The NoSleep Podcast - Halloween Episode

Episode Date: October 30, 2011

The Nosleep Podcast is proud to present the second part of our Halloween Trilogy to celebrate Halloween Week!Welcome to the Halloween edition of The Nosleep Podcast! We are offering you plenty of tricks and treats to keep your Jack-o’-lantern glowing through the night. Featuring horror stories from the Reddit.com horror writing community, these stories will keep you awake while you binge on all your sickly sweet candy.This episode features these stories:A Halloween to Remember written by James Phillips (Redditor Vortilex) and read by David Cummings (Redditor MikeRowPhone).Halloween Warning written by Warren Halloran (Redditor halloweenwarning) and read by Wade Thorson (Redditor WadeK).Methenes Chapel written by Eric Dodd (Redditor Unxmaal) and read by David Cummings.The Crawling House on Black Pond Road written by William Dalphin (Redditor justapatient) and read by Christina Scholz (Redditor giant_squid).Special thanks to Joe Brodar (Redditor sloppyj23) for the Halloween Episode artwork.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Through the murky darkness of the night, when fear banishes sleep. It's the No Sleep podcast. Born from the nightmares of Reddit.com's No Sleep Forum, and featuring tales from Reddit's authors of horror, we present you with tales intended to frighten and disturb, and keep you awake as the night slowly creeps. past. Welcome to our Halloween episode. We have four scary treats for all you tricker-treaters out there. After the podcast, enhance your Halloween spirit by visiting the new subreddit from the creator

of karma decay.com, the reverse image search engine specifically for Reddit. It's called Black Box TV, where you can find lots of well-produced creation. creepy videos, perfect for your Halloween viewing. Go to blackbox TV.reddit.com. Now, light up the jackalantor and settle in. Where first tale is entitled, A Halloween to Remember. Searching around dark places for ghosts isn't a good idea at the best of times, but doing it on Halloween night could be the worst time.

of all. This story was written by James Phillips and is read by David Cummings. My school always had a Halloween party. Most schools have some event, I imagine. That particular Halloween, my friends and I decided to investigate the rumors of the haunted theater. Various people had claimed that it had a spirit in it. We figured that if there was something there, it was only a student, and wouldn't be anything special. Dressed in black, we snuck into the theater during the party, which was being held on the other side of the campus. We didn't want to be seen, seeing as we were expected to be at the party.

We crept through the darkened hallways, jumping at any sound, not out of fear of the supernatural, but out of fear of the faculty. We hadn't brought flashlights to this since any light might alert faculty working late to our presence. We reached the central staircase, dividing the high school from the middle school, and descended further into the darkness. Each step we took sounded like an explosion to our ears. Upon reaching the bottom, we found ourselves swallowed by the darkness.

We had been here so many times, that didn't exactly deter us, though it did unnerve us. We slowly crept towards the double door of the theater. We didn't want to trip over any randomly placed chairs or benches. I pushed on the handle of one of the doors, and to our surprise, it opened rather smoothly. I held it for my friends, and after the last had entered, I eased the door shut. Once it clicked, I was assured that no one had seen us enter. We felt around the stage of the theater.

That's where most had suspected the spirit of being. because I had been on ghost tours in the past I had brought a camera to take pictures once we were on the stage we surveyed our surroundings not that we could see much dude take a picture so we can get a glimpse of the stage one of my friends suggested none of us had been backstage so at least having some brief light would be better than tripping and stumbling over chairs blocks costume racks curtain strings and so on I pressed the power button on my camera. Nothing happened.

What are you waiting for, man? Another friend said. One sec, I replied. It's not turning on. Damn it, the first said. Don't tell us, you forgot batteries. No, wait, there it goes, I said. The display lit up my face, ghostly white in the darkness.

