was this some sort of strange phenomenon that would cause the cabin to be trapped in a cosmic glitch? It felt like it was a dream, and yet, as I kept trying to move, my body grew heavy and I collapsed to the bottom of a hill, slamming my nose against a rock and making it bleed. I knew I was still in a reality, just not the one I could make sense of. The ground still shook and split apart. Every step I made seemed to keep me going toward the cabin as it was descending into the snow. It was nearly gone.

As I crawled away from the cabin again, I saw a shimmering figure trying to do the same. It reminded me of my younger self, hunting the Alaskan wilderness, trying to survive. Its eyes burned like fire, and it was chasing itself across the horizon. over and over again, despairing to find a way out. It was hunting me, firing at me and urging me to keep going. Then it dropped a hunting knife in front of me in the snow and tried to attack me. My hope to find it as a guardian angel was shattered. I found myself hardly able to breathe as we stumbled across a sheet of ice,

the thin, cold material cracking from our combined body weight, who was shimmering in and out. moving rapidly in the different dimension as it tried to choke me. The voice boomed. My voice. The voice of a man that had lost everything. I grabbed the knife and fought back. It was fight or die, and the instinct to survive took over me

as I stabbed the strange shimmering creature. I told myself that this couldn't be the same man I was. This had to be a darker self, a different shattered version that had been trapped here for ages. It seemed to shimmer and in and out of the atmosphere around it until at last it appeared to wear my face, an older, gray-haired and hunger-starved version of myself. Maybe the very same one that had been stuck here. Was that what explained all the strange things here? How long I wondered had my other self been stranded in this loneliness? I saw the ice begin to break and rush back to

the snow as the other me fell into the water, shrieking aloud as his body was completely destroyed by the deadly bleak waters. It only took a second, and I knew he was gone. Then I made my way toward the game trail. I was bleeding, bruised, and hardly able to move. It was hard to stay awake as the overwhelming pain and stress of the event hit me like a ton of bricks. When I made it back to where the sledder was. I collapsed against a tree and tried to control my breathing. Instead, I fell unconscious. The shimmering landscape, my last memory as darkness took over. About an hour later, they found me, offering fresh water and binding me under their sled to get back home. I still felt delirious, shaking like a leaf as they assisted. I tried to warn them of the dangers of this place,

couldn't even make words come out. Stay down, mate. You're wounded pretty badly. Something attacked you, the hunter explained. I was barely coherent, still trying to come to terms with everything I'd seen, but I finally told him I needed to get to the operations facility. He got me to the nearest airport where I found cover and waited for a plane. I noticed that the sun seemed to be especially bright for such a cold day. but he looked at me in confusion.

It's just now November. When did you think it was? He whispered. It occurred to me that I'd been stuck at the cabin for months without even realizing time had passed. Further proof, my ordeal was real. The temporal paradox, nearly driving me insane. And maybe it did in some fashion, I thought.

Some version of me was still there, so desperate to escape. it considered killing me the only solution. Maybe by killing it, I freed him. I didn't know what to make of any of it, but I made the request to operations that we should shut the cabin down. I blamed the bears, and they didn't question that. It's common enough for the animals to ransack the place,

even the ones that have properly set up traps. And just to soothe my own weary mind, I told myself it was bears. I convince myself that what I experienced couldn't have been real. But some deep inner soul that still keeps me restless tells me I know it wasn't, and some part of me wonders, if maybe I'm still trapped,

and all of this is an illusion. Still at that cabin, waiting and sitting and staring at the door and pointing the rifle, thinking that I just had to be. have to wait a few moments longer for rescue. But rescue will never come. Maybe it never did, or maybe it did, and I'm too far gone. For your bonus episode, Creepy Presents, Mittins, written by Samantha Arthur's, and

narrated by Heather Thomas. My mother, Eloise, had lived alone for 20 years. and had always done just fine. My father Marvin passed on quite a few years ago, and us kids were long since grown. We had our own lives, with two of us living out of state, myself included, though I feel a certain amount of guilt now for what happened.

