← Full Body Chills
Full Body Chills
BUNKER: Stayin' Inside
00:41:26
A story about a man who's stuck inside... his own corpse.
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- [00:01]
Adrian
This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. This month is all about gratitude. So here's a reminder to send some thanks to the people in your life, including yourself. If you're thinking of starting therapy, give BetterHelp a try. It's entirely online, designed to be convenient, flexible, and suited to your schedule. Just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and you can switch therapists at any time for no additional charge. Let the gratitude flow with BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com fullbodychills today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp. H E L P.com fullbodychills the holidays bring the world together. And learning a new language can help us enhance our new connections. As the most trusted language learning program for over 30 years, Rosetta Stone immerses you with an enriching experience. My husband and I both signed up together and the lessons have been great. Rosetta Stone has been the best teacher. Start learning today with Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership holiday special. Visit rosettastone.com fullbodychills for unlimited access to 25 language courses for the rest of your life. Available for a Short time@RosettaStone.com FullBodyChills this episode was produced with immersive audio. For the best experience, we kindly recommend you listen with headphones.
- [01:28]
Mike Madness
Hello, all you magnificent exiles and. Good after. No good morning. Okay, okay, let me try again. Hello all you magnificent exiles and Good morning. You are listening to the Shockwave and I am Mike Madness, your host. For anyone new to the show, it's your lucky day. Cause you just hit the jackpot of jazz, soul, big band and little band. Here we play all of your favorite songs. The only songs in this teeny, tiny MD World. Don't believe me. Well, just call in if you know what you want to hear. Here's your chance to speak your mind. Speechless, huh? I understand you want to jive and thrive to tunes. We drive. Well, I don't want to hold you hostage. But before we swing back to the show you love, Mikey's gotta drop some news and this is important. Okay? You listening? Good. Before you heard it from someone else, I wanted to tell you all in person that I'm retiring. Believe me, this was a tough decision, but I know it's the right one. And here's why. I'm gonna die. No, this isn't a bit. Although it is a bit frightening. I'm not being dramatic either. In fact, I'm as practical as a toilet seat. The truth of the matter Is I am going to die, plain and simple. Now, I'm not dying. Let's be clear. I'm still kicking like authentic Thai. But I've run the numbers. And no matter what weight loss program I choose to follow, in two years or less, I won't have a lick of Spam to salt my air. But, Mikey, I hear you say two years is a lot of time. Sure is. That's time enough to write a book, time enough to write a song, enough time to write my eulogy. But see, I don't want to do any of that because what would be the point? What I want to do is ride out my copper years, mike in hand with you, through thick and thicker steel walls. You have been there for me, listening, caring, and like a friend. I feel I owe you the truth. So when it comes time to bite the bullet, when this signal sings with silence, you'll know. Mikey's moved on to Greener Studios. But, hey, don't let the news bum you out. We still got a long road ahead of us. And listen to me. I'm fine. So chill out, relax. But don't get too comfortable, because now it's time for a spooky story. We're on episode. Who knows and who cares? Why keep counting up when the time is counting down? But, you know, on the topic of dying, I gotta wonder, what comes next? Is it really as binary as Sunday school choir versus Slipknot? What happened to Dante and his hell stacked cake? Is there a recycling bin for souls? I just want to know. Where's the afterparty? Well, what if it was here? What if death was a little more close to life? What if what comes next is a little less great than good? Well, if you want to find out, gather around and listen close.