I began to aim the camera down the small backstage corridor. I checked that the flash was on and took a picture. An eerie white flash illuminated the hall, and we got a good view of what was back there. I decided to check the picture. At the end of the corridor, I could have sworn I saw a black figure peeking out from the end of the wall that divided the stage from the corridor. It wasn't anything I could really go on, but somehow I knew that it was there. It wasn't angry. It wasn't happy.

It looked both afraid and curious about us. I could have told my friends, but they may not have listened. They slowly went down the hallway, and I followed, not knowing what we might encounter. We reached the end of the hallway, and were in the small room on that end of the stage. It was oddly cold, but we weren't surprised. The doors to the outside were on that side of the room, and the cold October air could, be creeping in. Again I took a picture and after the blinding light illuminated the room I looked at the photo. I immediately dropped the camera when I saw it. On the picture was a face.

It was a pale face with long straight black hair, looking kind of like a girl's but it was quite distorted. Her face was elongated and her mouth was wide open. Her face was translated. Her face was loosened and I could see my friends on the other side. Why hadn't they reacted to it? What is it? One of them asked. I whimpered in fear. Dude, man up and tell us what that noise was, he said.

Picture, I said softly. My friend approached and picked up the camera. He looked at the picture. Holy shit, he yelled. What the fuck is that? we shushed him I grabbed my camera and as I did I heard a soft whisper

in my ear as though someone was standing directly behind me the sound made my back seize up and my eyes widened I started moving towards the stage and felt my way towards the stairs on the side I called to my friends

they were on their way I was feeling along the wall to get back to the door at the back of the room I pushed on the door but it didn't budge. What the fuck are you waiting for, man? My friend said. Open it.

I can't, I said. It's locked. What do you mean, locked? He demanded. He pushed on it. Shit. I immediately felt something brush by me and thought it was my other friend. We heard the door open and pushed our way out.

We immediately made for the stairs, throwing caution to the wind. Suddenly, the lights came on. We looked around to see what had turned them on, and our friend, the one whom I thought had brushed by me, was walking out of the theater, eyes wide. The fuck just happened to us, he asked. If you're there, what did I feel? Who turned on the lights? I asked. We exchanged looks. All of us were now wondering the same thing.

We bolted up the stairs, causing a... great deal of noise. It was now late enough for us to be a bit less cautious, as the teachers who may have been working late had all gone home now, or had joined the party. We raced out of the school. We reached the bus stop down the street, and upon sitting down, let out a sigh of relief. None of us said a word as we rode down the street. When I reached my stop, I walked up the hill leading to my house. At this time of night, the forest beside it was, more intimidating, but there were lights illuminating the asphalt path. I reached my house at the top of the hill and walked in.

Hey, Jim, what are you doing back so early? My dad asked. Oh, uh, the party was boring, so I left. You didn't leave alone, did you? He asked. No, no, no. I left with my friends, I panted. You're out of breath.

Did you run up the hill or something? Oh, yeah, I'm trying to build endurance up for the mile run. You know how that always sneaks up on you. Okay, then, he said with suspicion in his eyes. I walked up the stairs to my room and cracked open a book. I read until about 9.30 when I decided to go to sleep. I had one of my worst nightmares, which is saying something, since my nightmares are always incredibly frightening.

I remember waking up with these words in my head. She can't disturb us any longer. The next day I acted as though nothing had happened. I was nervous every time I walked into that theater after that, but I never told anyone about what happened. Maybe the spirit will leave people alone now. Or maybe she'll be waiting for the next group of thrill seekers who try to look for her on another dark Halloween night.

Our second tale is entitled Halloween Warning. Shelling out candy to costumed kids can be one of the best parts of Halloween, but beware of the ones who come late. They may be looking for more than just treats. This story was written by Warren Halloran and is read by Wade Thorson. Yesterday I noticed my neighbor hadn't put out all his Halloween decorations. The past two years I've lived next to him, he has gone all out for Halloween. I don't know him well.

