Scary Horror Stories by Dr. NoSleep - Braids, Pigtails, and Curls

Episode Date: August 10, 2022

🎉 Ad-free episodes + bonus episodes: https://www.patreon.com/drnosleep 🎧 Check out my true crime podcast called Crimehub on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or Amazon Music. 🎥 YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/DrNoSleep ✅ Send all advertising inquiries to: [e-mail] Author: John Beardify Check out more of his work Here: https://www.reddit.com/user/beardify/ New Book Release Here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09QJXLHF4 DISCLAIMER: This episode contains explicit content. Parental guidance is advised for children under the age of 18. Listen at your own discretion. #drnosleep #scarystories #horrorstories #doctornosleep #truescarystories #horrorpodcast #horror Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's something else here now. Something new. From. Exclusively on Paramount Plus. It's the series Stephen King calls Scary as Hell. Everything here is impossible, but it's also real. Sci-fi Vision calls it the best show streaming right now. We're running out of time and we still don't know the rules.

Don't miss what the movie blog calls something you need to watch. Saving those children is how we all go home. From binge all episodes exclusively on Paramount Plus. Before this next story, I'd like to say thank you to my new patrons, Chris, Bodie, and Joseph. If you'd like to support the podcast, head over to my Patreon page where you will receive access to new exclusive scary stories every week. Go to Patreon.com slash DR No Sleep. The link is also in the description below. Talk to Nice Sleep. The woman we were stalking opened her umbrella just before torrential rain began to fall.

Fuck! Alberto squealed. My shoes! For such a huge guy, Alberto sure could squeal like a rat, and he was obsessed with his footwear. Alberto had done his first stint in prison for killing a guy with a corkscrew, a guy who'd stepped on his heel. Alberto accidentally honked the car horn with his elbow as he stuffed his bulky frame back into the passenger seat. But braids, big tails, and curls were onto us already. How the hell were they always able to give us the slip?

Yesterday, I'd been tripped by a cat just as I was closing in on pigtails. This morning, we'd almost cornered braids in a marketplace bathroom. But when we burst into the star, she was just... gone. And now there was curls, with this sudden downpour just before she disappeared inside the door. Braids, pigtails, and curls, the most successful escorts in town. They were ruining our business and our reputation. and we couldn't even find out their names. The bosses were getting impatient.

The way Signore Formigioly explained it, this wasn't even about money. It was about how it made us look. If we couldn't stop three Putana from stealing her clients without paying a cent of protection money, it would make us look weak. If we looked weak, other gangs would try us, and people would die.

People like my father, who was killed in just such a confrontation. The four idiots who'd beaten him to death never stood a chance against us. And while I can't remember their names or where they're buried, that doesn't change the fact that my father is dead. Signore Formiggioli made it clear that if I didn't deal with those three new escorts quickly and decisively, I might end up in the same place.

The easiest way to get close to braids, pigtails, and curls should have been to purchase their services. There were claps on the back and war. the back and wolf whistles when I sent Sebastino off on that particular assignment. But he never came back. And all the responsibility was on me. Braids, pigtails, and curls serviced their clients in an anonymous two-story stone building at the end of the tight alley, where we'd parked. I watched through the rain-streaked car window as Giuseppe, an unhappily married jeweler who used to pay our girls, slogged up the narrow street to the building's unmarked door.

It opened the moment he reached it, and after Giuseppe stepped into the darkness within, the door slammed shut behind him. It was like he'd been swallowed up. Twenty minutes, thirty, an hour. Still no Giuseppe. I stuffed my hands into my jacket pockets and wondered how many more nights like this I had left. Rainy nights always put me in a bitter mood. Tired of waiting, I circled the building twice to make sure that there were no other exits.

then pressed myself against the wall across from Alberto. When Giuseppe left, I looked down the street and saw Giuseppe in the crosswalk. How had he? The solid metal door between Alberto and I suddenly swung open. We looked at each other, then barreled inside. We caught a glimpse of a bare, old-fashioned hallway with a black and white tile floor before the door slammed shut behind us. It was so dark I felt like I'd been buried alive.

