Full Body Chills - BUNKER: The Calling

Episode Date: October 13, 2024

A story about those who need a higher calling.Written by Nicki Brumback. Full Body Chills is brought to you by Max. This Halloween, the movies that haunt you are available on Max. Stream all month long. Subscription required. Visit max.com. Looking for more chills? Follow Full Body Chills on Instagram @fullbodychillspod. Full Body Chills is an audiochuck production.Instagram: @audiochuckTwitter: @audiochuckFacebook: /audiochuckllcTikTok: @audiochuck 

This episode was produced with immersive audio. For the best experience, we kindly recommend you listen with headphones. Hello, my FM followers, friends of the waste. Good afternoon. I am Mike Madness, and thank you for tuning in to the Doomsday Dial. No, no, no. I know. I know. Mikey, did you just

change the name of your show? Again? And yeah, I did. Listen, I've learned you just gotta go with the flow of the stale shelter air. And down here, nothing but the whirling whims of the wasteland wacko ever changes. So grant

me this little caprice, eh? Fourth time's a charm, as they say. Anyway, not to test the trademark tyranny, let's get on with the real name of the game. That's more like it. Welcome back to Satan's

Favorite Segment. We're on episode 48 of our discomforting dialogue, keeping up with the theme you know and hate. Doomsday. Now, now, I won't go into details. I know the topic is still a few years too sensitive. But

a few playful what-ifs won't hurt anyone. Like, what if civil society checked out with dinosaurs? Or, what if the Earth was trashed by trash? Or, my preferred defunction, what if the world went away not with a bang, but a whisper. Today's malediction might mellow you out, but don't be fooled.

That singing in your ears, it ain't coming from me. So if you dare follow along, cover your ears and listen close. The first to vanish was a woman named Rebecca out of Seattle, Washington. Anyone who knew the young woman was baffled. Everything about her life seemed to be going right. She had a job she loved in publishing and a healthy relationship. No criminal history, no suspected substance issues, and as with many missing person cases, those who knew her repeated the same old familiar sentiments. Everyone loves Becky. I can't think of anyone that would want to hurt her. She would never just leave her dog behind. Something must have happened. There were no signs of foul play. Rebecca's car was

right where she left it, parked in the driveway of her newly purchased bungalow. The door had been left unlocked. Her keys hung on a lanyard in the hall. Her purse, complete with wallet and identification, was on her kitchen counter. Searches of her home and work computers, as well as that of her boyfriends, turned up nothing of interest. In initial interviews, no one could think of anything odd or out of the ordinary. She never mentioned anyone threatening her, or even feeling as though she had been followed. But, on second and third interviews, her loved ones began reporting

similar experiences. Nothing that would have raised any eyebrows had she not disappeared. But one by one, those who knew her mentioned that in the weeks before Rebecca went missing, she complained about hearing something strange. A humming, she had said. Barely perceptible. That reminded her of something she couldn't quite explain. Mental illness. That's what Rebecca's disappearance was chalked up to at first. It meant she could still be found.

Never mind that she could be out there, confused and wandering the streets all alone. No, the announcement seemed to make everyone feel better. Fears were soothed. Rebecca wasn't taken. She wandered away. The public failed to consider that it was incredibly likely that, even if she had left on her own terms, she could have been taken advantage of after. The news cycle moved on. The wheel turned. Then, Rebecca's mother disappeared. And soon after, other reports started rolling in. A teenage girl in Florida, originally thought to be a runaway,

disappeared after school one day. In Maine, an elderly woman left her care home in the middle of the night. In Oklahoma, a professor failed to show up to teach her class. And then, without fail, the missing woman would have a family member, always a woman, follow her into the unknown. The first to pick up on the pattern was a conspiracy nut with an anime girl profile picture on some forum. There, sandwiched between reports of JFK sightings and updates on Bigfoot, a 30-something-year-old man laid out his findings.

He came to all the wrong conclusions, of course. In his mind, the capital G government was responsible. The sounds that each of the women had reported, according to him, was evidence of an experiment to control the minds of the public.

He ended his poorly executed post with a paragraph on the susceptibility of the female brain to subtle manipulation. Asshole. Despite its faults, the post received some attention by more credible sources. True crime bloggers in particular had a field day. Every middle-aged woman with the podcast, every masked YouTuber who put out videos with altered voices and ominous music. All of them were talking about the sound that became known as the calling.