- [06:18]
Jake Weber
Auntie Marcia always said I was good at staying inside. And right now, I'm really hoping that's true. Not just like staying indoors, though. I mean, I kind of had to be good at that, too. I was sick a lot as a kid. Besides the normal infections and sore throats and stuff, that's some of the other kids dealt with. My stomach was never quite the same after Mama's sacrament. Many of my days were spent in my bed, simply letting my body repair itself best it could or waiting for the town doc to come around when it couldn't. Of course, even that would sometimes take days, on account of Auntie's farm was way out about six miles outside of Screven. And even if the doc's car could make it that far without breaking down once or twice. He was so busy with all the railroad guys and their constant injuries that he didn't have much time to come check on some kid with a sore throat and tummy ache, much as Auntie might worry. So as I said, I spent a lot of time indoors, but being good at staying indoors ain't really much of a feat, and anyhow, Auntie was not a woman easily impressed. No, she meant I was good at staying inside my own head, which is a hell of a lot tougher for kids and adults too, now that I'm really thinking about it. Auntie said when I was little, like two or three, I would sometimes just sit, not saying nothing, not playing with nothing, not necessarily looking at nothing, just kind of sitting and being at first she said she thought I was not quite right in my head or something, but as I grew I was walking, talking, reading and writing before all my siblings, the ones that made it to walking, talking, reading, and writing age anyway. And when I wasn't so sick and made it to school I did real well in my studies and made friends just fine. But even at school during the lunch and recess break, I liked to just sit by myself, imagining different scenarios in my head, pretending I was one of the Wright brothers flying that clunky yet though so futuristic looking airplane of theirs, or that I was in the war fighting some angry army before they plunged their dagger into the vitals of the Republic, as our fearless leader was wont to say, or simply just sitting and thinking about life and the future, what was and what could be. Auntie says were my daddy still around, I'd be walking with a hide as tanned as a horse's saddle on account of he wasn't exactly what you'd call a contemplative man himself. He was when he was and he was where he was. A present man was my daddy, and he suffered no fool who would spend large portions of time thinking rather than doing according to Aunty. But alas, Daddy was the first one to take the sacrament, which I always thought was kind of strange because he was a Presbyterian and as far as I know they only believe a pastor in a church, which Mama most certainly was not, could give out that kind of stuff. And now Daddy, the man of action simply isn't, and I, with all my thoughts, am kinda. My wife, Stephanie always abided my staying inside just fine, though she ain't much of a talker herself, which is maybe why we ended up together and why we lived so well. Auntie told me later, once we was already married the first couple times she saw us together, she thought it would be our last on account of how quiet we were. We would sit and hold hands and just be silent with each other, enjoying one another's company in the way that we have, not necessarily needing noise for there to be a connection. We talked sometimes, of course, on account of there can't be a relationship without at least some kind of intentional communication. But neither she nor I ever babbled on about meaningless malarkey. And she never asked about Mama and Daddy, besides just asking where were they? And once I told her I don't know where they were, but their bodies are right out back, buried next to the oak tree. She never asked again, and as far as I know, she never asked anybody else about it neither. That's just fine with me, on account of what I remember ain't so nice and is not something I like thinking about. Though the more I stay inside, the more the inside fills with the scent and the sight and the presence of Mama and Daddy and my brothers and sisters and that cursed sacrament. But see, that's the downside of being good at staying inside. Sure, it's nice when there ain't much to do and you got nothing but time to think, like I do now, and you ain't got no problem with doing just that. But the fact is, when you're staying inside, no matter how good you are at it and how long you can do it, you ain't quite as in control of the goings on as you might hope. I mean, really, would a person, if they had a choice, choose to be all depressed and whatnot? Would they choose to think on the horrible things that have happened to them, to remember over and over the rejections they've faced, or the embarrassments they've suffered, or the times they should have said something and didn't, or shouldn't have said something and did? Of course not. And yet how much brain space is taken up with all that blather? And why? Because I want to dredge up things that make me feel bad. No way. Uh, crazy as it sounds, I sometimes think I'm not alone up here. It seems like there's evil little men hiding in the shadows where all the dark memories are stuffed away, just waiting for the right moment to push out some long forgotten sin or tragedy right in front of me. As I meander through my thoughts, they try tripping me up, making me fall into the pain and leaving me to gather myself and push the memory back to its place in the darkness. But of course, simply pushing it back in place is just that, pushing it back in place, back into the domain of the mean mind men. It ain't getting rid of it, just guaranteeing that I'll trip over it again sometime soon, just as I have now. It was Stephanie's screams that woke me, at least in a manner of speaking. From what she said later, she had shaken and prodded me, but my hearing's always been better than my other senses and I sleep about as deep as the landing, so I ain't totally surprised the shaking didn't do it. But when she started hollering, I roused out of my sleep pretty much right away. I woke as usual at the sound of her screams, on account