The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S10E05

Episode Date: December 10, 2017

It's episode 05 of Season 10. On this week's show we have five tales about time transgressions, sinister sweets, and audible agony. "Esther"† written by Jared Roberts and performed by Dan Zappulla & Erin Lillis & Nichole Goodnight & Jessica McEvoy & Erika Sanderson & David Ault. (Story starts around 00:05:15) "The Trespassers"¤ written by Leo Harrison and performed by Kyle Akers & Addison Peacock & Erika Sanderson & Nichole Goodnight. (Story starts around 00:35:20) "Chocolate is Rocket Fuel for Nightmares"† written by Felix Blackwell and performed by Mike DelGaudio & Jessica McEvoy & Elie Hirschman. (Story starts around 01:10:25) "Ice Cream in the Dark"† written by Henry Galley and performed by Matthew Bradford & Atticus Jackson & Elie Hirschman & Dan Zappulla & Erika Sanderson. (Story starts around 01:33:15) "The Hum"‡ written by Joe Prosit and performed by Peter Lewis & Jessica McEvoy & Nikolle Doolin & Atticus Jackson & Erika Sanderson & Jeff Clement. (Story starts around 02:01:25) Click here to learn more about the voice actors on The NoSleep Podcast   Click here to learn more about the NoSleep Live Tour 2018   Click here to learn more about Jared Roberts   Click here to learn more about Felix Blackwell   Click here to learn more about Henry Galley   Click here to learn more about Joe Prosit   Executive Producer & Host: David Cummings Musical score composed by: Brandon Boone Audio adaptations produced by: Phil Michalski† & Jeff Clement‡ & Jesse Cornett¤ "The Trespassers" illustration courtesy of Mark Pelham Audio program ©2017-2018 - 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

Okay, gang, we're almost done trimming the tree. David, you're tall. Can you put the star on the top? Sure thing, boss. How's that? Perfect. Nicole, make sure everyone's stockings are hung by the chimney with care. Phew, some of these stockings could use a washing, but they're all set.

Great. Now, what else is left for the big day? I know we could come. It burns. Peter, the arm of poor Atticus does not belong in the fireplace. But his singed, Flesh gives off an aroma of pine nuts and sage. I don't care. It's not nice. And we don't want to be naughty at this time of year, do we?

No. Now, what about snacks? I'm right here. No, no, I mean the snacks we leave out. It's boring to leave the usual milk and cookies. We need something new. What about some Naturebox snacks? Yeah, NatureBox has over 100 snacks that taste good and are actually better for you. All their snacks are made from high quality.

quality, simple ingredients, which means no artificial colors, flavors, or sweeteners. So you can feel good about what you're eating. And sharing. Let's put out some of that great pistachio and almond mix. And some honey-dijon pretzels. And those yummy vanilla bean wafers. Those all sound great. Maybe our special visitor will find their new snack obsession at Nature Box.

Yeah, they add new snacks every month, inspired by real customer feedback, the latest food trends, and professional chefs. Oh! Peter! Sorry. Should we leave a note for our guest, explaining how simple it is to get NatureBox? They just go to Naturebox.com slash No Sleep. Choose the snacks they want,

and NatureBox will deliver them right to their door. And there's no risk. With NatureBox, if there's ever a snack you don't like, don't eat it. NatureBox will replace it for free. What? NatureBop, pop your snack game. What? Good advice, Erica.

And again, sorry about you being turned into a parrot permanently. Have enough. seed, do you? I'll get you for this curse, alt. Listen, I think I hear footsteps on the roof. Everyone hide. He's almost here. What do you mean, almost here? Christmas is still weeks away. Santa can't be that early.

Santa? We're not feeding Santa? We're trying to stave off Cranpus and his insatiable thirst for blood. Let's hope he likes Nature Box. Now, everyone, hide! Don't be afraid of your hunger. NatureBox is offering No Sleep fans 50% off your first order when you go to naturebox.com slash no sleep. 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. It's the No Sleep podcast. It's the No Sleep podcast.

I'm David Cummings. Thanks for joining us. On the show this week, we have five tales about time transgressions, sinister sweets, and audible agony. As the festive holiday season gets into full swing, it's a good time to let everyone know about what the next few weeks have in store for us. We'll have episode six of season 10 next week, and the week after that, December 24th, will be our big Christmas special. We'll have a free full-length Christmas episode which will be almost three hours long. That's enough to stuff the biggest stalking. And if you're a season past ten member, hold on to your hats, or toque, as the case may be. We're giving you a special Christmas bonus episode this year. It will feature stories with a British theme to them in the style of the great ghost story writer, M.R. James.

Should be jolly good fun. So if you want to hear five hours of creepy Christmas tales this year, make sure you have your season past 10. After that, we're taking our own holiday break. We'll have some hiatus episodes on December 31st and January 7th, and we'll return in the new year on January 14th with Season 10, episode 8. That's a feast of festive frights coming your way, but now we have Episode 5 of Season 10. The stories are ready, so let's start the journey. In our first tale, we learn of an ambitious woman with a passion for anthropology. But as author Jared Roberts explains, when she attempts to make contact with a remote South American tribe,

the experience leaves her with questions of a more existential nature. Performing this tale are Dan Zapula, Aaron Lillis, Nicole Goodnight, Jessica McAvoy, Erica Sanderson, and David Alt. So let's find the time to learn more about Esther. Part 1. Making Waves This is the story of a close friend and sometimes lover of mine. We've known each other for a long time. I've always trusted her in her mind, even more than my own.