Aye, anybody home? Alberto shouted. Turn on a fucking light, will you? A female voice laughed in the darkness. Cursing, I felt my way along the wall, lumpy plaster and peeling wallpaper, just like I'd expected, until my hand moved over something else.

The upper half was wrinkled in spongy, and the lower half was covered by some kind of damp cloth. A face. I had my hand on some old man's face. I yanked my hand away in revulsion, then realized, that whoever it was had probably been gagged. I tugged on the wet rag.

I felt recessed gums and decaying teeth sink into my hand. I'd know you anywhere, asshole. Why the hell did you send me here, huh? I'll chew your face off for that, you fucker. It was Sebastino's voice. Weezy and half dead, sure, but there was no mistaking it. Thump. I knew the sound of a tied-up man falling over onto a hard floor all too well.

A snap told me that he'd got an arm free. There, in the absolute darkness, Sebastino was grasping, snapping, tearing. He wasn't trying to free himself. He just wanted to hurt me. Do you even know what they did to me, you evil? Fuck? Do you? The Sebastino, who I'd known,

could have split my head like a ripe melon if he wanted to. He was a motorcycle mechanic with a bodybuilder's physique and a dental ad smile, a good kid. But the thing I fought in that dark hallway, the thing that Sebastino had become, moaned like a living corpse. How could this thing be the kid I remembered, with its paper-thin skin and decaying arms? Only its hatred gave it strength. Hatred of me. I ran like a scared kid in a fun house.

A stream of profanity followed me, and that wasn't all. I could hear Sebastino scraping and wheezing as he crawled after me. I couldn't see where I was going, and I had no idea where I'll be. Alberto was, but I didn't care. All that mattered was getting far away from those withered, hateful, gnashing jaws. I crashed face first into something, a door. I fumbled and shoved until it opened, spilling me out into the alley where all this began. My nose felt broken. My hand was bleeding, and Alberta was gone. The door slammed shut behind me. I staggered through the rain to the car. The skin around the bite on my hand was already swelling up and turning purple

with infection. I jammed the car into gear and barreled down the slick alleyway. My head was reeling, distracting me so much that I almost ran over Alberto as he wandered into the intersection below, looking just as dazed as I was. What the fuck happened to you? He asked sleepfully after bouncing off the hood of the car. I could ask you the same thing. I snapped. How'd you get out of there? Alberto shrugged and lowered his bulk into the seat beside me. I talked to him. He said, alert. The girls, they're real nice. You tell, signore for me, Gioli, that it's all taken care of. My jaw dropped. How could Alberto have talked to anyone? We'd been inside the escort's building for less than five minutes. What about Sebastino? Alberto gave me an odd look as he buckled

his seatbelt. What about him? Maybe he skipped out. Now let's get the fuck out of here. I'm hungry. I drove through the nighttime city in a daze. The water streaming on the windshield made everything blur together. Tail lights, streetlights, glowing advertisements. Buildings disappeared into the low-hanging light-polluted clouds. I couldn't understand it. What the hell happened in there? After I dropped Alberto off, I found a quiet spot to park, reclined the driver's seat, and fell asleep. I didn't feel like going home. At home, there were too many corners, too many shadows. Too many doors with no way to tell what was lurking on the other side. The clatter of garbage trucks woke me just before Donor. I had two shots of espresso while I stared at the

Formica tabletop of a Chinese cafe and thought about nothing. Two hours later, I had a plan. Giuseppe! I leaned on the middle-aged, jewelers display case and grinned. You don't look happy to see me. Giuseppe went pale. He was probably, probably remembering how the last time we'd met, I'd pulled out every fingernail on his left hand with a pair of pliers for being late with the payment. Oh, what can I do for you? Giuseppe stammered. My father used to say that seeing the fear in their eyes was the best part of the life. You haven't been by to see our girls lately, I leered. I was worried.

