The NoSleep Podcast - Nosleep Podcast #3

Episode Date: July 10, 2011

Our third episode makes an unholy trinity of Nosleep Podcasts! Featuring stories from the No Sleep forum at Reddit.com, these stories will make the dark hours of the night creep slowly past.Our third podcast features three stories:Don’t Ever Turn it Off written by Jimmy C. Broadhead, Jr. (Redditor trisight) and read by Alex Beal (Redditor Alexthehoopy).The Cornfield written by Karina Young (Redditor dum-di-dum) and read by Jinny Sanders (Redditor Spookykittens).The Thing in the Fields written by Joseph Baker (Redditor Snake973) and read by David Cummings (Redditor MikeRowPhone). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the dark hours when you dare not close your eyes. No sleep. It's the No Sleep podcast. No Sleep. Featuring stories from Reddit.com's No Sleep forum. No sleep. Join us as the sleepless hours. Our first tale is entitled Don't Ever Turn It Off.

Written by Jimmy C. Broadhead Jr. and read by Alex Beale. A while ago, my family and I moved up to Indianapolis, Indiana. I'm a software programmer, and I moved up there for work. I thought I was pretty lucky to find a well-paying job for someone that was self-taught and had only three years of actual on-the-job programming experience. My wife and I had only been married for two years, and had just received our first child less than a year before the move.

A beautiful baby girl. I decided that it would be best for me to move up and find a place to live by myself first, then send for them. I moved into a nice one-bedroom apartment in Riley Towers. I thought it was funny that I had moved from Alabama and was now living on Alabama Street in the middle of downtown Indianapolis. It was a very cozy apartment on the 13th floor in one of the smaller sections of the apartment complex. There were two large towers and connected to one of them was a much wider complex that wasn't as tall. I lived in there. For the most part, things were very beautiful,

but that's not what I remember the most. There were no washer or dryer connections in the apartment, but there was a very large laundromat in the basement of the towers. The basement also was used as extra storage for the residence. When you exited the elevators, you would get an instant chill up your spine, like something wasn't quite right there. I tried to get my laundry done as quickly as possible, but having never lived in a big city or even used public laundry machines, I was nervous to leave my clothes and go back upstairs, so I would sit and wait. The room where the laundry machines were was fairly large, and at the end of the long room was an opening to the storage. There was no door, just a large hole big enough for a set of double doors that just sat there, dark and menacing.

I knew when my wife and daughter arrived in a few months that we would most likely just move into one of the larger apartments, and we would need one of those storage rooms, so I decided to walk into the dark one day to check them out. It was a large space that had a warehouse feeling to it. The ground was a solid cement base, and the store was a solid cement base, and the store, storage areas were large metal cages. With the clanking of the machines in the other room, the dim lighting and all the random possessions, it reminded me of a scene out of Hellraiser. As I was walking through the area, I felt something brushed me from behind. I froze and felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I turned around to see a water pipe running up

through the middle of the floor. It wasn't uncommon and really wasn't out of place. However, it wasn't close enough for me to have brushed against it. I looked around and didn't see it. I looked around and didn't see anything else near enough. I walked closer to the pipe and noticed that it was dripping water from a small spigot sticking out. It was a fast drip. The kind that happens when a child doesn't quite turn the water all the way off. I reached for the spigot to turn the water off, only to have a chill come up my spine again and heard someone with a real deep voice say,

Don't turn that off. Frightened, I turned around to see an older man clothed in rags. He looked homeless, which struck me as very odd because you had to go through a kind of security checkpoint to get into the building. Don't ever turn it off. Ever, he said in a stern way. His face was wrinkled up, but I don't remember much else about him. The shock of turning around to the sound of someone that I hadn't seen had given me an

adrenaline rush, and after the initial fear had subsided, I was almost laughing as I replied, You almost gave me a heart attack. I bent over, grabbing my heart in a mocking sort of way, but when I looked up, the man wasn't there anymore. I heard him walking towards the elevator and ran to catch him to see what he had meant, but he was on the elevator and gone before I could catch him. Three months later, I moved my wife and daughter up, and we lived in a two-bedroom apartment. I told her the story of the old man and how living on the 13th floor had creeped me out.