I should have called more. I should have done better. She lived at the end of a cul-de-sac in a small house that her and dad had rented after we were all moved out. She had good neighbors, but her standoffish tendencies meant that few of them ever came calling.

The only people she saw regularly were the driver for the grocery delivery service and the young man who tended the lawn. Though she only saw the yard boy from her front window, as she carefully watched him trim the weeds around her flower beds. She didn't trust him not to cut down

her prize-winning roses. Besides, she didn't. didn't long too much for company, because she had mittens. Mittens was a large Turkish angora cat, white as snow with one blue eye and one amber eye. The first time she'd taken mittens to the vet, she had been worried about those eyes. But the vet had assured her that a lot of Angoras carried that genetic anomaly. Mittens could see just fine, and his eyes went from being a cause for concern, to being one of the cats, most handsome features.

Normally, mother would have picked a more striking name. Her previous cat had been named Ambrosia, but the shelter had named him mittens after he and his littermates had been found in a box by the highway. She had tried in vain to call him Cadbury, but the stubborn boy had refused to answer to anything other than mittens. The name had stuck, and that was that. As far as Holmes went, he had hit pay dirt, and he seemed to know it.

Mom was doting, and more than that, she was as forgetful as sin. She was feeding him four, sometimes five times a day, and he ate every single morsel. In between his myriad meals, he also inhaled as many treats as he could get, and sometimes stole nibbles off her plate, if she left it sitting. around unoccupied. She found it cute. I was disinclined to agree. It was no surprise when she became forgetful, because there was nobody there to catch all the little things that began to fall to the wayside. It had started small, like forgetting where she had put her keys, but had escalated to things that were far more problematic. Once she had left a burner on and had only caught it because the

smoke detector had gone off. Another time she had started to fill the tub and left the water running. The bathroom had only just begun to flood when she remembered to go check. Her medicine had been in a state of disarray for months, with the pillbox partially filled at times and then overfilled at others. Sometimes it wasn't filled at all, and she'd go a day or two before she remembered to take her pills. There were days she mixed up the night meds and the day meds, or days when she took too much of one and not enough of the other. Then eventually, she just forgot about it altogether.

For several years, she had taken a medication that helped with the chest pain and pressure for what she called a touch of angina. Barring the first scary experience when she felt she was suffering a heart attack, her heart hadn't given her any further problems. When she had woken up that morning with chest pains, she hadn't thought much of it. Even with the medication, she still got twinges from time to time, and anything she couldn't contribute to what she thought were normal aches and pains,

she blamed on the weather. It was going to rain, and so the pressure she felt in her chest was likely just residual arthritis pain leaking into the rest of her body. After watching her favorite television program that evening, she slid her feet into her slippers, pulled on her house coat, and went to feed mittens. She nearly tripped over the big cat as he raced out of the room to get to the kitchen first, already meowing pitifully from his perch on the counter. Don't be in such a hurry, mittens!

She chided him as she got out some dry cat food for his dinner, filling his bowl with exactly one half cup. After a moment of careful consideration, she added another half a cup for a good measure and then put the scooper back into the container. She had at least remembered to fasten the lid, so mittens couldn't just help himself at his leisure. Opening the fridge, she took out a carton of milk

and put it on the counter with the intention of warming some up for a nightcap. She always had drunk warm milk before bed, ever since I was a child. A stabbing shock of pain stopped her, though, gravitating from her chest and through her left arm. It occurred to her then that it might not be the angina after all, and could perhaps be something a bit more serious. The cordless telephone sat at the end of the counter, as I had insisted she have a phone in each room. We had tried to get her to carry a cell phone,

but she had staunchly refused. She'd had the same phone number for 37 years, and she hardly left the house anyway. She had simply not seen the need for it. She was very nearly there, so close that she could see the little green power button lit up on the phone's base. Mittens had finished his food,

now, and came strutting along the counter, headbutting her hands to let her know that he wanted to be petted again. The cat was startled when she shoot him off with a smack on the nose, focused only on the phone. Mitten's backed up quickly, skidding a bit on the counter. He kept going back until an object collided with him. The phone base. He'd just hit toppling off the counter and onto the floor, the phone, skittering off beneath the table. Oh! That was all Mother got out before the pain became overwhelming, and she dropped to the floor. On the way down, the side of her head contacted the edge of the counter, a sickening crack,