Or maybe you found something new? A two-story stone building at the end of an alley? Unmarked door? Old-fashioned streetlight? Sound familiar? Yeah. Giuseppe's reaction was the opposite of what I'd expected. It was like he'd just lowered himself into a hot bath. What can you tell me about him? I wanted to smack that dreamy look right off Giuseppe's face. They're the best, the jeweler sighed. Look, I grabbed the Weasley man by his tie. You can explain it to me. or you can explain it to your wife. That's when I noticed something odd.

Giuseppe's eyes were all over the place. I'd beaten the truth out of enough liars to know that Giuseppe had no idea what happened to him during his time alone with braids, thicktails, and curls. Even stranger, the jeweler looked like he'd aged five years in the six odd months since I'd seen him last. There were crow's feet around his eyes. His lips trembled.

And when I let him go, he'd dottered backwards, like an old man. You look like shit, I commented. Giuseppe gasped, clutching his chest, like our little interaction had left him winded. Well, none of us are as young as we used to be, right? I walked out the door before he could finish his sentence. Staying in motion has always helped me think. I trudged from one side of the city to the other, hardly noticing where I was going,

as I turned the problem over in my mind. Alberto had sounded drugged when he told me that fairy tale about monthly payments. I wanted to believe him. I wanted to put the whole thing behind me to forget about Sebastino's grasping, withered hands in the dark. But I just couldn't let go. The feeling of a folded-up paper being stuffed into my hand snapped me out of my reverie. Hey!

I spun, looking for whoever had snuck up on me, but they'd cleverly slipped around my shoulder. I caught a glimpse of a pair of raven-haired pig tails disappearing around the next corner. But by the time I caught up, there wasn't a single sign of life in the narrow alley, except for a lone black alley cat, boredly licking its paw. With no other leads to follow, I unfolded the paper. It contained an address, a time, and a single phrase, we need to talk. The location wasn't far, but I would have to run if I wanted to make it there on time. I realized that all this had been done on purpose, probably to prevent me from calling for reinforcements.

I called anyway, though, shouting into my burner phone in code as I dodged the drying laundry, fruit stalls, and gossiping neighbors who turned the cramped streets into an obstacle course. The city had gnawed its way out of the hills like a worm eating through cheese. Its streets were a maze a thousand years in the making, and whoever slipped me the note must have known that I was born here. I would be able to navigate the labyrinth. I took every shortcut I knew from a lifetime of dodging police in the city, and I still arrived at the address two minutes late. Sweat ran down my forehead as I gripped my knees and panted.

Alberto and the boys were on their way, but the building in front of me was an abandoned warehouse slated for demolition. It had more entrances and exits than a rat's warren, and there was no way we'd cover them all. I peeled back a corroded aluminum panel and stepped inside. Every wall that hadn't already collapsed was covered with graffiti. Weeds clustered around the shadowy lumps of abandoned machinery, and butterflies danced in the beams of light that poured through the dripping holes in the ceiling.

The scene would have almost felt peaceful if it wasn't for the mysterious note in my hand, reminding me why I was there. As I stepped through the wreckage, I was haunted by a stomach-churning feeling that I was being white. probably from the manager's office. A second story room with commanding views of the entire ruined space. If I was meeting someone here and wanted to control the situation, that's where I'd be. With a sigh, I started up the rickety wooden stairs leading up to it. The stairway felt like a dark tunnel, but daylight streamed into the manager's office, perfect for ambushing anyone who came up the

stairs. The closer I got to the bright and airy room above, the more sure I was that I'd be dead in the moment I poked my head through the door. Dread squeezed my heart like an icy fist, and before I knew it, I was retreating back down the stairs to wait for backup, or so I thought. No matter how far down I walked, the downstairs doorway remained the same distance away. This couldn't be happening, I told myself. I'd gotten something wrong somehow, miscalculated, There was no way that I should have been in the basement. I should have been in the bowels of the earth. Yet the door to the warehouse floor remained just as far away as it had been the moment I had turned around.

