Orange Like Sand & Pallid

The game has only just begun. Radio Silence Directors Matt Betnelli Open and Tyler Gillette are back for Round 2 with their new horror comedy film, Ready or Not 2. Here I come. Samara Weaving returns as Grace, The Battle of War and Bloody Bride, and is joined by stars Catherine Newton, Sarah Michelle Geller, Sean Hadisee, Nestor Carbano, David Kronenberg, and Elijah Wood. After Grace marries into a mysterious family and is forced to play a life or death theme of hide and seek, she emerges victorious. But what she didn't know is that by winning, she triggered a whole new twisted battle. This time with her estranged sister-fade on her side. The duo faces a shadowy group of rival devil-worshipping families who control the world, and they must fight to the bloody death for the ultimate prize. Two times the kills, two times the Satanic rituals, and two times the human combustion. Don't miss the full tilt insanity. Ready or not to, here I come. When it hits theaters, March 20th. No. This is creepy. A podcast dedicated to sharing the most famous, chilling, and disturbing creepy pastures and urban legends in the world. Whether these stories truly happened, or about simply fabrications is for you to decide. These stories may contain graphic depictions of violence and explicit language. Listener discretion is advised. Hey everyone. I'm just going to dive into things this week. The heater is busted at the station and is just freaking freezing outside. It's been in the negative temps all week in Minnesota. Honestly, this whole winter has kind of been a mess. We got some early snow, at least relative to the last couple of years. But then there was this warm front, so everything started to melt. Then at night it would freeze. You wake up to see the last thing. Any men assaulting wants to see outside of a skating rink or lake. Ice. Ice. I fucking hate ice. Can't wait for the whole state to be free of it. And anyone who says otherwise is clearly never had to worry about it. Have they? Hmm. Funny how that works. Anyway, you're not here for a weather report. You're here for stories. So first up, for writer Harrison Gutten, and narrated by Cole Burkart. Creepy presents orange lake sand. Was that moon there yesterday? It's far off, sure, a little more than a spec. But big enough that auto should have noticed it in his 30 years of asteroid hopping through the solar system. When the sun hits, it glairs red, a bullet wound in the universe. And when the sun shifts, it returns to its original color. Orange. Orange, like sand. Auto bites his lip, frowning. He packs up a camera a little faster than usual. And then he's on his hover bike and off to a new asteroid belt. One further away. After a few days, he finds one with ground flat enough to pitch his tent. Once off his bike, he stretches, joints popping like firecrackers. Then he opens his rutsack and rummages through the restocked rations for his tent. The few times a year auto restocks at a colony, someone always asks him if he needs a place to stay. He's spent a lifetime on the rim of civilization, he answers. Why would he return to it now? To this, one of them always asks what he's running from. Couldn't tell you, man. He says, that's the answer he gives them, at least. If he had a reason for living the way he does, he jokes. He must have left it in one asteroid belt or another, for not to pack it in the rutsack one morning. He has his time in the army to thank for that routine. Six years of it, on Kepler 1224b, a goddamn desert planet. He has it to thank for lots of things, like how to tolerate the slosh of sweat in your boots, and how to live with the endless thump, hiss thump, hiss of sand beneath those boots, as the land fights your every step. And how to bear the wind whipping at your space suit, and how not to flinch or tremble when duns fire beside your ear or when artillery tears through the sky. Oh, and how to play shooting gallery. That game, an age old tradition, his lieutenant said, he also said if he caught the squad playing it, he'd fuck their lives up. Waste of ammo, he said. So, the squad had to wait till he was off somewhere else to play. Rules went something like this. Whoever's turn it was had to crouch behind a boundary. Rock, sandbag, line in the sand, whatever, and aim for the furthest thing in view. Prizes got awarded based on distance, mostly, but what you hit counted too. In anime objects, unless really far off, got used squat, 25 bucks, maybe. Animals got you 50. People got you 75. And kids got you a whopping 100. Most anyone ever scored was yours truly, as Otto tells the few other vets he bumps into. Young Otto had spotted a refugee family, eight in all, scrambling towards the camp's perimeter, and waited for them to