the last thing she heard before she connected with the tile. The side of her head was sticky with blood, staining the floor. beneath her. It was hard to say what had happened, whether the heart attack or the fall had gotten her, but the fact of the matter remained. My dear mother departed from this life, and the only soul on earth that knew a thing was mittens. Jackson Fremont had lived next door to mom for years, and his son, Henry, cut her lawn. When she hadn't lived. left his check in the mail for the month, the boy had gone ahead and cut the grass under the assumption that she had likely forgotten. When he returned the following week, and still didn't

find the money in the mailbox, he had alerted his father, but Jackson had insisted to the boy that she had likely gone to visit some of us. Two weeks after that, Jackson finally went over to take a gander for himself. Through the dusty garage window, he'd been able to be able to able to see that her car was still there. That wasn't immediately alarming, but he had begun to feel a bit off when he realized he couldn't remember seeing anyone coming or going from her home. He had gone to the door and knocked, but had gotten no reply. It had been the same at the back door, and he could see nothing through the blinds on the windows. He finally put in a call to law enforcement about doing a welfare check, lingering outside until the police showed up.

The cops did exactly as Jackson had done, trying to peer in windows and trying all the doors. They informed him that they really couldn't enter without consent from the owner of the home, which really didn't do much good in this case, but they promised to try and contact me, the eldest daughter, who lived just a couple hours away. It took two days, but I finally showed up at my mother's house with one of the officers and a spare set of keys. Jackson met us at the front door and expressed his worry, just wanting to see if she was all right. As soon as I opened the door, the smell assaulted us. It was overwhelmingly rancid, and I can honestly say that I have never smelled anything quite like it.

It was a strange combination of a freezer full of food that had been left to thaw and fester and roadkill by the side of the highway on an obscenely hot day. Worse, it was the type of smell that settled at the back of the throat and made you gag every time you took a breath. The cop put an arm out to urge us to back up as he pulled his uniform shirt up over his nose to quell the stench. I'm still not sure how the man didn't wretch as he stepped into the house, reaching for the light switch. Power is out, the officer said, flicking the switch a couple of times to no avail. You two hang back. Just wait right here.

Jackson and I were both more than happy to linger on the front stoop as the cop looked around the living room and then moved on towards the kitchen. The man started to gag. The smell growing steadily worse, the further in he went. And then all we could hear were the sounds of him vomiting and heaving. Oh, dear God! The cop sputtered out before he threw up again, just out of our line of sight. Whatever had happened was obviously bad. And Jackson decided right then and there that he didn't want to know after all.

I, however, needed to know. This was my mother, after all, and I wasn't waiting any longer. I pulled the collar of my shirt up to cover my nose and mouth, then went in, tripping over my own feet as I shuffled across the living room carpet and into the kitchen. What I saw there was something I knew I'd never forget for the rest of my life, vile rising in my throat. My mother, Aloise, lay on the floor in an advanced state of decomposition. It was undoubtedly her. I'd have recognized her housecoat anywhere.

But any discernible defining features were long gone. Her skin was modeled black, which was bad enough. But there was something else about it that made me feel like I might either scream or throw up. or perhaps both. The flesh of her cheeks was totally gone, picked through the muscle clean, down to the bone. I could see her tongue resting inside of her mouth, but it too was only partial in appearance.

The skin looked ragged too, as though the flesh had simply been torn away. Spread out over the kitchen floor was a thick, dark substance that I assumed was dried blood. Some of it also smeared on the edge of the counter. There was a terrific amount of other gore, as though she had begun to melt like a snowman in July. She and the floor, it would seem,

had become one in the weeks since she had passed away, which was something I hadn't even known was possible. My eyes began to roam the room, looking at anything but my mother's body. And I saw that an upper cabinet was standing open, and empty cat-treat bags that had been torn open at the corners littered the countertop. Had my mother's last act on earth been trying to open a bag of damn cat treats? Unable to see any more, I stumbled back through the house and outside.