But each time she left, she came back different, and I started to doubt. You could say it all goes back 20 years ago to when Esther first decided that she had to go to South America. She'd heard about a barely contacted tribe that was threatened by the logging industry. No study of any kind had been conducted on them. She had just landed associate professor

and wanted to solidify her position with something big. Everyone told her this tribe wouldn't have anything to do with her. They didn't know how persuasive Esther could be. I think maybe it goes back further to when she first entered my life. I don't remember how we met. I just remember her suddenly being there in almost every moment. We just bonded that fast. She was one of those girls who was top of her class,

and yet still found time for sports and a social life. She was my date to the prom. and while we danced, she swore she'd make a difference. I'm going to change humanity, one mind at a time. She ran for mayor at 19 and almost one. Then I went to college to study as a classicist, and she followed behind, majoring in anthropology. I liked classical languages because they worked my brain enough to block certain other things. dreams I would have any time I nodded off of a pit deep in some forest.

Mist billowed out of it like the fog machine and a bad horror movie, and a dark figure was moving. A voice whispered from behind me. When I told Esther about the dreams, she was dismissive. She told me I gave my brain too much leisure. Anyway, we both got positions teaching at the same college. and that's when she left for South America. She told me that something was calling to her down there,

something in the depths beyond civilization. She was gone for five months living with this tribe. She returned to America in an almost entranced state. I called her as soon as I knew she was back, but she blew me off. She seemed compelled or driven in some way. They don't have a written language. of their own. Someone has to give them a voice. Of course, but

they didn't give you a deadline, surely. They don't think like us. I have to get it out while I can. She disappeared for another two months and came back with a manuscript. It hit the academic

circles like an anvil. Just like that, she could phone in the rest of her career and never have to worry. Tenure track and all. And in a way, she did phone in the rest of her career. I think she was trying to get something out of her system with that book, and she never quite did.

She couldn't escape from what she had experienced there. She could only keep rehashing it. They don't have a concept of truth and falsehood as nearly all-known civilizations do. History is fluid for them based on present requirements. Since they have no written language, any facts that do not explain a visible reality are pruned out. For instance, the tribe is divided into three major villages. They said it was because the king had three sons. Each village member received a village tattoo, a son, a bird, and a snake.

I found an old man with a fourth brand, a fish. I was able to deduce that a fourth village had been destroyed at some point, so the fact that the king had a fourth son was no longer worth remembering. Nobody knows or cares how many sons the king in fact had. The phrase, in fact, is meaningless to them. That paragraph alone generated a good many articles from her peers. For me, a later paragraph on the same theme resonated more. I couldn't quite explain why, but as someone who knew Esther intimately, it troubled me.

They said they remembered me from a long time ago. I had developed enough rapport with them. now to feel comfortable informing them that they were mistaken, and I had never been to their villages before. They said the old ones remembered me from their youth and that I had gone away for a long time. The youths had been taught about me their whole lives, they said, that they had never seen me before two months prior was irrelevant. I was now an accepted part of their lives, so I had to be explained. Even the youths and their parents now remembered being taught about me by the village elders, no one could accuse them of lacking consistency. It is not that they were

lying or making it all up. They now believed this version of reality. I asked her about it when we were able to spend some time together after she'd finished her lecture tour and book signing. I was already feeling more than a little neglected. I tried to understand, but I only got more annoyed when I thought about it. To be honest, it made me more aggressive than I should have been. So now that you're a civilized woman again, you say these confused savages fabricated memories of you. But, you know, they did let you into their villages when they refused contact with any and all outsiders before. How do you explain that? Perhaps they remembered you all along. She looked more disappointed with me than I'd ever seen her before. And trust me, I can

be very disappointing. Jack, I know what you're doing. You're poking around for nerves. This time you might hit something critical. Leave it. Oh, come on. I thought it was solid anthropology. Then she started to cry. She hadn't been disappointed with me at all. She was disappointed with herself. I think when you're that disappointed with yourself. It's depression by another name. She had pushed herself too hard. At the time, I just did as she asked and just left it. She was never quite the same old Esther again. She always seemed distracted, just torn away from the present by some problem she couldn't articulate enough to begin solving. When she spoke in that state, she'd say things that gave me the creeps. Two, I remember clearly.

Something's happening to me. She was with me in a mutual friend over coffee. She couldn't or wouldn't tell us what she meant. Esther at a colleague's party, staring into the distance. None of you are what you think you are. Some lady with a perm responded. Whatever do you mean? She turned fiercely to the lady.

If you could see the way I see, you'd understand it's all lies. Needless to say, the invitations to parties and social events dried up, although she seemed to take her isolation very well. Were it not for me in her lecture halls, she wouldn't have had much human contact at all. The few times I visited her, her neighbors asked if she was okay. Sir, she's taken to talking to someone outside in her yard at nights, always near the electric lines. Nobody else is out there. I'm sure of it. Using a recording device to record ideas or lecture notes isn't strange for an academic, nor is talking to oneself. I justified it, yet it didn't really

sit right. One time when I'd cajoled her into meeting me at some awful Italian restaurant we used to like, she asked me a question. How sure can you be that I'm Esther and we've met before? Well, we come here all the time because we know the waitstaff is dreadfully rude. The food is mediocre and the music is the same Whitney Houston CD every time. I felt I knew what she was getting at and I wasn't in the mood. Her moods had become so spacey by this time. You trust your memory. She said it as though I'd said just what she'd wanted me to say.

Our whole sense of reality is based on that. trust. You remember how I look, how I sound, and match it up with the present. We generalize. We call this a table and a million other things that are completely different objects. And then we aren't even talking about the table. We're talking about an image in our minds. It's all lies. So if I replace the muffler on my car, is it then a completely new car or the same car with a new muffler? Esther, you've had an experience. It's changed you, but you're still you, and as your one-man intervention, I'll love you through this. What about whales?