Major media outlets began to take notice. The topic was trending on every social platform. Photos of missing women and girls were compiled into massive collages. Official statements were being put out by police departments from counties in every state, as well as the FBI and representatives in government. Panic swept across the nation. There were absurd cries to lock up women all over the country for their own good. People spit out theories that were colored by other motives. Some were blatantly

racist. Others claimed this was proof of some religious phenomena. All were marked by paranoia. The anxiety was crippling. Suddenly, every sound was suspicious, and millions of women insisted they were hearing the calling too. Which is probably why Erin thought nothing of it when she heard it too. That's how Erin was. Is. Erin and I met at a fraught time in our lives. I had just been laid off. She was dealing with the fallout of coming out to her parents. We were able to rely on each other at a time when we both felt like we were losing everything. We were strangers, then friends,

then... not something more, exactly. Neither of us were ready for that. But there existed between us that tension of potential, of what could be. I was infatuated by her, hypnotized by the way her dark curls fell across her face and the way her deep brown eyes lit up when she laughed. I could tell by the way I caught her looking at me sometimes that

she felt the same. The first time she brought up the noise, I didn't take any special notice. We were having lunch at our favorite cafe, huddled in a booth by the window. And she seemed distracted. Every so often she'd lift her head and look around at the other patrons, brow furrowed. When I asked about it, she said she thought someone was humming. I waved it away, unconcerned, and we finished our food with no further mention of it that day. The second time, we were out walking together, gossiping, enjoying the spring weather as it brought the world out of hibernation. She startled, hard enough to make me jump, and I reached out for her arm.

She told me she had heard the humming again as soon as we started down the wooded path. But it wasn't just humming that time. Out of nowhere, the noise that could so easily be dismissed had been joined by singing. By that point, we had seen what was happening all across the news, and my mind jumped to those missing women. Panic began to rise, clawing up my throat. What should we do about this? Who should we turn to? My fear must have shown on my face, because Aaron immediately relaxed. It was a trait that I found both endearing and frustrating about her. Her ability to set her own concerns and needs aside for the comfort of others.

Usually, I teased her for her self-sacrificing streak. But at the time, I selfishly let myself be comforted. The power of suggestion, or at least something like it. That's what she had said. The news coverage was having the same effect on her that it was having on plenty of women, and men even, all over the country. Her brain had registered that there was something happening and had latched onto her

anxiety to manifest the symptoms. Simple. Believable. It was the kind of suggestion that you accept because it's what you need to hear. An explanation that acted as cool lotion on a sunburn. Soothing. After all, weren't the majority of these cases unfounded? I think after that, she started hiding what she was hearing from me. I can't say if it was more to keep me from worrying or if, in her mind, not acknowledging the sounds would make them go away. As it stands, in the intervening months between that day and the next incident, she didn't mention hearing the humming or singing again. As it grew warmer, we got closer. Lingering glances lingered a little longer. The energy between us was charged with the sense of something almost realized. We spent more time together,

coming up with excuses to enter into each other's space. As other aspects of our lives settled, it became easier to imagine that we were in a place with room to fit those feelings. When I wasn't spending the night at her apartment, she was spending the night at mine. Our weekends were spent beating the heat with naps in the shade or in the cool water of the creek. I still don't know how she managed to hide what she was going through. I've gone over this time with a fine-toothed comb, searching for signs I could have missed. Perhaps those heat-induced headaches she complained of were actually a symptom of being barraged by noise. A glance over her shoulder I dismissed as something

casual could have been something more fearful. I will never forgive myself for being more consumed with thoughts of impressing her sister or whether she would like my family. I did my best to make her smile at every opportunity, but in light of what happened since, it almost feels selfish. Did I want to make her happy or did I just want to be the focus of her attention? This is what grief does to a person, I suppose. You lose someone and you're left wondering about your place in their life. I became aware that something was really and truly wrong in the middle of that summer. We were spending an evening watching some true crime documentary, half paying attention and half

giggling over gossip. She fell asleep first, but I must have drifted off not long after. I woke to a title screen nearly blinding me in the dark room, only recently having been stopped. Erin was nowhere to be found. I looked for her all over the house and was just about to text her when I noticed someone on the porch. I jumped, startled, before I recognized her silhouette and stepped out to check on her. The sound of the door didn't seem to catch her attention. Normally, I would have seized an opportunity. We'd been locked in a battle of jumping out at each other over the last few weeks, and I'd been meaning to seize my revenge.

