The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast - Holiday Hiatus 2 - New Year

Episode Date: January 7, 2018

The show is taking a holiday break this week but we're featuring two classic tales from Season Pass 9. "Trying to Remember a Pop Song" written by Thaddeus James and performed by Atticus Jackson & Kyle Akers & Matthew Bradford. (Story starts around 00:01:45) "Taco Tuesday" written by Henry Galley and performed by Mike DelGaudio & Erika Sanderson & Nichole Goodnight & Nikolle Doolin & Eden. (Story starts around 00:20:00) Click here to learn more about the voice actors on The NoSleep Podcast   Click here to learn more about the Escape the Black Farm Tour   Click here to learn more about Thaddeus James   Click here to learn more about Henry Galley   Executive Producer & Host: David Cummings Musical score composed by: Brandon Boone Audio adaptation produced by: Phil Michalski Holiday Hiatus illustration courtesy of Krista Neubert Audio program ©2018 - Creative Reason Media Inc. - All Rights Reserved - No reproduction or use of this content is permitted without the express written consent of Creative Reason Media Inc. The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The following audio horror presentation is intended to frighten and disturb. Join us on this dark and unsettling journey at your own list. Because behind these doors, there will be no sleep. Brace yourself for the No Sleep Podcast. It's the No Sleep Podcast. I'm David Cummings. Thanks for joining us. We are back to work and getting Episode 8 ready. for January 14th. This week we have our final holiday hiatus episode. We have two great tales for you,

first heard on Season Pass 9. They'll be a treat for both your ears and your mouth. Hmm, yummy. So all I have to say is Happy New Year. Remember to get your Escape the Black Farm live tour tickets and join us on January 14th as season 10 resumes its regularly scheduled episodes. Now, what say we kick off this holiday hiatus show? In our first tale, we meet a man who recalls his college days at the campus radio station. But as explained by author Thaddeus James, the man is reminded of a song that used to be quite popular, but today seems to have disappeared without a trace. His efforts to track it down lead him to discover why it's no longer played.

Performing this tale are Atticus Jackson, Kyle Aker and Matthew Bradford. So put away your Shazam app. It won't help you. And that makes it all the more frustrating when you're trying to remember a pop song. I used to work on my university campus radio station in college. We used to talk about current events around the school,

any news around the surrounding town, and played requested songs for students, something our school surprisingly allowed. I remember a very weird couple of months where students who tuned into the show consistently requested a song called See You After Babe, a pop song by some one-hit wonder group

called Symmetry Icon, the dumbest name for a band I've ever heard. But that song was huge around October and November of 2008. As one of the campus radio DJs, I had to play that song over like a hundred times in two months. I heard it everywhere, in malls, gas stations, on real radio stations, and I think even on MTV.

Something was weird about that song, but I couldn't remember exactly what. I tried Googling this song and banned, but nothing came up in the results for either. Not even YouTube had a single clip of the song. I frequent an alumni Facebook page for my school, and I posted a question on there asking if anyone remembered the song. The post got a bunch of likes,

and a lot of people started hitting me up about things they recall about symmetry icon's mysterious hit. One girl wrote to me that she couldn't remember how it went, but that the lyrics were kind of awkward and unconventional. Another classmate told me that the song was so catchy that it was stuck in his head for like weeks. A week went by since I had posted on the alumni page, and then I got a message from a guy that used to live in the dorm next to mine named Matt.

Matt private messaged me, asking if I found any leads about the song. I told him no. He told me that he had nothing but bad memories about that song. He even mentioned how it affected Paul, his dorm roommate, at the time. Matt told me. Yeah, dude. I haven't heard that song since that year. I remember Paul would always crank it up in the room.

I can't remember how it went, but I remember it was kind of unusual. And not a typical pop song, but everyone loved it. I couldn't stand it. Paul really loved it, though. He was always humming it. And then one day, I never heard the song again. And Paul was acting totally strange. He was always partying and outgoing and shit,

but around that time he got super depressed. One day I asked him what was up, and he said that he couldn't get the song out of his head and that it's gone forever now, and he'll never be able to hear it again. I don't know if you know now, dude, but Paul is still not doing so well. He's got no job.

No girl. Hardly ever talks to anyone. I message him every now and then and he just says how he misses 2008 when life was good. I told him to see a shrink, but he says that won't help. He just needs something new to listen to. He's part of that alumni group, and I know he's senior post. And I'm worried he's going to snap, dude. Can you talk to him? I phone Paul soon after, asking him how he was.

Hey, Paul, long done. No C, man. How you doing? How have you been, bud? Yeah, I'm okay. Just trudging along, as always. That's good. I saw what you put on the alumni page. Long was my life. I miss it so much. I can't believe it's gone. Well, I'm sure someone can find it. Nah, man, it's gone. That's how the world is. Things come and go. Sai made a song that was alive, and now it's dead. I miss it. Those were the days. I know I'm acting weird. Matt always says I need to get some help, but I don't. I just need to hear that song again, and it sucks knowing I never will.

Freaked me out. I stopped talking about the song after that and just resumed making small talk with him until we both signed off. The next evening, not even 24 hours later, I come home from work to see people posting on Paul's Facebook wall with RIP and all sorts of condolences. Paul killed himself that day. I was horrified to hear that he had done it by stabbing himself in the face multiple times. And the thought that I was one of the last people he talked to made me feel even worse. Matt messaged me that day too. It was because of the song.

I'm sorry, Sal. It's not your fault. Well, I think now it wouldn't have been in the best taste to do it. Right then and there, I thought it would be a great idea. to find see you after babe somehow and put it up on Paul's wall just for some sort of closure. I spent the entire following week asking Yahoo answers, posting on music forms, and commenting on YouTube videos of 2008 pop songs. Nobody knew anything about the song or the band.

