Scary Horror Stories by Dr. NoSleep - I’m a Night Guard at a Museum. The Olmec Heads Started Speaking to Me | Part 1

Episode Date: July 8, 2026

Listen to all parts now with a 7-day FREE TRIAL of Dr. NoSleep Premium: ⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/drnosleep⁠⁠ – Cancel anytime. No commitment. Are you still drinking that stale, store-bought coffee? Check out ⁠⁠NoSleepCoffee.com⁠⁠ to get 20% off fresh, same-day roasted coffee delivered straight to your door. Just use promo code NOSLEEP20 at checkout for 20% off your first order! Huge thanks to our sponsors: BetterHelp: Sign up now and get 10% off at ⁠betterhelp.com/dns⁠. Shopify: You don’t need anyone’s approval to make a living. Build your own business with a free trial at shopify.com/dns. Author: Dave Kavanaugh * * * CONTENT DISCLAIMER: This episode contains explicit content not limited to intense themes, strong language, and depictions of violence intended for adults. Parental guidance is strongly advised for children under the age of 18. Listener discretion is advised.  #drnosleep #scarystories #horrorstories #doctornosleep #creepypasta #horror Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you're into horror with a heavy dose of sci-fi, classified experiments, and things humanity was never meant to understand, check out my other podcast, the SCP experience. Each episode pulls you into the hidden world of the SCP Foundation, where dangerous anomalies are studied, contained, and sometimes unleashed. These aren't just scary stories. They're classified nightmares. Click here to listen now or search for the SCP experience wherever you get your podcasts. Gotta get a job, they say. Gotta pay the bills, they say. Gotta work for the man. Well, I got a job, and I do work for the man,

and the man is Mr. Izer. I don't like Mr. Izer. Mr. Izer has squeaky shoes, and he smells like cheese, and he thinks I'm crazy. Everybody always thinks I'm totally loco. Crazy Alby. Just because I talk to myself. Sometimes people are scared to me, too.

Yeah, like moms and dads with little kiddos. Ideos. They look at me and scowl, or they tugged their kiddos away, or they even cross the road. They think I'm wicked and wild, or that I want to hurt their kiddos. Dumb. So dumb. Mr. I isn't scared of me, but he doesn't like me. He says I talk too much. He tells me to keep my thoughts in my head, but I tell him that I can't do that,

because my head's already too full of other thoughts to make room for any new ones. But Mr. Reiser doesn't care what I say. But he can't fire me. Nope, because I'm good at the job. I even like my job here at the Cultural Anthropology Museum, just off the boardwalk and... Diosmio! Look at that!

A dead seagull by the back door. Whoa! Its head is all bloody. Probably got lost in the rain clouds and crashed into the side of the building. Smack! Ooh, I think I see its brains. That's very gross. That's beautiful.

Wow. But, oh, yuck! Someone left a dirty plastic bottle on the ground. Degusting. Those people are the worst. Okay, okay, okay, okay. Keys? My keys.

Okay, good. Yes, I have them. Back to work. Back to work. I'm good at my job here. Knight's security guard. That's me. And I'm better at security than that lazy evening guard.

He clocks out early half the time. We're not supposed to do that. I never do that. And I'm always on time. It's... 957 now. And I've followed the checklist, and I monitor the camera feeds. And I do the patrol on time three times a night. 10.15 p.m., 2 a.m., 5.15 a.m. I patrol the whole museum. And it's a big place with big halls and big rooms and high ceilings with big echoes. There are five wings to this museum. Africa, Asia, Europe, Oceana, and the Americas.

I know every corner of every wing, and I know all the artifacts inside. Yes. Yes, I like the artifacts. I know all about them. Not the way the experts do. No. I know. Their stories. I like their voices, even the scary ones.

Especially the scary ones. Like the one in the America's wing. The artifact that doesn't whisper. The ones whose voice is like... Dios! Oh, thunder. I don't like thunder. It startles me.

The sound rattles my bones. And it makes my jaws tighten and my teeth squeaked together. and I hate it. Ugh. Just breathe. Respira, Albi. It's okay. You're okay.

It's okay. Right, that. Okay, okay. Security room. Hmm. Looks like the evening guard left early again. He sucks. Okay, okay, okay.

Gotta log in. Alberto Reyes. Yes. 9.58. Yes. I'm two minutes early. But they don't pay me for those two minutes. That's not fair.

