Scary Horror Stories by Dr. NoSleep - ZIPPERJAW | Part 3

Episode Date: January 16, 2026

A small town is tearing off faces, and the only man who knows why is racing the clock against a monster that shouldn’t exist—and a truth that might destroy him first. ZIPPERJAW is a brutal descent into trauma, guilt, and generational evil, where the real horror isn’t what’s hunting you… it’s what you buried to survive. Fuel your nightmares with NoSleep Coffee — fresh, same-day roasted beans shipped right to your door. Use code NOSLEEP20 for 20% off your first order: https://nosleepcoffee.com Huge thanks to BetterHelp for sponsoring the show: Sign up now and get 10% off at⁠ betterhelp.com/dns⁠. Author: J.G. Martin Check out more of his work here: https://linktr.ee/jgmartin Check out his new book "Crooked Gospels" for more bone chilling stories. It is now available on Amazon here: https://a.co/d/iPwIw4E * * * CONTENT DISCLAIMER: This podcast 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. #creepypasta #horrorstories #drnosleep #scarystories Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm torn backward into the memory. Ruth's heels clicking smartly down the hallway, down the stairs, out of earshot. Our last hope, gone. Father turns to Adelaide and I, snapping the locks tight. Not back for a month. That's plenty of time to hide your corpses, isn't it? He chuckles. I'm too scared to speak.

Even Addie's gone silent. We brace for impact, but the pain never comes. He stalks right past us into the line. living room, merrily whistling to himself. He turns on the television. The voice of a football announcer erupts through the speakers. Then it gets louder and louder and louder still until it's deafening. He shouts something to us from the living room. Neither Addy or I can hear him. Adelaide clears her throat. Can you turn it down, please? We can't hear you, Dad. And then he's there, standing in the hallway, chest heaving like a predator.

Exactly. He snarls. He rushes us, footsteps slamming. Addie and I scramble, but there's nowhere for us to go. Father snatches Addy by the back of her hair, ripping her off her feet with an anguished scream. Don't! She shrieks, get off me!

Should have done this while you were still a fetus. He grunts, dragging her into his bedroom with a murderous snarl. Would have made throwing away your corpse a lot easier. The door slammed shut. I bolt for the telephone and try calling the police. but he's disconnected it. Next I go for the door. I'm hoping I can chase after Ruth, maybe find somebody else in this apartment that can help. Only I can't reach the locks. So I grab a chair from the kitchen, clamber on top and... Don't think I forgot about you, my father growls.

He's marching toward me from his room. Tie loose around his neck, hair a mess, knuckles red with blood. There's no sign of my sister. Ungrateful little shit. After all I've done for you, you try to pull that on me. Daddy? Daddy, I didn't. Zip it! His hand clamps around my head, smashes it against the door. Once, twice. And then my world goes black, my face from the water pulling on the floor. Two silhouettes stand in the center of the room, watching me.

He doesn't believe me. Jonah tells zipper jaw softly. He thinks you hurt people, but you help them. You save us. The monster groans, taking a sloppy, shambling. step toward me. Its mouth hangs open, unhinged, hungry. My palms slap against the rain-soaked linoleum, the bottom of my shoes squealing as I try to scramble away. Meanwhile, Jonah's watching in the background, fingers dancing like he can hardly wait for me to carve off his face.

He wants this for us. It makes me wonder if I'll be the same, another acolyte for my father's cruelty. Sighing, I reach into my chest pocket, pull out my packet, pull out my packet, and of cigarettes. Slide the last one from the carton. I was saving this one for after I'd killed you, I say wearily, lighter sparking feebly in the dampness. Seems ashamed to waste it, though. Zipper jaws shadow eclipses me. The cigarette finally catches, and the nicotine tastes sweeter than honey. It's almost enough to keep my hands from shaking, to keep my teeth from chattering in the cold horror of what's to come. I'll admit it, I say, staring up at the monster's dead, plastic eyes.

I can't kill you, but I gotta say, it's satisfying to know you couldn't break me. Zipper jaw hisses, lurching toward me, open mouth dragging through the rainwater. This is your play, isn't it? Proximity. The closer you are to your victims, the less they can resist those voices inside that mouth of yours,

those faces. So you're going to get me even closer to them, aren't you? Gobble me up. It grabs hold of my shoulders, lifting me off the ground like I were a child. I don't bother fighting. There's no point. It only gives my old man the satisfaction of knowing he'd got to me, and I'm not about to offer more concessions on top of my life.

I flick my cigarette into its mouth, coughing up a lung full of blood. Get a move on. The cancer's going to beat you to it. The jaws close. Darkness swallows me. For a while, it feels like I'm fond. like I'm tumbling down a hill in an otherwise empty void. It smells like rot, like decay.

When my body finally crashes to a stop, I'm greeted by a symphony of whispers. Liars! I groan, getting to my feet. There's a spark, then a jet flame hiss as my lighter illuminates the colorless void. My breath catches, faces. I'm surrounded by them,

caught within a forest of flowers, within a forest of flesh hanging from muscle sinew, each of them with empty eyes, empty mouths. Don't feel guilty, says an elderly woman. Your bitch sister made you do it. Heartless she was. Not a thought for your own well-being. I try to snatch her face, try to tear it in half of my hand passes right through her. A boy giggles behind me. She's right, you know. Your sister was asking for it. I grit my teeth, wheeling about, but more voices joined.

the fray, taunting, lying. It doesn't make sense. Jonah's my VIP. I should be having revelations about why I need to carve off his mask, just like he saw with his father. But instead, they keep whispering about Adelaide. She's already dead, I bellow, hacking a cough. I can't kill her a second time, can I? My knees buckle. I'm coughing still, spitting up blood and phlegm and worse. Are you okay, Tommy? My eyes widened. That voice. It's not like the others. Not even like the guttural, broken imitation my father spat through zipper jaw's cold metal lips. You look sick, Tommy. What's wrong? It's her. It's another trick. More lies from the monster that stole everything. But I can't stop myself. I'm barreling through the drapery of skin, calling for my sister, trying to listen for her reply over the deluge of lies the faces are whispering. Adelaide, where are you?