I had put my email up on some of these, but heard nothing until last night, December 27th. In my inbox was a message from someone named Brad Hoskins. The subject was Song by Symmetry Icon. Attached to the email was an MP3 file. And in the body was this. Hey, Sal. I saw your post on the forum inquiring about Symmetry icon's song, See you after, babe,

and thought I'd send you an email to clear things up and perhaps dissuade you from your search. I'm sending this to you. with the hope that you'll keep things discreet, as there aren't a lot of people who know anything about this song, and should the nature of it be released, it won't exactly be hard for any higher-ups to pinpoint who spilled the beans. But you seem like a nice guy, and I don't want you to do something you'll regret. Symmetry Icon was a young three-member pop group that started up in 2007 and came out with an album by 2008. Hard to believe 2008 is close to being a decade ago. But,

obviously you know how a lot of pop music was in that year. It was catchy, not too technical, upbeat, but not very hardcore clubbish yet. Kind of cheesy synths and sounds. Look at the Billboard Top 100 for that year, you'll see what I mean. Well, anyways, I was working as a part-time engineer for a sort of smaller record label that was trying to find a big break. They thought they found it with symmetry icon, because the group was very talented, especially for being so young, I think all three were between 19 and 21. It was crazy how they could just start playing around on their instruments and just come up with a tune catchier than anything else the label had produced.

While Symmetry Icon was signed on for our label, their manager was an outside hire that came with them like a package deal. This guy was the definition of weird. He looked like a stereotypical slimy businessman. He was super close with the band. though, and they wouldn't drop him no matter what deals the label dangled in front of them. At every recording session and every meeting, that weird manager was right there, whispering into the band's ears. It felt like behind every song and every decision was that creepy guy.

The band was even comfortable telling us that, for the most part, their manager was coming up with the ideas for their songs. So one day, the band misses a recording session because the lead singer's girlfriend is caught in a car accident that destroys her face. I had seen the girl before. She was absolutely beautiful. But after the accident, she looked like a monster. No right eye, lips gone, a forehead that caved in. It was horrific. And she knew it too.

So she unfortunately ended up killing herself. though I'm not exactly sure how. We were all very bummed about it at the studio. The lead singer for the band, Andrew, was devastated. We told him to take some time with any new material. But at the next session we saw him, he came in with a new song the band had written themselves. They had given their creepy manager the slip.

When we asked where he was, Andrew just said, he can go fuck himself. Well, the song they brought in was see you after, babe. Something Andrew had written in light of his girlfriend getting disfigured. It was catchy and upbeat, but unlike anything the band had recorded for us. They handed us the lyrics, and we were taken aback by how odd they were. I've been holding onto a copy of them for years now.

Okay, let's see here. Verse 1. I just wanted to be a big name for you, but I got caught up in this, craziness without you. We made a deal with him. He said he'd rise us up in exchange for something small. And then the chorus is,

But he took your, and they repeated that three times. Verse two goes, At first it was just little things, and then it came to this. I didn't think he'd take something that I'd actually miss. And then the chorus again,

into the bridge. It wasn't an accident. I'm so sorry. I'll see you after, babe. And then the chorus again. Depressing stuff, yeah. At the studio, we thought so too. Plus, the chorus was four words

and an incomplete sentence that went off into a four-note riff, so we all doubted its potential. But we still recorded the entire song, mastered it, and sent it to the higher-ups, who loved it and thought it'd be a big hit. It went out to quite a number of radio stations who played it like they would any other single.

After a week, DJs asked us to interview the band, but Symmetry Icon wanted nothing to do with the press. Then one day during another session, their creepy manager barged into the studio and started screaming at Andrew in the band for releasing the song without his approval. Andrew started yelling right back about how he didn't want any of this, how he just wanted to play music and not get drawn and do

anything too serious. The manager was freaking out, saying the band would be nothing without him, and how Andrew was the only one who made the deal in the first place. I specifically remember Andrew saying, it was supposed to be just blood from us, not anyone else. The manager stormed out the studio, going on about how he was going to ruin the song and the band for this, said that he was going to make anyone who liked the song, quote, end up like Andrew's girlfriend. End quote. We never saw that guy again. After that fight, the weirdest shit I've ever seen in the industry happened in regards to that song, people were really getting into it. We even had huge companies trying to purchase rights to have the song in their commercials.

For a month, we heard it on the radio all the time. But suddenly, we got calls from radio stations saying that their listeners were acting weird about the song. It was the only thing they ever requested, and they called constantly to hear it. One station's DJ kept calling us daily to meet the band to talk about their life-changing track. He even left voicemails screaming at us to meet the band. Well, it started scaring the higher-ups at the label. People were getting calls, death threats, and all sorts of horrible shit just to hear a stupid pop song.

It was like a drug. Symmetry icon dropped off the face of the earth. They wouldn't respond to our calls or anything. Soon, the label and studio were both visited by these government types who wanted to see if everything was okay with our operation. Our CFO was interviewed about the nature of the track and was told that something weird was going on with the people who were exposed to it for too long.

I never heard exactly what the CFO was told, but the rumor was that people were offing themselves because they couldn't get it out of their heads. It affected some people more strongly than others, but those who did killed themselves in a very specific way that freaked the label out and pulled the song. With the help of those government guys, the label pulled C.U. After, Babe, and removed any trace of its existence.

The staff was never told exactly why, but for a lot of 2008, we heard stories of agents going to radio stations and stopping DJs from playing the track, even arresting those who persisted. As if this wasn't disturbing enough, we later heard that all three members of symmetry, icon had killed themselves not long after the song was taken off the air.