We were now on the fourth floor. She laughed at how silly it all sounded coming from me, somebody now remotely superstitious, but still nervous about small and dark places. One evening she went to wash our clothes. I'd given our daughter a bath and put her to bed while my wife was busy doing the laundry. After watching some television, I began to get worried that my wife hadn't returned. I waited around a bit longer, and when I could no longer hold out, I decided to scoop the baby up and put her into the stroller so we could go down to the basement and check on her mother.

I will never forget something that I originally passed off as a mistake on my part. When I went to my bedroom to get the stroller, I heard the water on in the bathroom. It wasn't a full stream, and it wasn't a full stream, and it wasn't dripping. It was a very light stream, like the kind you'd used to fill up a water pistol. Before getting the stroller, I turned off the water,

figuring that I hadn't turned the knobs all the way off after bathing the baby. I went down into the basement to see nobody in the laundry room. The machines were silent, but sure enough, a few of them contained our clothes. I gazed at the large, empty doorway leading to the storage area.

I parked the stroller where I could see it and peeked inside the room. There was no one around, and no sound. Dead silence. Then I noticed the pipe that had scared me previously. I noticed the water was off, and near the puddle was a shoe print. I looked a bit closer and saw that it was a petite, familiar size. Before I could look any further, my daughter began to scream shrilly like somebody had just hit her.

I looked to see nobody nearby and rushed over to see what was the matter. Still no one around, but my daughter was reaching. into the air and screaming louder than I'd ever heard before. I rushed the stroller back to the elevator and hurried over to the concierge desk and tried to explain what had happened. No video from the security cameras showed anyone entering or leaving the building during the time I had been waiting except for the usual tenants coming home late from work. The police were called.

I had no family, and I hadn't made any friends yet, so I had nobody to watch my daughter while I went out to look for my wife. The police and the concierge promised that they were going to scour the air. apartment complex and find her. There were no other ways out that weren't visible on the security cameras, so they felt confident that she was still in the building. Somehow, I managed to return to my apartment with my daughter. My hands shook as I opened my door, not knowing how I would sleep that night without my wife. I closed the door and turned to take the baby back to bed when I heard it again, the sound of the bathwater running ever so gently. And this time, the low, wailing moans of a

young woman being tortured. My wife was never found. My daughter had to go and live with my wife's sister. For years, I haven't been able to sleep in a bedroom near a bathroom, because every night around 11 p.m., the water turns on, and the moaning starts. You can try to ignore the sounds, but you can't ignore when the dark, almost unrecognizable figure of your once beautiful wife comes to stand dripping at the foot of your bed.

Don't ever turn. the water off. Ever. Is it entitled, The Cornfield. Written by Karina Young and read by

Ginny Sanders. Some people say revenge is a dishbest served cold, while others insist revenge is only to be taken on those that truly deserve it. I say avoid it. Avoid it at all costs. I lived in the middle of nowhere

and had a half hour walk to school every day past loads of fields, and down some long, windy lanes. In those days, I was bullied badly by a girl named Sarah, and one day when we were 12, we both got detention for fighting, after she humiliated me in front of the whole class. By the time we'd left detention and started our walk home, the sun had already started setting, and the dark was closing in.

We walked in silence except for the odd mumble of disapproval from Sarah, bitching at me for getting her detention. Already pissed off from the years of bullying, ready to crack from the fight earlier that day. It didn't take much of her moaning to send me over the edge. As I noticed that we were walking past an old cornfield, a plan formulated so quickly in my mind that I blurted out before I could stop myself.

Did you see that? Shut up, freak. Don't talk to me. No, seriously, Sarah, look. She turned slowly to look where I was pointing. The cornfield, of course, remained still, and she scoffed. There's nothing there. Shut up and keep walking, or I'm going. going without you.

Just as she turned away, a small gust of wind moved the corn, so it looked as if someone was moving through the field. Look, no, there's somebody there. So what? It's probably just the farmer. At this time of night, I doubt it. I think we should go and have a look. Sarah was getting exasperated.

She wanted to leave and I was losing her. I could tell. I decided now was the time to reel her in. fine, you can leave, but I'm going in to check and see what's going on. I understand if you're too scared. I started to walk off. I felt her thinking it over, realizing it was better to come with me than be left alone in the dark. She followed.