He's younger, single, he likes kids, not in a creepy way. His brother and sister-in-law and their kids are always visiting him, and he plays with his three young nieces and nephews out in the yard. So, anyway, I got home from work and was walking up my driveway, and I saw him outside and said something like, Hey man, you better get your Halloween stuff up or that house up the street is going to beat you for best decorations. He kind of smiles sheepishly and says that he's actually going to keep his house dark this year

and just put candy out. I asked if he was going out of town, but he said no. Something happened last year that really scared him. Now, I was concerned for my own safety if some weirdos were coming around our neighborhood. So I asked him what happened. He said, last year he had his brother's family over so they could trick-or-treat in the neighborhood.

He had a bunch of kids come to the door like always. His family took off around 10.30, and there were only a few older trick-or-treaters, but by 11-30 they were pretty much done. So he was inside, watching TV and the doorbell rings. He grabs the candy bowl, heads over, noticing that it's a little past midnight, and that's pretty rude for trick-or-treaters to still be out. But then he notices he hasn't turned off all his decorations lights yet, so his

house is still a beacon. He swings open the door and is about to yell, boo, or something to freak them out, but stops dead when he sees the kids at the door. He said one was probably around 13 to 14, and the other around 16 to 17. Both boys. They weren't dressed up, but he remembers the older one was wearing a flannel checkered shirt. He was immediately overcome with uneasiness, like opening the door was a huge mistake. They just stared at him, and he noticed that they had really big irises and dilated pupils. He couldn't even see the whites of their eyes. So he figured they were contact lenses.

He was frozen there holding the candy bowl, like he couldn't slam the door in their faces as much as he wanted to. So he nervously tried to smile at them, hoping they would break character and ask for candy or something. The younger one said they had gotten lost and needed to come in and use his phone. That was when he closed the door more than halfway on them and said, No, sorry. And the older one said something like, Can we just wait in your house until our parents come get us? But by then he was convinced that his life was in danger,

and these kids must be high on something or intending to rob him. And he just kept mumbling, no, sorry, good night, as he inched the door closed and locked it. He told me he was so fucking scared at that point that they were going to try and break in through one of his windows, but he looked through the people and they had turned to leave. He watched TV with the volume real low So he could hear any sounds at all

And he stayed up till like 5 a.m. Because he was too scared to go to bed and drop his guard. The whole time he's telling me this, I'm thinking, oh my God, this sounds so familiar Just like that black-eyed kids urban legend. Then I thought, hey, maybe this dude is trying to scare me Because after all, he does have the Halloween spirit. So I'm looking at him incredulously, but trying not to seem too gullible.

So I'm like, man, that is really crazy. Sounds like the black-eyed kids. He just looks at me blankly. The what? Is that a movie or something? And I said, no, but told him to go look it up online. Like an hour later, I get a knock on my door and, admittedly almost jump out of my skin thinking it's a deep. demon child. It was my neighbor, and his eyes were freaking huge. He swears to me up and down that he had never heard of the black-eyed kids before, and it's so similar to what happened to him. So,

we talked a while longer, and I told him that quite a few people probably know about the urban legend, and it's possible that it was just teenagers with black scleral contacts trying to freak people out on Halloween. But he said the fear he felt was so primal and came over him the second he opened the door for him. Anyways, guys, beware, I guess. Halloween would definitely be the perfect cover for them. Bird tale is entitled Methini's Chapel. When an old church is abandoned and left to rot, that's usually a sign that it doesn't want to be disturbed, especially on a dark October night. This story was written by Eric Dodd and is read by David Cummings. The goat roared down the dusty country road, shattering the silence of the late October twilight.

The goat was a 1969 Pontiac GTO judge, ram air, and a rock crusher transmission. Jay had painted it a glowing canary, arrest me yellow, and had mounted a goat skull on the dash. You want to see Methini's chapel? Jay shouted at me over the roar. Sure, I said. We were college roommates, both 19, weird, into heavy metal goth, industrial, and false occultism. We both knew our inverted pentagrams were fake, but it surely offended the normals in those small rural Alabama farming communities.