Apparently they had sliced up their own faces with shards of glass and bled to death. They left a note saying that they'd never be able to top, see you after, babe, and there was no point in trying. They were haunted by the song and used the glass to try and dig it out. I'm not sure if you believe in the supernatural, but I'm telling you right now that you're that there is a shady reason why you can't find that song anywhere. It's some bad voodoo. It makes people do fucked up things to themselves.

I know you want to do this for your friend, and I'm sorry for your loss, but trust me when I say, you will never find the full song. That shit is buried. For a long time, we were told to immediately let the company know if the song was played anywhere.

I heard it in addressing, at a mall one time when I was out shopping around mid-2010. I recorded it on my phone at the time to show my bosses, but I kind of never got around showing them. The issue hadn't been discussed in a bit over two years, and I never heard it again after that. I like to listen to it every now and then and think over all the things that happened because of it.

I'll send you my recording. Sorry in advance about the quality. It would have been nice. to hear the whole thing, but I honestly was too afraid to stick around and listen to it. Only listen a couple times and then never open the file again. Whatever happens with this song, it kicks in when you listen to it repeatedly. Please, be careful. And if you ever hear the full song out in public, get the hell out of wherever you're hearing it.

Like I said, I don't know what you believe, but I, for one, am damn sure that symmetry icon made some sort of deal with the devil, and this song is the punishment for breaking that deal again. Please be careful. Best of luck, Brad Hoskins. I downloaded the file and listened to it immediately. I recognize the song the second I heard it. I have no idea whether or not Hoskins is telling the truth. I don't know what to make of this.

I mean, it is kind of catchy and out there. kind of way. And I've listened to it a few times just because it is kind of enjoyable and reminds me of my days in college. I just, I need to hear the whole song again. And it, and it sucks when I never will. In our final tale, we venture into an ordinary high school with an ordinary problem. The cafeteria serves terrible food. But as we learn from author Henry Galley, that problem is rectified by the new cook, a woman who has a way of making every dish irresistible. Performing this tale are Mike Delgado, Erica Sanderson, Nicole Goodnight, Nicole Doolan, and Eden. So get ready for a mouth-watering meal, especially when it's Taco Tuesday.

The food at Farberk High was always crappy, but Taco Tuesday, oh boy, that was in a league of its own. Every other day of the week you could expect some anemic-looking fries or tater tots and a handful of freshly thawed chicken nuggets, and an apple if you were feeling adventurous. But Taco Tuesday, you were handed a mouthful of future intestinal trouble, nestled in a shell that looked about as appetizing as petrified toilet paper. You ate it at your own risk. And because few of the students attending our little school had parents with time to prepare them packed lunches. from home. Most, well, they just had to stomach it. I worked at Farbrook as an English teacher for six years, long enough to see hundreds of students come and go, all of them despising the school's infamous Taco Tuesday. If a person of actual Mexican descent ever tasted it,

I wouldn't blame them for declaring war on this country in retribution. It was an affront to Mexico, to cooking, and to good taste itself. plain and simple. Of course, that's just what I heard. Thanks to some inherent intestinal issues of my own, well, I've been a staunch vegetarian since childhood, so I never got the privilege of trying it myself. Guess the lifestyle does have its perks.

Where the hell do they get these jokers? I remember Roy Warren, a phys ed coach, saying that to me in the teacher's lounge between periods. The cooks can't cook to say, their goddamn lives. If I taught Jim like they cooked, I'd be out of my ass in an instant. Hell, some of these kids would probably be in the ER. I shrugged, midway through grading a stack of papers. A good cook is hard to find. Roy shook his head and tutted at me.

Didn't Bessie Smith sing that? Ah, shit, better get to the courts. I've got the fucking ninth graders again. Basketball. Oof, that's rough, buddy. After that, Roy stormed off, preparing to deal with a bunch of lanky kids who didn't want to be there. I graded papers, taught a class on Steinbecks of mice and men, and planned out the lessons for the rest of the week. It was a day like so many others. In fact, of the 312 Taco Tuesdays I'd weathered since joining the Farbrook High Faculty, there was nothing that made this day special.

Nothing but the day that came after it. Anyone who has ever worked in education will tell you that the only way anything ever gets done is when the volume of parental complaints becomes too great to ignore. And that's true, though having the faculty behind you never hurts. That's why, on that fateful Wednesday, when an internal memo is passed around announcing the arrival of a new head cafeteria cook, Farbrook High breathed a collective sigh of relief. She didn't need to be perfect. We weren't expecting gourmet.

We just wanted edible. On that front, hopes were riding high, until people actually started seeing the new cook. When Constance Holmes arrived for her first day on the job, it was clear that something was different about her. She must have been around 5'10, stocky, not fat, but solid, like she was carved out of wood, with a hard stare that wouldn't be out of place

on the bust of a medieval executioner. Her peroxide blonde hair was confined neatly beneath her regulation hairnets that the cafeteria provided, but her electric blue eyes shown as bright as twin supernovas. Now, at face value, none of these are strange traits, alone or together. But her presence had this ineffable quality, to it, like that feeling of anxiety when you know you're forgetting something, but you're not quite sure what? Most of all, I think what made Constance seem strange is that she made you feel small.

Now, she didn't look old, but something about her stern, immovable features made you feel juvenile, no matter your age. Have you met the new cook? She looks like they pried her off the roof of a church. She's been giving everyone the evil eyes since she got here. Anyone actually spoke to her yet? Not that I know of, but you're welcome to be the first. Roy just shuddered.