come in range of an IED. Once they did, Young Otto held his breath, pulled the trigger, and blam, tomato shower. Young Otto cheered. Of course, he told the vets. Young Otto only did that because his squadmates did. It's not like he took pleasure in it. Even if he had, well, that was Young Otto, and Young Otto isn't here. Young Otto is where he belongs. On the Goddamn Desert World, right where Otto left him, and on the Goddamn Desert World, Young Otto will stay. End of story. His tent pitched. Otto stares off into the vacuum of space. There, twinkling in its maw floats a colony, far away from him, as it should be. In the corner of his eye glints a shape. He turns to it, freezes. It's the same moon. Last time he saw it was days ago, and it had been nothing but a speck then. Weird how he did still see it from so far away. For a little while, he frowns at it, shifting his weight from one foot to another. Then he shrowns and retreats into his tent. The moon. It's gotten closer. He doesn't notice until hours later. When he does, he strambles to his feet, blinking, that he could still see it at all is strange enough. But this, this isn't impossible, is it? He stares at it, lips a taut line, racking his brain for answers. FFPs, free floating planets aren't unheard of. Unbound to stars, they prowl, aimless through the vacuum of space. There could be billions in the Milky Way alone, and this moon could very well be one of them. In that regard, it's like him, always passing through, never in one place for long. He stwinds at it, his breath warm and sticky, it ends to his face. How's it gotten so close and so little time? Still miles off, but where he could only make out its color just a day before, there are now storms churning over its surface. Just an FFP, he again tells himself, it would drift away soon. And yet, he can't stop himself from also thinking that the moon is coming straight towards the asteroid he's on, straight toward him. Jesus, he's shaking. He drifts his teeth, taking deep breaths. There's only one way to find out. See if it follows. Yes, all he has to do is make a tactical retreat, and then wait to see what it does. If he changes course and does, say, a hundred miles east, and it keeps going straight, then it's an FFP, nothing at all to worry about. And if it doesn't, he drifts his teeth harder as he packs up camp and marches to his bike. Thump, thump, thump, thump beneath his boots. It takes almost two hours to cover a hundred miles. He checks on the moon during the drive. Inch, by inch, it looms across the horizon adjacent to him. No sign of changing course, but he watches anyway. He parks, leaving the ruckus sack on the bike. He does get off the bike, though, just to wait his joints and move the blood in his legs. At first, he perches on a jagged of a rock, watching the moon, but he can't sit still. He starts pacing. Four hours pass. No changes, at least none he sees, in all that time. Another three hours, and still nothing. At this point, he sure it will pass on by, but he sticks around anyway, just to be absolutely sure. As he paces, he keeps near the bike, eyes fixed on the moon, waiting. He doesn't spot the change at first. For a while, it keeps trajectory, but then, just as he expats it to pass him by, it slows. Then, it turns toward him, not an FFP. Every single hair on his body bristles under his spacesuit. His breath, quickening, fogs his mask. It's coming faster now, not by much, still miles away, but faster. He scrambles to his bike. When he hops on, the ruckus sack tumbles off. He leaves it there. With a flick of the handlebars, the bike lurches forward scraping off the asteroid. A day passes. A whole day spent only on the bike. Arms soar ass-ating. When he made it out of the first asteroid field, he dunded straight for another about 50 miles off. His breath winds through his nose, sweat prickles on his face. Once at the next field, he slows, but doesn't stop. The moon, an orange smear in his visor, has shrunk back. His heartbeat slows a little. As another day blinks by, his sweat makes his suit cling to and peel off him. The orange smear gets smaller. If he keeps throwing at this speed, he should be able to lose it. He flees to a derelict station just to dismount and gets some blood pumping through his legs again. For miles and miles he flies, the engine rumbling beneath him. The arrow in the field age sinks down. For hours he stares ahead, resisting the need to glance over his shoulder. When he does, he sushs in a breath and grips the bars till his hands ate. Every time he glanced back, he'd widened the gap between him and it. Not this time. When fleeing fails, he tries to shake it, lefts, writes, strafes, faints, military maneuvers. As he zips out over asteroids and ship-partises, his