One of our favorite activities was ghost hunting, which to us meant driving to supposedly haunted locations and acting out our own developmentally challenged beavis and butthead episodes. Jay jerked the wheel sharply and the goat slewed onto a smaller dirt side road. What's Methane Chapel? Temple of Farts, I asked. Methinease, you asshole. It's a long e-sound. It's an old abandoned church, Jay said. It's about halfway between here and Buck's pocket. We can park the goat around back and nobody can see it from the road. Did you bring the kit?

I asked. The kit was our ghost hunting kit. Flashlights, glow sticks. In case ghosts ate our flashlights, I suppose. Wooden stakes, rock salt, chalk, candles, a camera and a crucifix filched from some relatives' dining room wall. Of course, it's in the trunk, Jay said. Jay was about a foot taller than me,

lanky with long, wispy black hair and thin goatee of which he was inordinately proud. He wore a black leather duster, black jeans, and black cowboy boots. I stood an even five and a half feet and weighed 100 pounds in my own gray trench coat. Ten years later, we would have been instantly marked as trench coat mafia and likely arrested solely on the suspicion of being suspicious, but in the early 90s a kid could get away with dressing poorly. Jay drove the goat more slowly down the winding dirt road and began to tell me the story of Methini's Chapel. A while back, this lady named Elise Whitley and a bunch of her friends decided to break away from their local church and make a new church. I think part of it was that she decided God had told her she should be a preacher,

and her church wouldn't let her because you have to have a cock to talk about God or whatever. She and her friends got enough money together to build a church, and they built it off Grey's Gap Road. The problem was they built a church on land that was right next to a big Grow operation. These were not people that you fuck with. They would just kill you and bury you in the woods if you bothered their operation. The church had a few Sundays, and about a month after it opened, Roger Clem, the boss of the grow-op, showed up outside the church. When Elise came out at the end of the services, Clem went up to her and told her, point blank, that she was to move her congregation elsewhere, or she would be sorry.

Elise laughed at Roger Clem and told him God had filled her with the Holy Spirit, and she feared no man. Clem didn't say anything to that. He just nodded his head once and walked off. A few weeks later, one Sunday morning, the church got fire. The whole congregation was inside and someone had chained the doors shut. Most of the people got out the side door, but Elise Whitley burned to death trying to rescue some kid. Of course, Clem had an alibi and never got busted. The remaining congregation vowed to rebuild, and they did. Six months later, they opened the doors to a new church, built on the same spot as the old one.

The congregation said it just wasn't the same. The place felt bad, felt wrong. People that were there alone said they felt like they were being watched. Others heard noises, laughter, or crying. That building nearly burned down three times in the first month. Twice due to faulty electrical outlets and finally due to a freak lightning strike. Maybe the lightning strike was the last straw. The congregation dispersed and the building sat empty.

I've been up there once and it was creepy, but never at night. First off, let me point out that you're an asshole, I said. That story is total bullshit. You're going to take me to another burned out cow barn and swear it's a meeting ground for Satanists. It is not, Jay protested. I've been out there once and it's really there. It's creepy as hell, man. If it sucks, I get to drive the goat on the way back.

Jay laughed. Deal. You're never going to get to drive the goat. Half an hour later, Jay whipped the goat onto a nearly hidden dirt track in the midst of a thick wall of vegetation. A minute later, and we saw it. Methanees Chapel At first glance the building was not very impressive. It was a single-story building of indeterminate architecture,

white paint peeling from wood siding, blind vacant window staring into the darkened interior. The building may have once been made out of straight square lines, but time and neglect had warped and soft in those lines, so that none of them were straight. The building seemed slumped, slouched on the ground as if exhausted. Trees and bushes had grown up around the building, limbs pressing against the siding, their silhouettes framed in the dine orange light of the autumn sky.

