Scary Horror Stories by Dr. NoSleep - Burn To Die

Episode Date: March 29, 2023

🎧 Check out The SCP Experience here: https://spoti.fi/3juM1og 👕 New Dr. NoSleep Merch: DrNoSleep.com - Free shipping within the U.S. 🎉 Get ad-free episodes + over 50 bonus episodes here: https://www.patreon.com/drnosleep ✅ Send all advertising inquiries to: [e-mail] Author: Matt Doggett Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/MatthewDoggettAuthor/ Website/Newsletter sign up: matthewdoggettauthor.com New Book Releases: https://www.amazon.com/Matthew-G-Doggett/e/B08FD5378Z DISCLAIMER: This episode contains explicit content. Parental guidance is advised for children under the age of 18. Listen at your own discretion. #drnosleep #scarystories #horrorstories #doctornosleep #truescarystories #horrorpodcast #horror Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Want to hear brand new horror stories brought to life, live? Join me every Sunday at 7 p.m. Eastern Time on the Dr. No Sleep Podcast YouTube channel, where I narrate fresh, never before heard stories in real time. Just search Doctor No Sleep podcast on YouTube and make sure you're subscribed with notifications on so you don't miss it. What the hell do you mean I can't see him? I say. He's my goddamn brother. You're going to have to release his body to me anyway.

The medical examiner. A buttoned-up type about 10 years my junior blocks my way with his hands held up. We already had someone identify him, sir, and I'm afraid we've already cremated him. That stops me dead. I look into his eyes and speak deliberately. What? You cremated him? Who told you to do that? It's standard procedure when a body is damaged like your brothers was. Sticking my chin out, I swallow my anger, knowing that if I hit this man or touch him in any way, I'll be going to jail. And I don't want to do that. I put a finger in his face instead.

What the hell is really going on here? The guy stammers and steps back. What? I left my job as a cop roughly five years ago, but I know that's not how this works. So either someone fucked up or you're lying to me. So which is it, Dr. Felster? A door opens down the hall. I look over the medical examiner's shoulder and see a familiar face.

Detective Reneer. Our eyes meet, and he smiles apologetically as he heads toward us. We were never partners, but I knew him well during my years as a detective. What the fuck is going on here, Reneer? I shouted him. Easy, Rucker. He says, coming up and taking Feltscher's place in the hall. Let's have it, chat.

He goes to put his arm around. me, but I'd knock it away. Don't coddle me, Reneer. Just tell me what the hell is going on. What happened? All I've heard is there was a gas explosion at a funeral home. You really expect me to believe this shit. Believe what you want, Reneer says as we walked down the hall toward the front doors. But it's the truth. We step out the front doors and into the late spring sunshine. So what was Ian doing there? Because he sure as hell didn't tell me about a funeral he was going to. Oh, because you two were so fucking close.

huh? He says back. I glare at him. He looks old. His skin is sallow. And the crow's feet bordering his eyes are further entrenched than I remember. Of course, I'm not much better off. Time gets us all, sooner or later. I pull out a pack of cigarettes and fish one out. As I pull out a plastic lighter, Reneer takes a step back. What? I ask him. You afraid of a little secondhand smoke? He shakes his head. I quit. No shit, I say, lighting this cigarette and inhaling. You are a regular chimney. How long's it been? A couple of months, he says. Well, congrats your fucking latins, I say. Then I stare at him, and I wait. Reneer sighs. The way I hear it, Ian was asked to go by a co-worker at the last minute. Wrong place, wrong time. There was a gas leak, and as soon as they fired up the

cremator, the place went boom. So you're telling me that the little prick in there already did the examination and cremated my brother's remains? All in less than 12 hours? I've never seen anything work that fast. Not ever. Reneer shrugs. What can I say? He's working fast. Your brother wasn't the only person to die in that explosion. Besides, after the fire was done with him, there really wasn't much left to bury.

Take my word for it. I have to give it to him. He's talking to me cop to cop, even though I no longer carry the badge. I asked him not to coddle me, and he took it to heart. But still, something doesn't smell right. What about the property? I ask. And who identified him? You'll get whatever we recovered from the scene when we're all done with it, okay?