I strolled boldly up to the field. My plan was simple. Get her in, hide from her, and then jump out on her. Just freak her out a little. and easy. I had done the hard part already of getting her in there. The corn came to well above our heads and within a few seconds we were completely immersed, cut off from the rest of the world. I felt Sarah tense up almost immediately and I knew this would work. Maybe this wasn't a good idea. She was squirming now. It'll be fine unless it's ghosts or

drug dealers or something. I smiled to myself in the dark knowing I was just feeding her fears. I waited until we were a few more feet in, then I slowed my pace, letting her take the lead. Before long, I distanced myself enough to break away from her. I stopped walking, trying to stay as silent as possible. It didn't take her long to realize I wasn't there anymore. Amy? She shouted. Where the fuck are you? Stop playing tricks. If you don't come back right now, I'm going to leave you in here. I heard the fear in her voice. She was, definitely starting to crack, just a few more minutes and she'd really be bricking it. I had to stifle a laugh to stop from giving the game away.

I realized I could step this game up and so bent down and picked up a clot of dirt as quietly as I could. I launched it above the corn and it came down a few feet away, wrestling the branches as it did. The plan worked perfectly. I heard Sarah give a startled gasp. Amy, I am leaving right now. I heard her make her way through the corn and thought I'd better make my move now before it was too late. I waited until she was close and readied myself. Moments later, I jumped out on her screaming as loud as I could, but something wasn't right. No one was there. Had I just been played by Sarah? I had to give her credit if she had. I mean, I just didn't think she was that smart. As I stood there wondering what

the hell had just happened. I heard a blood-curdling scream. There was no denying it. It was Sarah, and she wasn't playing. I shouted for her, ran in the direction of the scream, but nothing. It was too dark to see anything anymore, but I couldn't hear anything either. I fumbled my way through the field, hearing my own blood pumping in my ears. Sarah? I whispered. Something was telling me that shouting wasn't a good idea anymore.

I heard movement up ahead and stopped. I was just about to run forward, sure that I'd found her when I heard a thud. then the laugh Whatever I forget in life That laugh will never be one of them The hair on the back of my neck stood on end Every muscle tensed I knew that I needed to get away

I ran as fast and as quietly as I could away from that laugh I didn't know where I was anymore but it didn't matter As long as I wasn't there It felt like forever but finally I broke through the corn And fell onto the concrete of the road I'd come out exactly where we'd gone in only now. There was just me.

I ran for home, not stopping even though I couldn't breathe. I went straight to bed ignoring the questions of my parents, hoping that waking up in the morning I'd go into class, and there she'd be, surrounded by all of her friends, laughing at me like always. But it's 10 p.m. now, and there's a knock on the door, and the questions start. 11 p.m., the police arrived, more questions. And 11.30 p.m., the search starts. A search that wouldn't end until two months later in August

When the body of a young girl is found bound and mutilated In a cornfield Some people say revenge is a dish best served cold While others insist revenge is only to be taken On those that truly deserve it I say avoid it Because living with the guilt is something you never really get used to Your final tale is entitled

The Thing in the Fields written by Joseph Baker and read by David Cummings When I was young I lived on a farm in rural Oregon with my parents I was the only child We weren't a big commercial farm Just a family type thing We had five cows, three horses

A small herd of goats Two dogs and one chicken coop We also had some Indian runner ducks We kept mostly as pets We didn't really make any money off the place, just enough to sustain the animals and a little extra for ourselves. Money enough to take a decent vacation every couple of years. Dad had his other job in town, an insurance agent. He was the only one around, really.

The town wasn't more than about 1,500 people. Mom gave horse riding lessons as well. We weren't rich, but we were comfortable. It was really an easy life, or at least it could have been a lot worse. I went to school, dad went to work, mom took care of the animals. Then we all had dinner together every night, and I would go to bed while mom and dad had a beer or two and watch the news. Sometimes at night I would hear things outside, mostly just normal stuff. The cows or horses would get spooked by a coyote or something.

or I would hear the dogs chasing a rabbit barking their heads off. Every once in a great while we would find a chicken dead. Dad would always tell me about it, but never let me see the body, although I asked frequently. He would keep Mom and I inside until he had gone out, did whatever he did with the body, throw sawdust over any blood, and then life would go on as normal. I assumed it was foxes,

as I had seen a couple of them out in the pasture over the years, slinking around back and forth through the grass. The summer when I was 10 years old, I remember helping mom change the bedding in the horse stalls when we heard a huge racket going on outside. If you've never heard the sounds of a horse in pain you don't want to, trust me. It sounds almost like a person screaming. Well, that's what we heard, and one of our horses, The horse, the Palomino, came running into the barn with a wound on its left thigh. Four long marks, like claw marks, ran across its body for about a foot. It had blood running down its leg and was limping.