I ran downward, jogging until every step jarred my knees, until I wanted to cry from sheer exhaustion. But the door was no closer. I shook my head, sure that I was going crazy, because when I started walking upward again, I reached the manager's office in only a few steps. I felt like a rat being herded into a trap. When I reached the final stair,

I bounded out onto the empty hardwood of the manager's office, ready for an ambush. Had braids, pig tails, and curls just been fucking with me? Had they led me on this wild goose chase just to... Something soft fell behind me. I didn't know where braids had come from. There was nowhere in the empty room she could have hidden, but I didn't care about this.

that. I only had eyes for her. The sound that I'd heard had been Braids' dress hitting the floor. She wasn't wearing anything underneath. She took a bare foot step toward me. The Braids hadn't said a word. I didn't know her name that, and I still don't know it. But what she was about to do to me would chop my life in half as cleanly and brutally as a meat gleamer. In my nightmares, I can still remember some of it. The dusty light that made sure, shadows on her smooth bare skin. The way her hand on my cheek paralyzed me like an electric shock. Her dusky eyes, only inches from mine, seemed to expand until I was falling, falling, falling as her irises became a black well with no bottom. I woke to the sound of a pigeon

pecking on the glass. Dusty light still poured through the shattered warehouse windows, but Braids was nowhere in sight. Why did everything hurt? I shrieked when I saw the white-haired, liver-spotted arm that was only inches from my face. I tried to scramble backward, but my tendons protested. The simple act of sitting up made my body creak and groan like an oil tanker being split in half by a storm. The slightest movement took twice as long as it used to. But what took longer was coming to terms with the fact that the vainy hands I was looking at were my own.

Just like my skull-like face, sunken eyes and hairless head. Whatever braids had done to me, it had aged me 60 years in a matter of minutes. The effort of stepping into my own pants made my hands shake. My fingers clenched and unclenched around my belt like rusty and unfamiliar tools. When I finally managed to put on my shirt, I couldn't force my stooped back to straighten out. The glaucoma in my eyes made me fumble like a blind man, and I had to lean against the crumbling staircase wall to reach the ground floor without hurting myself. The reinforcements I'd called thought I was a homeless vagrant when I shuffled out through the corroded aluminum fence. My joints screamed in agony as my own voice slammed me against the piss-reaking graffiti warehouse wall,

demanding to know what had happened to the man who I'd stolen my clothes from. Not even Alberto believed it until he looked me in the eyes. eyes. They treated me like the nitroglycerin that we stole from the docks a couple years ago, like I was something dangerous and fragile that might shatter at any time. My gaunt cheeks turned red with shame when I waddled down the steps to the restaurant basement where we gave reports to Signore Formigioly. But at least I wasn't alone. In the chairs along the wall, I recognized several of the men who used to visit our girls, but who had since gone over to braids, pigtails and curls. One by one, my aged former clients groaned their stories through their

receded gums and loose or missing teeth. Alessario, a nymphomaniac bar owner who'd often bought several of our escorts at once, needed thick glasses and a cane ever since his night with pigtails. Cameron, a British expat whose legs had become as twisted as his fetishes after a night with curls, leaned on a walker and couldn't keep his bruised hands from shaking. Giuseppe, whose shockingly white hair and wrinkle-carved face bore little resemblance to the man I'd threatened earlier that morning, a lifetime ago. Giuseppe begged Signore Formigioly to enact a vendetta against braids, big tails, and curls. And I'm sure the boss would have been happy to do so, if only they could be found.

The city's three most famous escorts had disappeared. The only proof that they'd ever been here at all were the withered bodies of the men whose youth they drained. Men like me. Sometimes, before I drift off to sleep, I can still hear the disbelief that dripped from Signore Formigioly's voice when he first saw me hobble over to his table. No way. No fucking way. I don't fucking believe it. But it's really you.

Is it really me? I still wonder. According to the nurses in this elder care facility, my body is 79 years old, but I celebrated my 19th birthday in February. I'm sure of it. Memory, the nurses tell me, is a funny thing. But I know who I am. I know that it's Signore Formigioly who pays for my stay here.

I know that just a few months ago, I was 19, a rising man, with territory inherited from my father. until the arrival of three strange women, who we called braids, picktails, and curls. Lazzangue sur-gillet, puissance-molyne, for 15 minutes. We're like to dojo.

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