Whatever a pure question mark would sound like, that's the sound I think I made. At some point, we all held to the view that everything in the sea is a fish. Fish lay eggs, have scales, cold blood. Then, we found whales. They live in the sea, have fins, but they give birth, don't have scales, and our warm-blooded. We're stuck now. Either we expand our definition of a fish to include whales, or we have to admit there's something else in the sea other than fish. And this fills you with existential angst? I'm saying you might just be looking at the fish and neglecting the whales.

I'm too glib and self-important to ever be flighty, so hopefully you'll follow when I say, at that moment, I saw a glimmer of something in her eye that was something else from someplace else. I don't know what it was. Maybe I saw the whale. I didn't like it. I'm ashamed to say that I stopped making excuses to reach out to her after that. Every moment with her was awkward and on edge. She'd ask me things like, How do you know you aren't just a brain in a vat? And I'm toying with you. you about everything. Have you ever spent time alone with someone you feel has the potential to be dangerous or could mean to do you harm?

You're just not sure? I didn't believe Esther wanted to harm me. I just just had that feeling around her. That nervous feeling that she could snap at any moment. A few years after she'd returned, she contacted me sounding more lucid than she had in a long time. Listen to me. I didn't put everything in the book. There was more. Why would you have to hide anything? Just listen. The tribe didn't remember me as me. They remembered me in a very specific role. They wove me into their founding legend. I was one of two beings that stepped

from the mists and claimed the land as their own, driving out their enemies. They even ascribe some significance to my infinity pendant. So? They make up history. It's what a whole chunk of your book was about. I didn't bring my pendant with me, Jack. It was a turning point. That's when I started to believe them. That's not really the best way to put it. It wasn't belief. You don't have to believe in facts. That's when I started actually remembering the events they told me about. It became part of my history. But I'm still a logical woman. Logically, both my remembered realities can't be true. Which Esther am I, Jack? I don't think South American mist people are as fond of iced caramel

machiados as you are. Always so glib. The things I remembered were incredible. The mist, the place so deep in the wilderness, it's beyond place. We grew further and further apart, as my conversations with her generally went through similar twists. Truthfully, the new and Wester gave me the creeps, and we made very few new memories together. Part 2. Going Back 20 years after her first voyage, she decided she had to go back. Even though I hadn't heard from her in years, she contacted me to let me know this. Apprehension was the first thing I felt.

I knew what the first trip had done to her. but I was so disgusted with the way that she'd turned her back on everyone. I told her, Do what you want. All I'd had to do was tell her, don't go. I failed her. I think back to the dream and wonder if that's what it meant. Even after all that time,

her announcement that she would revisit the tribe was a big deal in the anthropological community. She spun it as a follow-up, testing the theory. and observations she put forward in her book. For those who had accused her of not being scientific enough, she answered, This is how anthropological science is done. It's slow, methodical, spans decades. It was only after all the hullabaloo and near her departure date that I paid her a visit in person and pleaded with her not to go.

I was too late. You'll lose yourself there. That's been done. I planned to find what I lost. I told her that although I wasn't the sort of person to have feelings and intuitions, as she well knew, I felt reasonably certain, but I'd never see her again. She said she felt the same way. You'll always have your memories.

Now who's being glib. In the year that went by after her departure, I thought about her a lot. Yes, I wondered if she was all right, if she did find herself, if, She was banging out a new book that would be as controversial as the first. It was more than that, though. I thought about her involuntarily. I'd begun having spontaneous dreams again, new ones. Dreams of her stepping from a dark fog.

I was instinctively terrified of her in the dreams. I made the association. It was the same pit in the woods, only darker now. Was she the same figure? Others were there and they were panicking. And someone whispered to me. This is where it begins. I found myself questioning the integrity of my memories of her right around then.

You understand what I mean by second order memory, right? Memories of memories. I could remember previously remembering some memories I had of her. Others I couldn't remember ever having remembered before. It's as though they just showed up in my mind. I was tending to my tomato plants the first time I asked myself, who is she really? And I realized I didn't know.

In one of those memories, Esther was talking to me. Of course, I could have been created just yesterday with all these memories. You know, all of our memories, thoughts, personality is entirely woven into the matter of the brain, right? It's all physical. If not, we have to admit there's something like a soul. A soul is a terrible thing because it's not in the causal chain of existence. It's something else. How did Sartra put it?

A nothing secreting nothingness? I said something like, I don't know. I've never read Sart. You make a point of reading Sartra every day. Don't be foolish. I really have never read any Sart, though. So where would this memory come from, if not from her actually, talking about Sart.

Except, I know, this never happened. I know because in the memory, we were children, and she was telling me all this from a whole the size of a grapefruit in my living room floor. I have another memory that I went looking for her in Brazil, because she should have been back a long time by then. However, there's no record on my passport or my credit cards that this floor. light ever happened. I just remember it so well in such detail. In the memory, I brought along two mutual friends, one of whom was from the linguistics department so he could help with communication.

We met up with some of Esther's local contacts. They remembered her. They told us that she'd asked for some guides to take her deeper into the forest. She had to go deeper, she told them. They told her it was too dangerous and that there was nothing out there anyway. Nothing is what I'm looking for. They remembered her saying that because she looked as crazy as she sounded. She told them that she had to see the purple church. She showed them some satellite images where a part of the forest was always blurry. The guide said that spot was so deep there weren't even trails for miles.

She wouldn't listen when they told. older, there were no buildings in there at all. I described the village then, and the guide was able and willing to take us there. The people of the village were suspicious of us, but not hostile. We showed them a picture of Esther and asked if they had seen her. They said that they had never seen her. Why would they lie? I thought about the conversation Esther and I had once, and it hit me. I asked instead if they had seen anyone who resembled. the picture. They brought us to a hut on the outskirts of the village. Our guide interpreted for the villagers telling us that she had been cast out to this hut and she had been living there

for a while. Then she was gone. We searched the few possessions left in her hut. They were strange. A picture of a boy that I had never seen before, but somehow knew it was a missing child. a Betty Boop figurine, some newspaper clippings about immigration. It was all random junk except for a bundle of short letters written on scraps. We found them hidden under her palette. They were all addressed to me. Letter One. An awful thing has happened since I left them.

