Mary (Main Character) (16:09)
Because I think we hunt for answers even when we know the truth can kill. Because even if it kills a part of you, the best part of you, that's just being human. The hilltop blossomed nearer and nearer. Fear groped at my body. Sticky sweat trailed down the nape of my neck like an unseen tongue. I crested the slope, arriving at the cabin. In his note, Brock didn't describe the cabin, only where to find it. This was it. No bigger than a double wide trailer, the single story hovel leaned suspiciously to its left. Its weight groaned against gravity, and you had to wonder if one mighty push of wind would shatter the home into sticks and stones and broken bones. Unlike the rest of the forest, this patch of hill was barren of any tree or bushy fern. Perhaps the owner of the leaning house feared even a single shadow might crush his home. A trail of oddly shaped footprints led straight for the front door. It stood open, expectant. I considered calling out for Brok, then fought the urge. Something about the footprints caught my tongue. The footprints were more pointed and flat, almost hoof, like unreality. Never felt greater than when standing outside that cabin. Behind the door, I thought I felt eyes greedily ravage my entire body. Silence throbbed. I approached the home where a fat wooden door hung open. I didn't bother hiding my footsteps. Dirt crunched like a chewing mouth. Grass snapped under my feet. A numbness usually found at the bottom of a beer stein stole over me. I didn't care what happened any longer. I only wanted to reach the end of this woodland scavenger hunt and hope that the treasure left for me was still my husband. I took one step into the open doorway. Immediately I swung back around, choking down air. An inhuman stench festered from within the cabin. Holding my breath, I attempted a second dive. It felt as if even my eyeballs could smell the decay. I walked down a hallway barren of any furniture. Wood the color of the trees outside framed the walls, framed the ceiling, framed the floor. Dark stained wood and the smell of rotting carrion that's what held this cabin together. The hallway fed into a wide living area. There was a single cot stuffed in one corner and a swath of mismatched tables clustered the room. A number of faded and cracked windows let in the sun, though I almost wish they hadn't. A collection of stiff dried animals sat glazed on each of the of the tables. A raccoon missing its golden eyes. A brown bear with most of its fur hacked off, A male deer without any of its skin, and a female doe without a snout to sniff oncoming danger. Dozens of bird species missing a beak, missing a wing, missing a heartbeat. A pot bellied pig, its hoofs sticking straight into the air, stiff and lifeless, its plump belly dissected open to showcase a mass of intestines and oozing organs. There were more woodland carcasses stacked against the walls. Gobs of yellowing teeth stuck to the floor floor like peanut shells, and the air in this room made a slaughterhouse seem sterile, and Brok lay on the single cot stuffed in one corner. He stared at me with rodent eyes, bright gold things like leprechaun coins. A black snout careened from his face. Jagged, mismatching teeth leered from a mouth wrinkled with bits of animal fur. His skin was a dull, leathery shade, with green slashes of yarn tying each piece together. Rock? Rock, is that you? I said the words without any control or feeling on my lips. I couldn't believe it was really him. Hi, Brock. Alive and kicking cemetery gravel from out his shoes. I moved toward Brock, intending to embrace the man who had once upon a time dedicated his life to fighting fires. Heroes deserved their flowers, not just on their gravestone. And even if he was half beast, he was still half Brock. That had to mean something, right? I moved closer, and as I did, he began to change. It looked as if wires breathed under his animal skin. Long elastic tubes raised across Brok's face. More elongated strands blossomed on his hands and wrists. Something alive, something shaped like electrical lines, crawled beneath his skin. Pain must have fizzled through his reconfigured body. He ricocheted against the cotton, thrashing and beating his hands on all parts of his borrowed skin. His nails dug like mad into the meaty underbelly of a forearm. He scratched harder, one nail slicing a slit through the hide. A host of red coated worms fell from the open wound and onto the cot. More wriggled from the bleeding hole in Brok's forearm. The room was alive with the sound of slippery skin and pooling purple blood. Brok's eyes jumped to mine, then to the backpack hanging from my side like a forgotten gun in the midst of a shooting gallery. He opened his mouth, perhaps to shout and demand its contents. Instead, an army of beetles and pestilence flooded his tongue. A girthy crawler latched onto his