But something felt wrong. I can't explain why I was afraid at that moment, but I was hesitant to get closer. She still hadn't looked up at me. She was swaying slightly, her movements barely perceptible as she stared up at the sky. A full moon illuminated her face, and I was taken aback. She looked beautiful. She always did. But there was an emptiness there that scared me. Perhaps this was some sort of sleepwalking

episode? I wrecked my brain, trying to remember if that warning about never waking a sleepwalker was a myth or not. Surely the best course of action would have been to leave her be. It would have been best to just watch her and make sure she didn't do anything to put herself in danger. But that blank look on her face. It makes my stomach turn even now remembering it. It wasn't the distant look of a daydreamer. It was like she was somewhere far away, far beyond my reach.

I stretched my hand out just to touch her arm, some part of me fearing that she would fade into dust. She gasped suddenly, taking an air as though she had been underwater for too long, and I drew my hand back. My heart was pounding rapidly in my chest as she turned to me. She smiled, sadly, and said she thought she might need to see a doctor. We went together. I held her hand in the waiting room like a proper almost-girlfriend would. I fidgeted with nervous energy and, in typical Erin fashion, she comforted me.

Still, when confronted with the reality of explaining to a doctor what she had been experiencing, Erin looked to me for strength. I think she was afraid that he would dismiss her concerns as being all in her head. And, to be fair, that's what doctors all too often do in the face of the unknown. But, maybe because of what was being seen in the news, we were met with genuine concern. Erin went through a series of tests meant to root out the cause. Scans, sleep studies, auditory tests, mental health evaluations.

All of it turned up nothing out of the ordinary. But still, the sleepwalking episodes grew more frequent, and the singing she heard was nearly constant. She moved in with me full-time, and we relied on our friends for emotional support. The first time Erin wandered during the day, I was at work. Halfway through my shift, I got a phone call and answered it to hear Erin sobbing on the other end. She had been making herself something to eat one moment,

and the next, she was three blocks away and barefoot on burning hot pavement. I went home during my lunch break, and we made an appointment for the doctor. From then on, Aaron wasn't to be left alone. My job could easily be done from home, and our little family, made up of kind-hearted souls from our community,

rallied around us. Friends took Aaron out on errands to give her some sense of normalcy. They brought food and offered to do our laundry. It was awkward, but we were grateful, accepting these gestures as they had been intended. A message that, no matter how isolated we may have been feeling, we were not in it alone.

But, even with all the support, I couldn't have my eyes on Aaron every moment. Falling asleep became an exercise in risk. I'd stay up until my head ached with the need for rest, every move feeling as though I was moving through quicksand. It just wasn't sustainable for either of us. And unbeknownst to me, Erin was coming up with the plan. One evening, Erin sat me down and explained she'd begun having dreams in those spaces where she lost time. The images varied.

Occasionally, they would be something tangible, a location that she could pinpoint on a map, neighboring towns, road signs, a diner. Other dreams would feature hands reaching out to her through the darkness or a chorus of voices calling her name. Aaron, they sang. Sister. So, she explained her plan. She wanted to follow these images. If they led nowhere, she reasoned, maybe that would be enough to snap her out of whatever this was. I was hesitant, unsure if giving in to this compulsion was healthy.

Though, to be honest, I would have followed her anywhere. And even before we left, it seemed to do the trick. When I agreed and scheduled some time off, Aaron's midnight walks came to an abrupt stop. We were baffled, but she took it as a positive sign. The dreams themselves continued, though. So on a cool day in October, we packed up the car and followed her dreams. Literally.