She looks grimmer than the rest. Stacey reasserted herself in the conversation. Which is saying something. I think Doris has been talked on from the ledge once or twice, but it's only a matter of time until she sacks up and leaves the place one way or another. Can't imagine this Holmes lady will last long in a rat's nest

like this either, especially if she's got any other career prospects. Maybe we should judge her by her food rather than her face. Some people just look a little miserable. Doesn't mean they are. You're all being rather judgmental, you know. It was Dr. Maxine Cutchy, science teacher and resident voice of wisdom when the rest of us were busy being gossiping hens. She sat in the corner, reading over her notes for the next period, not even looking up to regard us as we performed our own little science-class dissection of the new Cook's first impression. It made us all feel every bit as stupid and petty as we were acting. Everyone dispersed in shame shortly after that, and went about our business. Now, I can't speak for the rest of them, but the iron stare of Constance Holmes

remained in my head for the rest of the school day. My imagination was turning her into the boogeyman, which I knew was unfair. It eventually dawned on me that the one true way to dispel my mind's fictionalized version of her was to meet the real thing. So that's exactly what I did. I met her in the hall after the students had gone home. I was still on site grading the seemingly endless deluge of papers, and she was familiarizing herself with the new kitchen. We were both on the way back from the bathroom when we had our little chance encounter. Hi there, I'm Ben. Ben Williams, you're the new cook, right? Constance looked at me up and down with a almost skeptical eyes before presenting her hand. I shook it, and the slight specter of a smile

spread across her lower face. Constance, pleased to meet you. There was a calmness to her, a British gentleness that belied the seriousness of the rest of her. She wasn't motherly, per se. It was more grandmotherly, almost. I teach English here. I'm guessing you heard the rumors. Rumors? You know, about the food here. Whatever hint of smile she might have had before just disappeared then. Food, to Constance Holmes, was no laughing matter. I was hired for a reason, Mr. Williams.

My job is to make sure the children and staff here has served food of only the finest quality. An admirable goal. Happy learners make better learners. Quite right. Nourish the body, nourish the mind. And that was that. Our conversation dropped off like an amputated limb, and we walked in separate directions. It was then that I realized Constance Holmes was no dragon.

She was just Kurt and to the point. Dr. Cutchy's advice wheedled its way back into my mind. Wait and judge her on her cooking. Problem was, that was the one area I literally couldn't judge her on. All of my lunches were packed and killed. carefully prepared to make sure they didn't contain anything that it'd make me go on a two-day vomiting fit. Sometimes, like on Taco Tuesday, my faulty guts were a blessing. But most of the time, they were just a royal pain in the ass. It was on the day that Constance officially began working

as head cook that something miraculous happened. Roy, as usual, was the first one to tell me. He waltzed over after lunch, a smile glowing on his mustachioed face. Despite being a 40-something heavyset man in red sports gear, he looks like a kid on Christmas morning. Ben, you're not gonna fucking believe this. What? I feel like an asshole for judging the new cook. I don't know what she's done, but holy shit, is this food incredible? He was right.

I didn't believe it. Not at first. Scouts honor. I was holding my nose ready to choke it down when it was like this little explosion of flavor hit my tongue. I swear to God, man, I went up for seconds. Now, if it were just Roy, I might have even played it off as a practical joke, but throughout the day, it was more of the same. One by one, it seemed every member of the faculty to enter the lounge was raving about the new cook. Nobody knew what Constance was doing with the food, but whatever it was, was, it was apparently incredible.

While Roy and Stacey and all the others gushed, Dr. Cutchy sat with a look of contented satisfaction on her face, knowing yesterday's judgment was right. At face value, Constance Holmes was a frumpy, middle-aged Brit. Oh, but as a cook, Holmes was a virtuoso. Everyone from the teachers to the administrators to the cleaners, and even Franklin, the maintenance man, were getting involved. I don't know how she does it. Same nuggets, same shitty tater tots, but the flavor, something about it just pops. Maybe she just cooks them better? I tried to mask the fact that I pretty much knew nothing about cooking.

Stacey shook her head and gave a laugh I couldn't quite place. The whole world's gone topsy-turvy. You know Ted Brooks? I searched through the attendance sheet in my mind to find his face among the hundreds of students attending Farbook. It didn't take along. Ted had made it his business to be easily remembered. Kind of a class clown, tall, skinny, loads of acne. Bingo. Well, I don't know how he did it, but he went back for thirds. No shit? I mean, Ted's an anomaly. He's weird. I could have been seeing things, but I could swear I saw him eating the gum from underneath the tables in class today.

Jesus, Christ. Just the thought of that made me feel queasy. Well, all hail the Farbrook miracle cook. Long may she rain. Oh, she's not the miracle cook yet. If she can make her first Taco Tuesday great, then we'll know she's got some kind of higher power behind her. Now that would be something. Like the cold inevitability of death, next Tuesday eventually rolled around to the surprise and happiness of nobody. Our emotional states were locked on cautiously optimistic, but nobody dared expect anymore. To some extent, we're, we all knew that to improve Taco Tuesday even marginally would only ever be polishing a turd. Look, it'd still be nigh, inedible garbage.

But we held out hope for the promise of slightly more bearable nigh, in edible garbage. About ten students didn't come into school that day. I figured it probably had something to do with the tacos. I was spending lunch in the teacher's lounge, as usual, gnawing on a length of celery dipped in a small pot of hummus. I'd almost forgotten about Constance toiling away in the kitchen, her challenge laying before her like a giant, diarrhea-inducing obelisk that no mortal man could climb. Her attempt to make Taco Tuesday a little less awful was essentially a science experiment,

and personally, I was grateful not to be among her guinea pigs. Just then, the door to the teacher's lounge swung open like a saloon in an old Western, and Roy, Stacey, and Maxine were just standing there, eyes glassy, and jaws almost gaping on the other side. So, how was it? It was one of the most delicious things I've ever tasted. That was the moment when it felt like my jaw hit the floor. Those words, in that order, in this context,

felt almost like a blatant attack on reality. If Taco Tuesday was a... delicious now? What did anything mean anymore? My colleagues filed into the room like a line of ants. Their heads bowed in reverence. I don't know how the fuck she did it. Roy took a seat on one of the backless orthopedic chairs that dotted the teacher's lounge and leaned forward onto the coffee table with both hands. But she did it, Ben. She fucking did it. She saved Taco Tuesday. Even Maxine seemed too shocked by this development to be smug. She just sat there, looking bewildered, while I sat gawking at them at a total loss for words.