I stumbled to a halt in a place that looks identical to where I just left. It's just darkness. Darkness and empty eyes and empty mouths and... Over here! My eyes narrow, pulse pounding in my ears. It can't be. I'm moving without thinking. One foot in front of the other, an exhausted, world-weary smile forming on my lips.

That fire red hair, those almond eyes. It's her. My big sister, after all these years. Addie, you, you're... I'm sputtering. It's not even words I'm speaking. Just gibberish given shape by emotions I never learned to name. None of it matters.

I've already broken into a sprint. And the closer I get, the more I see her. That faded, hand-me-down t-shirt of moms, still hanging off her shoulders like a poncho. Adelaide, hide! My voice turns to ash. I'm gripping my throat, trying to speak, but it's like I've forgotten how.

My legs turn to lead. There she is. Close enough I can almost touch her. And I can't move an inch. Can't even give voice to how much I miss her. How sorry I am for everything! Invisible fingers wrap around my spine and pull. Unripped backwards, screaming through a drapery of flesh, as the void begins to flicker like a bad signal. The darkness turns in analog blue. The whispers fade into the crackle of suited anchors rambling on the late-night news. No, not this. Anything. but this. But it's too late. Already, a living room is forming around me, complete with peeling wallpaper and a sagging couch, a coffee table littered with beer bottles and painkillers.

And there he is, taking shape on that sagging couch, lying on his back, one arm draped across his ballooning gut, the other hanging off the side. My father, splayed across the floor beneath him are two bundles of blankets, not a pillow between them. This is it. This is where it happens. This is where I watch my sister die. No, no, no, no, no. Panic explodes in my chest. I'm thrashing.

A passenger kidnapped by my own memory. I bolt from the living room down the hallway, my adult legs moving with a child's desperate, graceless terror. The bathroom door, I wrench it open. The living room stares back. Father on the couch. The blankets on the floor.

The blue television glow painting every. everything the color of a drowned corpse. I slam it shut and tear open the bedroom door. The same room, the same nightmare, like the universe has contracted to this single moment, this singularity of trauma I've spent 40 years running from. Let me out, my voice cracks. I don't want to see this. I don't. But every door is a mirror. Every escape routes back to the beginning. I'm trapped in a Moby a strip of the worst night of my life, and I can feel it approaching. The moment Adelaide stops breathing, the moment I realize she's already gone, the moment I, please!

I'm begging now, collapsed against the hallway wall, hands clawing at wallpaper that peels away like dead skin. Zipper jaw, dad, whatever you are, just fucking end this. My throat burns. Chew me up, swallow me down, kill me like you promised all those years ago. The silence is suffocating. I have no voice here. Not really. I'm a ghost haunting my own memory, a spectator condemned to watch Adelaide die again, and again and again. It brings me to my knees. I'm kneeling on carpet that smells like beer and violence, and I'm begging a monster for a mercy I know my father would never, could never offer. That's the inheritance he left me. The only thing he ever taught me. How to suffer quietly. The analog hiss rises like a swarm of insects.

Then a voice, growling from the darkness, from the walls, from the television, from the throat of my sleeping father. Zip it! The words scrape across my brain like a rusty blade. My breath stops. My heart stutters. Because I know what comes next. My eyes snap open. I'm six years old again, lying on the floor in blankets damp with tears.

Every breath of struggle past, the swelling in my eye and the crack in my rib. My lip throbs, swollen, fat as a slug. It's hard to see. My left eyes puffed, nearly shut, reducing the world to a narrow slit of analog blue light. The living room swims into focus. There, across the minefield of carpet stains and cigarette burns, sits a bundle of purple blankets. A shock of red hair spills from beneath like a wound.

Adelaide. My heart lurches. I squint harder, desperate for the rise and fall of her breathing. But the darkness makes it impossible to... Wait. I sit up slowly, ribs aching. Lip, nearly as swollen as my eye. It's hard to see.

The living room is cast in an analog glow, the half-light spilling across a bundle of purple blankets where I can see the red of Adelaide's hair peeking out from beneath. And there, the object of my worry is thankfully snoring loudly on the couch. A forest of beer cans litters the table before him, an emptied bottle of painkillers lying on its side. I'm hoping that means he'll sleep in, that maybe he won't remember promising to kill Addie and me.

I wince, a shock of pain rioting through my side. It's hard to breathe. All I remember is father dragging Adelaide away, locking her in his room before coming back for me, bashing my head against the door until I passed out. Apparently, me being unconscious wasn't a deal breaker. Addy told me later that he only stopped beating us because the landlord started hammering on the door, shouting that we could either turn down the television or find a new place to live. Don't think this is over, he told us, hissing like a viper. If you think I'm going to let you off the hook after calling fucking social services on me, you little fucking narks, then you've

got another thing coming, as if I don't do enough for you as it is, feed you, clothe you, and all this after you made my wife kill herself. Fucking ingrates. His teeth were gnashing like he wanted to bite us. I cut your throats if you say another word to anyone, understand. Don't think I won't. It only be fair. Now grab your blankets. I'm not letting you out of my sight until I've finished teaching you some respect. He'd planted himself on the living room couch like a toad on a throne. swallowing pills by the fistful, washing them down with warm beer. Every hour or so, he'd staggered to the bathroom, and on his way back, he'd aim a kick at whichever one of us he passed.

That's for bloodying up my knuckles! He'd laugh, like it was the funniest joke in the world. He said it six times, maybe seven. Same punchline, same dead-eyed grin. I don't think he forgot. I think he just liked saying it. Cruelty scratched an itch that the booze and pills couldn't reach. Addy and I were just another substance he could abuse.

Zip it! I freeze. That voice, raw, guttural, like gravel scraped across concrete. My good eye snaps to father's blurry form on the couch. But even through the swelling, I can see his chest rising and falling. I can hear the wet rattle of his snores. He's still asleep. So who's speaking?

