Scary Horror Stories by Dr. NoSleep - Moonshine in a Black Sack

Episode Date: September 23, 2022

🎧 Check out The SCP Experience podcast here: https://spoti.fi/3juM1og 🎉 Ad-free bonus stories + exclusive uncensored animations: https://www.patreon.com/drnosleep 🎥 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

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And sometimes, a smooth, silky latte just wins. It's exceptional but effortless. Like actually effortless. Simply press, brew and explore. Nispresso, what else? Keep exploring at nespresso.com. to nice sleep. Before we start this story, I'd like to thank my newest supporters, Chelsea, Justine, and Carlos.

If you'd like to listen to the show, add free and receive access to my archive of over 40 bonus episodes. Consider becoming a patron. It is only $5 a month, and you can cancel any time. The link is in the description below. I was rolling my toy cars across the living room floor when I heard the screen door slam. It had to be my father, even though he almost. never came home early from work.

I skidded into the hallway, excited to hug him. But the giant in front of me was a complete stranger. When he saw me, a jack-o-lantern grin crept across his face. This was what they'd warned us about in school. I tried to shout, but the words died in my throat. I could see it, clear as a premonition. The big man's hairy hands would wrap around my scrawny eight-year-old neck. He'd stuff me into a black sack, drag me out through the squeaky screen door, and I'd never

see my family or friends again. Your Uncle Abner's here, honey. My mother whispered behind me, and I jumped. I didn't know I had an Uncle Abner. I certainly couldn't believe I was related to the storybook troll in front of me, with his bulging nose, beady eyes, and lumpy bald head. I hid behind my mother's skirt, and Uncle Abner's laughter boomed down the hallway like thunder in the mountains.

Little scaredy cat, huh? He rumbled. That'll change once we get you down to the country. Back to your roots. The more he talked, the tighter I held onto my mother. Apparently, this monstrous stranger wanted to take me away with him to some place called Nabi Creek Holler. I squeezed my mother's finger so hard it had to hurt, willing her to please, please say no. Less than an hour later, with my suitcase packed, I was waving good bird.

to her through the mud-caged rear window of Uncle Abner's truck. My parents wouldn't let me spend a single night at my best friend Lexi's house, but now they were sending me to spend the whole summer with a man I'd barely met. It wasn't fair! I crossed my arms and refused to speak, but Uncle Abner didn't seem to mind. He just hummed along to the Staticy country songs on the radio, smoked, and slurped something that smelled like hand sanitizer from a big styrofoam.

from a big styrofoam cup. My vow of silence didn't survive the ride through Knobby Creek holler. It was the fireflies that did it, millions of them, twinkling like stars among fence-high blackberry bushes and over the mossy creek-side boulders. There was something else too,

a greenish glow in the shadow of the wide-trunked trees. Wow, I gasped that meaning to. That's Foxfire. mushrooms that glow in the dark. They can help you find your way through the woods at night. Why would anyone be out in the woods at night? I snorted. Uncle Abner just smirked and turned up a winding gravel road.

We'd reached the end of our journey. Uncle Abner's house was a real log cabin, just like the one on the syrup jar sticker back home. Although it was so sturdy and well kept that I couldn't have said whether it was three years old or 300. A woman was sweeping the porch, the golden light behind her stretching her shadow into something witch-like and twisted. More than just the cool, humid holler air was giving me goosebumps as I climbed down from

my Uncle Abner's truck. An impossibly high wall of trees, blacker than the night sky, surrounded the cabin. The whir of insects, combined with the hooting and rustling of unseen creatures to remind me just how far from home I was. Something snarled behind me. A dark shape with pale eyes crept toward me through the foggy undergrowth. Before I could scream, it was on me.

A huge, pink tongue that licked away all the sweat and grind from the six-hour drive to Nabi Creek holler. Down, Percival, Abner grunted. Matilda, come look what the cat dragged in. The woman dropped her broom and ran to me, twirling me through the air like my parents used to do.

It must have been easy for her. She was almost as large as Uncle Abner. Finally! New blood in the family! I didn't know what that meant, but the darkness and sounds of the forest suddenly didn't feel so scary anymore. Something about the idling of Abner's pickup, Percival's wagging tail, and Matilda's wrinkled hands fussing over me just felt right.