You sure you're not pulling my leg here. Roy shook his head. On my mother's eyes! The sincerity in all their voices was undeniable. I now doubted many things I thought I knew, but there was one thing that I was totally sure about. I had to go speak to Constance Holmes again and find out what the hell she was doing to all the food. Constance was still in the cafeteria kitchen when I found her, slaving away over tomorrow's lunch. I crept my way through that little city of polished clinical chrome, edging carefully past a few huge vats of bubbling cooking oil,

and being sure not to slip on any of the freakishly polished floor tiles. It didn't smell like food. Hell, it didn't really smell like anything. It was just oddly sterile, like a hospital waiting room. She was in the corner, tucked away, effacing herself. Hi there, it's Ben from the other day. I hope your shoes are clean. Her eyes never left her work.

Stuff like that had a way of disarming you. Yes, they certainly are. I just wanted to talk to you about lunch today. You know, Taco Tuesday? What about it, Mr. Williams? Well, it was good from what I heard. Great, actually. It's never been great before you.

She didn't dignify me with a reply. So I just wanted to know your secret, Constance. You know, how the hell you do it? Have you been putting crack in the food or something? Constance stopped, turned her icy stare to me. It made me feel about two inches tall. I would rather you not allege I've been drugging children, Mr. Williams. Oh, sorry.

Sorry, I didn't mean that. What I mean is we've gone from having awful food to having people rave about every meal you cook. I just wanted to know your secret. For the first time since I entered the room, Constance turned her whole body to me. I realized she was standing over a cookbook in front of a well-stocked spice rack, full of some spices I recognized and many I could not. In particular, there was one tall vial full of brick-red powder that I don't believe I'd ever seen before. People these days are too picky, Mr. Williams.

I think the ease with which food can be obtained has ruined people's appreciation of it. We've been spoiled, in other words, and it's given us restricted, truncated little pallets that shut off a world of possibilities. So many children are starving in the world, and yet hours turn up their noses at food that could save lives elsewhere. She spoke a big game, but ultimately she was dodging my question. Constance Holmes was an intensely difficult person to hold a conversation with because her every word gave you the impression that you were saying or doing something profoundly wrong on a level you couldn't even begin to understand. I think of my job not so much as improving food, but as opening eyes, Mr. Williams.

She said her own blue eyes alive with passion and intensity. So many people spend their lives sleepwalking, Mr. Williams. I intend to wake them up. It was a speech more befitting a tin pot dictator in a third world island nation than a cafeteria worker, but somehow she sold it. It was nothing I could add or contribute. I could just listen and awkwardly nod while she went off on her tirade about the failings of popular Western attitudes towards food. Shortly after that, I left her to it, feeling far less comfortable than when I walked in.

The questions I'd asked had been pointed or cruel. They were complimentary, if anything. But Constance Holmes still managed to somehow not answer any of them. And, in my own personal experience, people don't dodge questions like that unless they've got something to hide. The blind adoration of Constance's cooking continued across the board over the next few days. People loved it. And even though more and more students seemed to stop coming in, alleged, Gum devourer, Ted Brooks included, nobody but me really seemed to mind.

For students and the faculty, every day just felt like a wait for lunch. That was the only reason for most people to come in now. Not learning. Not a paycheck. Just food prepared by Constance Holmes. Even the kids who would previously come in with a lunch from home were foregoing it for an opportunity to eat the new cafeteria lunches instead. Any idea what's happening to all the students who haven't come in? you know like Ted and all the others.

Have we heard from them? Stacey shrugged. She was eating from a little faux styrofoam container full of chicken nuggets and tater tots, all of which seemed to be finely dusted in red. Part of me knew it had to be the strange powder in that vial I'd seen in the kitchen a few days prior. It couldn't have been anything else. I mean, I can ask for wrong, if you like. It's a little about my pay grade, but I'll put in a word without him.

She was eating fistfuls of them at a time, leaving her mouth and fingers a greasy mess. They'd lost all sense of decorum since they started eating Constance's food. I tried all I could to push all the weirdness from my mind and just get on with things. It was a nine to five after all. I didn't have to let these freaks be my whole life. Everything else continued as normal as could be. Lessons were taught, breaks were had. But more students seemed to just stop coming in.

Life was becoming undeniably, well, different. That night, I was staying on late again, observing detention for one student, Ella Hawkins. She'd been on her phone in Stacey's class and talked back when she'd asked her to put it away. That earned her a half an hour of sitting in my classroom after school, while all her friends and classmates did whatever the hell kids do after school these days. While I was wrapped up in thought and suspicion about everything going on, Ella just sat there, looking glum. It must have been that way for about 15 minutes before she finally spoke up.

Um, Mr. Williams? Yes, Ella? You mind if I get a snack from my bag? I'm starving. It was related to food. That week's hot button topic. And I became suddenly attuned to the situation. Didn't you eat anything at lunch?

Yeah, but it was only a few nuggets and tater tots. I'm still hungry, and I brought my own snack. so I don't have to leave the room or anything. Really? I probably shouldn't have let her, but the fact is, I just didn't care. She was already being punished. I didn't want to starve the poor girl, too.