It frees. That sound, it came from the hallway. Slow and deliberate, getting closer. Then the humming starts. A lullaby I recognize. Mom's song. The one she used to sing before she died. But the voice is all wrong.

Rough. Broken. Like someone gargling razor blades. Adelaide! I hiss. My hand shooting out to grab her ankle beneath the blankets. I shake it, hard. Wake up!

The footsteps are closer now. Right outside the wall. the living room. I squint into the hallway darkness, my swollen eye useless, my good eye straining to make sense of the shifting shadows dancing in the half-light. The shapes won't stay still. They twist and writhe like living things. Who's there? I croak, hating how small my voice sounds. Father snorts. My heart stops. He scratches his stomach, lips smacking. For one eternal, terrifying second, I'm certain he's going to wake up. He's going to see who. He's going to see whoever's in the hallway. He's going to blame us for letting them in, for making noise, for

existing, and he's going to finish what he started. He's going to kill us. But then his hand flops back to his gut. He mumbles something wordless and wet. The snoring resumes, a chainsaw cutting through the silence. Relief floods my bones, then dies just as fast. A silhouette materializes in the doorway, child-sized, wrong-shaped, wearing something over its face, a brown mask with bulging, googly eyes, and a zipper smile stitched where a mouth should be. Something purple gleams in the figure's hand, catching the television's glow. Snip! The sound pierces the air like a violent whisper.

Addie, they've got your mask! I'm saying frantically now, shaking her ankle like our lives depend on it. They've got your scissors! Wake up! But my sister won't answer. She won't stir. She won't even breathe. My chest tightens.

Adelaide would never ignore me. Not when I'm scared. Not when I need her. She's always there when I need her. Always. That's what big sisters do. That's what she does. Unless...

The memory crashes over me like cold water. Waking up in her arms just hours ago, her fingers stroking my hair while she whispered that it was okay, that we were okay. But her face had been a massacre of bruises. Her neck, ringed with purple fingerprints. Each won a testament to where Father's hands had squeezed. The way she'd weased when she tried to speak.

The wet, rattling sound in her throat. Make it so you can never tell lies again. Father had snarled while his hands tightened around her. Never again. Addie? The word breaks apart in my mouth, tears blurring what's left of my vision. Please wake up. I need you. I'm begging now. Both hands wrapped around her ankle, pulling, shaking, pleading.

But even at six years old, even with a head full of trauma and terror, I'm smart enough to understand. My sister isn't waking up. Not now. Not ever. Because Adelaide didn't fall asleep when she laid down in those blankets. She died. And I've been alone this whole time. Picture this. It's late at night. You're scrolling and suddenly you find exactly what you've been looking for. You add it to your cart, maybe browse a little more than head to checkout, only to realize you don't have your wallet. But then you see it, that purple shop pay button. And just like that, you're done in seconds. That's the power of Shopify. It supports millions of businesses and drives 10% of all e-commerce in the U.S. from major brands like Mattel and Jimshark to entrepreneurs just getting started. With Shopify, Everything you need is in one place, from customizable store templates to built-in AI tools

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slash dns. My consciousness thrashes. The memory starts to fracture. Breaking like glass as I hammer against the walls of my mind. The living room crumbles replaced by the ornaments of faces hanging in that endless void.

It's zipper jaw. It's holding me here, forcing me to relive this. Only I don't need to because the answer is already clear as day. My father beat my sister to death, and after he woke up and found her dead, he knew he'd spend the rest of his life in prison. His worst nightmare.

No control. Nobody's smaller than him to hurt. So what does he do? He stages the crime scene, makes it look like Adelaide butchered him, then cuts his throat to cement his legacy as a victim, and her legacy as a monster who couldn't live with her guilt. There you go! I bellow into the void, spinning about in the forest.

forest of flesh. I've solved it. Figured out the truth and it didn't break me. You never broke me. Understand? You don't control me and you never will. Tommy? I spin about and there she is. Looking up at me through red banks. It's almost over.

Then you can rest. Adelaide grabs my hand, squeezes it. I'm blinking back tears. You have to remember, she tells me. No! I stammer, ripping my hand from her grip and staggering backwards. You can't. You can't fool me. You aren't. You aren't. But she's walking after me. Red hair trailing behind her like a cloak of flames. She's swimming in that oversized hand-me-down t-shirt. Moms. The one that Addy refused to wash for fear of losing her scent.

Don't be afraid. Her voice echoes from everywhere and nowhere. I'm not afraid of you. I spit, but my voice cracks. Not me, she whispers. And the sadness in those two words nearly breaks me. She reaches out. And that's when I see it. A red smile opening across her throat. Thin'n at first. Then widening, grinning, gushing. It pours down her shirt in a flood, soaking through the faded fabric.

Adelaide stumbles. Her knees buckle. She's falling. But even as she drops, her finger extends toward me. Pointing. Accusatory. Not at father. Not at zipper jaw.

At me. I lunge forward, arms outstretched, to catch her, to save her this time. But she falls through my fingers like smoke. My knees hit something hard and real and... I'm six again, yanking the covers up to my swollen face, heart, jackhammering against bruised ribs. The void is gone.

The faces are too. The filthy living room swims back into focus, through tears I didn't know I was crying. And there, standing over my snoring father, is a figure in a patchwork dress. Their back is to me, but I can see short arms dangling at odd angles. Bare feet, child-sized, planted on either side of father's legs. And spilling from beneath the bottom of the burlap mask is a tangle of hair.

Wild, unkempt, redder than blood, redder than anything has a right to be. The air leaves my lungs. This isn't an intruder. It's a monster. It's the no-thing. It rasps. And the voice sounds like it's something spat out of a garboreator. One small hand reaches down,

fingertips grazing Father's slack face with something resembling tenderness. So lifelike, so real. Adelaide's stolen scissors gleam in the television's light. Father's leg twitches. My hand clamps over my mouth, trying to hold in the whimper. Even from here, huddled on the floor in my pathetic nest of blankets, I can smell him. The sour, sweet reek of alcohol.