Jay eased the car around the building, peering into the doorless openings. He pulled the car up and back so it was facing the entrance in case we needed to make a quick game. getaway and we got out. No, Methini's chapel had not seemed impressive from inside the car, but once outside, the hush around the building had a weight to it. The building felt less slouched and more like it was hunched and waiting. Pop the trunk, Jay, this is not a good place. Rather than rub it in my face, Jay quietly opened the trunk.

We both grabbed flashlights and glow sticks, and I grabbed the Polaroid camera. Jay shut the trunk and started off toward the rear of the building. I started popping Polaroids at the entrance. We moved through the open doorway and into the chapel. This place is a wreck. You seriously need to watch where you put your feet. I shine my flashlight around the floor. Half these boards are rotten.

If you get a nail through one of those gay cowboy boots, I will definitely be driving the goat tonight. Here's the work of a genius, Jay said, shining his light on the wall opposite the door. There was a crude pentagram in red spray paint with the phrase, satin is the devil written around it. Yeah, you'd better watch out for satin. He'll do what? Make your sheet soft? Jay laughed, and we moved to the next room.

I popped another Polaroid while Jay swung the flashlight beam around. We were standing in what must have been the main room of the church. Smashed and splintered pews were stacked in heaps against the wall. In a small area at the front of the room, beer cans, and litter suggested someone had once camped there. We walked into the room. Jay turned toward the doorway on the right, and a voice boomed. Please step away from the car. We both flinched.

What, Jay said? Please step away from the car. Jay turned and began to run back the way we came. Some redneck drug dealer is messing with my car, he yelled. I followed him into the hallway and threw the open doorway into another room. Jay stopped for a second, then ran through the doorway at the back of the room into another hallway. Um, this isn't the way we came, I said, looking at the featureless gray walls. Yeah, I know. Let's go back to that first hallway, I think.

We turned around and retraced our steps to the first hallway. Try that door, Jay said. None of the doorways we've been through have had doors. I know, but I think it's the right way, Jay said. I pulled the door open and went through into another small, dark room. We must be in the middle of the church. There's no windows in this room. I said, as we walked across the room to another doorway.

Jay opened that door and we looked down a long hallway with several identical doors along its length. Please step away from the car. Jay looked at me. That sounded far away, man. Yeah, really far away, and on the wrong side of the building. This is fucked. This place is not that big.

It's only a couple hundred feet long. Jay reached for the knob of a door across the hallway. As his hands closed on the black metal, something slammed into the door from the other side. The door shook in its frame, and Jay jumped back. The distant sound of a car alarm began to blare from our left, down the hallway. Go! I yelled, pulling Jay's coat, and we both ran down the hallway. We ran through room after room, following the sound of the goat's car alarm,

until we stumbled out the room with the pentagram sprayed upon its wall. We leaped through the open door, pushed through the weeds and overgrowth, and reached Jay's car. For a panic moment, Jay couldn't find his keys. Cursing, he ripped at his jeans pocket until he snagged the keychain. Hauling the keys out, he triggered the alarm remote. Viper is armed, said the alarm. We looked at each other. Jay pressed the remote again.

Viper is disarmed. We got into the car, carefully checking the back seat. As Jay knows the goat down the overgrown path to the road, I took a final look at Methini's Chapel. It was only a glance, but to this day I can remember seeing her in the doorway. Pale dress blowing in the autumn wind. Black eyes filled with so much rage. For final tale is entitled, The Crawling House on Black Pond Road. Halloween doesn't need ghosts and monsters to be frightening.

Sometimes it's the ordinary things that can get under your skin. This story was written by William Dolphin and is read by Christina Schultz. This is a place for people who can't see. I can't sleep. I can't sleep. I have to share because maybe I won't feel if I share. Dr. Kirsch says to write and get it off my chest. Writing about it might release me from it.