His wallet was really the only thing left, and that's burnt pretty good. And the identifying part was his boss, who was outside and his house. who was outside in his car when the explosion happened. What's his name, Rainier? I say, give me his goddamn name. Reneer sighs again, reaching into a suit pocket jacket and pulling out a small notebook. After flipping to the appropriate page, he says,

Victor Serrano, senior engineer at the power plant. Got an address? I ask. Reneer smir smir smirts at me. Yeah, I do. But you ain't a cop no more, and I'm not giving it to you. Knowing this is as good as I'll get, I've walked down the rest of the stairs toward my car, puffing on my cigarette. There's nothing to this!

Reneer calls after me. If you go sticking your nose in it, you're liable to piss me off. I give him the finger over my shoulder before getting into my car and driving out of the parking lot. Fifteen minutes later, I pulled to a stop in front of my brother's house. Everything looks as it should from the outside. It's a two-story, tutor-style. house off a windy road in one of the better suburbs outside the city. I park in the driveway and get out, looking around the yard. I feel like I'm being watched, shrugging it off. I head to the

front door and use the key Ian gave me back when he bought the house. As soon as I step inside, I know something's off. Nothing's amiss at first glance. Everything is as it should be, but there's a smell in the house. A not Ian's smell, one that I can't place at first. Honestly, I don't know what I'm looking for here. Nothing, maybe. I think I just wanted the closure of identifying my brother's body. But since I didn't get that, I decided to come here, half expecting him to greet me when I walked in. But he's not here, and I really have no solid reason to believe that what Detective Reneer told me is a lie. People die in strange ways all the time, and a gas explosion isn't the strangest.

As I look around, I think about his boss, whose name I didn't know until Reneer told me. Ian worked at a power plant. He started as a security officer nearly 15 years ago, but he'd been overseeing security for the entire plant for several years now. It was a good job. It paid well and had great benefits, and he seemed to like it. for what little he talked about it. I walked around the house, looking randomly at things, picking up items,

and allowing my subconscious to mull over the odd smell in the house. It occurs to me that this is what I used to do back when I worked crime scenes. The only difference being I'm not wearing gloves on my hands or little booties over my shoes. Plus, I don't have a badge on my belt and my gun is in the car. Soon, I find myself upstairs in Ian's office. As I sit down at his desk, I bumped the mouse. I expect his desktop computer to come humming to life, like it did every other time I was over and wanted to use it.

But it doesn't. The screen stays blank, and there's no hum from the tower. Moving the mouse around with more intention, I wait. Still nothing. Strange. I leaned down to where the tower is on a shelf built into the desk. I press the power button. Nothing happens.

Suddenly, I realize what the smell is in the house. It's the smell of a busy crime scene, one in which men and women are milling around, taking pictures or collecting evidence, or just getting a feel for the scene. It's the smell of body odor from several different people, along with their deodorant or perfume or aftershave or hand lotion. But this isn't a crime scene.

Why would there have been people milling around in here? Pushing the chair back against the wall, I get on my knees and feel behind the tower for the power cord. It's only half plugged in at the back of the tower. That's why the computer won't start up. I shoved the cord all the way in and then press the power button. It turns green. The tower hums to life.

There were people here. And they did something with Ian's computer. But what? Fan of soccer, you could assist a moment historic. You could gain the bill for the final of the Cup of the World of the FIFA 2. with Visa. It's just to have a card of credit Visa BMO for participate. Inscribe you at BMO.com bar-oblique concour.

The Reglements of the Concour's Applic. As the screen comes to life, I get an answer to my question. They took his computer and replaced it with another one. I can tell because Ian always had the same picture as his lock screen. It was a picture of our family. Me, Mom, Dad and Ian on our last family trip together.

We were smart. filing in front of the Grand Canyon as a passerby took our picture. But that picture is no longer there. It's just a generic screen now, the kind that comes preloaded on new computers. I put in the password Ian has used for years, but it doesn't work. That seals the deal in my mind. This is not Ian's computer. They took it.