It felt like coming home. You must be hungry, dear. My growling stomach answered for me. While we ate, Matilda explained that the eggs were from the chicken coop out back. The bacon was from one of Abner's prime hogs, and the greens were from her garden. Everything was delicious, and I was touched by how the pair washed dishes together, silently but gracefully, lovingly aware of each other's movements, like they'd been doing this for centuries.

I yawned, Abner handed me a flashlight. No running water out here. Thought you might want to hit the John before bed. I switched off the flashlight and shut my eyes before sitting over the black pit inside the outhouse, afraid to see the fat-bellied spiders and vicious hornets that might be waiting for me. When I stepped back outside, the last of the day's warmth had gone out of the air. You know your way back? Abner rumbled. I nodded, shivering. Go straight to the cabin then. This ain't no place for little kids. to be wandering around at night.

Wait, where are you going? Out! A night breeze rustled the branches and made Matilda's tomato plants dance like skeletons in the moonlight. Before I closed the cabin door, I caught one last glimpse of Abner, trudging like Bigfoot into the hills

with a black sack slung over his shoulder. So began my first summer in Navi Creek holler. It couldn't have been more different from the life I'd known. a schedule dictated by bells, alarms, and calendars, school, gymnastics, piano lessons, church, bed made by 9 a.m., dinner at 5 p.m., movie night on Sunday. The only calendars at Nabi Creek Haller were planting calendars, and there wasn't a single clock in the cabin. Abner and Matilda went to bed at noon and woke up at six,

sleeping through those sweltering midday hours when not even the horseflies moved, and the air felt like a blanket of wet heat. I wanted to do the same, but I wasn't allowed outside the cabin after dark unless I was tiptoeing to the outhouse. If I wanted to explore the holler with Percival, swim in the creek, or go fishing with Uncle Abner,

it had to be during the day. While the sun was shining, Matilda and Abner didn't seem to care what I did or where I went, as long as I was having fun. They were friendly and honest in ways I wasn't used, used to back home. At night, however, everything changed. Both of them became secretive and suspicious. I could feel them watching me like the golden-eyed owls that fluttered through the

pines at dusk. Percival slept at the foot of my bed, snoring like a two-year-old blowing raspberries. But if I stood up, he'd follow me wherever I went. Nabi Creek holler at a secret, and I yearned to know what it was. Crazy ideas drifted through. my mind as I lay watching the moonlight stream in through my open bedroom window. Maybe Abner and Matilda were witches, and they flew by night to the hilltops to meet with others. Maybe some kind of skin-changing monster with long claws, dripping fangs, and glowing red eyes stalked the forest at night. Or maybe they just wanted what my mother and father called, private time. I sighed, rolled over, and looked out the window. It wasn't far from my pillow.

If I put on my shoes in bed, grabbed the sill, and pulled myself through, I could get outside without alerting Percival. Moments later, I took a deep breath of Dewey Garden Air. It tasted like freedom. The moon was so bright I hardly needed the clunky flashlight I'd brought. I could see a trail I'd never noticed before, zigzagging up the side of the mountain. Luna moths flickered around me, and gigantic ferns brushed against my bare ankles as I followed it. higher and higher until I was panting and out of breath.

Only the sight of Abner's footsteps and the rich black dirt kept me going. Finally, in a small clearing on top of the hill, I saw it. A huge cylindrical machine covered with tubes and gauges. Abner was standing in front of it, two of those black sacks at his feet. With a grunt, he unraveled them. I'd never seen a naked adult before, and the two porcelain white figures who spilled out onto the pine needles looked more like skeletons than people. Only the feeble way their fingers clawed at the dirt let me know that they were alive at all.

Abner opened a sluice in the side of the huge metal cylinder. The pale man and woman writhing on the floor seemed too weak to scream when he flung them inside, one after another, and slid the sluice shut once more. My uncle bent before the stone base of the machine. I tiptoed closer, eager to see what he was doing. When Abner finished lighting the fire, he stood to crack his back. Our eyes met, the big man in front of the giant copper still, and the eight-year-old who clung, terrified, to the bark of an oak tree.

He saw me, I'm sure of it. Yet he turned back to his work, and I slunk back down the hill, my head spinning with questions. The next morning, just before sunrise, I went fishing with my Uncle Abner. He must have noticed the way I sat glumly beside him, instead of climbing out on the sycamore branches over the creek like always. He gazed at the sun rising through the fog and sighed. You like it here?

