I live with my Mother.
It had been some time after the accident that had taken her legs away from her. I never actually saw the injuries, I don’t have the stomach for that sort of thing. But, apparently it had not only physically crippled her, but mentally as well. I would know, I haven’t heard her speak since before it happened. Unlike physical injuries, I suppose mental ones don’t heal over time. It had been months since I saw her face, maybe even a year. She shrouded herself in a quilt, and stayed curled up on the couch in my living room.
I came to the conclusion that she only used her wheelchair at night, maybe it was pride, or that she didn’t want me to see her using it. I can always hear her using it, and then typically the hum of my microwave. Sometimes she even leaves a list of groceries for me to pick up on my next shopping trip. It’s always full of frozen junk food and TV dinners and on the rare occasion, alcohol, but I buy it for her anyway. I’m afraid of how she would react if I didn’t. The monthly stipend we received from her former employer was more than enough to pay for all of these things and more. I’ve tried to take her to the doctor, or change her bandages for her but she always screams bloody murder and hisses and scratches at me like some sort of crazed animal. So I stopped trying.
For the most part, I had almost forgotten about her until a few nights ago. I was sleeping soundly when I heard the door to my bedroom creak open, I quickly sat up, expecting the worst, some sort of serial killer or burglar. However, my mom just sat in her wheelchair, right in my doorway, it felt like she was staring right back at me. She maintained this position for around 15 minutes or so before a pair of slender, bony hands grasped the wheelchair and wheeled themselves back to the living room.
This became a habit, every other night, same exact time. I thought about locking the door, and once again, I was afraid of what would happen if I did. One evening, I decided it was time to reach out towards my mom again. I dropped my work things off in the entry and walked into the living room. To say that the room was trashed would be a compliment, it looked like something out of one of those hoarder shows times one hundred. The TV was on one of those channels that ran infomercials endlessly, the couch was bare. Well, at least the middle of the couch, the rest was dirtied beyond saving. I observed that the wheelchair was missing and at that point I heard the distinctive squeak of the rubber wheels in the kitchen.
I started clearing a space on one of our armchairs, so I wouldn’t have to sit on trash when I talked to her. As I did, I noticed that the chair was shredded under the layer of trash, it looked like something a cat would do if you didn’t spay it or something. I leaned in to inspect them more when I smelled it, the rancid, putrid stench of human waste.
“Oh no” I muttered, expecting to find out that my mom had been failing to make use of the bathroom. I trudged through the trash, trying to find the source. It was odd that I hadn’t noticed it when I walked in, maybe it was because I was breathing through my mouth. I knelt down as the stench intensified, wiping away discarded wrappers and dirty containers. There was a large plastic tarp covered in some shredded bedding, I thought she’d been using it as a bed or a bathroom, or worse. I peeled back the tarp and immediately wish I hadn’t, my eyes teared up so fast, I couldn’t see, it was like a wall of the most humid, foul smell I’ve ever smelled. I rubbed my eyes with my free hand as I struggled not to vomit. I blinked a few times and stared down.
A hand. A human hand. I pulled more of the tarp. A body. A legless body, decomposed to the point where it was unidentifiable, not that it needed to be. I trembled, a million emotions welling inside me as they threatened to burst out. I threw down the tarp, beat my fist against the ground and let out a scream. My fit was interrupted by the recognizable sound of a wheelchair squeaking its way into the living room.
I got up off of my knees, my fists clenched tight as yelled across the room “Who are you!?” my voice quaking with just as much anger as fear. The thing pretending to be my mother let out a scratchy growl and dropped the plate of cheese sticks it was carrying.
"What are you!?" I screamed, my temper boiling over, my heart beating wildly. It dropped the quilt off, it’s long arms unfolding from their hiding place, it’s glowing piercing eyes staring directly into my soul. It looked like some grotesque combination of my mother and…well, something else. It dragged itself towards towards me, speaking in a scratchy voice, mimicking my mom, the last thing she said before the accident, before she died. "I’m your mother, honey, and I will always love you." it rasped out, before lunging at me.
I don’t live with my Mother.
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Credits to: photofreecreepypasta
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