What should I title this? Therapy? I'm currently seated at a computer terminal in a little white sterile room. There's about a half dozen other computer terminals here all face in the same way like a classroom. There's posters on the walls with medical information. Everyone in them looks happy and complacent. Zombies. The place is called sleep health centers just outside of Boston. It's a clinic for people with sleeping disorders. I'm feeling a little loopy from the Asopiclone, so if my writing gets

or garbled, just deal with it and I can edit it when I'm clear-headed. The doc wants me to do a little writing. He said that repetition can help with insomnia and I got to admit if things were normal, this room and the clack of these keystrokes would probably make me pass right the fuck out. Things ain't normal though. It's not that I can't sleep, it's that I don't want to sleep. I actually dose off pretty frequently, but then I realize I'm falling asleep and I snap myself out of it. When I don't, when I drift off and can't stop myself, I dream and that's what I want to avoid.

If I could control what I dream about, I would sleep right now and not wake up till fucking October, but I can't control it. And ever since May, ever since Tom, that house on Blackpool. pond road. Fuck, just thinking about it makes my skin crawl. And writing, writing that makes me see it all again in my head. I don't want to relive it, but Dr. Kirsch, he's my doc, nice guy, smiles a lot, practically whispers when he talks. Dr. Kirsch said that if I write about the experience, it might release me from it, like there's some sort of mental hold on me, torturing me. Guilt? I was as much a victim as Tom was. Tom. Tom was my friend from college.

We both attended BU. Freshman year, his room was right across the hall from mine. I remember running into him on a bench late one night when my roommate was spending too long talking on the phone to his girlfriend from home. Tom bummed me a smoke and we just sat and talked about our roommate to usyncrasies for a couple hours. After that, we just hung out all the time. Even after college, we stuck together. Both got jobs in the city, lived near each other in Somerville. When was it? It was May. Right. Friday the fucking 13 of all days. And Tom called me up after work and said what you got going on this weekend and I said nothing and he said any chance you can help me clean out a house and I said who we robin and he said my dead aunt and I said

friends help you move good friends help you move bodies and he said unfortunately somebody already moved the body but she's got a lot of other shit in her place and I need to clean it out so it can get sold. So he picked me up that night, and we drove and listened to tunes on the radio. Stopped and ate and chilled, and just drove and drove. And I asked him as we were going,

how did she die? She hung herself. Well, I'm sorry for your loss. Don't be she was batched insane. I'm sure she loved you too. Hardly, but she loved her brother, and he just happened to be. my father. He needs to get the house sold, but they live out in Washington now, so I agreed to clean

the house. What a good son. Well, I'm getting paid for it. Oh, I see. I helped do the work and you get all the reward. You get the reward of my company for a weekend in some retall. I guess that's better than what I had planned. Black Pond Road. That's a hell of a name. Her house looked like a it was going to collapse. It was one floor, one large living room, connected to a tiny kitchen and two tiny bedrooms. The bathroom was practically a closet. There was a screened porch off the side looking out into woods. It was after one in the morning when we got there. I remember suggesting we sleep in the car just in case the house collapsed. Tom pulled out a flashlight, we gathered our bed rolls and backpacks and went inside.

I was... The floor moved. It was dark, but when Tom shone his light in, I swore it looked for a moment like the floor moved. Fuck that floor. It was the kitchen. Greasy stained white tiles. Everything in that room was greasy and stained.

Even the windows. There was so cold. The reflected light from Tom's flashlight came back like a musterdy, puke yellow. Was it clicking? Taping. I can't describe it, but the feeling when we walked in was like a couple crashes walking into a chatty party and everyone stopping what they were saying and looking at us. Almost the faintest echo of a final sound like a hundred fingernails tapping on a tabletop.

and then quiet. Did you hear that? I asked. No. We should have slept in the car. My room was like a prison cell attached to the living room. Tom's room was only accessible

from the screened porch. I took a look in and told him we should switch. If I'm not getting paid, at least give me the nicer room. You don't want this room, this is the room she hung herself in. We just stood there for a bit.