I have to figure it out. They behave as though nothing's changed, but everything has. A pall oppresses the tribe's villages, so much so these are barely the same villages. Either through inability or unwillingness, they won't acknowledge that they've been afflicted. The signs of disaster are everywhere in the settlement. The signs of hidden misery in their faces. They can barely make eye contact. I've begun interrogating them whenever I can get one alone to find out what it was.

They have the memories locked somewhere in their brains. If I can get them to refer to personal memory over social memory, I can get a real answer. I'm starting to feel like a real anthropologist again. Letter two. I found the old man with the fish tattoo. He denied that I had been gone for 20 years or at all. He swore by it. That wasn't the part that disturbed me.

It was this. He told me another tribe from deeper in the forest had been surrounding the village. They would come at night, without lights, and stay there until dawn. They stayed where it was perfectly dark, so they were invisible. The keenest in the villages could hear them. Everyone could sense them, standing in the darkness, watching the whole night. Who were they? He didn't know.

There shouldn't be any tribes they don't know. Letter three. I started remembering. I remembered the mist, but not like I read. remembered it before. It was so frightening, Jack. It's like a time traveler's paradox. If the time traveler changes an event in the past, does he remember the two contradictory events? If so, his memory, his reality is a different order of reality flowing above the other. I have my memory of the mist as it was 20 years ago, stepping out of the light, and I have this memory of the mist now as

the nothingness between the substances, this space of pure resentment against all that exists and coheres. Letter four. I stay on the outskirts of the village because they're afraid of me now. When I walk through the village, they mostly scatter. I see drawings in the soil of a snake-haired lady hovering over sleeping figures. Sometimes she's stepping out of a portal of some kind. I tried to ask about the drug.

drawings, but none would answer. I cornered a hunter and asked him why there were only two villages now. He said that's how it's always been. When the king's sons died, they made towns around the grave to keep them at peace. What about the third, I asked? He said the third didn't stay dead and had no peace. Letter five. I found out why they are such a morbid people now. I know why their thoughts are of death and decay and danger. I told them why. It's because they are the ghosts of the people I met so long ago. They don't exist.

They're my memories of the people. And I've changed. I was going to cut one to prove it. They forced me back to my shelter. Letter six. A boy with testicular fortitude threw a rock at me today. He said I should go back to the pit I came from and he wouldn't let me change his family like I changed the others.

I was going to ask him what he meant, then I remembered something. I remembered coming from the place deep in the forest. The deepest point. I had to go back there. I told him I'd go if he'd take me. That was it. I asked the guide if we could get back there. He said there was no way.

Even the tribes don't venture there. I had him ask the tribe for the boy mentioned in the letters. He said no boy of their tribe would go there. The boy did not exist. I remembered all these events in such detail. The friends I had supposedly gone with thought I was pranking them when I asked if they remembered. They said I was being ridiculous. Of course we never went to Brazil.

Why would we, they asked. So I decided to go to Brazil for real. And I went alone. Part three, letting go. In real life, I didn't know Esther's contacts in Brazil. I'd gone through her notes and any communications she'd ever sent me. There was nothing. So I made the rounds, asking any of the guides if they had seen her.

I asked them if they knew what tribe it could be. Most of them had no idea. None of them had seen her. One guide said he knew the tribe I meant, but he'd never seen her. I asked him if he knew of a church deeper in the woods or a hole. Whoever told you of that is no friend of yours. He took me to see the tribe. In my memory, it was a breeze getting from the city to the deep forest.

This was not a breeze. The air was horribly humid, insects were everywhere, and the terrain made any vehicular assistance impossible. I kept reminding myself, This was for Esther. When at last we reached the tribe's land, we were not exactly welcomed. They had weapons drawn on us immediately. The guide explained our purpose.

He said they had never seen any white woman and certainly had never allowed one to live amongst them. I asked if they had years ago. I tried to explain how she'd written a whole book on them. The guide shook his head and communicated my message as best he could. Two of the tribesmen went into the foliage. Just wait.

They returned minutes later with an old man. He talked animatedly for a moment. He said he took a woman into the forest when he was a boy. She told him someone else would be coming. He's offering to take you. I don't think you should, sir. Ask him if he knows who came out of the mist. He seemed reluctant, but he did as I am.

asked. The old man seemed less animated speaking this time. My guide told me, Lies. On the way to the airport, I thought I saw her in a coffee shop, just reading and sipping coffee. I told myself I was just tired. I was seeing her everywhere. I let it go. I let her go. Weeks later, I decided it was time to finish the grieving process. My mother, had died a few years ago. I still had all of her stuff in storage. That included photo albums. I dug them all out and flipped through photo after photo, remembering good times and awkward. There were no bad times. They only feel bad when you're that age. Then I hit the days when those memories should be with Esther. I couldn't find a single photo with her. Just like my family,

I thought to myself. Always taking pictures at the wrong time. But it was alarmingly consistent. She wasn't in any picture. I flipped ahead to prom. Some other girl was holding my arm. I recognized her. Mary Elizabeth Riley.

I barely knew her. I put the albums away. I suppose I could have had recourse to other material. Letters, any journals I kept, if any, but again, I let it go. I realized I didn't know exactly when Esther had come into my life. I had all these memories and I don't know when they were created. They're slowly fading, which is why I felt the need to write all this down now.