I shoved Jackson aside, just in time to careen off the stoop and into the bush. where I lost the contents of my stomach. The cop had exited too, and was calling for the coroner to come, shutting the door behind him, so the stench would once again be contained within the house. The smell would leave none of us for days afterward, clinging to our clothes and the fine hairs inside of our noses. The coroner arrived within the hour, took one look at the body, and told us that mom had likely died several weeks before,

which was obvious even to our untrained eyes. An autopsy would give us more information, available in the report, once things had been taken care of. It took him and several members of his team to gather up the remains in a body bag, and from outside, Jackson and myself could hear plenty of muttered curses

and several different disgusting sounds that made me throw up all over again. Once it was done, the cops deduced that there had been no foul play, and they allowed the two of us to enter the house. Jackson wasn't thrilled, but hated to leave me alone after what I'd seen, and so he sucked it up. The smell still lingered, like it was embedded into the house permanently, and our first order of business was to open all the doors and windows.

That helped a little, though the breeze couldn't wash the scent totally away. We stood for a long time, just staring at the stains on the kitchen floor, at the tar-like matter that was long-dried blood, and the curiously human-shaped dark splotches that now stained the tile. Neither of us knew what to say. When the cat jumped up onto the counter with a loud yowl, We both jumped, like we'd seen a ghost. Jackson leaned against the doorframe with his hand to his chest,

and I dropped my cell, which slid across the floor, right into the middle of the mess. Damn cat! I hissed at Mittens as I moved gingerly to pick up my phone, wiping it off with a paper towel from the roll, hanging above the trash can. Mittens was filthy, his white fur dusty and matted. The hair around his mouth and nose was stained brown, and he had remnants of his last bathroom trip clinging to his backside. He yelled again and went to sniff the empty treat bags,

batting one of them off the counter and onto the floor. Hey, Jackson said softly as he slowly recovered from his fright. That cat. It's been here alone, what? two, maybe three weeks? How the hell did it survive? I looked up from where I was still busy trying to decontaminate my phone, blinking in confusion for a moment,

like Jackson's words weren't really registering. I finally caught on, looking over at the cat, who was now sitting in the empty sink. Good question, I muttered, stepping around the refuse on the floor to examine the empty treatbacks. Each one held just a few ounces, nothing at all for a big cat like mittens who,

while a bit thinner than usual, was certainly not starving by any means. In the cabinet that still sat open, I could see several cans of cat food, but the animal wouldn't have been able to get those open. I grabbed one now, pulling the tab and peeling back the lid. I tossed the can onto the counter, and the cat began to eat, smacking its mouth in a disgusting way. Even if it ran out of food for a few days, what the hell did it drink?

Jackson moved down the hallway, peering into rooms until he found the bathroom, the door sitting wide open. He looked inside and used his phone as a flashlight, since the room didn't have a window, seeing that the toilet bowl had a little water still standing in the box. of it. The room stank, though, in a different way from the rest of the house, and he noticed that the overflowing litter box was in the corner, and that when it had gotten too dirty, a cat had just used the room as its own private outhouse. Think I figured it out. He announced as he came back into the kitchen, though he still didn't actively step inside. Probably drank from the toilet bowl. Either that, or he cashed in some of his nine lives.

Mittens had finished his food and now sat grooming himself, licking his paws as, as if he didn't have a care in the world. We just watched him for a while, seemingly transfixed by the big white cat, and his ability to stay alive and somewhat thrive, despite his owner lying dead for weeks. I think I might know what he ate. I told Jackson, after the cat jumped off the counter and pranced from the room. I was thinking about my mother, about the torn flesh of her cheeks,

and the partial tongue resting inside of her mouth, swollen and purple, but still obviously not whole. I felt dizzy at the idea, my stomach turning again, despite being empty, and I could only gag on bitter-tasting bile. I didn't want to say it. I could hardly bring myself to utter the words into being. I had to say it, though, so I wouldn't go crazy just thinking about it. Someone else needed to hear it,

needed to understand the horror that had now taken root inside of my mind. I think that son of a bitch Ain't my mother For more information on this podcast Including how to submit your own story for consideration Please visit creepypod.com

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