as she has nightmares at least twice a week, real bad ones that make her jump out of bed and run around the room until I can settle her down enough. When I tried to open my eyes it was dark as the spots on a cow. Not too strange, as I mentioned. Aunty's farm where we live and help to all that needs tending to is way out in the country and there ain't lights for at least a mile or so. What was strange was that no matter how much I tried, I couldn't get up. I tried to say something to soothe my wife, but I couldn't do that neither. That's when I thought maybe I was the one having the nightmare this time. One of those where you're stuck in place between sleeping and waking and you can't fully cross over to either direction. But I wasn't sure. All I was sure of was my wife was having a panic and I couldn't seem to do anything about it. After about a minute or so I heard her run out of the room and down the stairs and then out the back door. While she was gone, I tried to do a mental assessment of my body. Problem was, it didn't seem to be there. By my mental accounting anyway. I mean, it must have been there. Otherwise how else could I be? But I just couldn't feel nothing. Although thinking about it further, I guess that's not completely true. I felt like I had been shrunk down real small. That what I thought of as the real me, the essential me, the one that thinks and feels and loves, was the size of a little piece of corn kernel stuck in somebody's teeth. But that wasn't so much a feeling in actual terms as it was a sense that I couldn't seem to shake. After a moment I heard the back door open again and Auntie and Steph walk in they spoke with each other very briefly. Steph right on the edge of panic, and Auntie trying to keep her calm and to keep her own self calm. After a few back and forths, I heard Steph yell, he won't wake up, Auntie. And then I heard them both running up the stairs. I tried to turn my head, tried to tell them to cool down. Ain't nothing wrong but a nightmare. Steph has them all the time. But I still couldn't move a muscle, so I just sat there and listened as one of them. I figured it was Aunty on account that I could hear Steph in the background biting her nails, climbed onto the bed. I remember thinking then that I didn't know what all she was doing up there with me, for all I heard for about a minute was silence. And of course I still couldn't feel a thing. After that very long minute passed, my eyes finally opened and I could see around her fingers, which were. I realized, propping my eyelids, that it was indeed Auntie leaning over me. Everything looked kind of dim and almost cloudy like. But I was so grateful to finally see that I completely missed what Auntie said next. Though whatever it was couldn't have been good cause Deaf picked up the screaming again. I tried to roll my eyes that way to see her, but once again I was stuck. And now I was getting angry, really angry, the way a baby must feel when they're hungry and trying to reach onto their plate for food but just don't have the coordination or strength to grab it. And they feel like it's the end of the world. But see, I don't want nothing like food or drink or to be rich or live like the Rockefellers or anything crazy like that. I just wanted to roll my eyes a little bit just to look at my beautiful bride and to comfort her and to tell her, even if it was only in our silent, without words way, that everything was okay and that if it wasn't, it would be with time. But the anger was replaced in an instant with a terror about a million times stronger. When I looked in a dark corner behind Auntie and saw her. She was wearing the same black robe as she was 35 years ago and the same hood over her face. Even the shadow was in the same place, covering everything above her upper lip, leaving only her mouth. Her thin white lips were still spread in that nasty grin, her cracked and he had perfectly white teeth shining dully in the dim light of the lanterns. And that's when the darkness closed back over me and I fell inside Hard. When I came to, Steph and Auntie weren't there. Everything was dark again. I heard voices distant in the background, muffled, like they were on the other side of a wall. Then a door creaked open and I could see red light streaming through my eyelids. I heard two sets of footsteps walking towards me.
- [22:50]
Doctor
Well, what have we got here?
- [22:53]
Billy
Don't know yet. The guy didn't wake up. The wife freaked out. The aunt who lived next door couldn't hear him breathe or find a pulse. And hey, we got a brand new body to look at. And your lucky day. He ain't all mangled like them railroad guys that come in here.
- [23:10]
Jake Weber
To put it lightly. I was a little put off hearing them talk about me like that. Dead, I thought. I'm still thinking. I can hear you. I can see the lights you just turned on. I'm not dead, you idiots. But of course they couldn't hear me. But surely they knew what they were doing. Surely they would be able to check my aliveness with instruments better suited for such things than Auntie's hands. And hey, if not. My school buddies told me a story once about this guy who hit his head real bad. They thought he was dead and they brought him into the room to cut him up and stuff. But right as they were about to do it, he got goosebumps. They took a deeper look and realized the guy wasn't dead. He was only sleeping real deep. So I figured either way, I'd be okay. Probably.
- [24:10]
Doctor
Now, you've watched Purdue 10 of these things so far. Are you ready to give it a try?
- [24:17]
Jake Weber
The second voice, a much younger voice.
- [24:21]
Billy
Responded, uh, yeah, I think so, Doc.
- [24:27]
Doctor
All right then, atta boy. Grab that there scalpel and let's dig in.
- [24:33]
Jake Weber
The older voice laughed at his little witticism, and the younger nervously joined in. And I heard tools clattering on the tray, and I started praying for some goosebumps.
- [24:48]
Billy
Beginning the first incision, I braced myself.
- [24:52]
Jake Weber
Mentally and waited for the hot white pain of a knife cutting through my flesh. Had I control over my eyes, I would have squeezed them shut as hard as you squeeze before a bucket of ice water hits your face.