Kids have enough problems these days. I nodded. I leaned back in my chair and resumed my state of blissful stupor. I was only jogged from the trance when I heard Ella unzipping something. It was a pencil case, and she poured the contents out onto the table. Some pencils and pens and eraser or two,

a pencil sharpener full of shavings and a plastic ruler. I watched, frozen in sheer confusion, as Ella picked up one of her erasers and ate it like a piece of candy. I still didn't have the presence of mine to stop her when she twisted the top off the sharpener, upended it, and chugged the pencil shavings like a tall drink. Tiny splinters of cheap wood stuck to her lip gloss, and she gave a little splutter as she choked on the mass of prickly, dry crap down her thorn. throat. This is something I was sure I would have reacted to sooner if I wasn't almost 100% sure it wasn't happening. It was too strange, too dreamlike to even comprehend it first. It was only the visceral realness of Ella chomping down on the plastic shell of her fountain pen, shooting a jet of

blue ink down her chin that tore me from my state of total inaction. Ella, what the hell are you doing? I jolted up out of my chair and ran for her. She looked at it. She looked at it. me like I was the one acting strange, while she ground shards of plastic further into her gums. Red mixed with royal blue and dribbled in unison down her face. What gives? She flung droplets of blood and ink all over the desk as she spoke. It took me and several other staff members to pry the rest of the stationary out of her hands before she could destroy her mouth even further.

We restrained her until the ambulance could arrive and the EMTs could strap her to a stretcher for her own safety. Something inside her, some kind of hunger. It gave her strength that someone of her size shouldn't have been capable of. One of the cleaners asked me, what the fuck just happened as Ella was being carted away for her own safety? She just started eating. Well, there was no reason to stick around after that, with the one student I was meant to be supervising on a fast track to the ER. So I gathered up my things and prepared to walk out. When I caught something out of the corner of my eye, something that to this day I'm not entirely sure even really happened. The cleaner was hunched over the desk, licking off whatever blood,

ink, and pencil shavings Ella had left. Before any of us could even realize, it was Taco Tuesday again, the second Taco Tuesday under the watchful blue eye of Constant Holmes. Needless to say, things were getting stranger, and all that strangeness had started when Constance began working at Farbrook High. Perhaps nobody else felt it, but for me, it was a palpable sense that we were building towards something, something bigger, something truly terrible. More students didn't show up that day. Only time would tell what was going to happen. When I was setting up the morning's lessons, Stacey walked up to me, smiling with strangely lacerated lips. They were kind of bruised purple and covered in small cuts.

Hey, Ben, so I looked into it. Looked into what? Why so many students are absent, of course. They're in the hospital, most of them. I think one or two died. She said it with such an awful casualness, like it was nothing. Like the hospitalization and death of students meant nothing to her. Wait, wait, what the fuck?

What the hell happened, Stacey? Stacy shrugged in that same non-committal fashion. Ted Brooks is one of the dead ones, apparently. He ate a bunch of thumbtacks and chased it down with drain cleaner. Weird, huh? It apparently fucked up his inside something awful. And what about the others? Well, they were pretty much the same, just eating weird shit.

You know, shit that's not meant to be eaten. It's internal bleeding, mainly. This is insane. Hawkins was the exact same. She just started eating her goddamn pencil cake. right in front of me. I didn't realize how frantic I was becoming. This isn't normal.

This is not just a few isolated incidents. It's becoming an epidemic, Stacey. She scoffed and turned to leave, but I wouldn't let her. I leaned forward and grabbed her shoulder, but she just craned her head around, stared daggers into me and shrugged off my hand. Just like that, she was gone. It felt like the entire damn school was going insane.

I walked out into the hallway to get some fresh air and saw Franklin the maintenance guy nailing up a plaque won by the hockey team. Seemed innocuous at first, until I saw the long gash running from the edge of his mouth to his jaw, hastily bandaged and gauzed. Had it gotten him too? Whatever it was? Maxine seemed like the last option for reason, as she always was. She was sequestered away in one of the labs, eating one of Constance's tacos.

I could barely even see the cheap, crappy meat now under all that special, red seasoning of hers. When Maxine took a bite, it dusted her lips and cheeks liberally. I haven't noticed anything odd at all. She gorged herself on the same meal that would have utterly repulsed her two weeks prior. I think maybe you're just imagining things, Ben, seeing problems where there aren't any. By this point, I was on the brink of tearing my hair out in sheer frustration. Come on, Maxine, you're a scientist, for God's sakes.

You've got a Ph.D. in advanced biochemistry. And I've got a fucking BA in English. Surely I can't be seeing something. You couldn't. Well... She took another bite of that vile taco. My skeleton's gone missing. That's a little odd. Uh-huh. For a second, I thought she was already off her rocker.

The plastic skeleton, I mean, you know, for teaching anatomy. Oh, right. But that's probably just horseplay. We were all kids once, right? Now, if you'll excuse me, Ben, I'd appreciate it if you'd let me finish my lunch. I was shooed out of the lab after that, made to feel like a fool, like some kind of crazy person. I knew I wasn't being paranoid, but when everyone else can't see what you're seeing, you begin to wonder. Feeling hopelessly confused and confusingly hopeless, I pressed my forehead against the cool glass of the hallway window,

staring out over the field. This was Constance. It was all constants. It had to be. She was the one new variable in all this, the catalyst for the madness and manias spreading across Farbrook High. It was then in my little nadir

that I noticed some movement far off in the bushes on the other end of the school field. Not the kind of things that small animals or the wind can do. There were kids moving around in one of the bushes out there doing Lord knows what. That was a question. question I couldn't bear to see left unanswered. Not now. Not when the sane world seemed to be