It required some research. Sometimes, the locations in Erin's dream were marked only by something simple, like a statue in a town square. We wrote down her dreams as soon as she had them, researched them, then marked out the location on a physical map just to have a record of where we'd been. We spent the night in whatever hotel or dingy motel we could find within available room,

sometimes sleeping in the car at rest stops. We lived on fast food and gas station coffee, but we tried to make the most of it. We sang along to the radio and binged upbeat podcasts. Not once did I mention the way my stomach was tying itself into knots. I didn't want to let on just how much I hated that we were doing this. If this is what she needed to do, we would do it. But I knew she would turn back for my sake in a heartbeat. We stalled out in southern Louisiana. For a week, we slept in a motel with no air conditioning, a burden in a place where autumn had seemingly failed to reach. No more dreams came. We languished in that room, reading garbage paperbacks

from a rack we found in the supermarket, and eating Pop-Tarts too many meals in a row. Slowly, over those days, I began to have real hope that we had reached the end of the line. Erin's plan had worked. Coming this far and finding nothing had snapped her out of whatever trance the news had put her in. I was ready to pack it up and go home. I had almost reached the end of my vacation time, but Erin wanted to stay a little longer.

There was something in the air, she had said. Something wanted her there. I agreed to wait out the rest of the weekend. But we didn't need that long. That same night, I was pulled from my sleep by the sound of the door shutting. I nearly drifted off again before my brain registered what it had heard. Dread flooded every fiber of my being. I leapt from bed and shoved my feet into shoes

and the room key into my pocket. I was out of the door just as Aaron rounded the corner down the street. I jogged to catch up to her, calling out her name with no response. She wasn't moving particularly fast, and yet she was always out of reach. I couldn't seem to catch up. The town we were in was small, dead after 9 p.m., and yet, I feared that someone would come along and grab her before I could get there.

As I followed, she led me further and further until the houses around us became more spaced out. Tall trees and dense brush became more frequent. Here, at the edge of town, nature wrestled with humanity for domination. Still, Aaron didn't slow down. Paved roads gave way to wide dirt paths, and streetlights no longer lit our way. I fumbled for my phone to use as a flashlight, terrified at the idea of stepping on something that could potentially bite back, and called for Erin again. Frustrated tears blurred my vision, but I couldn't just leave her. I couldn't say how long we had been walking,

but we were no longer passing houses. The wilderness was untamed by man here. Up ahead, Erin stopped, cocking her head as if listening for something, before she turned and moved down the embankment. Even above the cacophony of bugs and birds and toads, I could make out the sound of muck sucking at her shoes. She had disappeared beyond the beam of my cell phone's flashlight,

leaving me with little choice but to follow. Water pooled into my sneakers, and every step was a struggle. Each brush of tall grass against my calves was enough to make me jump. If Erin feared what might be crawling around out here, it was impossible to say. While I stumbled, she moved ever onward, confident. The terrain was unsteady and the light couldn't be trusted. What passed for stable ground was little more than a layer of sludge that could send you deeper into cold water. More than once I slipped on slick water, just barely managing to keep my phone

from being submerged with me. I felt exposed, vulnerable. The task of getting back to the motel felt insurmountable, even if I could have found it in me to leave Aaron here, in the dark of a Louisiana swamp. Every tree looked the same to me, their gnarled forms rising from the black, forming a maze that would have been difficult to navigate in the day.

I was falling further behind, too distracted, too distracted, too slow, too weak-willed. The tears flowed steadily now. Then, I heard it. Singing.

It was distant, but it left me frozen. Was this what Aaron had been hearing? She was out of sight now, but I knew I only needed to follow the sound. I sloshed through water now waist deep in some spots. The closer I got, the louder it became. Eventually, I could make out a voice that stood out among the rest. A humming that reminded me of a lullaby. The buzz of insects around me had picked up, and I got the impression they were singing along.

A quick splash to my right startled me out of my thoughts. I turned, pointing the flashlight in that direction, only to catch sight of the disturbed water. I braced myself, waiting for the next move. A warm breath floated across the back of my neck and I screamed. I flung myself forward wildly, splashing through the water with mindless fear. Follow the sound. Find Aaron. Somehow I had gotten turned around. I closed my eyes and listened hard, but all sound had stopped. Even the wildlife went silent, as if holding their breaths for whatever was to come next. A singular voice, right beside my ear, broke with a giggle. In that instant, I dropped the phone, my heart plummeting with it beneath the bog.