Thick, cloying. It smells like the time he didn't wake up for an entire day, the time Addy and I thought he was dead. The time we hoped he was. You showed me how powerful masks can be. The no-thing coos, running the blade along Father's jawline. How easily they transform us. The scissors open and close like a metal heartbeat. Monsters are real.

Father groans. Something drips onto the floor. It pulls into the yellowed carpet, spreading like spilled ketchup. but it's thicker, redder. My throat constricts. Move, I tell myself. Move, move, move. I'm crawling, elbows and knees sliding across the filthy carpet, inching toward Adelaide's purple blankets.

Addie, wake up! She doesn't stir. Of course she doesn't. She's gone. No amount of crying will ever bring her back. Tears blur what little vision I have left. Behind me, the scissors continue their work. Metal teeth gnashing in rhythm with father's stuttered moans.

His fingers are twitching, jumping, tap dancing against the couch cushions like they're trying to escape his body. His breath comes in rattling gasps, and even his monstrous snores are thinning, fading, dying. But the no-thing doesn't stop. It keeps snipping, humming mother's broken lullaby, bare feet dancing in the spreading pool of blood. See? It hisses with childish delight. That wasn't so bad, was it? There's a grotesque sound, wet and sickening as the no-thing pulls back.

peeling something pale and dripping from Father. It lifts it high, examining it in the television's glow. The thing tilts its burlap head this way and that. My stomach heaves. His face. It's cut off Father's face. Smells like lies. It croaks.

Creatures' fingers tear off a strip of flesh, a ragged piece from what used to be Father's cheek. It dangles the meat above the man's open, groaning mouth. How about it? The no-thing cooes, playful and cute. Want to bite? Only seems fair after making everybody else stomach you for so long. It drops the flesh.

He coughs, gags, but the no-thing's hand clamps down over his jaw, impossibly strong for something so small, holding it shut. Ziprat! The creature snarls, all playfulness evaporating. Father's limbs jerk, spasm. His throat works, convulsing, and I watch his eyes roll back white. No. Whirl back to Adelaide's blankets and yank them away.

Desperate, terrified. Unsure if I'm going to find her dead or alive or something worse. Only knowing I need her! I need her to wake up and tell me this is just another nightmare. But there's nothing underneath. Just billows. Three or four of them, arranged in the shape of a child. A decoy.

My chest caves in. The air won't come and won't go. My gaze swivels to the no-thing, still distracted, trying to feed father his own face. Face, rage boiling in my gut. You chooker! The scream tears out of me, raw and primal and loud. The snipping stops.

The humming stops. Everything stops. The no-thing's burlap head swiveles toward me. Those plastic, googly eyes catch the light, reflecting it back in two perfect circles, unblinking, inhuman. It lifts one small finger to its zipper smile. The hiss slides across the room like a snake. But it's too late for it.

silence, too late for hiding, because even father, intoxicated beyond any human limit, is stirring now, the agony and commotion cutting through the painkillers and booze. He slides off the couch with a wet thump, hands flying to his face. His fingers come away glistening, red. For a moment, he just stares at them, confused, like his brain can't process what his eyes are seeing. Then comes the rage. He lurches to his feet, swaying. You shits cut my face! He sputters.

He doesn't know. He can't know how bad it is, because he can't see what I can. It's all missing. It's just raw, glistening tendon where his face should be. Twitching muscle fibers, blinkless eyes. His yellowed teeth are peeled back in a permanent, lipless snarl. But before he can reorient himself, a shape rises behind him, perched on the couch without he scissors held high. The sound of splitting bone echoes through the apartment like a gunshot.

Father stumbles. His faceless head snaps back, jaw working soundlessly. But the no-thing doesn't hesitate. It raises the scissors again, standing on tiptoes to get the angle right, then slams them down. Again! There's a wet pop like a cork being pulled from a bottle, and the scissors disappear into Father's skull up to their handles. His whole body convulses. Blood erupts, spurting from the wound in jets that paint the walls, the ceiling, the couch. The no-thing staggers backward, bare feet slipping in the spreading lake of red, and then it laughs. It watches my father gurgle and spasm, watches him die, and it's clapping its hands, howling with glee. I move without thinking, scrambling backwards on hands and knees, squeezing myself into the darkest corner of the living room.

You little! My father, he's still alive. still moving. He's got a pair of scissors lodged in his brain, but then he never needed his brain to live. His rage was more than enough. Now he's running on a full tank. His jaw works, grinding what's left of his teeth. He sways violently like a building about to collapse, then drops hard, hand slapping the blood-slicked carpet. His pupils roll back until only the whites show. I'm not sure he can see anymore, but he can still move. His fingers snatch at the carpet and start to drag himself toward the joyous clapping of the

No-Thing, delighting in his suffering. He lunges. The speed of it shocks me. It shocks the No-thing, too, because it doesn't move fast enough. Father's pork-sized fist closes around the monster's skinny ankle like a bear trap snapping shut. The creature hits the floor. There's a struggle, but it's brief. Father clambers on top of the No- Thing, pinning it beneath his bulk. He cocks back his fist and brings it down into its dead-eyed face with the bone-shattering crunch. He doesn't stop. Even when the No Thing's limbs stop twitching, even when the burlap mask caves in on one side, plastic eye popping free and rolling across the carpet like a marble.

He doesn't stop. I shriek. His head swiveles toward me, breathless. Ew! He growls. He kidnapped Addy. Mama make it. Bring her back first!

Please, Dad! His teeth gnash. He slams his fist down one last time, finishing the job. Then rises up from the creature's body. You just sat there and watched, did you? Let the cunt cut me up. I'm circling away. The blanket's falling from my shoulders.

I'm sorry. I was scared, daddy. Scared? He spits out a mouth full of blood. I'll give you something to be afraid of, boy. But he can barely sit upright. His words are slurring, and he's practically rolling across. the walls trying to reach me, leaving crimson smears wherever he touches. Then he stumbles.