lower lip, dangling like a piercing. He continued to vomit insects from a throat clogged with wings, his nose an oozing black honeycomb. You know that feeling when time slows and slows and nearly stops? When it seems like the world is suspended in a pink sticky solution? A cough syrup slowness. That's how it was, flinging the backpack onto the ground. Sticky time made it nearly impossible impossible to unzip the bag. Cough syrup slowness held my hand as it plunged into the open sack, then pulled back out slowly, so damn slowly, to unfurl an AED machine ready to kickstart a lifeless heart. Nervously, I shuffled forward, but Brock hammered his feet fist, then coughed another cloud of gnats toward the foul, upturned pig. Standing this close, you could see a delicate surgery had taken place. Where its heart should have sat now lay an empty nest of frizzled muscle. The organ lay next to a number of pinkish stained surgical tools. Without thinking, I reached for the heart, my hands growing slimy, purple and wet. The Brock thing on the cot became quiet, though a host of insects and blood soaked worms huddled around his body suckled at the exposed bits of his leathery skin. There was a smell to the place like a summer meat market. I held the heart in my hands, feeling how it was still warm. Then those golden eyes of his swiveled from the pulpy mass to the tools at my side. With a grimace that showed all of his broken fangs, Brok gestured, sneering, toward the surgical tray. Suddenly the cabin had converted into a transplant center, and I was asked to play the role of honorary surgeon. I paused and purple glue dribbled between my fingers. None of this was natural. Of course not. So what the hell was I doing? You aren't really him, I whispered, more to myself than the thing swarming with infection. Brock. My Brok wasn't afraid to die. I. I can't help you. I'm sorry. I can't. I dropped the heart. Its hands tried feebly to reach while tearing at its midsection, as if hoping it could stitch some of its humanity back inside. Those wasted arms of his wobbled two or three times before twitching. Limping and falling down. I stepped away from the bed, away from this room spoiled in death, away from those sun sour eyes still shining and bright. I continued backpedaling even as the dirt outside crunched beneath my feet and as the air no longer tasted of leprosy. It felt like I walked backwards all the way down the hill through the great green forest. Back, back, back, until I finally bumped against the back of my beaten down car. It wasn't until I was speeding a mile down the road that I stopped looking back and started looking forward. It's been over a month now. No other mail addressed from dead men has shown up in my post box. Thankfully, I've asked the postman to stop leaving any pamphlets from grocery stores, especially for sales on meat. Bacon just doesn't taste the same Anymore I thought all of this was over and put to rest. But then I stumbled onto your website today. I read about the miraculous letter you received from a wife who's been dead for the better part of 10 years. I read about your GoFundMe page and how you're hoping to gather enough money to make the journey halfway across the world to a forest I once visited too. A great green forest with a cabin tucked deep in its belly like a cancerous tumor. And I know I can't convince you to drop this fantasy. I know what lengths a broken heart will go to in order to regrow to recover. Even if you believed half my story, I don't think it would dissuade you. Because the dead speak in a language we can't resist. Because even a wife that is half human is better than a wife that is fully green with tree algae. At least that's what we tell ourselves at night when the bed pillow next to us grows cold with loneliness. But there's no hope hiding inside those woods. Only the sharp smell of death. That's what I need you to believe. All the animal hides and pig organs in the world won't bring back the one you love most. You can't skin and sew a mangled heart back from the grave. But you won't believe me. I know this because I'm alive and living, and only the dead speak in words we understand. Only the dead whisper stories we care for. Why do you think funeral services claim such an awesome turnout? We're drawn to the siren song of the dead and damned. So I'll wait here in my busted down Ford. Each morning if I have to. I'll sit in front of this great green forest anticipating your arrival, praying I can convince you in person what I'm failing to do online. Stay away from here. Please leave a dead silent heart alone. For God's sake, be human. Please. Full Body Chills is an Audio Chuck production. This episode was written by Joshua Bates and read by Jenna Pinchbeck. This story was modified slightly for audio retelling, but you can find the original in full on our website. I think Chuck would approve.