- [25:09]
Doctor
Good, good. Now remember, stop right down at the pubic region and then come back up for the arms of the Y. Which should go to where?
- [25:21]
Billy
To each shoulder joint.
- [25:23]
Jake Weber
That's right. They were cutting me up like a Thanksgiving turkey, and I couldn't feel a thing. Pretty soon, if the rumors I heard in the schoolyard were true, they were going to start taking out my guts and looking at them and trying to figure out what killed me, even though clearly nothing did on account of, hey, I was still thinking here. But they were going to if they didn't cut it out. No pun intended.
- [25:56]
Doctor
Okay, great job, Billy. Now we're going to open up the incisions and begin the removal of the innards.
- [26:08]
Jake Weber
I tuned out the rest of their exploration as much as I could. Which, honestly, wasn't as hard as you might think, considering I was trying to figure out how I could be dead but still sitting in on my own autopsy. That's when the thought came to me, not for the first time, but certainly for the most serious consideration, that perhaps the nightmare wasn't over yet. That I was just dreaming all this. Maybe I ate something rotten or undercooked, like that guy in the Christmas store. He thought he did when those ghosts came to visit him. Of course, I knew it wasn't true, the way you can't describe the feeling of reality. It's just something you know deep down in your heart. And I knew I wasn't dreaming, though. The next couple days passed like a dream. After they finished the autopsy, they left me in the room for a while, alone. Until somebody else came and picked me up and brought me somewhere else and did this or that with me. But by that time, I was staying deep inside and really had no interest in coming back out. Maybe ever. That is, until I heard Steph's voice. She sounded empty, hollowed out. She talked about what she wanted to dress me in and what kind of service, and would there be a minister, and where would I be buried. And I was screaming, screaming with all my mental power. Screaming that they would hear me, that they would realize I'm not dead. But of course they didn't hear me. I was staying inside for real now. But inside was airtight. Nobody coming in and nobody going out. They finished up their arrangements. And then I heard Steph ask, can I have a minute alone with him? And they said, sure, and walked out. And it was just us. I don't know how I know. There's no way I could have known, on account of I'm pretty sure my eyes were glued shut at this point. And I still couldn't feel nothing. But I knew in my heart that she put her hand on my cheek and she kissed me. She just sat there for a minute, not saying nothing, just being with me the way we always did. And for that one minute, the screaming in my brain stopped. And it was like it was before. Just us being with each other in the way that we have no need for words. The only place I'm better at staying in than inside is with her, and I could have stayed there forever. But of course all things end. She said I love you in a cracked and then she ran out, slamming the door behind her. The funeral wasn't nothing special. Everyone talks about how they wish they could go to their own funeral on account of everyone wants to hear the nice things people say once someone is dead. But the fact is, if somebody has been forced to say nice things by an occasion like this, how seriously can you take what they have to say? For me, not that seriously. It was nice to hear the voices of old friends and family, but the one voice I craved the most stayed silent. I wasn't hurt by it, though she may not have been able to get through any kind of speech, and anyway, she was never much of a talkative woman. As I have already said, Auntie went last. She ain't the sentimental type and has never been one to sugarcoat nothing. Her speech was short and true and meant the most to me out of anyone. She didn't cry or scream or go into hysterics. She just said how she loved me and why she loved me and that she would miss me and if I could have, I would have been crying like a baby. Then came the part I was really dreading. I never been scared of closed spaces or nothing, but when I heard the lid of the coffin thump down and the little bit of light coming through my eyelids shut out completely and maybe forever. The weight of the city situation hit me again. Once more I started hollering inside myself, but nobody heard me and they carried me away. And after a brief graveside service they put me in the ground where I am now. They covered up my home with dirt and then left me alone with silence from my friend and darkness from my companion. Only as I mentioned earlier, I ain't as alone as I would like. The little men in the shadows are extra lively in the dark and they're moving around all kinds of stuff and kicking up things better left buried, buried but not dead, just like me and I can't stop them and they're pushing it out, pushing her out, pushing out the time when I first met her and when I'm pretty sure all of this began. All my siblings were on the ground with the empty cups still in their hands. What was left of the medicine and grape juice mixture spilled into small drops on the hardwood floor. Daddy was lying face down next to me, his arm draped over my chest, his paper cup right next to My ear making everything on that side sound as if it were coming over the ocean. I had taken it too, of course. I was just as much a part