He crashes into the television with a spray of sparks and shattering glass and lunges. I'm not fast enough. I never was. His hand closes around my throat and slams me to the carpet. I can't breathe. I can't scream. The world spins and goes gray at the edges. I'm clawing at his face, fingers sinking into raw muscle and exposed tendon. I'm trying to push him off, He's too heavy, too strong. My hand reaches wildly, desperately for anything. There, the scissors still lodged in his skull. Gonna kill you, boy!

Father rasps. If it's the last thing, I pull. The scissors come free with a squelch. He sputters. Blood bubbles from his mouth and streams from the hole in his head. He lifts the fist, mumbling something about turning my head inside out, then drops. He collapses like a mountain of meat. I roll out from under his arm with the horrified grunt,

scrambling away on hands and knees until my back hits the wall. I stand. For the first time, I see it all. The full scope of the nightmare painted across our living room in varying shades of red. My chest heaves, hyperventilating. The room spins. I'm going to be sick. I'm going to pass out.

I'm going to... A gasp. Weak. wet, heart in my throat, but there's no one there. Just me, my dead father. And the corpse of the no-thing lying in a broken heap beside the couch. Burlap mask caved in. Tommy! That voice, small, pained. It almost sounds like bird comes out strangled, desperate. I stack her forward, hope and terror warring in my chest. Eddie, is that you? Maybe the no-thing let her go. Maybe when the monster died, she came back, maybe.

The no-thing coughs weakly. Its burlap head tilts sideways, facing me with a single plastic eye. My heart stops. No, that isn't. Please don't let it. But my feet are already moving. Numb to the shards of television crunching beneath my heels. Numb to the blood soaking through my socks.

Numb to everything except the awful pull drawing. me forward. My knees hit the floor beside the broken thing in the patchwork dress. The monster groans, it whispers, one hand trembling toward the burlap mask. Want to see you properly. My fingers find the cords. They're tied tight, nodded. I fumble with them, hands shaking so badly I can barely grip the strings. It's not her, I tell myself. It can't be her. It's a trick, a lie. When I pull it off, I'll see fangs. Yellow eyes.

Something monstrous and inhuman. A vampire, maybe, or a demon, or a boogeyman, or whatever the no-thing really is. Anything but... Daddy? I whimper. My sister blinks back at me. Her face has been caved in.

Cheap bones shattered. Eye socket crushed. Most of her teeth are missing. Knocked down her throat or scattered across the carpet. Tears flood my eyes. She rasps, trying to smile as blood bubbles between her lips. Are you safe? I nod frantically, too frantically.

My whole body's shaking. Hold on! The words tumble out in a rush. I'm already spinning toward the door, toward escape, toward help. I'm going to, I'll unlock the door. I'll get help. Her fingers close around my arm. Not hard.

She doesn't have the strength, but firm enough to stop me. Please don't leave. She coughs. And more blood spills from her mouth, from her nose. I don't want to die with him. She dugs weakly at the scissors, still clutched in my hand. I release them without thinking. Her fingers, slick with blood, wrap around the purple handles, trembling.

She presses the points to her throat, pushes. Only she's too weak. The blades dimple her skin but won't puncture. They won't go deeper. Addie, what are you? Stop! You can't! Help me make the pain go away. She wheezes, eyes finding mine.

Please, like Mom did. The words hit me like a fist to the stomach. Mom, at the kitchen table. I'd been the one to find her slouched there when I was only four. The red smile cut across her throat. The way she'd looked almost peaceful. Like she'd finally stopped hurting. I choke out, shaking my head so hard it makes me dizzy.

I can't, Addie. Please don't ask me to... But she's sputtering now, convulsing. Her remaining eye rolling back in her head as her body starts to seize. My mind races, frantic, grasping. Father disconnected the phone. Put a padlock on the door. Hit the key.

I don't know where. I could scream, I think. Pound on the walls. Maybe someone in the neighboring apartments would hear. Maybe they'd come. Maybe they'd break down the door and call an ambulance and... How long would that take? 10 minutes? 20? How long would Adelaide suffer while I waited?

Please! She's begging now. The word barely intelligible through the blood and broken teeth. Please, Tommy, it hurts so bad. Her whole body arches off the floor, back bowing, and the sound that rips from her throat makes something inside me break. I can't. I can't. But I can't let her suffer either. I fall to my knees beside her. My hands, so small. Still a child's hands, settle over hers, over her fingers wrapped white knuckle tight around those purple scissors. I love you, Addie.

My voice cracks, shatters. I love you so much. She tries to answer, but she can't speak. It's all just choking, gurgling now. It's all pain. I look away. Close my eyes. There's a moment of pressure when the blades slide through the skin, through muscle.

Blood pours across my fingers. warm, awful. My big sister shudders, exhales the last breath she'll ever take, and the scissors slip from my fingers. I don't look at her. I'm telling myself that if I see her, it becomes real. It's just a bad dream,

that I'll wake up tomorrow and apologize to Dad for ever telling on him and convince Addy to do the same, and things will go back to normal. I lay down with my back to her, pull her limp arms across me and force a smile. Good night, Addy. See you in the morning, okay? She doesn't answer.

She never will. Not now. Not ever again. The living room fades, growing fuzzy around the edges as the memory dissolves. The blood. Father, Adelaide. All of it dissolves as the void rushes back. Only it's changed now.

Gone is the forest of hanging faces. Gone are the whispers. It's just me now. Me and my guilt and my grief and the knowledge I've spent 40 years running from. It wasn't the no-thing that killed my sister. It wasn't zipper jaw. It was me. I sink to my knees and the emptiness, hands covering my face.

I killed her, I whisper. The words should feel like release, like confession. Instead, they feel like swallowing glass. A light flickers on in the darkness, soft, focused. It illuminates a small circular table that wasn't there a moment ago, Victorian-style, ornate legs, and resting on top, bathed in that impossible spotlight is my clipboard. The report on top reads,

The No Thing Massacres, my handwriting, my research, 30 years of obsessive documentation. I flip the first page, then the second, the third. And with each page, something inside me twists, tightens like a noose. It's all there. Every detail I've been cataloging for decades. Every pattern I've been tracking.