grip relapses. Something about the maneuvers feels right, natural. When he realizes this, he grimaces. They make no difference, of course. The moon turns and bears down on him again. His pulse thumps, thumps in his net. The engine pops in his ear like gunfire. Dust particles flogged him. It's been four days and he's covered nearly seven hundred miles. It doesn't matter. The moon, though still far, is still clearing well over twice that distance in half the time. He never takes his hand off the throttle. Never will, not until the orange thing in the corner of his eye shrinks out of view. It never does. He stopped looking back. What's the point? It's still there, closer than it's ever been. By day five, he reaches another asteroid belt. The familiar sight does nothing to slow his thundering heartbeat. The fuel gauges arrow reaches the red bar, half a day of fuel left, perhaps less. Only a matter of time now. Sooner or later, it will reach him. All he's ever been able to do is deny that. Maybe it's just his sleep-starved brain, but he swears he can hear it now. The drone of its passing, the growl of its winds, the sound of the bite's engine is like the pounding roar of artillery. From the east, the sun emerges. The moon's shadow, crawling forth, almost reaches him. He holds his breath. He squeezes the throttle like the trigger of a gun. Spears of sunlight stab between the asteroids, turn the dust to red mist. The next day, it's gone. For a long while, he stays on his bike and blinks about the universe in search of it. He parks and does recon on an asteroid, eyes darting. It wouldn't just leave like that. It must still be nearby. It was on top of him for fuck's sake. It wouldn't stop now. But then where's it gone? Hiding behind a big asteroid, maybe waiting for him to let down his guard. So, he keeps running for weeks. Sleepless night after sleepless night, he spends on guard duty, ready to haul ass if something out there so much as moves. Any day, any day now, he'll glance back and it will be there, coming for him. It never is. And yet, he still can't stop looking back. He still lives in his periphery. He cannot set up camp anymore, in case he has to retreat again. More weeks pass, and it doesn't show. Maybe he really has escaped. If he hadn't, it would have come back by now, right? The notion of returning to the colonies makes him squirm, but what choice does he have? He cannot live like this. He cannot live here, not anymore, knowing it's still out there. When he arrives at a colony, he drinks. The first glass quivers in his hand, the clink of bottles and shouts of other patrons make him jump. By the sits glass, he stops shaking and stumbles out into the streets. For a while, he sits on a curb and watches the world around him move forward. He sells his bite, and with the money buys a flat. Floor eight in a cramped apartment complex, mono yellow and muffled laughter, his new forever. Now, a little past midnight, he sits on his bed. He cannot sleep, not that he ever expected to. I do not belong here. Otto amends that fact. I do not deserve to belong here. He waits up to children shouting. Mouth dry, he struggles off the floor and onto the balcony. It's railing stings his hands. On other balconies are other tenants, mostly children and parents pointing up. Squeezing the rail, he follows their days, though he doesn't need to. He already knows what he'll see. His stomach drops. He closes his eyes, stupid to think he could ever leave the moon behind. In thinking so, he brought it back with him. Next from writer Nikki Durbin, narrated by Nicole Goodnight, creepy presents, Palad. It wasn't long after I dropped out of med school that I got a job working at the factory. It wasn't great, but the pay was alright and it was close to Dad's house. The house that he reluctantly left to me when the son of a bitch died without a will. Defaulting to the next of kin is a really nice sentiment, but since he wasn't going to be using it anymore, I figured I might as well ditch the apartment I was staying in and move into his house. I had no idea how long I would be able to hold on to such an expensive place, but then holding on to it was never truly a goal of mine. Why not run the place into the ground and then let the bank repossess it? Life was already set on a careening path of destruction from me from the time I was born. With my finances and ruins and my future dead in the water, it was probable that I wouldn't see 30 anyway. Not with my plans of throwing myself off a bridge on the last day of the 29th year of my life. I don't even know why I bothered having a job aside from paying for food that I never ate. And maybe as a way of rubbing it in Dad's face, since he always told me I couldn't hold a job. Nights at