I don't know what her end game was. What would have happened to me if I had gone deeper? Oblivion, I think. I was suddenly very glad she was gone. We know all about how babysitters can be tormented while watching the kids at night. But in this tale from author Leo Harrison, we meet two young boys whose new babysitter seems to know a lot about mystical things, which seem to be startlingly true.

Performing this tale are Kyle Akers, Addison Peacock, Erica Sanderson, and Nicole Goodnight. So even if you can't see them, they might still be there, the trespassers. Once, a long time ago, or a short time ago. I was a middle-class American kid, growing up in the late 90s. Mom and dad were always traveling, leaving my brother and I by ourselves in the suburban keep that we called our home. I would tell my parents that I was old enough to look after Keaton, but they never listened. Instead, they preferred to hire babysitters.

Over the years, we'd used a lot of babysitters. Most of them were teenagers who sat at the kitchen counter and busied themselves with homework, while Keat and I stared into the hypnotic fantasies of the CRT television set. I can still remember those strange alien worlds that Keith and I used to traverse, playing Jet Force Gemini on the Nintendo 64. Yeah, it was really worth the days. Keith and I must have spent months upon months replaying that one damned game. and when we'd get stuck on a tough level,

keep with their tantrums and try to back out, but I'd remind him that he'd have to keep trying. I'd tell him how it wouldn't do him any good in life if he just gave up on things like that. So that's how it went anyways. Most of our babysitters wouldn't do much else than quietly work on their school assignments. A few of them, however, were interested in talking to us.

One of them, I think her name was Chanel. She asked us what we wanted to build in life. What do we want to build? Well, yeah. What do you want to see happen? Here in this world. We stared blankly at her. Then she asked us what it was that we were most fascinated by.

It could be anything, she said. I told her that I was fascinated by mechanical inventions, and I wanted to build my own ones someday. Keat talked about wanting to be a pro soccer player. So Chanel happily took us to the library and looked up a book on mechanical engineering. Then she drove us to the software. soccer field and she let Keat play soccer with some other kids while I sat on the bleachers reading.

I flew through that tome of books in just a couple weeks. I'd never been so engrossed by something other than cartoons, Jet Force Gemini, or trying to accomplish a record-setting spin on the neighborhood Mary go round. I thank Chanel for that. But no matter how considerate and polite some of our caretakers may have been, there is no babysitter who was more memorable than Trisha. None who changed my life, or scarred my life, like Trisha did. I don't know what it was that Trisha actually did for a living, apart from taking odd jobs as a nanny. She didn't seem to be a student, as I never saw her studying or writing. Her lack of interests, her braided hair and disheveled style of dress. All these things seemed odd to a sheltered middle-class suburban kiddo. I never met anyone who

struck me in the way she did. That is, I thought she was kind of off. She never really spoke or interacted with Keat and I Nor did she busy herself with TV Sudoku puzzles, novels or what have you Rather, she was content to stare into space for hours As if engaged in an open-eyed meditation She had this pervasive habit of simply Phasing in and out

A live one moment Then more like an automaton the next Man, she's spaced out Petrified and vacant The only vital sign being her steady, measured breathing. I know now that this meant she was using. Whenever my parents would come around, however,

Trisha was the image of politeness and spirit. Thank you. We had a great time. They were little gentlemen. It was baffling. But given that she could compose herself so well around my folks, it was also no wonder that mom and dad wouldn't believe me whenever I would tell him that Trisha was quiet, that she didn't like to play with us or really do anything.

no wonder they wouldn't believe me when I told them how she would murmur to herself when my brother and I were just outside the room, or how several times we'd seen her staring into the living room mirror, whispering at her own reflection. I can still recall the first time she carried on an actual conversation with me. Keat was asleep in his room, conked out from his third soccer match of the season, and I was at the kitchen counter drinking soda and working on pre-algebra. I tapped my knuckle on the granite countertop, wondering aloud if middle school math was going to be as boring as these stupid fifth grade assignments.

I hate this crap. You don't like math? I was startled. I wasn't used to the sound of her voice, not at all. She was sitting at the dinner table, where she was gazing out the window at the nighttime street. Given that she was so preoccupied with this sight, I was surprised that she even knew I was doing math. I recovered from my momentary shock. No, I don't like math.

Not very much. I composed myself feeling happy that I had someone to talk to. I only like math when it's for something really cool. It's like building a cruise ship or maybe something like a satellite. I like math. Everything is math after all. Huh? Everything is math.

Your math? I'm math. And the dreamer is. is a mathematician. I stared dumbly at her. I'd never heard this idea. This idea that everything was math. You can use math to change things.

Did you know that? Yeah, like if you make an equation for how a slope curves, and then you can use that equation to design a ramp that goes onto a highway or something? No, silly. I mean that you can change the numbers that program atoms. You just have to concentrate hard enough as all. But you need to respect the rules of the dreamer. After all, you want to make sure you get into a good afterlife.

You see, there's a whole lot of different places you can go when you die. But a lot of them last a very, very long time. Other ones don't have time. And some of them are full of monsters. Those are the places where the lost. souls go. What? What?

The trespassers tell me these things, and sometimes they say very bad things, but it's all right, as long as I'm careful. Then they can't take complete control, and I can just listen to all the different things that they whisper to me. She smiled crookedly, and I felt heat flare and patches across my skin. I tried to focus on anything else, listening for the hum of the air, conditioner, the whirring of the metallic refrigerator, the winding of crickets outside our house, even the rustling of autumn leaves in the nighttime wind. Every sound was becoming amplified.