The light briefly spluttered, lighting up the green water, and then went dark. I was blind. A sob tore itself from my throat and I held still. Some instinctual part of me kept me frozen, a statue in the swamp. Maybe I could save myself that way. Just as that ridiculous thought crossed my mind, a woman stepped out from behind a tree. She was gorgeous. Thick red hair, drenched like she had just been swimming. Emerald eyes glinting in the light from the lantern she held aloft. Her dress clung to her form like a second skin. The relief from seeing another human being outweighed the voice that whispered that this was wrong.

So wrong. I pleaded with her for help in stuttering, broken sentences that only half made sense. But her face remained expressionless, even as a spider crawled down from her hair and down to her neck. Slowly, she moved the lantern, gesturing to her left. I followed it with my gaze. More lights, drifting forward out of the dark, forming a path. Helplessly, I followed. Each lantern I passed was held by a woman with the same blank stare. Women I recognized from the news. They observed me with cold detachment,

falling in line behind me when I moved on. Some were naked. Others wore clothes that clung wetly against their frames. They wore spiders, insects, and snakes like accessories. Naked, others wore clothes that clung wetly against their frames. They wore spiders, insects, and snakes like accessories. Gators swam by their sides like loyal dogs. Not one being, human or animal, made a move to harm me. Shaking, I was herded through the swamp to an island nearly disguised by thick vegetation. It was larger than it looked from the outside, and I tripped and fumbled my way to the center.

The women behind me spread out, circling a clearing that had been trampled down into the weeds. All at once, the singing began again. I found myself lulled by it, swaying, eyes drooping. My body was heavy, though my heart still fluttered with anxious awareness. And then, Erin stepped out from the trees on the other side of the clearing. Her russet brown skin looked almost gold in the firelight. Shadows served to make the angles of her body seem sharper. I reached out, desperate to feel her against me, real and solid and alive. I crumpled,

out of relief at seeing her or fear fear of what would happen, or pure exhaustion. Behind Erin, another woman stepped from the shadows. Her appearance shifted with every blink. One moment, she was a gray, old hag, sagging skin and pinched features. The next, she was a little girl, then a matronly woman with a braid to her waist. Erin turned to look at her, asking permission, and having received it, crossed the clearing to where I kneeled. Her hand felt cool against my cheek, a welcome relief. I had dozens of questions all on the tip of my tongue, but I could not air a single one. All I could say was her name. She smiled, and what she said next was lost to me. But I understood this.

She loved me, but she would not be returning. This was her family now. These were her sisters. The singing grew louder. I heard the steady beat of a drum and knew it to be my heart. Aaron pressed a kiss to my forehead and backed away. And I let her go. When I next opened my eyes, I was in bed at the motel.

My sweatpants were crusted with dried mud, and I smelled foul. The shoes were a lost cause. When I had cleaned myself up and dressed in fresh clothing, I called the police. I answered their questions the best I could, but much of that is hazy. I was numb. answered their questions the best I could, but much of that is hazy. I was numb. They investigated my claims, but ultimately, like the other women who had gone missing,

Erin was a mystery. No trace of the women was found in the swamp. I went home and went to bed. When I emerged again, I had dozens of calls from Aaron's parents. While we were gone, her sister had gone missing. I don't know when this will end, or if this will end,

but I know she isn't coming back. None of them are coming back. Hey, hey, thanks for sticking to the encore. Hope that last song didn't sink your tone. No doubt life can be tough, but life after all life on Earth hit the grave? Well, that's ancient beef jerky, my friend. Take these stories as a little relief and a reminder. You can't count on what you've lost. You can only hold what you still have and try to keep it together.

Maybe one of these days we'll really unpack the feels. Shout out how it all went down. Or maybe you can give the shout out. Share your own story. All lines are open and we're waiting on standby. Or maybe next time. own story. All lines are open, and we're waiting on standby. Or maybe next time. Now, let's

surf off these rocky vibes and into some calmer waters. This is Mike Madness with a song to carry you out as the days go by. As the days go by. As the days go by. Like the four seasons of our lives. I still see birds that fly.

Full Body Chills is an AudioChuck production. This episode was written by Nikki Brumback and read by Shai Sharae. Intro outro written by David Flowers and read by Anthony Coons. So, what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve? I approve. away and leaves are falling down like tears you