But who? And why? What was Ian involved in? And did it get him killed? I'm leaning back in the chair, I exhale and look up at the ceiling. I need to get into the medical examiner's office to see if my brother's body is really there, or if it has been cremated, like they said. If they took his computer, whoever they are, then they probably cleaned everything

out of this place. But I know my brother better than anyone, and if he had something he didn't want to be found, I'm confident I can find it. So I start my search. I find a desk drawer with a false bottom, but there's nothing underneath. I continue my search through the office, but find nothing of value. So I move to the bedroom and do the same. There's a fake plant on a table near the window.

It's surrounded by real plants, so it's camouflaged well. And when I lift the fake one out of its pot, I find that there's a hidden compartment underneath, and there's a small notebook in the compartment. I grab the notebook and put the plant back. Opening it to the first page, I recognize my brother's handwriting. There's only a set of numbers on the first page, 7274. I flip to the next page and read scribbled notes, burn, second degree or greater. As I'm reading the next scrawled note, which says two months to full formation, I hear

something downstairs. Someone's in the house with me. Holding the notebook in my left hand, I move cautiously to the bedroom doorway and listen. There's nothing for a long moment. Then I hear the low creak of a stair. My mind flashes to my pistol, which is in my glove compartment. Stupid. Adrenaline ramps my heart rate up as I think about what to do.

I could go out one of the windows, but I'm no longer a young man. The drop would probably dislocate or tear something important. No, I need to get downstairs. For a moment, I think I'm overreacting. Maybe it's one of Ian's co-workers. Maybe it's a friend. But then I hear a whispered exchange. Although I can't hear what they're saying,

I can tell that it's two men. At least two men. I move down the hall and open a linen closet door, stepping inside and shutting it again, being as quiet as possible. I realize I'm still holding the notebook in my left hand. As I go to put the notebook in a pocket, The door is wrenched open, revealing two men in suits and black ski masks.

Lashing out with my right hand, I hit the first man in the throat, buying myself a moment. But the other guy lunges forward, slamming me against the shelves in the narrow closet. The impact makes me drop the notebook, which I hadn't finished putting away when the door opened. The man knees me in the chest before I grab hold of his wrist with one hand and his throat with the other. He tries to knee me again, but I turn slightly, and his knee impacts the side of my left hip. I drive him backward, slamming him into the hallway wall. Meanwhile, the other guy is recovering. He pulls out a gun, but I yank the guy I'm wrestling with around so he doesn't have a shot.

I pull the guy back with me as we head for the stairs, struggling to keep him in the other man's line of fire. I have his neck with one hand, but my grip is tenuous. He has me by the lapels of my jacket, which means I can't get away. But I use my body weight to pull him with me. And when we get to the stairs, which are carpeted, I'd drop myself down onto my lapelves. but pulling him with me. He grabs the railing, but our momentum is too great. We go tumbling back down the stairs, but I have the advantage of knowing what's coming, and I've already pulled myself into a ball, using the guy as a kind of cushion as we go. At the bottom, I smash into the

wall with my back, which knocks the breath out of me. I can tell I've twisted my left ankle, and that my back will probably never be the same again. But as I scramble up and head for the front door. I can tell that the other guy has a couple of broken limbs. Hell, he may be dead. The other guy fires at me, and I feel splinters from the front door pepper my back. I book it across the yard, limping as I go. I jump into my car, grabbing my pistol out of the glove compartment. As I'm reversing down the driveway, the guy with a gun runs out of the house to my left. I fire the gun through my window, shattering the glass. The guy turns and runs back inside for cover. As I peel out onto the street, forcing a minivan to swerve out of my way, I realized that I lost the goddamn notebook.

Well, I can't go back now, and I sure as hell can't go home. So as I tear down the road, I decide to kill some time before I can get into the medical examiner's office tonight, who I'm dealing with, or how much power they hold. So I take the battery and the SIM card out of my phone. After driving around for several hours, it's finally dark, and past the time. the time the examiner's office closes. Making a couple of circuits around the place, I determined that it's not being watched or guarded. At least, not that I can tell. I park around the back. Unless they've added cameras in the rear in the five years since I retired, I won't be caught on video.