the assembly line whereas quiet as one might expect, lots of machinery noises and a few scattered people giving you that white person nods shit but never really interacting with you outside of the break room. I kept myself most of the time. No reason to engage unless you're looking to be friends and well, I wasn't looking to be friends. It was a few days after I had moved into Dad's house that I noticed her. I don't know why he'd hidden her in the basement, or at least I didn't know at the time and it's not like he was alive for me to ask him about it. And I guess he enjoyed making things as creepy as fucking possible too because I would swear to you that he placed her the way he did on purpose, unless she put herself there. All I saw in the shadows of that dingy hole in the ground was that sickly, pallid face looking back at me from the dark. My throat hitched for a second at first, until I realized it was just a painting, sitting beside his table saw that he used to love more than me. You'd think being a surgeon would have afforded him enough fun with saws and blades, but I guess not. I went over there and picked the damn thing up and I immediately knew who it was. Those wrinkled up eyes and curled lips looking like a possum eating shit? My grandmother, the only person on the fucking planet who could make my father smile. And unsurprisingly, she had painted it herself. She always did think herself to be the most gorgeous woman to ever grace the planet. That chicken scratch signature was hers all right. Cut damn that woman. I thought about burning it since I don't get to watch her liver spotted old body burn up in the cremator. I could at least take a little pride in watching what was probably a prized self-portrait of herself go up in flames, but I thought better of it. I don't know why I did, and I regret it now. I took her upstairs and put her on the curb with the rest of my father's junk that I had set out for the trash and I left for work. The whole time I was there, I kept thinking about that painting. The subtle brushstrokes, the use of oils, the shockingly accurate depiction of my starving invalid of a grandmother, supposedly painted by herself long past the days when her knuckles were too narrowed to hold a paintbrush. It didn't make sense. I tried to shake it from my head, but I must not have done such a good job of it because I got sent home early for too many scrubs. Just as well, I wanted to check that signature again if the trashman had an already taken it. To be absolutely sure it was her who had painted it. Back back home into my dismay, I noticed that the painting was gone, along with all of Dad's other shit. I figured it was just as well, and maybe I could finally be rid of the thoughts about the damn thing, too. Ugly bitch. I went inside, put my feet up, and enjoyed a few episodes of a sitcom I hadn't seen since I was young. The candle laughter and the dated jokes comforted me for some reason. I guess it was the nostalgia. I spent watching those shows in place of having a parent around. They were like having a mom, even if only vicariously through the TV set. After a few hours of that, I decided to get a jump on some sleep, and so I headed upstairs to crawl into the bed where my father had drawn his dying breath. I guess that would disturb some people. To me, it felt all that much more welcoming. Proof that evil really can die. I still cling to hope that that's true. I felt the sheets enveloped me in the blanket over top, pressed down its weight on me, and everything got quiet. Then I heard scratches. I figured it was just a mouse. Myes were rampant in this house the whole time I was growing up, and I doubted that had changed in the years since I'd run away and gone to university. Stupid of me to still try to follow in his footsteps. I should have pursued architecture like I wanted instead. But these scratches were different. Heavier. And more methodical. I lifted my head from my pillow, and that's when I saw her again, just beneath the darkness, veiled in enough shadows that I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. That sickly, pallid face staring back at me from the dark. I let out a small yelp, and in such a pale shroud of night, I could have sworn that I saw her blinking at me. I told myself it was just a figment of my imagination as I laid there, watching her for what must have been five minutes, daring her to blink again. She didn't. Finally, I rose from the covers and made my way across the dusty floor to where she was nestled just behind a chair against the long, unused fireplace. At first, I began to wonder if it was a different painting, because the logic of how she had gotten there was driving me to near madness. But as soon as I picked her up and felt the