The only thing missing from my room are bath on the window. Not so you can escape when her ghost comes for us. Her ghost wouldn't be called dead here. I went and unrolled my sleeping bag on the tiny bed in my room, then climbed in and lay there in the dark. After a while, of everything being quiet, I started hearing this sound. It was like chittering. and buzzing.

Fucking mosquitoes, that's what I thought. I pulled the sleeping bag over my head and tucked it under me to keep anything out. God, if I hadn't been so tired. Something bit me on the web of skin between my fingers. I woke up and was instantly in pain all over my legs like a hundred needlepricks, and my feet felt like I was standing in the sand

at the beach with the water coming. coming in and the mud squishing between my toes. I jerked out of the sleeping bag and fell on the floor. I heard my chin on something, I don't know what. I got up yelling and checking my hand. There was a tiny red dot of a bug bite between my index and middle finger, and then I looked at my legs and they were dotted like a bad case of chicken pox. Hundreds of little bite marks, and I looked at my sleeping bag.

and bugs, just skittering out of the bag like it was a stream of them crawling over each other. Earwigs, hundreds of earwigs slithering out of the bag I'd been sleeping in, and house centipedes with them, wiggling along. This just tired of glistening bodies crawling out of the bag with me. I felt like I was going to puke, and I ran from the room slamming the door shot. It was mourning. I went out through the porch and into Tom's room and shook him until he made a sound. Get out. You got to get out of your bag.

Dude, what time is it? It's morning time and you need to get out of the fucking sleeping bag, dude. My bag was full of bugs. I'm covered in fucking bug bites. Get the fuck out of the fucking fuck bag. My stomach hurts. Just give me a second. He didn't have any bugs in his fucking box.

bag. I almost hated him for it. But then he complained again about his stomach hurting and pulled up his shirt and I saw these swollen marks all along the waistline of his pants. What the fuck, dude? We're not sleeping in this fucking house man. Look at my legs. My bites weren't swollen, but they itched so bad. I wasn't taking my bedroll home. No way in heller was keeping it. after seeing all those bugs crawl out of it. Burn it. Burn the whole house. That's my dream.

When I fall asleep, I'm back in that fucking bag. Only I can't get out, and the earwigs and the centipede are covering my feet and my legs, and crawling up into my underwear and all over my chest. And then they're on my neck, on my arms, in my ears, and wiggling toward my nose and I can't scream because they'll be in my mouth and no matter how much I thrash

the bag won't open and they just keep crawling back over me I can't dream that anymore I spent a week telling myself it was just a dream but I know they did crawl over me they had to have been all over me

as they slithered into the warm dark comfort of my bag. Maybe I wouldn't dream it if Tom hadn't. I'm getting off track. We didn't find any bugs in Tom's room. He gave me his car keys and I went into town and bought some cortisone for him to put on the bites.

When I got back, Tom was outside. He had his flashlight and was looking under the porch. Come here, so I went. I looked under the porch at what he was pointing at. The porch was raised on these concrete blocks because of the tilt of the ground and we could see all the way under the house. On the far side, there was this gray shit. It looked like crusted, packed mud.

That's a hive, Tom said. I remember it felt like I just hit the peak on a roller coaster and now the world was flying down at me. It's huge. There's no way I can do the enormity of this thing justice. It was spread across the underside of the house from the edge of the base on deep into the darkness. Nothing was moving on it, but I looked at it a long time and I could see the little passage holes in it. Hundreds of holes.

We're leaving. No shit we were leaving. I wanted to be home already. I waited while Tom used the cream I bought on his bites, which I knew now were stings. It was unnatural, I swear, the aggressiveness of the insect life in that house. I ended up driving us back. Tom got awful cramps. Off cramps.