of the family as anybody else in the room, but Mama always said I had a hole in my lip on account of I couldn't eat a meal or drink something without getting a little on my shirt, and this was no exception. Special as it might be, I also had been the pickiest of the family. So I eat and drank pretty peckishly, like a bird, you might say, and if I'm being completely honest, the sacrament tasted awful bitter, not at all like how Mama's fresh muscadine grape juice usually tastes. And so while Mama was pouring a cup for my little brother Timmy, I let a little more spill out than might have happened on its own. I had some of the same jiggles and wiggles as my siblings. Once I finished my cup and got a real bad tummy ache and fell on the floor and couldn't move just like now, except then my eyes were still open and unfortunately now they ain't. I looked around the room as best I could on account of I could still move my eyes a little and saw Mama standing by the table with a cup in her own hand and a whispered prayer on her lips. She finished her prayer, a single tear sliding down her cheek, and then she drank her cup and walked across the room out of my field of vision, probably to her favorite rocking chair where she liked to sit and look out the window. Right as she started to make some awful choking noises, another wave of pain went through my tummy and I got all dizzy and things went blurry for a minute. When I came to again, she was there. At first I thought it was Mama on account of she was about the same size and height and her back was to me and she was standing over my big sister Anna, reaching down towards her face and pulling something I couldn't see out of her mouth. Then she turned around and my heart turned to ice. I realized this definitely warrant Mama, not unless the medicine did something really awful to her. She saw me and her lips peeled back over her teeth in a grimace that turned to grin. I remember thinking that her mouth was too wide, that she wouldn't be able to shut that smile on account of her skin was like old crinkled paper, both in color and texture, and looked like it had withered to the point where stretching it to cover all those terrible teeth would rip it like 10 pounds of manure in a five pound bag. In an instant she was beside me Maybe it was the sacrament still working in my system, or maybe it was just her, but I swear I never saw her walk. It was like one minute she was standing over Anna's body and the next she was standing over me. She bent down and I could smell something like old cabbage and spoiled meat hanging around her like flies to a pigsty. She smiled that awful cracked smile at me and said in a voice that was gravelly and yet somehow brimming with excitement, not yet. See you soon. And the last thing I remember thinking before blacking out was how strange it was that she was able to talk with those awful cracked teeth still locked together. It's impossible to say how long it's been. I don't get hungry no more and I don't have no light to judge by, and I don't go to the bathroom or cough or sneeze or get tummy aches or nothing. May have been days or hours or years or seconds since they left me here, but what does it matter anyway? All I know is that I'm in the dark all alone for now. And as scary as that may sound, it's actually a comfort. Because as the little men do their wicked work and push more and more out of the shadows, I can see a dull whitish glow through my eyelids. Like when you hold your breath too long and start seeing them little dots in your eyes. It's getting closer and closer with each thought and I can hear her laughing now, laughing to bust a gut, laughing through them closed cracked teeth, her paper white skin not moving like it should be with such a laugh, her black robe billowing around her as she draws nearer. I think it's finally time that soon has come because the light is getting brighter and the laugh is getting louder and I'm so scared I'm starting to think that maybe he still Staying inside ain't so bad. Staying inside has gotta be better than wherever she wants to take me. So I think I'll just lock the doors, keep staying inside as long as I can until she knocks down my door and drags me out and takes me to Mama. Let me out, let me out, let me out, let me out. I'll never fly away from that's my home, my home. Whatever I see in my dreams, that's my home.
- [41:46]
Adrian
Full Body Chills is an Audio Chuck Production this episode was written by Josiah Fursoniti and read by Jake Weber. Intro and outro written by David Flowers and read by Anthony Coons so what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?
- [42:04]
Jake Weber
I'll never fly away from here, cuz that's my home. Whatever I see in my dreams, that's my home.
- [42:39]
Mike Madness
Holy.
- [42:42]
Amica Insurance Representative
At Amica Insurance, we know it's more than just a car. It's the two door coupe that was there for your first drive. The hatchback that took you cross country and back, and the minivan that tackles the weekly carpool for the cars you couldn't live without. Trust Amica Auto Insurance. Amica empathy is our best policy.
- [43:13]
Mike Madness
This lasagna was so cheesy, my plate.
- [43:17]
Adrian
Was filled with saucy slices.
- [43:19]
Mike Madness
Then a flimsy store brand plate. No, no, no, no. Ruined it.
- [43:23]
Adrian
Next time get Dixie Ultra plates three times stronger than the leading store brand. 10 inch paper plate. Dixie, make it right.