weight of her in my hands, I knew that wasn't the explanation. No, the explanation was something much darker, and something I would never comprehend. Lifting the painting from the darkness and illuminating her in the moonlight, and seeing those glistening black eyes of her looking into me, I felt a primal urge in my stomach to run. To get away quickly, no matter what it took, just get away. But I didn't. Instead, I looked right back into her. It was only after a few moments of eyeing the painting and inspecting it that I noticed something I hadn't before. Or perhaps it wasn't there the first time. I like to think I would have seen it. Just over her mouth, the canvas was cut into a slit, and unnoticeable slit, but it was there. Cut jagged and just from one corner of her mouth to the other. I pushed on the canvas, flapping the slit open slightly. Everything pointed in the direction of it being damaged from something leaning against it or some other rational reason. Except for the fact that I couldn't see through it. Beyond the opening was nothing but black. My eyebrows knitted together. Nothing made sense, nothing. I flipped it over and realized the cut was not visible from the back. Perhaps it was double layered somehow? That would explain it. I found myself hoping that was the case. I turned her back around and stared at the painting again. The slit was definitely there and it seemed much more deliberate than an accidental slash. I don't know why I decided to slide my fingers into it, but I did. I guess curiosity got the better of me. Manoeuvring my index in middle beneath the canvas, I slowly slid them inside my grandmother's mouth. At first I felt nothing, not even the second layer of canvas I was expecting. I kept reaching there had to be something. That's when I finally felt them. Teeth. Before I could retreat, they had closed down on me, catching just enough of the end of my middle finger to incite panic. I pulled my hand back out as quickly as I could, but it wasn't quickly enough. She had drawn blood. Not much, but it still hurt enough to get me to drop the painting. The end of my finger was chewed up like a rat had not on it, blood bubbling out in a dark shade of crimson. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Then I picked up the painting again, and if I didn't know any better, I would have told you she looked different. Beyond just the tiny smattering of scarlet on a chin like she'd missed her mouth with a spoonful of tomato soup. And now there was something sticking out from the slit. Cautiously and terrified, I prodded out it with my good fingers, barely slipping a nail inside to flick out whatever it was that was stuck there. It popped out finally, and I caught it instinctively. In my hand was a wadded up, bloody $5 bill. Needless to say, I didn't sleep the rest of the night. I tried putting a few different things in the slit. Forks, dowel rods, bread, nothing came out chewed up. In fact, it was so empty behind the canvas, it was like pushing things into an empty void. And I couldn't help but think she was baiting me into going further. Deeper. Enough to get at my fingers again. It wasn't until I heard the squeaking from the basement that I had the most awful idea. On my way back into work with gliery eyes and a head full of confusion, I made sure I stopped by the convenience store and grabbed a few mouse traps. Non-lethal ones, and a jar of peanut butter. I figured it was worth a shot, though what it was was still confounding me. But at the factory, my sleep deprivation really cut up with me. After stopping by the medical room and throwing a band-aid on my chewed up finger, since I had forgotten to use one of Dad's fancy medical grade ones before leaving the house, I made my way out onto the line. Watching sheet metal go from flat to round, flat to round, flat to round. It was almost hypnotic. And a part of me knew that painting wouldn't be there to watch me with her cold, black eyes. I started to nod in and out before I realized it. I guess that's when my hand slipped. I didn't know Keith all that well. We would see each other across the line, but I can't even remember if we had said two words to each other up to that point. In fact, it's possible that the first time I heard his voice was when he started screaming. There was blood everywhere. Someone hit the emergency alarm and a siren started wailing, shutting down the conveyors and sending people from every direction running straight for Keith, including me. I honestly don't know what happened. All I know for sure is that it was my fault. And I had never seen a man missing that many fingers before. Both hands, too. Almost immediately somebody started instructing us to find those fingers. We managed to drop them into a