Every witness statement and crime scene photo and autopsy report. All of it pointing to a truth I was too terrified to see. The burlap mask, the googly eyes, the zipper smile, forcing victims to see the truth beneath the masks their loved ones wore, to taste their lies. Just like Adelaide tried to make father taste his. The victims. Always people who hurt someone.

Abusers. Liars. The cruel. Just like father. My hands start shaking. The clipboard slips from my grip. Papers scattering across the void. Only the story doesn't change.

The conclusion is inescapable. The no-thing was only ever a doll. It didn't possess Adelaide. It didn't make her carve off our father's. face. Her trauma did. It was her desperation to save us from him that broke her. And I couldn't accept it. That's what it comes down to in the end. That's the rot at the center of everything. I'd wrapped myself in Adelaide's dead arms, and when I finally woke up, hours later, cold and alone and surrounded by corpses, I couldn't accept what I'd done. So I rewrote it, built an entire mythology

inside my head. Evil dolls, twisted monsters, the no-thing that orchestrated everything, anything, anything to avoid the simple, unbearable truth that I killed Adelaide, that I held the scissors, that I made the cut, me the guilt, my six-year-old mind, shattering under the weight of it all, made it manifest, made the lie real. I didn't just create a story to hide behind, I created a monster, one that has been killing for 40 years, wearing my sister's tragedy like a costume, spreading the same mercy-kill horror I inflicted on Adelaide to dozens of families across this god-forsaken town. It wasn't my father's torment that birthed zipper jaw. It was mine. All mine. Oh, God, I whisper, sinking deeper into the void.

What did I do to you? The answer comes in the form of a hundred grasped. hands. They erupt from the darkness, cold, clammy, desperate, snatching at my legs, my arms, my throat, clawing, dragging. After all, this is my monster, my guilt, given form, and fed on 40 years of denial. So if it wants to drag me into whatever fresh hell awaits, then I figure I've earned it. I close my eyes, take a breath, and for the first time, surrender. My body slams into something solid, skidding across broken glass and splintered wood before coming to a halt against the far wall. Pain explodes through my ribs, my shoulder, my already battered skull.

Groaning, I force my eyes open. The hospital room. Rain lashes through the shattered window. The storm howls. The fluorescent lights flicker weakly overhead, struggling to stay alive. Zipper jaw. Guess my boogeyman spat me back out. The voice is distant, dreamy.

Jonah's standing beside the broken window, staring across the darkened countryside with a look of eerie contentment. Except the scissors. Remove my mask. I grunt, forcing myself upright. I spit out a mouthful of blood. No thanks. I'll pass.

His head snaps toward me. But if the rules, he growls. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. No shit. He takes a step toward me. Then another. That demented smile twitching back onto his face like a seizure. We'll see what zipper jaw says about that.

His eyes shift, gazing past me. Over my shoulder, like he's waiting for the monster to intervene, to make me turn his face into a midnight snack. Only it won't. It'll follow the rules, same as I will. And I turn toward it, the eight-foot nightmare, the patchwork horror, my sister's tortured memory given legs. And there's nothing there.

Just rain, wind, and swirling shadows. A hand tugs at mine. Small, gentle. I look down and see a child, barely tall enough to reach my waist. They're wearing a burlap mask with googly eyes. A zipper sewed where a mouth should be. In one hand, they're carrying a raggedy doll. In the other, a pair of purple scissors with gleaming stars.

My chest aches. Oh, I say quietly. There you are. They hand the scissors to me. Then stand there, waiting, swaying as if punch drunk, humming my mother's lullaby through what sounds like a collapsed throat. I kneel so that we're eye-leveled. Meanwhile, Jonas still pleading with Zipper Jaw,

begging for the chance to die, saying he has to because it's the rules, and he's only halfway wrong. Zipper Jaw does have rules. It appears at midnight, the same time I watched my sister feed father his face. It also makes you destroy the person you care about most, just as I murdered my sister.

And then it soothes that guilt through visions and whispers, the same as I did by rewriting my own history. And at the end of it all, it offers you release, a means of escaping the cycle of suffering for good, a blade, a throat. The same release I gave my sister on the living room floor. And then it moves on to the next poor soul, and the next, entering their dreams, passing zipper jaws curse, spreading its horror like rot, all thanks to rules born from six-year-old me's broken psyche. But I'm not six anymore.

My grip tightens around the scissors. An hour ago, I didn't care about anyone. Adelaide was dead. My career had been cremated. My body was being devoured from the inside out by cancer. answer, and I spent most of my days either drunk or wishing I was. I was a ghost in every way that mattered, and alive in every way that didn't. That made Jonah my perfect VIP. He was the only person who could give me the monster that had stolen everything for me, the only person that could

finally give me the revenge I'd dreamed of every night for 40 years. Or, that's what I told myself. But now I see things clearly. There's somebody in this room I care about more than Jonah, someone I care about more than revenge, more about than anything. I grip zipper jaw by the shoulder, holding it steady as I bring the scissors to its mask. My voice cracks. I'm sorry. I should have done this a long time ago. Jonah is shouting, moving toward us in a slosh of rainwater. Stop! What are you doing? But he won't interfere. He can't. My blades find the edge of the mask, pressing against the coarse fabric. Jonah collapses behind me, wailing in grief.

But zipper jaw doesn't pull away, doesn't fight. Just keeps humming as I carve a line down the center of its face. The mask splits. It falls away in two pieces, fluttering to the floor like dead moths. And there? Tommy? Oh, God. She's just like I remember her.

Before the beating. before the worst night of our lives. Adelaide, my sister, she's standing there, blinking up at me. That is you, isn't it? Her voice is small, confused. She's rubbing her eyes like she just woke up from a long nap. I try to answer, but all that comes out is a choked sob.