It's bullshit, but if I tell that to Mr. Izer, he'll tell me to stop complaining and be grateful for the job. And I do like the job, even though I don't like Mr. Izer. I don't like the way he looks at me, and he dresses like some old professor from a movie. So dumb. Hey, Alby. Dah! Oh, it's Reg. Reg startled me.

I don't like being startled. Hey, sorry, man. Just popping in for a cup of Joe. Getting startled makes me angry. My muscles tense up and it hurts. We'll try to remember not to startle you next time. Want any coffee? Coffee tastes like sour shit water. I don't like it. But I don't not like Reg. No, Reg is fine. Red is the night custodian at the museum. I think he's good at his job too, but he takes a lot of breaks. And he thinks I don't notice when he pours alcohol into his coffee.

I don't know what you're talking about, Alby. This is a lot of. This is a lot of breaks. This is a lot of This here's just a little cough syrup. Reg doesn't have a cough. Reg has got to unclogged the ladies' toilets in the Europe wing again. It's all the middle schooler field trips. Those girls be flushing down enough tampons to soak up the ocean outside. Gross. Hell of a storm out there.

Came on quick, too. Crazy weather the last few days. So, what's new with you tonight? man? Got any new, uh, stories? Hmm? You know, from the voices? Oh, I don't know if Reg thinks I'm crazy and it's just making fun of me. I don't think he believes me about the voices. Maybe I shouldn't have told Reg about the voices. That was dumb. Why'd I do that? Why? Why, Alby? Hey, chill, man. I ain't making fun of you. I mean, you are a bit crazy, sure. But that's no big deal. Hell.

Most of the people in the city are bat-shed. You're kind of crazy, don't hurt nobody, as far as I can tell. And I like your little stories. They're kind of spooky and very, uh, imaginative. That's the word. No, no, no, no. They're not my stories. They come from the artifacts in the museum.

The artifacts whispered their stories to me when I'm on patrol. I already told Reg that. I told them that most of the things in the museum have voices and stories, old stories. from back when there weren't so many people, and before there was loud traffic and dirty plastic bottles on the ground. The old world. Uh-huh. Say, how can you focus when all the thing amadjigs in this place are talking at once all the time?

Grudge isn't good at listening. Not all the artifacts. Most. I said most of them have voices. Some of them are sleeping, like the big temple bell in the lobby. I don't know the bell's voice. And some of them are dead. And some of them do whisper, but I don't like them because they're really annoying,

like that court jester's hat in the Europe wing. I hate that thing. It's always singing. Huh, is that right? Well, you might not want to go telling all this to Mr. Iser. He'd probably say that was a bunch of bullocks. Mr. Iser doesn't care about the artifacts in here. He's the museum director, but he doesn't even like the museum. He only cares about ticket sales and Google reviews and yelling at us.

Mr. Izer can go to hell. Here, hear. I like the artifacts. I like their old stories, especially the sad ones, and the bloody ones. They make the hairs of my arm stand up, like the tale of the coward's drum. What?

The coward's drum. That's what it calls itself. The West African talking drum, 18th century. Those were used in ceremonies. That's what the display says. And to signal over great distances, like to send a warning to another village. But the drum in the Africa wing never got to do that.

It never fulfilled its purpose, and lots of villagers got killed and carried off. Oh, don't think I've heard that story. I've heard it. Yes, the drum whispers its story to me when I pass by. Well, what's it say? One night, a young man was handed the drum by his village leader and told to patrol the perimeter of their village. That was his job.

Kind of like my job, night security. And there was a new moon and the night was dark. He walked through the hills with the drum under one arm, and he felt very brave and important until... He saw an orange glow in the distance coming nearer. He squinted at the glow and saw that it was torches, and that a host of men was creeping through the brush, coming toward the village.

The men had nuts with them, spears, and some even had rifles. He knew what they wanted. He had heard the stories of raiders. And so the young man became afraid. He knew he should bang the drum and signal a warning to his village. But he was scared that the raiders would hear and run at him, and that he couldn't outrun them. He did not want to die or be put in chains and brought to the western shores.

They sold people to white merchants there. Then the merchants took them away across the sea. To where? No, we're good. And so, he crouched beneath the bush, and he stayed very quiet, clutching the drum to his chest as the men with the torches passed by. Yikes. And I'm guessing the Raiders went into...