I don't see any cameras as I limp up to the back door, even though I can't see them. It doesn't mean there aren't any. It's too late now anyway. There's no turning back. I need to to find out what the hell happened to my brother, and why these people would take his computer. I've been mulling over the pieces of information I read in the notebook before those masked assholes showed up. The number 7274, the words, burn, second degree or greater. And finally, the sentence, two months to full formation.

None of it means anything to me. Maybe it only meant something to Ian. Maybe they were shorthand scribbles for some. something in his brain, something only he could understand. I don't know. None of this shit makes any sense. Pushing these thoughts aside, I put my attention on getting inside the building. One of the skills I developed as a cop was using lock picks. Sometimes you don't want to come busting into a building like a herd of elephants. Sometimes you want a softer touch. But it's not like in the movies, where guys unlocked doors in 30 seconds, not even close. It takes me the better part

of five minutes to unlock the back door of the medical examiner's office. I slip inside, putting my lockpicks back into my jacket pocket. I know my way around the place, so I make a beeline for the morgue. There may still be people inside the building, working late, so I don't want to risk turning on the lights. Plus, there are small windows up near the ceiling that could betray my presence to anyone watching from outside. Better not to take the risk. Reaching into my pocket it for my phone. I remember that I took it apart and left it in the glove box, but I still have my lighter. I pull the small plastic device out and flick it, generating a flame. I use it to ensure I don't run into anything as I make my way to the wall of body storage drawers. I let the

lighter cool off for a minute, before using it again to read the labels on the outside of the drawers. I come across my brother's name on the fourth one, letting the lighter cool again. Letting the lighter cool I opened the storage drawer and pull the metal bed out on its rollers. The white sheet over the body looks promising. I see the lumps that denote an intact body. It seems the medical examiner, Dr. Felster and Detective Reneer lied to me. I suspected as much. I hear movement from out in the hall.

Someone's out there, and it sounds like they're coming this way. Determined to see my brother's body, I flipped the sheet back and flick the lighter at the same time. Bile stings the back of my throat as my stomach roils. My brother's head is sitting separate from his body. His neck, a jagged mess. His right arm and left leg have been severed, and his torso holds numerous deep wounds. But they're not the wounds of an explosion. There's no evidence of scorch marks. No, these wounds look as if they were done with a dull chainsaw. There's something else here now. Something new. From a exclusively on Paramount Plus, It's the series Stephen King calls Scarious Hell.

Everything here is impossible, but it's also real. Sci-fi vision calls it the best show streaming right now. We're running out of time and we still don't know the rules. Don't miss what the movie blog calls something you need to watch. Saving those children is how we all go home. From Binge All Episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus. Holding the lighter closer, I lean in to inspect the wounds further. Then the door opens and the yelling starts.

Don't you fucking move! I turned my head, looking over to see three men at the door, one of whom I recognize. Detective Reneer looks over the shoulder of a man in a dark suit. Behind him, another man in a dark suit looks on. But they're not looking at my face, I realize, and they're completely silent, frozen with fear by the looks of them.

They're all staring at the lighter I'm holding over my brother's corpse. Reneer's shoulders forward, holding his hands up, palms out. Listen, he says. Rucker, I need you to shut the lighter off. I need you to do it now. Slowly, as if in a dream, I turned my head to look at the lighter,

the yellow flame with the blue base. Why? What the fuck is going on here? Just shut it off, okay? Reneer says, his voice shaking. Take it away from your brother's body, and I'll tell you everything. The words in Ian's notebook come back to me.

Burn. Second degree or greater. What happens with the second degree burn? I ask. Rucker, stop fucking around. You wouldn't believe me even if I told you, okay? Just please, trust me. Get that goddamn lighter away from him. You don't know what you're messing with. What the hell are you playing at? I say. What was my brother involved in? Something called the SCP Foundation, Reneer says.

One of the suits behind him reaches forward and grabs. Reneer's shoulder, but the detective shakes it off, and that's when I see the gun. The suit in the very back is bringing his pistol up slowly, but with Reneer's movement, I get a glimpse of it. Suddenly, things get really slow. The guy sees me see his gun, and his face gets hard. He steps forward and aims it over Reneer's shoulder, and he squeezes the trigger. I drop the lighter, which I'm still holding over my brother's body. To go for the gun I have in my back waistband, But I never touch my gun, because something completely insane and unexplainable happens when the hot metal tip of the lighter touches my brother's body. The corpse rips apart from the inside out.