The whole room flooded by a symphony of mundane ambience, a symphony of familiar noises made foreign, a hallucinatory symptom of fear. I was waiting for the punchline, waiting for Trisha to explain why she said such odd things. But this explanation never arrived. Tricia reverted her attention to the kitchen window. Wordlessly, she studied the moonlit suburban view, the dry beds of brown leaves, the orange maples and oaks, the glowing street-side jackalanter. You know what?

I like the way that Halloween time looks and feels. I like the crispness of the air. I like the smell of the leaves and the sounds they make under my feet. I like the Halloween moon. I even like how much. how I can see spirits rising up from all around. Can I go to bed early and finish my homework tomorrow? Do your parents let you do that?

I said nothing. No, they don't, do they? I could feel you thinking it. She turned slightly from the window, revealing her profile. But I don't care. Go ahead. She reached beneath the kitchen table and retrieved her purse. fishing from it an orange prescription bottle.

But the translucent container didn't rattle at all as she dropped it lazily upon the wooden table. She uncapped the lid and tried to pour out some invisible contents. Nothing fell from the bottle. Good night. Sure. Goodbye. I awoke the next morning to the sound of heavy rain pummeling against my bedroom window.

From my second story view, I could see that the entire neighborhood was awash with a torrent of sleetish rain. rainfall and gray mists. A gale of dark clouds painted the streets a bluish black hue. And along the crack curbs of the sidewalks, I could see that the storm drains were gurgling and flooding over. Yawning, I left my room and ambled down the hallway, where I heard the muffled voices of a local radio program. Like ghostly murmurs sounding from within the walls, the voices drifted toward me. It seemed that they were emanating from somewhere else in the house. Well, folks, I hope you have some good scary movies on tape

because it's looking like Halloween is, sadly, going to be all rained out this year. I found Trisha in the kitchen. Her appearance startled me, for amid the blue darkness of the early morning rainstorm, she was only a ghostly silhouette, static and silent. She was seated at the same window-side table where I'd spoken to her last night.

No longer did she wear her usual ponytail. Instead, her hair was haphazardly covering her face and shoulders like a veil. My parents' plastic stereo was placed on the tabletop before her, and the radio host was now discussing the latest news about a recent bombing. His voice battled with the fuzzy static of signal interference, a result of the storm probably. And all along the walls of our kitchen,

the time-worn floral wallpaper was dotted by the oversized shadows of window-stuck raindrops. Good morning. I stood at a distance. Hmm. Are you going to cook anything for breakfast? Huh? No. Can you? I don't know how to cook. That's okay. I'm not hungry.

I shrugged and made for the cupboard to get a box of cereal. As I did so, the voice of the radio host continued to resonate through the room, mingling with the pitter-patter of rainfall. They canceled trick-or-treating. Her hair was still draped across her face as she spoke. I paused holding a cardboard box of corn cereal. with a cartoon tiger printed on its cover. I heard about that.

It's okay, though. I'm too old for Halloween. Too old? Yeah. It's not cool to go out in costumes when you're 11. Oh, the Halloween ritual isn't just about costumes, Ashton. There's more to it than that. It's a time of liminality.

It's a time when we can all feel them in the air. Them? I felt unnerved that she'd called me by name. The trespassers. Her voice was absorbed by the clobbering of the rainfall. Focus affects perception. At Halloween time, we beck into the other side, and the other side hears us,

and things begin to cross over. These things, these entities, they are the trespassers. Tricia? I put down the box of cereal. Behind her veil of dark hair, I could see the whites of her eyes move as her gaze shifted towards me. I felt her eyes settle upon mine. And this time I resisted the urge to look away.

Are you trying to scare me? In the silence that followed, I noticed how the wind was beginning to cry and whistle outside. Through the kitchen window, I could see a smattering of dead leaves lifting from the ground, rising with the heavy wind and sailing past our house. I mean, I just don't get it. I really don't get all these things you're saying. Is this like part of a game? Some kind of Halloween game?

Are you Miss Everett? Huh? You're saying things like Miss Everett would say. It reminds me of the time I got hold of some garden shears and hurt myself. And she came and... spoke to me. I'm, I'm Ashton. You're my babysitter.

Oh, hi, Ashton. Hi. I'm, have I been in this house? Three days. When are your parents coming back? Tomorrow. Which city is this? Uh, Cleveland.

Oh, okay. Good. I live in Cleveland. It's my home. Slowly I turned away from her and went to get a spoon for my breakfast. In my periphery, I could see her rising from her chair and shuffling toward the exit. I'm sorry, Ashton. I have to go take my medicine now. At last, the muffled tone came to a halt and I listened to my father's voicemail greeting for the fifth time over. I let the cold plastic telephone slide from my cheek and then, hesitantly, dropped it back onto its holder. I wasn't really expecting my parents to believe any of my stories about Trisha.

I just didn't know of any other option than to call them, to tell them I was worried. I stood alone amid the darkness, listening half-heartedly to the cheesy Halloween-themed jokes of the radio jockeys. They'd finished discussing bombings and invasions. Breathing slowly, I watched the shadows of dead trees bend and stretch across the white formicatiles of the kitchen. Worrysome questions were racing through my head. Why did Trisha need to take medicine? and did she have another bottle, apart from the empty one I'd seen last night? Was this a serious enough reason to call the police?

It was Keith. His voice echoed and reverberated across the house. I watched through the kitchen doorway as he dawdled down the oaken staircase of the adjacent living room. Still dressed in his pajamas, he walked into the kitchen, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Happy Halloween. This is up. What's the matter? Nothing.

Keith squinted. his eyes. You're being weird. He walked to the refrigerator. I'm just pissed because of the rain. If Tricia hears you saying the P-I-S-S word, she'll call mom and dad. You're an idiot. I'm not. Why are you being so weird? Hey, guess what? What? I know where mom and dad hit the Halloween candy. N-uh. Yep, do too. Is there candy corn? Duh, there's always candy corn. Why do you like candy, Indicorn so much anyways. I don't know. I just do.