I'm not done with the story. Dios Mia! Sorry. And the young man heard the Raiders enter his village. He heard a woman scream. Then more voices, calling out, scared, desperate. And then the boom of a gunshot, and a great moan of grief and heartache. And then, the rattle of chain.

And finally, silence. Damn. All the while, the drum was never touched. It was powerless to help. And when, in the morning, the young man crept back into his village and saw the bloody bodies of those who had fought back, and of the very old and the very young that the raiders saw no use in, and saw that all the others had been dragged away, never to return,

then he was filled with shame, and he cursed his life. and the coward threw the drum into the brush where it lay for a very long time until it was found and later sold and later placed on a shelf in this museum. A few years ago, we decided to launch no sleep coffee. We already had the audience and the concept,

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home. Crazy stuff, man. You should really write down these stories. Or hey, seeing as you're saying them out loud anyway, just record yourself on your phone. You can make it into a podcast.

Ha! People love spooky shit in a podcast. My nephew's always going on about that Mr. Ballin' fella and Dr. No... It's 1014. I have work to do. I got to go on the first patrol. I need my

flashlight, my incident note pad, my pen. Yes. Yes, I have everything. Okay, okay, okay, I'm ready. Yep. I guess I'd better get to those toilets, but I'll talk to you later. And he's left the room already. People love spooky shit in the podcast. Hmh, so dumb. The artifacts in here do have good stories, though. But the stories are not for everyone, because other people can't hear them. Only Albi can hear them. Well, I can't hear any right now. Not in here. Not in the lobby.

It's so big and pretty empty. Easy to check, yeah. I just have to check the doors and the ticket counter and the coat check, the gift shop, and all these windows looking out over the boardwalk at the beach. Hmm, it's so stormy tonight. Strange colors in the clouds. Oh, and I got to remember to check the artifact hanging. Up there.

The Ming Dynasty Temple Bell Ten tons of bronze Very big and very heavy Mr. Izer says that visitors always like the bell and like to take selfies with it, but Mr. Izer never lets anyone swing the ram that hangs next to it, even though that's

what the ram is for, and bells are meant to be run. Mr. izer says it's just for show, just for selfies. Maybe it wants to be played. Maybe that's why I never hear it whisper. Hmm, it all checks out here. Good, good. Nothing to report in here.

Got to patrol the Africa Wing next. Just through this door up here. Big collection in the Africa Wing. Old things from the first kingdoms, from the first wars, from the very first peoples. Hmm. Yes. I hear their whispers already. Lots of voices in here. Stone axes and tribal masks and old spears and all types of jewelry. And of course, the coward's drum. There you are. That is the rhythm of warning I should have played. Doon, doon.

But when the hour of my usefulness arrived, the coward clutched me to his chest, muscling my music, strangling my booming words. Oh, that I could, for once, blast a vibration into the night, and so save the righteous from their tortuous plight. Yes, yes, very tragic. Can't go back, though. Can't go back to the old world.

Gotta keep moving forward. Gotta work. Gotta patrol. Lots of stories are like that. Murder and mayhem in battle. Famine and flood. Exiles and executions. Leopard attacks and snake bites and the dreaded sleep sickness,

delivered by the tiny bite of the Tizi fly. Gross. Well, all checks out here. Good, good. Nothing to report in here. Got to move on. Europe wing next. Then Oceana.

And then? Then my favorite wing, my favorite voice, my favorite story. Nothing to report in Oceania either. Good. Now then, last up, the America's wing. Lots of ancient peoples represented in there too. Incan, Aztec and Mississippian, Mayan, Nazcan and... and...

Olmec, the oldest of all in the new world, and the least understood. It came from the Olmec civilization. It's the biggest piece in the museum's whole collection. whole collection, heavier even than the temple bell, and its voice. Well, its voice is very strange. It used to be silent when I first started working here. It must have been sleeping. Back then, I would hear all the other things in the America's wing.

Burial masks, obsidian knives, ink and legends written on a rope in a language of knots. But lately, ever since it awoke, the other voices have all gone quiet, I have respect maybe, or fear. But when it speaks, the voice is louder, and the words are stranger and the story is darker. Then all the others put together. Sometimes I, I even think I can hear that voice when I'm not at the museum. When I'm on the bus, I wrap my apartment in my bed, sleeping and dreaming. Then I suddenly hear...