Abner asked quietly. I nodded. I thought so. Do you love your Aunt Matilda and me? This was a harder question. I thought for a moment, and I realized it was true. You wouldn't want anything bad to happen to us, would you? I shook my head.

Abner grinned. Last night, you went to bed early. You slept till dawn and didn't see nothing strange. Ain't that right? That's right, I grinned back, understanding the game, if that's what it was. Good boy. Abner ruffled my hair with a mid-sized hand still. filthy from the worms we'd caught that morning. A few weeks later, I was hugging Matilda's

apron and scratching Percival's floppy ears as I said goodbye to Nabi Creek holler. Five years passed before I saw the cabin again. In some ways, it was like no time had passed at all, only I'd changed, and somehow that made me hate the place. It wasn't fair that Uncle Abner and Aunt Matilda went on with their stupid, simple little lives. while I had to worry about acne and my asshole honors math teacher, and whether or not my so-called friends would laugh at my taste in music. It felt like only Percival had aged as much as I had. His eyes were pale blind marbles,

and he weased like the old bellows Abner used for stoking the fire. I found that I couldn't focus on the things I used to enjoy about Nabi Creek Holler, the working in the garden with Aunt Matilda, or helping Uncle Abner clean the chicken coop. The only things that brought me peace were rambling, seemingly endless walks through the foggy woods and running my fingers through Percival's whitening fur. That's why it came as such a blow

when his wheezing cough suddenly got worse. I stayed by Percival's side, biting my lip until it bled, holding on to his trembling ribs like I could somehow keep his soul trapped inside his failing body. When I closed my eyes, I saw pet food commercials of happy golden retrievers bounding through flowery fields.

I knew Percival didn't have much time. Doesn't seem right, does it? Abner asked. It was as though he had read my thoughts. Doesn't seem right at all. Them other dogs get to run and play and be happy. But old Percival has to die. But that horrible word, die, my eyes snapped open.

If we don't do something, he won't last the night. Welcome to aboard Via Rai, Embarked and Profite. Embarked and celebrate. Rigolet. Publiere. Savoray. Admirate. And profite.

Villaray, the voice that we love that we're Weak can't do anything. Beneath my fingertips, Percival's wheezing got worse and worse. Can we? When I turned around, Uncle Abner had a black bag in his hands and a smile on his face. The sun had to be able to do it.

only just set. But thick clouds and misty rain made the world as dark and hazy as a bad dream. I followed Abner up the faint trail that I half remembered from my last summer in Nabi Creek Holler. Something strange, maybe even something horrible, had happened at the end of that path. But what? I couldn't recall. Not until we reached the clearing where that bizarre ramshackle machine waited like an idle hungry for sacrifice. The memories came flooding back. A midnight fire, pale dead skin in the moonlight. A young hound dog was staked nearby. He barked when he saw us.

Abner pushed some chunks of meat into my hand and slid open the sluice on the side of the still. I knew what he wanted me to do. With a puppy's leash in my hand and his wet nose sniffing me, I couldn't bring myself to do it. You want fursful to live, don't you? Abner whispered. The throat was dry.

With tiny steps, I led the puppy toward the darkness inside the still. Uncle Abner didn't make me stay for the rest. He said that I was part of it now, and that was all that mattered. Walking back down through the silent trees, I pressed my fist against the knot in my stomach and tried not to think about what I'd done. I imagined I would have trouble sleeping, but I drifted off as soon as my head hit the pillow. A sweet, alcoholic scent permeated my dream. I heard liquid being poured into Percival's drinking ball, and the sound of his long tongue

lapping the edges. I woke to energetic paws bouncing on my bed. I couldn't believe it. The white was gone from Percival's muzzle. His eyes were bright, and there was no hint of wheezing in his excited howl. Later that morning, Abner showed me the leather-bound book where he kept his secrets, photos of him and Aunt Matilda, with perms and cut-off jeans at the the premiere of Star Wars in the 1980s, lying in a field at Woodstock with flower crowns and uncut hair, standing proudly in front of the old cabin with their first Chevy Bel Air.

They were there too, waving wildly at the parades that welcomed soldiers back from World War II and World War I. There were older photos, too. Degera types, painted portraits. I felt myself shiver as I lifted my gaze to meet Abner's soft, thoughtful eyes. I realized I realized was looking at a man who predated photography. We make two kinds of shine up there on the hill. The usual one that you'll find out about when you're older, and the special one that gave Percival his bark back. The recipes for both are in this book.