I was so scared by the sight of that much blood that Mom locked the horse in a stall and made me go inside with one of the dogs. She told me to lock the door and stay inside until she came in to get me. I did. Eventually, Mom came inside and told me that the horse had hurt itself on the barbed wire that ran the perimeter of the pasture. We owned more land beyond that, but it was mostly forested. I guess I believed her at the time, but at dinner that night I noticed Dad was being particularly quiet, and Mom was talking a lot more than she normally did.

She was being really animated, and I noticed that Dad had gotten him. his rifle out and set it by the back door. Usually he only did that when the coyotes had been acting up. That night I went to bed as normal, but I had trouble falling asleep. I turned on my desk lamp and decided to read comic books until I got tired. I have a very vivid memory of reading uncanny X-Man and hearing the back door open. Looking out, I could see my dad by the porch light. lighting a cigarette and holding his rifle under his arm.

He started walking over to the driveway and then turned to follow the fence line. I couldn't sleep until I knew Dad was back safe. I kept coming downstairs with the excuse of getting water to see if Dad was back in the house yet. And each time all I saw was Mom sitting on the couch in the living room, staring at a blank TV screen and looking worried, sighing occasionally. Eventually, around 4 in the morning, I think, Dad did come back, and I was so tired and relieved that I fell asleep as soon as I knew he was home. He never told me what he did that night, and I never thought to ask. Two months later, I was back in school.

It rains a lot in Oregon in the fall, and this day was no different. All I could hear from my bedroom was rain hitting the ground in the aluminum roof of the chicken coop. There was a light thunder in the distance, but it was slowly getting closer. I thought I had heard a coyote yapping out around the garage, or it could have been one of the dogs. I looked out, straining my eyes to see whatever there may have been. In a brief and distant lightning flash, I saw something. It looked almost like a person, but hunched over and with a long torso. It was tall, taller than Dad, who was a good six foot four at least.

I just barely caught a glimpse of it on the near side of the garage, then the light faded, and I didn't see it again that night. There was another dead chicken the next morning, the third in just as many weeks. I told Dad what I had seen the previous night. The color went out of his cheeks momentarily, until he told me that the storm must have been playing tricks on me. I accepted that. Four months after that, we lost a cow. It was in the middle of the night and we all woke up at the same time. There was a lot of noise in the pasture, but only briefly. The cry of a dying animal and a primitive, guttural yell that I had never heard before.

Dad rushed up to my room, I could hear him running up the stairs. He had his rifle in hand, and he opened my door. He saw I was awake and told me to stay inside no matter what and try to go back to sleep. I don't think I have to say that sleep wasn't really an option any longer, but I did stay in my room with a blanket held tightly around my shoulders and staring out the window. Probably about ten minutes later I heard gunshots in the field. I don't know what he was shooting at, whether it was whatever had attacked the cow or the cow itself, trying to put the animal out of its misery.

Dad rarely, if ever, talked about that night. I later found out that he had gotten to the cow only to find it ripped open on the ground, bleeding out from its torso. The shots I heard were him shooting the cow in the head. It kept going like that for years. A chicken or a duck here and there. Something bigger, only very rarely.

It sounds absurd, but I almost came to think of it as commonplace. I only ever caught glimpses of the thing until what comes next. It terrified me. It happened in the middle of the day, over the course of a long weekend when my parents had gone to Seattle to see my uncle, who was ill. It was on a Saturday afternoon. I was 17 years old. I was out in the barn putting out food for the horse.

and the dogs. The horses were running around out in the pasture, and the dogs were asleep in the corner of one of the horse stalls. I heard something rustling in the tall grass outside in the pasture. The dogs looked around a little bit, but didn't seem to mind. I assumed it was just one of the horses waiting for me to leave so they could eat. I kept going about what I was doing, and in several minutes I thought I heard breathing.

I turned to look and it was standing in the door. Tall as hell even hunched over. The sun was streaming in behind it, lighting up all the dust in the air around it like some kind of sickly halo. It was looking at me, considering me. Maybe it was trying to decide whether or not I was food. I remember swearing, turning and running as fast as I could for the house, not. Even thinking, panic causing my legs to move. It was behind me, not even breathing hard.