Just as the bullet is taking a chunk out of my arm, something is breaking out of Ian's body like he's made of nothing more than jello. A spray of cold, fluid, and hard flesh hits me as I'm dropping to the ground on instinct. The thing that's coming out of my brother looks like a diagram of the human cardiovascular system. Connected red wires of varying thicknesses, whip out of his flesh, and fly through the air toward the men gathered near the doorway. The thing, whatever it is, hits Reneer first. It thrashes, tearing through his skull and destroying half of his head in an instant. Before he can fall down, it moves onto the second suit, steel-like tendrils whipping out and slashing through his neck as he turns to run. His skull tumbles off his body. His lower half takes two steps before it falls down, pouring blood.

All over the linoleum floor. The third man, the one who shot me, is running down the hall. The thing follows, bounding down the hall like some strange beast. I find myself alone with dead bodies, two of them fresh. Holding my injured arm, I run out of the room, stepping over Reneer and the other guy, noting the grisly similarities of their injuries to those of my brother's body. I run down the hall, heading away from the man and the thing chasing him. I'm approaching the front of the building just as the doors burst open.

Men in full tactical gear storm inside, weapons up, and night optic devices down over their eyes. Two of these men grab me and yank me at the door. It's a zoo outside. All kinds of unmarked vehicles are parked everywhere, blocking the street and creating a perimeter. The guys in tactical gear hand me off to a man and a woman in lab coats. Armed escorts, join us, as they bring me to what looks like an unmarked ambulance. The woman produces a syringe from somewhere and sticks me with it. What the hell was that?

I ask. I'm unsure whether I'm asking about what I just witnessed or what she just stuck me with. The world goes blurry and I'm asleep in moments. My brother never worked at a power plant. I mean, he did, but it wasn't really a power plant. It was a front for the SCP Foundation. Secure, contain, protect. That's what it stands for. I know this because I'm in their custody now. I may never leave. I don't know. It seems they had much respect for my brother, which is why they're

telling me anything at all. Ian was assigned to something designated as SCP 7274. They won't tell me just how many of these SCPs there are, but if the numbers are sequential, then there are a ton. And if the others are half as bad as this one, then I don't envy the foundation's job. Apparently, 7274 started as an experimental treatment to rebuild and fortify the cardiovascular system in humans. If it worked, it would have had profound medical implications. Some underground fly-by-night medical lab in England invented it. Everything seemed to be going well. The treatment worked, saving the lives of those they tested it on,

according to my brother's investigation. But then an old lady who'd undergone treatment accidentally touched a hot stove, and something ripped out of her body going on a rampage. It killed her entire family before it could be subdued by the SCP Foundation. It was Ian's task to find out who else had undergone the experimental treatment. But he quickly learned that it could spread through blood like a virus, and it could even infect corpses, which was how he got infected. He and some other SCP Foundation agents had just learned that corpses could be infected.

They rushed to an infected person's cremation ceremony, arriving there just a few seconds too late. As they burst into the room, the cremator was firing up, and the thing inside of the body ripped out. It killed my brother, along with several others. That's how he died. It wasn't a gas explosion. That was just the official narrative.

Reneer was in on it. He knew my brother worked for the foundation because he himself did. And now, I'm a prisoner here in their facility. They've told me I'm infected. They say it takes two months for 7274 to fully replace the entire cardiovascular system. They also say I can live a full life, just as long as I don't ever burn myself. Which is why they're keeping me locked up away from anything that could burn me. Maybe one day they'll develop a cure.

or maybe. But for right now, I get to live cooped up in a cell. And the worst part is, I'm dying for a cigarette. If you enjoyed this story, there are many more like it on my SCP Experience channel.

We put out weekly episodes that regular Doctor No Sleep listeners are sure to love, even if you're not familiar with the SCP mythus. You can find the SCP experience wherever you get your podcasts. Be sure to follow

or subscribe to get notified when new episodes drop. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you on the SEP Experience podcast. Lazzangue sur-gillet, puissance-moyance-moyane for 15 minutes. We're like it's the loggie?

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