Come on, let's go find the stash. I patted him on the shoulder and we started to leave. But in the back of my mind, I couldn't stop thinking of what Trisha had said. Trespassers. Spirits. The afterlife. I would have stopped short of the shadowed living room had I not been setting an example for Keith. Even from the basement of our house, I could still hear the trees whipping around outside.

I could still hear the crackling thunder and howling wind. frowning I examined the pillow fort the Keaton I had made. I wondered what should be done to enhance the foundation. Eureka, the pillars needed more support. I walked to the closet and retrieved a few extra cushions and then positioned them strategically around the base of each pillow column. It was amazing how back then I could so easily abandon my fears and worries by just losing myself in something as simple as pillow fort building.

Behind me I heard feet plotting down the carpeted stairs that led into the basement. I turned around and saw Keith, racing down the steps, a digital radio in his hand. Found it. Awesome. Plug it into the wall over there. Put the channel on WKCR. I'd heard an advertisement for a special Halloween broadcast that was going to air. Something called The War of the Worlds.

Tommy Matlin, a middle schooler, had told me he'd listened to it last Halloween, and, according to him, it was a documentary about real-life space aliens. Ashton. He plugged the radio into an outlet. and press the power button. Static blared from the speakers. I saw Trisha doing that thing again. Oh, don't worry. She's just being herself.

I know, but... Keat turned the dial of the radio as he spoke, not paying much attention to what he was doing. He let the tune arrest on the poorly signaled broadcast of an evangelical preacher. I watched Keith's face twist into an uneasy grimace as he turned toward me. I've never seen anyone else just talk into a mirror like that.

And it's scary. Because if I try to say her name and make her snap out of it, she just keeps on talking. Like, she doesn't hear me or something. I just don't get it, Ash. What's with her? I thought of Trisha's empty pill bottle. I thought of what she'd said about spirits. Seriously, don't worry about it.

Everybody does weird things sometimes. It only seems weird from our point of view. I bet talking to mirrors makes sense to Trisha, okay? Uh-huh. He at last tuned the radio to. to WKCR. I sighed and reassessed Keatswry expression.

Catch. I reached into the stash of Halloween candy and tossed him a few plastic baggies full of candy corn. Taken off guard, he caught them clumsily and laughed. I was about to tell him about the foundation of the fort, how he'd pretty much finished it, given that the columns were supported.

Now the eastern pillar wouldn't fall as easily and so on, but I never got to explain this. For, just then, beneath the din of the radio show, the rainfall, the wind and thornment, thunder, I heard something. Muffled, almost imperceptible, it came from two stories above us. Although my watch read 10 a.m., the outside world looked as if it had already been engulfed by night. The view from the living room windows showed a bold darkness, detailed only by the downward,

vaguely outlined movements of hard rainfall. Where there were any small traces of light, I saw only gray patches of fog, within which were buried the half silhouettes of fallen tree branches and wayward lawn ornaments, carried along the streets by shallow rapids of floodwater. My heart was pounding, each exaggerated beat bringing a flushed feeling of lightheaded unease. While Keaton and I had been climbing the stairs that led from our basement, the house had lost its power. I'd heard the microwave beep suddenly, heard the air conditioning unit lose its breath. Now my brother and I were standing in our living room, enveloped by total darkness. Trisha, are you okay?

His voice traveled through the room. bouncing off the hardwood floors in the floral wallpaper. I imagined his call resonating through each level of the house, resonating, just as Trish's terrified scream had. But there came no response from her, only the endless rancor of the storm. Keep, you should go wait downstairs. No, wait, I'm going with you. I'm your big brother. I have seniority.

Go downstairs and wait there. No, I won't. I took a deep breath, crouched down and looked him straight in the eyes. Let me be honest. I'm your older brother. If you were in my place, you'd feel the same way, all right? I'm not letting you go with me. He frowned saying nothing.

All right? He studied my eyes, relax his expression, and nodded slowly. Okay, fine. But I get to play as Lupus next time in Jet Force, Gemini. Keith, that's not really appropriate right now, but okay, sure. I crept over to the kitchen and found the only flashlight. handing him the torch, I told him that if anything happened, he should yell as loudly as he possibly could.

He dawdled over the basement stairs, descended and then vanished around the corner. I was alone now. Once he'd left, the shadows seemed to grow longer. The pummeling rain more violent in its attack. I felt as if the darkness was drawing shut like a net. I took a step forward, feeling the atmosphere unsettled as I moved. The changing air parting like water in an ocean,

each step forward felt more shaky, more nervous and uncertain than the last one. Walking like this through the living room, and being careful not to collide with any objects hidden by the darkness, I found myself thinking of the time I'd faced my fear of snakes. A snake handler had visited our school to give a presentation, and afterward, some kid had triple dog dared me to take the handler's challenge, to let him easily garden snake wrap around my arm. And I'd done it.

This situation was no different, I told myself. In just 10 minutes or so, I was going to find Trisha, and she was going to be fine. She was going to be fine, despite all the strange things she said about spirits and trespassers, about the afterlife and lost souls. She was going to be okay, despite the fact that she'd run out of medicine. But beneath this facade of reassurances, I could sense the truth. It was approaching the surface like a Leviathan rising up from a lake bed. Tricia?