I heard its feet hitting the ground in a constant rhythm. I got to the house, opened the door, slammed it behind me, and I locked it as fast as I could. I tore through the house, locking every door and drawing the blinds on every window. I could hear it snarling outside the back door. The dogs were barking at it, but they wouldn't try to attack the thing. It was too big, and they knew it. It roared at the dogs, and they ran off, probably to hide in the pasture. I went to my parents' bedroom and got Dad's rifle.

I loaded it, set up a chair in the living room facing the back door, and waited. It started prowling around the house. I could hear its feet crunching on the gravel of the dry, and the wooden planks of the back deck. It kept walking back and forth. I thought about trying to look through a window to see it, but I was too scared. Eventually, after hours of hoping it would go away, the sun went down. I turned on all of the outside lights and went up to my room.

I opened my window with the rifle in my hands, hoping to be able to pick the thing off from above. I saw it lurking just beyond the glow from the porch light. It had long sinewy arms and walked on bent knee. It was by the chicken coop, then it disappeared from view. I heard the chicken squawking and screeching. The thing reappeared with a dead, bloody chicken in its hands. It bit off one of the wings with jaws that were dripping with slime and drool and let the dead bird drop to the ground at its feet.

Then it looked at me. Its eyes made contact with my eyes. It turned away again, back to the chickens. It came back with another bird, mutilated it in front of me, and dropped it. It went back again, and again. I should have taken a shot at it, but I was astounded and confused, trying to figure out what it was doing. Then it hit me.

It was a show of power. It was showing me that it was stronger than me, that it could do whatever it wanted to do because I couldn't stop it. At the same time, I felt powerless and sickened. Powerless because what it was saying was true. If it was just that thing and me, I wouldn't stand a chance. Sickened because I realized,

what kind of intelligence it would need to be able to convey that message. The thought shook me out of my stupor, and I remembered the rifle at my side. It was heading back to the chickens, and I decided that when it came back, I would take my shot. It strode back to the porch, almost arrogant, walking on bended knee with those arms so long that the chicken was nearly dragging on the ground. I raised the rifle up to my eye and tried to steady myself. My heart was beating so hard I could see the rifle shaking ever so slightly in rhythm with each heartbeat I could hear pounding in my own ears. It raised the body to its mouth, and just as it was about to put the chicken's head inside, I squeezed the trigger.

The crack of the gun echoed in the now shattered quiet of the nighttime standoff, and I heard it howl. A painful, loud, startled howl. I had hit it on the outside of the shoulder. It ran off into the night. I never saw it again. It was still out there, though. It still killed chickens and other things,

more often than before. I'm writing all of this now because my parents died three weeks ago. They were killed in a collision with a, drunk driver. He survived. They left me the farm and I intend to live here with my own family. I'm 32 now and I work for an Oregon Fish and Game office in Salem. I'm married to a wonderful woman named Stephanie. We have one son, Zachary, who is four years old. We are expecting a daughter in four months. I've come to the farmhouse alone today. I've come to the farmhouse alone today. I told Steph I just wanted some time alone in my parents' house to deal with some emotions.

She was very understanding. I've come back to claim what is rightfully mine. I have dad's rifle next to me on the table and it's almost dusk. I've also brought several portable halogen lights to set up around the house and my own shotgun. I'm borrowing a handgun from Joe, a guy at fish and game who I work with. When I am done typing this account of my memories, I will print it out and leave it on the dining room table, along with my wedding ring and my key to the safe deposit box where my will is kept. Everything is loaded and ready.

Hopefully I will return here to collect these things and nobody will ever know I wrote this. Steph, in the event that you are the unfortunate soul to find this, which I'm terrified to think seems a likely outcome. The thought of you having to go on alone hurts me more than anything in this world ever can. Know that I love you more than anything, and I hope you understand that I am doing this to keep you safe. Zachary, I love you and can only hope you grow up to be a good, kind-hearted, and strong man like your grandfather was. To my unborn daughter, if I don't live long enough to meet you, it will be the single greatest regret of my life.

Tell the police, tell fishing game, call Joe, he's one of the few people who knows about this. Make this situation known. Eventually someone will kill it, even if it isn't me. Our sleepless tales have come to an end. Close your eyes, drift off, and don't look under the bed. The No Sleep podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons license, 2011. Some rights reserved.