She tilts her head, red hair tumbling over her shoulder, studying my face with almond eyes. You're all old and stuff, though. She says it like it's the strangest. thing in the world, like I'm the anomaly. Then she yawns, long, jaw-cracking, and stretches her small arms above her head. Must have been asleep for ages. Yeah, I manage, voice-breaking. I pull her into my arms like if I hold her hard enough. She'll stay solid, stay real, and the tears come in a flood I can't control. I missed you so much. I missed you too.

She murmurs into my shoulder. I've been having the worst dreams. My whole body shakes. I know, Addie, and I'm so, so sorry. She pulls back slightly, looking up at me with pure, childlike confusion. You don't have to be sorry. They were just dreams. My jaw hangs open, searching for words, an explanation.

Who's that? She asks, suddenly, attention already drifting the way only a 10-year-olds can. I glance over my shoulder, at Jonah. He slumped against the wall, chest heaving like a furnace, expression caught somewhere between disbelief and abject horror. That's Jonah, I say, my voice thick. He sort of reminds me of you. Adelaide breaks up. Wait, is he your son? What? No, definitely not. Your friend then, she decides. And before I can stop her, she's already waving at him enthusiastically. Nice to meet you, Jonah. My name's Adelaide. My stomach sinks. He's biting into

his lip hard enough. It's bleeding. His hands bawling into fists at his side. The way he looks is furious. Like he can't believe this 10-year-old girl made him eat his father's face. Adelaide whispers, pressing herself closer to my side. I swallow. No, he didn't do anything wrong. I did. What do you mean? I mean this. How do I tell her what I put her through? I mean that don't. Jonah's voice cuts like a knife. He's stalking toward us. Slippers crunching over broken glass and splintered wood.

He grabs me around the arm and hauls me to my feet. He pulls me away from Adelaide who stands watching us with worried eyes. What do you think you're... Jonah jabbs a finger against my chest, cutting me off. Don't you dare start telling the truth? He his face inches from mine. Not now. not to her.

He grabs me by my tie, squeezing like he wants to throttle me. I saw it. Your memories. When I was part of that thing. Only glimpses, fragments, but enough. His eyes bore into mine. Enough to know what really happened. Laughter.

We both turn, and Adelaide's playing with a no-thing doll. She's sloshing it through the rainwater, pretending it's dancing. Jonah's expression softens. Your sister doesn't need the truth to me. She needs to rest. My throat goes dry. I know that. Then do what you should have done 40 years ago.

He gives me a small push toward her. Say goodbye. I'm blinking against tears that won't stop coming. This is fear, I realize. The real kind. And it's so much worse than any boogeyman I've ever faced. I make my way back to her with shoulders slumped. But she doesn't acknowledge me as I sit down beside her.

Her attention is on the no thing. Only the laughter is gone. She's just staring at it now, her small fingers tracing its zipper smile. I can't remember things very well, she says quietly. Did I save you? My chest tightens. From dad, you mean? She nods, still not meeting my eyes.

It's like she's afraid of what she'll see there. Afraid I'll tell her she failed. Of course you saved me, I tell her, my voice raw with emotion. You were so brave, Addy, braver than I could ever be. And she looks up at me, smiles, and throws her arms around me, squeezing with everything she has. And I hold her too, wishing I never had to let go. It's late, I whisper into her red hair, fighting back the tears. You should probably get some rest, the nice kind, without the bad dreams.

She yawns deeply. I guess I am still pretty tired. Her voice is already getting softer, drowsier. I nod, not trusting myself to speak. I'm really glad you made a friend. She murmurs, words slurring together at the edges now. Will you tell me more about him in the morning? Tears stream from my eyes.

Sure. Tommy. Yeah, I love you. A pause, then another long yawn. Like a whole bunch. My vision blurs. I love you too, Adelaide. She giggles.

Why is that funny? You never call me, Adelaide. She says, her voice already fading. It sounds so serious. Well, now that I'm an adult, I have to be serious. It's part of the rules. She throws back her head and laughs. And for the first time since I was six years old,

I'm laughing too. Not the bitter, hollow laughter I've so often worn his armor. But the real kind, with real joy, with genuine smiles, where your eyes scrunched shut and you're doubled over and your stomach hurts, and you can't breathe, but you don't care because it feels so good to be this happy. And I opened my eyes, and she's gone. My arms are empty. my heart full of ache.

The no-thing doll lies on the floor where she dropped it, googly eyes staring up at nothing, no longer her anchor to this world, no longer her prison. I whisper softly. The wind howls, the rain falls. And for the first time in my life, I let my sister go. Jonah's standing beside the broken window,

making it a point to stare outside while I wiped the tears from my eyes. My pocket watch chimes softly. A notification I haven't heard in years. I pull it free with trembling hands. Case number 02042. The No Thing. Lead Inquisitor, Thomas C. Grieve.

Status. Closed. The text fades. Then fresh words blossom across the glass like inkblots. Authorization level. Restored. Reinstatement. Ending.

Next active case. Snippity. snap. My fist closes around the watch. Thirty years. Thirty fucking years I've been screaming into the void that zipper jaw was real, that this town was bleeding, but I wasn't crazy. Now, now that I finally found a scrap of peace, they want me back. I snap it shut and shove it back inside my pocket. Is she? Jonah's voice cracks, pulling my attention. He's staring at the floor at all that's left of my sister, a patchwork doll, the no-thing drowning in rainwater. She's gone, I croak. I bend down, picking up the no-thing. The fabric is cold, water-logged.

It's just a toy now, but then it's all it ever was. She was just a kid, he whispers. A kid trapped in a nightmare. Yes, my nightmare. The thought sits in my chest like a stone. It was me. I created zipper jaw with my grief, my guilt, my inability to accept what I'd done. For 40 years, my sister was trapped in a hell of my making, forced to relive our trauma through strangers,

spreading that pain like a disease. I killed my father, Jonah croaks, his voice hollow. Because of her, because of what you made her into. He's got his hands wrapped around himself, shivering. Yet, despite it, his eyes are boiling. His voice rises, each word sharper than the last. She made me eat his face! Your sister! Zipper jaw!