on the very precipice of collapse into something altogether darker. So without wasting another second more on thinking, I opened up a fire exit and began sprinting towards the bushes, running so fast I could barely feel my legs, faster than I'd run in years. But they must have seen me coming because they'd scattered before I could arrive. I cursed myself feeling as though all the answers were somehow just slipping through my fingers. The madness was coming, and I was powerless to stop it. I wouldn't even know what hit us. Still, there was something in those bushes,

something that made all those children congregate there. I plunged my hands amidst the wispy branches and pulled them apart, trying to look into the place I'd never fit. That's where I saw it, the thing that had been worthy of all that attention. It had been Maxine's life-sized plastic skeleton, laying there across the grass. It was covered, skull-to-metatarsals, in human bite marks. Some bones were missing entirely, others were half there, ribs chewed off at the base,

parts of the skull gnawed off, fingers devoured. Those kids had been here feasting on the damn thing like it was a gourmet dinner. That was the moment, looking upon Maxine's desiccated plastic skeleton that I realized I was wrong before. The madness wasn't coming to this place. It had already arrived. All we were waiting for now was the end, and I was the only one who could see it. After a sleepless night, I shambled my way to work. I didn't have a class scheduled until midday, so I could be afforded a little sleep in while the school went on without me. It was maybe, it was maybe the luckiest thing to ever happen to me. because who knows what would have happened to me if I'd been there when this event was at its

worst. I saw, at best, the final third of the nightmare. When I finally arrived, it was clear that something had gone terribly wrong. There was an odd silence settling over the building, a kind you should never really hear at school on a weekday. Schools were meant to sound alive. But on that terrible day, the air around Farbrook High seemed to be. as still and as lifeless as Maxine's half-eaten plastic skeleton. Death had come to Farbrook. I made my way inside and started wandering the empty halls, not calling out, not wanting to attract any unwanted attention.

Windows all along the hall had been smashed out, with blood smeared around the jagged edges. The floor was cluttered with garbage, discarded stationary, upturned trash cans. I saw a textbook or two, ripped to hell and covered in bite marks where they'd been hungrily consumed. Against my better instinct, I kept walking deeper into the belly of the school. My own hunger for answers was greater than my drive for self-preservation. Soon enough, I saw huddled figures, quivering masses.

All kids, all former students. They'd devoured a handful upon handful of broken glass. opening up their throats from the inside like a goddamn book. They were sprawled out on the ground in puddles of their own blood, while their living classmates tore pamphlets and flyers from the wall and stuffed them into their bloody mouths. All of them were so hungry, so consumed by the act of consumption that they didn't even notice me.

I walked past them with tears in my eyes, trying to find some point of normalcy on which to anchor my rattled mind. It seemed that everywhere I went it was more of the same. Students in gluttonous trances devouring the inedible. Ripping corkboard into bite-sized chunks, tearing up the carpets and ripping at it with their teeth like a side of beef, smashing at the plaster walls and munching on the rubble. It was like a circle of hell that Dante forgot to write about.

My own little inferno. Chomping, slurping, ripping, ripping, ripping, crunching, dying. The sounds filled the air like a fog. Maxine was the first port of call, the most reasonable of us all. I knew that now she'd have to accept that something was wrong. When I arrived in the lab, I couldn't see her. Just this awful smell that stung the eyes and induced a dull ache in the sinuses.

I saw what was left of her curled up behind. her desk. Face and throat decimated by chugging beaker after beaker of corrosive science-class chemicals. Liquids of her own leaked out onto the granite from new holes burned in her jaw, throat and stomach. When I saw her, I screamed, but everyone was beyond giving a shit. I ran through the blood-soaked halls, now littered with dead kids that I'd seen alive and manic on the way in. They were Eating themselves to death. The teacher's lounge. If there was sanity anywhere, I thought it would be there.

But it didn't take me long to realize that thought was a load of bullshit, just like the rest of it. This kind of crazy, it didn't seem to pick favorites. Ben, so glad you could join us. I noticed Franklin first, sitting in the corner. His head was twisted back at a right angle, eyes, bulging in the frantic terror of a lot of a man choking. He shoved his claw hammer, handle first, right down his throat. You could see the shape of it bulging out behind his Adam's apple. His face locked in the final grimace of death. The gash in his mouth from yesterday had split open in the struggle and dreamt a kind of crimson foam.

What the fuck is going on? Lunchtime, that's what? We were out of nuggets and tater tots. Franklin got a little over-eager, forgot to chew. It's his own fault, really. Roy didn't say anything. He was too busy gnawing on a loose brick he'd rip from the wall of the lounge, leaving him without fingernails on the index and ring finger of his right hand. His bites were strong and robotic, cracking and shattering teeth and reducing his mouth into a red mess of lacerated gums and crushed enamel.

Looking at him was the closest eye. ever came to vomiting. Stacey, we need to get the fuck out of here. I'd hope to appeal to whatever vestiges of sanity she might have still had. They're dying. Everyone's dying. We have to leave right now. Leave? How can I leave? I haven't eaten yet. Franklin gave me some candy. Oh, my heart sank. It was then that it occurred to me that I hadn't looked at the coffee table sitting in between Stacey and Roy, where she'd placed a little plastic bag full of two-inch nails. The exact same kind Franklin was using to hang up the hockey plaques the day before, back when at least something still made sense.

Oh, oh, Stacey, no. But it was already too late. Before I could do a damn thing about it, the sarcastic math teacher I'd known for the whole six years I'd worked here, grabbed a handful of the nails and shoved them into her mouth. I opened my mouth to protest, but the silence was instead filled by the meaty crunch of Stacy biting down on her cast-iron mouthful. The spikes pierced the soft palate of the roof of the mouth, ripped holes into her

lips and cheeks, impaled her gums. In an instant, her face was covered in fresh blood, dripping down her cheeks, chin, and throat like a red beard. Worse still, she didn't seem to register the pain. She chewed and chewed and chewed, mashing up the inside of her face more than the nails, then swallowed. What was left of Stacy turned to me, wearing what might have been a smile. In the only low, gurgling murmur her mutilated tongue could manage.