He eventually had to lie down in the backseat, doubled over in pain. I pulled over at a rest stop. I made him let me check the spots out, but the swelling had gone down. He had these stabbing pains in his gut, though. I told him we needed to take him to a doctor. I wanted to see one myself. Fucking bites all over my legs. You've got to tell your parents to burn that fucking house to the ground.

Believe me, I will. I went and had the bites checked on Sunday. I was fine. I had my first nightmare that night. Back in the bag, being consumed by earwigs and centipedes. I called Tom to see if he had gotten check, but he didn't answer. I called him again on Monday. When I talked to him, he sounded distant,

like he was thinking about something else. I asked if he told his folks about the house, he said he hadn't. I took the day off and went to see him on Wednesday. I buzzed him, but he didn't answer. I got into the building when someone else came out and found his door was unlocked. He was sitting on his couch, staring at the far wall. He looked gray. His skin, it wasn't pale or rotting or anything, but he did not look healthy. He hadn't clearly. He hadn't clearly. He didn't cleaned up in a couple days, the place stunk. He just sat there.

Tom, we got to get you to a doctor, dude. I'm fine now, thanks. He still sounded distant. I don't think he even saw me. You're not fine, dude, this isn't fine. I'm getting you some clothes and we're going to the hospital. Oh God, I let him out of my sight. This is my fault.

I'm so sorry, Tom. I, when I came back, he was gone. His door was open. I went outside and looked for him, but he wasn't anywhere. I waited for hours on the step to his building. Finally, I went home. I went back after work on Thursday, but his door was shut and locked. I buzzed him but got no answer.

I called his cell and was directed straight. to voicemail. I didn't know what to do. I was struggling to think. I'd been having the nightmare for days and had started refusing to sleep. I couldn't think straight. I should have called the police, but when I got home, I fell asleep on the couch and dreamed of being trapped in the bag again. I swear when I woke up, it felt like the bites on my legs had returned. Friday. It was a week after that awful day. I was a zombie the whole day. My supervisor told me to go home. I was so tired I missed the shop for Davis Square and found myself wondering out of Alewife, not even thinking about where I was going. The walk helped me think, though, and when I got home, I called Tom's folks. I told them Tom was sick and I was sick and I was was worried about him. He did sound odd when he called last night. He called you? Did he tell you about the house? Well I assume that was a joke. No sir, you need to have that place raised.

Raised? No, he didn't say anything about that. He joked about going to live there. I honestly don't think that was Tom. I don't think he was in control at that point. And whatever was in control intended to take him back to the house to live there. Poor Tom, poor Tom. I went back to his place that afternoon and got in again. His door was unlocked, but he wasn't there. He had left a note on his fridge. You could tell he was fucked up.

It was so hard to read. It said, I can feel them moving inside me. I can't stop it. I don't want to go by. My friend Tom shot himself that weekend. They found his body in Cambridge

with a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Just a body in an alley with a hole in its head. I didn't even know he owned a gun. The police didn't suspect foul play but they did an autopsy because he looked like he'd been on drugs. When I called his folks to give them my condolences, I asked them if they'd found drugs. They told me that the coroner had found dozens of large wasp larvae living inside him.

Oh God, they had been feeding on him from the inside, burrowing through his body. I told his parents to get them. house burned to the ground. I wanted to add that they should piss on the ashes. I wanted to piss on the ashes. I don't know what they did about it. It may still be there, buzzing with life. The floor moved. The house took Tom's life, the bugs, and I can't sleep. I'm trapped in a bag, And they're getting in my mouth and my nose and my ears. They're moving across my skin, consuming me.

I don't feel better. I just want to forget. How do I post this thing? I can't stand this room anymore. This concludes our Halloween episode of the No Sleep Podcast. Thank you for listening and for sharing the Halloween spirits with us. Don't forget to visit blackboxtTV.reddit.com and have a happy and spooky Halloween night.