Alberto! Alberto Reyes. Why are you waiting out in the hall, little one? I might not be able to hear the spirits you say haunt this place, but I can hear you, your anxious rambling and the thumping of your heart. Come in, Alberto, that I might impart knowledge to you of the wondrous and terrible deeds. For the hour fast approaches, yes, the summer solstice approaches, the long light and the season of children.

change. Oh, yeah, yeah. Of course I'm coming in. I got to work. I got a patrol. And I do want to come in. But I got to psych myself up. I like it.

I mean him. I mean you. But you're loud for one thing. And it doesn't help that you're a 10 foot tall, 10 foot wide block of gray stone and the shape of a helmeted humanoid head with blank gray eyes and that agonized expression. I said, come in. Aha, from just beyond these walls. Long have I awaited that sound.

Long have I dreamed of its resonance rattling my peridotite skull once more. I don't like thunder. It's creepy in here now, so quiet. Except for your voice, of course. Oh mighty, Hurricon! Hurricon! Yes, good that you remember my name, little one. And do you also remember my story?

The tale of my making and of my brothers and of our wondrous work upon this world and of our calamitous downfall? Oh! I remember the story. Dios! Gotta remember that story. Impossible to forget a story like that.

Possible? No. For once upon a dawn, all the peoples of earth knew the tale, and now all have forgotten. Only you, Alberto, whose mind is attuned to the handiwork of your ancestors here in this reliquary, and whose ears can somehow hear my thoughts. Only you now know the truth. So much lost, so much forgotten. Read it to me again, Alberto. Read me the news story that your scribes have invented and scribbled upon the plaque at my base. Read me the silly guesses they've come up with to explain how something like me ended up in someplace like here.

Uh, read it. Yeah, I can read it. Okay, okay, okay. Your display says, Omec, colossal head. circa 1300 to 1,100 BCE, carved from a basalt boulder. This 25-ton statue is believed to depict a deity or ruler of the Olmex, one of the oldest and most mysterious of the Mesoamerican civilizations.

17 of these colossal heads have been discovered along the Gulf Coast of southern Mexico so far, each with distinct facial features and... My brothers! Oh, to think of their noble faces again. Volkarno, Ignate, Dear Meznado, even haughty biramide, I grieve for them all. Do I keep reading this thing or not? Such mighty work did we achieve in those early days.

Work? Got to get a job, they say. Even if you're an ancient stone giant, I guess. For we were the coreborn, hatched from crystal iron seeds, planted by what, or by whom we do not know, while the earth was still forming. That's a long time ago. The old, old world. What if I told Mr. Izer that the museum's plaque was off by a couple billion years? He'd say I was crazy.

He'd say it was all bollocks. So tiny we were then, as we wriggled up from the deep to the mantles of magma seas, and there swam the fiery currents like a little lava larva for an epoch war, until we had grown strong enough to march our way into rocky crust and to tunnel up, up, up, to the surface, to fulfill our destined roles, To fulfill your destined role as Crest Walkers. As Crest Walkers! We were world shapers, shepherds of stone.

We molded in the mountains, guided the rivers to gouge out the valleys. We carved the caverns, yes. Caverns wherein we would garden the stalactites and stalagmites galore. Oh, Alberto, if you could only see the earth as it was then, the snowy peaks so fresh and clean, the waters bright, the meadows green and flowering, before the little ones came down from the trees, your ancestors. They were fascinated by us crustwalkers, oh yes, and began to mimic our ways. walking straight-backed, grunting and humming an imitation of our speech. And we, we enjoyed their company. I did especially, perhaps too much.

We taught them things, you see, how to speak, how to read the stars, how they might garden certain grains and fruits. And because their hands were small and weak, and they could not simply toss aside boulders and push over hills as we could. We taught them. Toolmaking. I see some of those tools now in this very room. Grinding stones, looms, hoes, and...

Hammers, axes, spears, blades, weapons! That's what they loved best. to make tools of destruction, to kill and to enslave one another. Spotify, it's Jay Shetty. Are you one of those media strategy people? Scrolling through spreadsheets, searching for an audience that pays twice as much attention to your ads than they do on social?

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I don't like them. They suck. This part of the story is confusing. I don't get it. It sounds dumb. Like how could they fight against something like you? And why would they want to? You're awesome.