One day, I'll pass it on to you, just as my aunt Beatrice passed it on to me. If you think I'm old, you should have met her. She was around for them witch burnings back in Europe. What happened to her? I asked without thinking. Abner's expression darkened. Beatrice wanted to stay a little too young, and she started making the special shine a little too often. Folks got suspicious, and in the end, she got into trouble.

You can imagine what I mean by trouble, can't you? Some in the family like your mom and dad. Don't approve of this special shine. They call it unnatural, but so's medicine, ain't it? So's everything that keeps you alive when you ought to be dead. When I thought about death back then, I thought of an enormous black eraser, bigger than the sky, that eventually scrubbed everything away.

The near miss with Percival was the closest death had come to casting its shadow over my life. And even though I was only 13 that summer, I knew that I was luckier than most, sitting there with Abner, I cracked my knuckles, rubbed my knees, and felt the life coursing through my veins. I finally understood what Abner was offering me. No one I loved would ever have to get old. No one I loved would ever have to die. Is it possible to forget the power of life and death? Considering how I spent my teenage years, it certainly seemed so. By the time I turned 16,

my macabre conversation with Abner and Percival's bizarre transformation felt like a distant dream, until I found a pressing reason to return to Nabi Creek Holler. It was after midnight. I was going to be late from Tanner's after prom party, but being late was fashionable. And if I was late enough, maybe everyone would be too drunk to remember that I hadn't been invited. Sarah Shinald would be there, and if I wanted her to notice me, I had to stand out. I was jelling my hair when I heard the thump. It sounded like death knocking on the door.

I forgot all about getting in trouble for sneaking out. I ran to my parents' bedroom. My father lay on the floor in his blue pajamas, like he'd just rolled out of bed. Before my frantic phone call with emergency services, I'd never heard the word aneurism. It had come out of nowhere, but overnight it became a fact of life.

Like the beeping machines, the smell of disinfectant and bedpans, the endless waiting. I couldn't endure it, not when I knew that there was another way, a better way. I only had my learner's permit. I wasn't supposed to drive alone or at night, much less outside the state, but I'd have to risk it. I came to a complete halt at every stop sign, stayed under the speed limit the whole way, and before I knew it, my tires were crunching up a familiar gravel driveway. The cabin looked the same. But I didn't recognize the young, black-bearded figure strumming a guitar on the porch. Not at first. Matilda, Percival! The young man shouted. Come look what the cat dragged in!

Percival bounded out the door, howling like always, followed by a blonde girl in a tight blue dress. It's been too long, honey. Matilda squeezed me tight. I couldn't believe what I was feeling through the thin fabric gone were the wrinkles the bent double back the flabby excess flesh hugging my aunt Matilda was like hugging a girl my own age which meant that the dark-haired broad-shouldered farm boy behind her could only be my uncle Abner matilda clapped and twirled on bare feet Abner smacked her round bottom and winked why don't you go pour our guest to drink he suggested looks like he needs it you used it, didn't you? I said in a small voice. The special shine you made that night when I was five.

Yes, sir. We were starting to feel the weight of the years, but now we're right as rain. He placed a hand, unwrinkled and unscarred now, but massive as ever, onto my shoulder and gazed into my eyes. You look disappointed. It's my dad. Matilda handed me a mason jar of normal but delicious shine that I sipped while I told my dale. The blurry saltiness of my tears blended with the sweet taste of corn liquor when I reached the most bitter part. The doctor's daughter will ever wake up. And even if he does, the damage is probably permanent. I sniffed. Don't you have any of the old shine left? Is there something we can do? No more life comes out of the shine than what goes into it. Abner stroked his beard thoughtfully.

Nope, no way around it. We're going to have to make a fresh batch. It was a strange feeling, riding in Abner's pickup again after so many years. We parked up a dirt forest road off of a state route that was fairly busy, even so late at night. I slid out of the cab and took a deep breath of mountain air. The night insects sounded the same as they had 11 years ago. A sudden rip brought me back to the present. Matilda was tearing her dress, spreading mud on her knees and arms.

She even cut her arm and smeared blood on her face and half bare chest. If they won't stop for this, she chuckled. They won't stop for nothing. Despite the cut on her arm and the filth she'd smeared all over herself, Matilda practically skipped through the fields, reveling in her newfound youth. Abner led me to a ditch beside the woods, where we squatted with a baseball bat and one of Abner black sacks. From our hiding place, we could see Matilda waving at the headlights of passing cars.