Tupperware container and send them off to a hospital with them. I heard later on that they were able to reattach most of them, but some were just too mangled up. I like to try to convince myself that the one I kept was one of the latter. That night, even though sleep was calling my name, I just couldn't hold back for my curiosity any longer. As soon as I hit the door, I headed for that painting. Using some tongs I had found in the kitchen, I took Keith's finger, which I think kind of resembled a pinky, and maneuvered it into the slit. Deeper and deeper. Slowly, agonizingly. My heart started to sink. Perhaps I had hallucinated things or maybe it only wanted live flesh. But right around that time I started to pull the tongs back out. I felt something clamp onto them. Something strong. Almost ripping the tongs out of my grip, the painting began to chew and grind the finger. Blood dribbling out from the slit, emitting the most god-awful crunching and smacking noises I've ever heard. I finally managed to yank the tongs back out. The end of them now nod to bits like someone had stuck them into a garbage disposal. Then there was the guttural swallowing sound. And then everything fell silent. Nothing but my own breathing catching in my ears for what felt like forever. I thought again that perhaps I was imagining things. Or rather, I really hoped I was. That's when something belched up from behind the slit. Prouding it carefully, I dislodged the wads of paper. And my shock was immeasurable. For... hundred... dollars. I lay in bed staring at it for the longest time, thinking about what I was going to do with it. There were so many things I could spend that kind of money on. Things I had always wanted. Things I really needed. I could pay off one of my credit cards with it. My student loans maybe? I kept thinking about how I wished I would have kept the other finger I found wrapped in the sheet metal. That would have been $800. Or more. I didn't know how things worked. All I was sure was that I couldn't tell a soul. Not only would they think I had gone insane, but once I found out it was true, they would have wanted to get in on it for themselves. And I was keeping this all for myself. I really should have told someone. It wasn't until the next morning that I realized the old bitch looked slightly different. Some of the bags under her eyes seemed to have been airbrushed out and the lines by her mouth were less prominent. I tried to tell myself it was just my imagination. Again, I think the mouse was worth more than $50. If only for how much it traumatized me by having to listen to the poor little things squeal and squeak in pain. I should have killed it first. But I needed to know if I got more for a living sacrifice. I suppose she didn't care for me feeding her vermin though. Not that she could say much in protest. Nice for easy to come by, but it just wasn't a big enough reward for what I had to go through. I can still hear it screaming. I threw the traps out immediately afterwards. I regret using them every day. What pissed me off even more though was the effort I went through to get the ear off the old lady at the nursing home just to have the decrepit bitch spit it back out with no money. I tried to force it down or fucking throw it four times before she finally grounded up and sprayed it out all over me. I figured that she only once pieces a blood-filled flesh, apparently. Embombed skin doesn't work. Through trial and error, I found out what she liked most. The younger the flesh and the more important the part, the bigger the reward. That baby's index finger bought me my car, but it also got attention on me. I barely evaded the police for that one. Not to mention how gut-wrenching it was to hear it crying. But by that point, it had become almost like an addiction. I needed the payouts more than I needed to sleep at night. And sleeping at night became next to impossible once I started thinking about that baby growing up without a vital body part because of me. I got fired from my job after Keith ratted on me for being at fault for the accident. They didn't ever notice that I kept his finger. Bastard. I should have kept all of them. But it's not like I really wanted to work there any longer. Not after I fed her that homeless guy's eye and got enough to buy a fancy laptop. I was sitting pretty for a while, paid off the house to care of the taxes, got a second car. Sure, the memories of what I had done were eating away at me, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't worth it in its own way. I was officially making more monthly than my prestigious doctor of a father, and for virtually the same profession, cutting body parts off of people. I thought it was hilarious. I don't know what was wrong with