I ran from the teacher's lounge, manic, sobbing, knowing that there was no place in the school that hadn't been touched by the madness. The realization hit me like a wall of ice. I was the only one left. Well, I knew that wasn't entirely true. Only two would be left. Me and Constance Holmes, the woman behind all this. What if she escaped, just moved on, did this all somewhere else?

Oh no, I couldn't allow that. I had to stop her myself. In spite of the carnage that it exploded outside, the kitchen remained very much the same, almost eerily so. I crept my way through that little city of polished clinical chrome, edging carefully past the few huge vats of bubbling cooking oil, and being sure not to slip on any of the freakishly polished floor tiles. Ejaveau all the way. But this time, Constance was nowhere to be seen.

The kitchen was a goddamn graveyard. Still, I knew it wasn't safe. I was on high alert, my eyes darting everywhere. Except for directly behind me, there was a sudden stab of intense pain as cold metal entered my flesh below my collarbone, deftly lodging itself between the curves of my ribs. I fell forward, letting out a scream of terrible agony and scrambled away from the source of the danger. The knife remained stuck in my back.

Constance was standing behind me, wielding in her right hand a weighted meat cleaver. Her face remained just as stern and neutral as before. What the hell have you done? Exactly what I told you I would, Mr. Williams. I widened their palettes, made them less picky. You killed them! No, Mr. Williams, I opened their eyes and they killed themselves. The only person I'm going to kill is you.

She shot for it at the speed I wouldn't have thought possible, swinging the cleaver for me in a wide arc. The miss was too close to call, any closer, and she would have hacked off my nose. This is what you get for not playing along, Mr. Williams. Through pure adrenaline I managed to regain my footing, but Constance wasn't letting up. A second of oversight meant being cut to ribbons, and that monster getting away with it all.

We were confined to a single narrow gangway leading from one end of the kitchen to the other. I ran the only way I could, a murderous Constance hot on my heels. I looked around for some kind of weapon, anything I could use to defend myself. But on that front, I seemed to be shit out of luck. I could feel the breeze of her cleaver strokes on my nape, any closer now, and I was getting decapitated. Soon enough, my escape route terminated, and I was left at the dead end, with death herself still bearing down on. me. No knives, no meat tenderizers, not even a plate to throw, just her spice rack grafted to the wall. It wasn't a planned, calculated move. No, it was of reflex more than anything, no thought even

involved. I grabbed the long glass vial of red powder and chucked it right at her, hoping to any god I could remember that it had slowed down her rampage even a little. Her cleaver collided with the vial, shattering it effortlessly. The red powder dispersed into a fine, scarlet mist and not fully realizing what had happened, she walked into the cloud. She was startled, coughing and spluttering, grabbing her throat as she breathed in great gusts of the mysterious spice. When the spice first made contact and Constance realized what it was, her stony face broke out into a mask of pure terror. But almost as soon as it began, it seemed to end. An unnatural sense of calm began to set in. The calm of a person who

knows when it's already over. Life was finished. The final hunger had begun. The cleaver just clattered to the ground. Constance swayed on her feet, dreamlike. Her eyes swiveled around in her head, searching for something to feed herself with, until her gaze settled on the vats of bubbling cooking oil. It's all about widening their pallets, just to...

Picky. Looking back, I'm not sure if I couldn't move or if I just didn't want to. The knife in my back throbbed. And watching Constance's terrible fate unfold right in front of me was the closest I was ever going to get to a distraction. Children had died because of her. My friends and coworkers had died because of her. And I'd seen it all.

Why would I look away for her sake, for her final dignity? Constance grabbed the handles of one of the vats and lifted it high above her head. She opened her mouth in what looks like preparation to say one more thing, but instead she tipped the vat forward and began pouring a torrent of bubbling oil directly down her throat. You could see blisters forming in the corners of her mouth and on her lips as her throat began roasting from the inside. Tears fell down her cheeks and dripped from her jowls, and, truth be told, I almost began feeling sorry for her. The vat came to the ground with an almighty thud and then rolled off on its side.

Constance let out a single, drowned scream and fell to the ground, stone dead. A few seconds later, I fainted from the shock. Some parents would pick up their kids in the family car, and when the kids didn't come out, they went in to investigate. If you picture the most difficult sound to hear in the world, I can guarantee it's not half as bad as the scream of a parent who has just realized that their child is dead. There were many screams like that on that day, and they never got any easier to hear. They echoed on and on and on. I'd say things got back to normal, but how normal can anything ever be.

be again after that much death. People had lost sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters. So many dead than almost nobody remained entirely untouched. If you didn't lose someone, then you knew someone who did. Constance, in a roundabout way, had become the greatest mass murderer in American history. I took a perverse pleasure in knowing that, at least she wouldn't be around to enjoy the notoriety. But I would be around, and I'd have to carry that weight, the knowledge of what happened to all those people on the day that Farbrook went crazy. All those dying, bloody faces. It's enough to make you lose your appetite. It's time to rest on our dark journey. We thank you for joining us.

If you would like to find out how you can hear the full-length versions of our audio program, please visit the no sleeppodcast.com to learn about our season pass program. 25 episodes, each over two hours long, and three exclusive bonus episodes all for only 1999. On behalf of everyone at the No Sleep Podcast, we thank you for listening. Join us again next week when the journey resumes its descent into the sleepless night. This audio production is copyright 2017-28. by Creative Reason Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors. No duplication or reproduction of this audio program is permitted without the written consent of Creative Reason Media, Inc.