And you taught them. Help them. Many did not want to go against us. And for a long time, None could hope to. But little ones are not made of stone. They change. Some began to worship us as gods.

Others feared us, and some remained as our friends. To the end, even aiding us in our work. But others, those envious of our power and immortality, they saw us as the enemy. Huh? I don't know this part of the story yet. I haven't heard the details. You haven't told me. We never sought to control nature, you see. Instead, we were stewards of it. Wardens of erosion and deposition, of blooming and of wilting, dawn, dusk, midnight. The earth was our companion, our beloved. But the dark chiefs of the little ones, wanted only to subdue nature.

They besieged the land with fire and with iron. Tore apart the ground to steal its gold and precious gemstones. They put forests to the torch to make room for their animal prisons. And as their chiefdoms grew, and the first cities rose to rival the mountains, the air was fouled. The waters filthed, and the diamond hearts of the crust walkers grew cold and angry. But then, why didn't you stop them? That's what I would do. Crustwalkers were bigger, stronger, immortal! You could smash their cities to bit!

Some of my brothers wanted to, but I advised against it. I hoped to avoid to avoid. such violence. And then, when the chiefs of the great human tribes called for us to meet with them by the Gulf of Jade, to speak we went. We hoped we might reason with them, teach them a better way, but it was a trap. That's unfair. It's nasty. I don't like it. It makes me angry. It makes my muscles tight, and my teeth squeaked together. Nasty? Yes. It was. And we were angry. It wasn't easy for them, Alberto, to take us down. We born of the core, whose eyes see far, whose reach is long, and whose fists are as boulders, did not go quietly. No. The chiefs sacrificed whole armies to

the effort, for in our shock in our agony, we stopped and crushed wave after wave of the assailants, but... But in the end, they cut off your heads. That's what they did. Cut off your giant heads! Uh, a rush of hot fire at the neck then. A splash of cold water to crack our granite skin. That's how they did it. Then wedges and shizzles and hammers and...

Ah! Too loud, Huracan! I don't like loud noises like that! My head! Tobbling from my body. My vision spinning. My focus toward asunder split as my anguished body writhed and staggered, prodded by spears and staggered, prodded by spears and,

tugged by ropes. They pulled a cloak over my weeping eyes and blind to the world. I still felt my headless body as they drove it to the cliff edge and pushed it, pushed all of us over the edge, into the deep green sea below. Oh, how the icy water strung my igneous skin as my body sank, down into that white sea. watery darkness, and covered it with soil. And there in the earth, it became as just another rock. I forgot how to move, how to blink, how to speak. I fell into dismal dreaming, a blind diamond mind, hopeless, until... Until an archaeologist dug you up in 1862.

That's what the play. Black says. Hmm. Not quite. Even on earthed and brought into light, brought here. I was still as if dead. It was a whisper. Yes.

A whisper from the heart of the earth itself. From that metallic cradle of my being that reawoke me. I heard the voice. I heard the voice, calling out, crying out, a new summit for the old stewards to prepare ourselves and be ready to take up our sacred duty once more. Whoa, so the Earth has a voice? That's weird. I wonder what that's like.

I wonder if the planet talks to itself. Hmm. I can hear lots of voices, but not that one. But... Oh, I got to. Gotta get back to work. Gotta patrol the Europe wing next. No, little one. You don't understand the end of my story. You don't yet see what is to happen. What is beginning this very night. More thunder. I don't like thunder.

But Alberto, it isn't thunder. What? Then, what is it? It's me, my fists beating upon the shore, feeling the vibration. My body, having crawled across the ocean floor, awoke by the earth, sent to find my head. So, that's really, it's really. We are rising again. And this time, we will not make the same mistake.

We will crush any who get in our way. We will conquer all who oppress the earth. You're going to kill everyone, aren't you? Hmm. Some of my brothers would like to, yes, but I won't let them. I will be selective, and who may live and who will die. But to accomplish this, I first must be made whole again, and I must be there as others reassemble to lead them so. I need your help, Alberto.

But... The fateful hour draws near, but so does danger. Dark forces will try to stop us. You must prepare yourself, little one, for violence. Oh yes, blood will be spilled before the sun rises. But I... I'm the night security guard here. I protect the old things in the museum. It's important.

I got a job. I'm good at my job. Yes, Alberto, you do. And you are. And there is much work to... be done, but you don't work for the man anymore. You work for me.