me. I was about to get a new TV when the auditor's letter showed up, and apparently he didn't like my answers to the paperwork either because he paid me a visit a few weeks later. And he really didn't like it when I showed him the painting. I knew somebody would notice him missing eventually though, and all roads would point to me even though there was nobody left to implicate me. Still, it became really clear that I needed to skip town when the police started sitting out front of the house every night. Problem lies with them telling me everywhere, I couldn't get a hold of any resources of flesh, and there weren't enough mice in the entire neighborhood to get together what I needed. I started looking into crossing the border, and I figured the best bet would be to go with as much cash in hand as possible. The auditor had given me a big payday, but it still wasn't enough, especially since I wasn't going to be taking the painting with me. You can't cross the border with the painting that's covered in a bunch of people's blood. Let alone tell them it's a painting of your grandmother when the damn thing looked like she was 30 years old. Her hair had turned back to brown. Her eyes full of life. Her smile wide and crimson. She looked younger than she did back when I had first met her. When she told me I was a useless fuck-up who would never amount to anything and couldn't hold a candle to my father's greatness because of who my mother was. I was four. She said that to me before she even saw me go to medical school. And yeah, I dropped out, but I still knew how to apply a tourniquet and use dad's old medical tools, so that's what I did. I'd heard it first. I probably should have sharpened the knife before I started whacking. But it was over with fairly quickly. And to my shock, my pinky was worth $900. My ring finger was worth even more at $1100. 4,000 easy once I finished with both hands. But it still wasn't enough. She didn't like my teeth much. A few hundred for each molar. And I think that was just for the blood and pieces of gum tissue on them. Still better than nothing, I guess. It wasn't long before I remembered the circular saw on the basement though. I figured that plenty of people lived their lives just as fine as double amputees. There was still a wheelchair left over from when dad was sick. I passed out at first. But luckily I came to again before all the blood had run out of my legs and I was able to suture and bandage everything. $20,000 for each one. And with my fingers already gone, my left arm wasn't very useful to me any longer either. What's the difference between a double amputee and a triple one anyway? Another $12,000. But still, I needed more. I mean, I was going to have to afford some modifications to the mansion I was envisioning, chair lifts and caregivers. Plus I needed a pool. It was hard getting my eye out of the socket. Eventually had to break out the melon baller. But the payout was so worth it. $50,000. I couldn't believe my own eye. And with a stack of cash like that in hand, I realized that living life as a blind person wouldn't be so bad. They have braille for that reason anyway. After everything was said and done in with almost $300,000 in my remaining hand, I was all but ready to head south. With everything cauterized and stitched up and bandaged as best I could, I started the arduous task of getting the wheelchair out the front door so I could catch the cab I had called before I'd cut my tongue out. I guess I should have checked out front first. But it's not like I could see them even if I had. I'm fairly certain I could hear the blood leaving one cop's face when they told me to put my hands up. At least that's what I think I heard with my remaining ear. I guess I hadn't hidden the auditor's car and the river well enough for something. Who knows. They never did find his body, of course. But they did find his blood on the painting beneath tons of mine, that is. My money was confiscated. All that I gave up every sacrifice I made all for nothing. And now I can't even kill myself like I wanted. My stump's hurt. I miss reading and listening to music and running. I miss my shitty job at the factory and the days when the sun would shine through the trees just right. I miss sunsets and movies and laughter and all the things I took for granted. Now I just sit alone in this cell, listening to the mice screaming, the baby crying, the sounds of the circular saw. All of those things, dancing in my head like grotesque ballerinas of phantom pain and sorrow, but perhaps worst of all in my mind. I can still see her clear as day. That sickly pallid face staring back at me from the dark. I can't wait to see what I can do. I can't wait to see what I can do. I can't wait to see what I can do.