It made me carve and chew and swallow my fathers! He doubles over suddenly, dry heaving on the floor. I can still taste them! He chokes out. Do you have any idea what that's like? No. I was lucky enough to be spared, that particular piece of trauma. My lips part.

Then they close again. For the first time in my life, I'm finding myself speechless. I'm standing there. Hair mopped across my forehead, suit soaked from the downpour, watching this kid shatter in real time. This is the part where functional people would offer comfort. Maybe tell him it wasn't his fault, that he's a victim, That time heals all wounds and whatever other useless platitudes humans say when they don't know what the fuck they're talking about.

But I've never been much good at being human. None of it goes away, I say quietly. Not the taste, not the texture of the skin. You'll remember it for the rest of your life, no matter how badly you want to forget. And even if you do manage to repress it, it'll find you. Always. Our worst memories are nothing if not persistent. His face crumples, horrified.

Then what's the point? The point? Why didn't you just let that thing end us? His voice breaks into stammering sobs. Why save me if I'm just going to be like this? He gestures broadly at himself, at the tears pouring down his cheeks, at the stitches in his throat, at the way his legs are trembling and his hands are shaking and, I turn away.

What do I even tell the kid? After 30 years chasing nightmares, you'd think I'd have some wisdom to offer. But I don't. All I have is guilt, regret. Truth is, I don't know why I saved you, why I tried to save anyone. My teeth find my lip, biting down,

grounding myself in the pain. My sister tried to save me, and look where that got Adelaide. Then she tried to save all those other people. Because she believed so deeply that abusers like our father needed to be seen for what they were. And look where that got them. Dead. Butchered.

My sister became exactly what she was trying to stop. The words hang in the air between us. So that's it? Jonas Spitz. His voice rising again. That's your big lesson. Don't try to help people because you'll just fuck it up worse? No.

He stares, waiting for me to explain. But I'm still searching for the words, or maybe I'm just searching for the courage to finally speak them. My hand slips inside my jacket, feeling the coarseness of the no-thing doll, tracing the coldness of its metal smile. Adelaide was ten years old when she tried to save the world, I say slowly. She didn't have an armory of occult weapons or decades of training, or the experience to know that you can't hurt people into being better versions of themselves, or my voice trails off uncertain Jonah glares lightning flashing across his features what's your point my point is that you were right and I was wrong sometimes the

only way to help people is by being there showing them they aren't alone in their nightmare by proving that it's possible to be broken and still be worth something thunder rolls in the distance he stares at me like he's waiting for the other shoe to the bait and switch, the sardonic deflection, anything. You save my life tonight, kid. If you're up for it, I think we could save more lives too. Jonah laughs. Come on, just look at us, man.

Look at what we've done. We aren't heroes. We're about as unqualified as it gets. Maybe that's what makes us qualified. Someone has to break the cycle. Might as well be the people who know what it's like to be broken. Jonah's quiet for a long moment. Outside, sirens are wailing, getting closer. We've got maybe five minutes before this place is swarming with cops.

I grab my briefcase, snap it shut. You've got two choices, I tell him, moving toward the window. You can stay, face trial, spend the next 40 years explaining to psychiatrists why you ate your father's face. Let them pump you full of pills and lock you in a room and tell you that you're sick, you're broken, you're... Or... He interrupts. I pause at the window, look back.

Or you accept that the old you is gone. You come with me. We build you a new life, a new identity. We show up for people when their monsters come calling. And maybe we manage to stop a few kids from becoming us. Jonah looks outside, at the parade of police cars riding toward us through the haze. Then back at me.

I need to know. something first, he says. You can know it in the car. We don't have time for. He grabs me around the arm. Be honest. Do you want to be partners? Or do you just want another scapegoat you can sacrifice when the time comes? The question stings. I could lie to him here. I'm good at it. It'd be so easy to prattle off some mindless drivel about building trust and being stronger together and all that other fairy tale bullshit people can't get enough of. But he asked for honesty. I've spent my whole life chasing my sister's ghost, and now that she's gone, I feel empty, like something's missing.

I face the window, cold rain needling my face. Maybe it's just that I'm too chicken shit to die alone in a motel room watching reruns of jeopardy. Or maybe I really do want a partner, not because I want a scapegoat. Though that is a nice backup plan, but because misery loves company. And if I'm going to spend my last few months getting my face rearranged by nightmares, I might as well drag someone else down with me. He almost laughs. Jesus, that's your bitch?

I hack a bloody cough into my sleeve. Shoot him a grim smile. How's this? You already ate your dad's face. How much worse can it get? He just stands there. Then he shakes his head, crosses to the locker with an exhausted sigh,

and starts pulling out clothes. Why do I get the feeling I'm going to regret this? Because you probably will. He meets my eyes as he pulls on his hoodie. If we're doing this, I've got one condition. This isn't a negotiation, but it is a partnership, he says, stressing the word. So from here on out, no more masks, no more lies, no more bullshit, got it? We give each other the real versions of ourselves.

That means the good, the bad, and the absolutely fucking hideous too. My throat tightens. He's asking for something I've never. given anyone. Not my psychiatrist, not the order, not even myself. But maybe that's the point. Maybe that's how you break a cycle, by refusing to perpetuate it, by choosing honest agony over comfortable lies. Outside, tires are screeching to a halt at the other end of the building. Doors clunk open and shut. There's a crackle of radio chatter as cops start moving toward the entrance. Fine, I say quickly, swinging a leg over the window sill.

I see rain soaking through my pants. Whatever you need, kid. Just know that the real me is pretty fucked up. Don't worry, he says, following me onto the fire escape with a weary grin. So is the fake you, tummy. And together we descend into the storm, into the dark, into whatever comes next. Thanks for tuning in. If you enjoyed the story, be sure to follow or subscribe and share the show with a fellow horror fan.

I'll see you in the next one.