My aunt was hundreds of years old, but she'd made herself look as dazed and helpless as any young girl who'd just survived a horrific car accident. How many times she and Abner had done this before? Drake is not to hesitate, my uncle whispered. Don't let him get away, but don't kill him neither. They're no good to you dead. Either they go into the still alive, but we have to bury him and fight another. The van pulled off the road beside where Matilda was waving desperately. I gulped. The tape around the bat's handle was slick with my sweat.

Wait for it. Yai! A 20-something white man in a John Deere hat called a Matilda. Standing in the misty roadside field, lit only by the van's fog lights. She looked like a ghost. Matilda walked unsteadily back toward the woods, leading him with.

right to us. I felt a twinge of remorse for the unsuspecting young man who'd leapt from his van to help her. At the edge of our ditch, Matilda flashed us a chilling smile before pretending to faint into the tall grass. The young man sprinted toward her. He was so close I could see his acne pockmarks and the curls in his greasy black hair. Now, Abner hissed. I leapt to my feet, ready to bring the bat down on the young man's head. My shoe stuck in the muddy, slope of the ditch. My swing missed entirely, and I froze like a deer in the headlights of the van. The young man sprang backward, a revolver in his hand. What the fuck? He snarled. Then Abner came barreling out of the darkness like a charging bull,

tackling the young man to the ground. I heard rather than saw the scuffle and the shots. The young man dragged himself out from underneath my uncle Abner's lifeless body, waving his pistol wildly. You stay the fuck away! The young man screamed. A hand burst up from the tall grass like a pale snake and wrapped around his ankle. He'd forgotten all about Aunt Matilda. She flung him back to the ground with a shriek.

A sharp stone clenched in her free hand. Another shot rang out, but Matilda didn't stop. She battered the young man's head again and again until he finally stopped moving. She rolled off of him with a groan, and I ran to her. Don't bother. She coughed. I'm not going to make it. and I don't want to see prison.

Daugner and I, we had a good run, better than most. A dribble of blood ran down her chin. Drag me over beside my man, honey. I want to hold his hand and look up at the stars one last time. That was how I left them. Two dark shapes huddled together beneath the cold, infinite, sparkling sky. The young man's pulse was weak. His breath barely fogged the glasses that I held in front of his drooling lips.

I tugged Abner's black sack around him, boots first, and watched his body disappear inside. I told myself that I was doing this so that I could move him safely back to his van, so that I could get him help. I kept telling myself that all the way back to Nabi Creek Holler. Abner's leather-bound book was just where he told me it would be, but dragging the stranger's dead weight up the hill was no easy task. My back and legs pleaded with me to just give up. But I couldn't. I couldn't let all of this be for nothing. I wondered if Abner had felt this way the first time that he'd made the special shine

hundreds of years ago. Did it get easier the second time? Or the seventh? Or the 17th? Matilda had cracked the young man's skull. I'd seen the swelling beneath his gruesome purple bruise before I'd sealed the black sack. There was no recovering from a wound like that, I told myself. Dragging him up the path to Abner still, I needed it to be true.

If he started to squirm inside the sack, if I saw his hands pressing feebly against the black canvas, no, it wouldn't happen, it couldn't happen, but just to be sure, I didn't look over my shoulder until I'd reached the clearing. It was time for the moment I dreaded most, opening the sack. The young man would be awake, I was sure of it. As soon as the locks came off, I'd see his eyes, as round and mad as the full moon. Dirty fingers would rock it up to crush my throat. The last thing I'd ever hear would be his bloody lips whispering, I know what you did. There was no movement when I snapped the locks off the canvas. Despite his injuries and rough treatment, the young man's shallow breathing was unchanged. Night insects hummed in the foliage.

Foxfire glowed on the rotten stumps of the trees. I opened the sluice in the sun. side of the still. The doctor is called my father's recovery. Miraculous. Those who knew him said he looked even younger, healthier, healthier than he had before the aneurysm. But every so often, I caught him watching me with a strange glint in his eye, as though he somehow remembered the feel of the mason jar against his unconscious lips, or the burning taste of the shine as I'd poured it into his mouth. Lazzang surjoled, puissance-moyant for 15 minutes. We'd say that's their dojo. Prere to play.

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