Skrtch, Skrtch, Skrtch

I did promise at the beginning of the month that I would throw in bonus posts to share excerpts that I particularly enjoyed. Well, the time has finally come. Everyone is still sitting around tell ghost stories, and I've tried to fit each story to the character telling it. In the case of Keri Abiram, resident doctor, I thought she should tell some gross medical urban legend. But what really sold this idea was the two reactions to it that came to me randomly (Who are we kidding? I was in the bathroom). Here, see for yourself:

“I have a story,” Keri said. “There was a woman, and she kept hearing this scratching sound. Skrtch, skrtch, skrtch. She thought there must be rats in the attic or something. So she went up into the attic, and she could still hear it. Skrtch, skrtch, skrtch. But no sign of rats. She met a friend for lunch, and told them about the phantom rats. And there in the diner, she could still hear it. Skrtch, skrtch, skrtch. She started to think that maybe she was going crazy. Everywhere she went, she could still hear it. Skrtch, skrtch, skrtch.

“So she went to a doctor, to try to figure out was wrong with her. The doctor thought that she might have hit her head on something, because she had a bump on the side of her head. Maybe she had some kind of traumatic damage from the impact that was making her hear things. So the doctor looked at the bump, and it was this big, infected abscess. The lanced it, and all of these maggots came pouring out. Apparently a fly had laid its eggs in her scalp, and the maggots had burrowed into her head, and were crawling around in there. Skrtch, skrtch, skrtch.”

“That’s disgusting!”

“That’s not even a ghost story!”

I don't know why, but that's super funny to me. I'll see you all for our regularly scheduled post on Tuesday, if not before.