I stood at the bottom of the steps looking up the incline. The sloping path ascended into darkness as if stretching into the night sky. Sweating now, I almost spoke Tricia's name again, but then stopped myself. I knew there was no real use. Wincing at each creaking step, I climbed the stairs, and at the top found myself staring down the second floor hallway. It was a vague path through shadows, a black trail through the wilderness. Only the furniture's obscure contours were visible, and these outlines warped before my eyes,

taking on the qualities of monsters posed in the darkness, of cathedral-perched gargoyles. My footsteps were soundless and absorbed as I crept along the carpeted floor. Buried by the oppressive darkness, I had to summon all my courage to peer through each and every doorway, to check each room. After all, I didn't know what to expect. Part of me thought that Tricia might be hurt, while a small voice in the back of my mind whispered that Trisha might try to hurt me. I imagined her quietly sprinting down the hall, a shade in the darkness, wielding a gleaming knife in her hand. I imagined her

lunging at me, stabbing and twisting the knife in my abdomen. It was a mental image that repeated itself an endless loop. No, I tried to tell myself, Trisha wouldn't hurt me. I've watched too many scary movies. I'll be okay, but instinct resisted these words. Suddenly, my imagination was interrupted by something, a soft noise obscured by rainfall. From amid the sound of wind and rustling tree branches, I heard it. It was coming from just a few doors down. Hello? My mind replayed the imaginary stabbing.

Tricia? The soft, muted whispers continued without air. I felt my muscles lock, completely frozen by fear. Come on. Keep walking. Isn't about you, I thought, trying to force myself onward. Trisha sounds like she's really in trouble. I almost made a step, but the darkness closed in tighter, choking me now.

Go, I commanded myself. Just walk, for God's sake. Move your stupid legs. My feet rose and fell so slowly, and with so much force that they may as well have creaked like rusty machinery. I kept making these strenuous baby steps through the shadows, until at last I reached the doorway from which the whispers came. It was cracked open, barely ajar, and Trisha's voice passed quietly through the crevice. I knew that I had to press on, had to keep going.

I had to lift my arm and open the door and see what was waiting for me on the other side. My arm paused in mid-air on its way to open the door. I watched my hand tremble in place. She was sobbing now. At once I let go of my thoughts and finally pushed the door open. gently as if this would make it easier. The door swiveled on its hinge, gliding backward without a sound. Now the guest bedroom lay before me.

In the far left corner were a bookshelf and a dresser. In the far right corner a king-sized bed. But directly before me was Trisha. She sat huddled upon the ground. Her back turned to me. Silhouetted and curled up into a ball. She rocked back and forth slowly, whispering at the floor and hissed murmurs over and over.

over. Come, dreamer, wake out, wake up, wake up, wake up, dreamer, wake up. As she lifted a quaking hand to her face, I saw that a dark red fluid coated her fingers, glimmering in what scant light filled the room. She upturned her head, and at last I saw her face, and I saw what she had done. She had taken a knife and gouged out her eyes. I collapsed against the doorframe, slid to the ground. My stomach. acheaved and at the same time my heart erupted into a hammering gallop. I clawed at the carpeted floor while acidic spittle filled my mouth and then drained on my chin.

My peripheral vision became dark and blurry and tunneled, as hyperventilation overwhelmed me and robbed my breath. Hearing the commotion, Trisha's bleeding head turned toward me, I couldn't shift my eyes from the two hollowed eye sockets. She looked like a tortured marionette, or a maimed rag doll abandoned by its maker. Leave me alone. I told you to leave me alone already. Trisha, why? Why did you? Upon hearing my voice, she paused, looking taken aback.

Another sob escaped her. Unable to speak, I nodded, though I knew she couldn't see it. Everywhere, and they never stopped. They never stopped. Ever since I was a kid, they were always. in my head always beckoning me always telling me people's secrets

whispering their secrets into my ear while I was trying to make friends and me normal my vision was on the brink of cutting out I felt I couldn't behold this sight any longer but escape was out of the question as was helping her for painted and wide splatters across the room

I now saw the extent of Trisha's hemorrhaging and the paleness of her her skin and the apparent weakening of her limbs. It all said her fate was sealed. This truth filled the room and I was paralyzed. My legs reduced to pins and needles. My heartbeat, wild and irregular spasms. From her place, Trisha found the energy to speak on and to recline upon her side as she did so.

I always tried to make me hurt people. It worked. The trespassers made me hurt people. They made me hurt my foster siblings, made me cut the other kids' fingers with scissors, and I put Tim's cat in the bathwater, and I held it there. I let it keep kicking until it stopped. The trespassers, they made me do so many baths. Bad things. Ash did so many bad things. She tried to wipe away some of the blood from her face. They showed me how to move things with my mind just by focusing. Then they took control of my power so that they could just keep hurting and hurting and hurting people.

She sank down further, sprawling on her back, letting out a horse sigh, as if to make up for the tears that she she could no longer shed. And, and then the trespassers told me a year ago about the dreamer. All of us, they said, we all exist in the mind of the dreamer. We're made to suffer by the mind of the dreamer. It's a puppet show, a kaleidoscope of dimensions, each one a form of hell in its own special, She gave a sickly cough. I thought maybe if I did this to myself, then the dreamer might wake up.

I thought a white flash of light might swallow everything. I thought the suffering would end. Her voice trailed off and then ceased amid the clamor of the rainstorm. the irregular rising and falling over chest became more uneven than more uneven again. The gasps between her breath grew longer and longer until eventually there were no breaths at all. Devoid of energy or will, I remained in my spot for what must have been an hour, just leaning there against the doorframe,

staring at the corpse that lay before me. My throat felt sore, each breath searing my lungs. Trisha's last words spiraled around in my mind. the dreamer, the mind of the dreamer, the dreamer's puppets show, words that would haunt me for the rest of my life. And outside, the trees still whipped around, the wind still howled. And around I felt the air changing again. I felt that strange sensation, the one that felt like swimming through an ocean of invisible water

all surrounded by invisible creatures. All of it is etched, engraved so vividly in my memory. for that was the first time I really noticed the trespassers. Her toxicology report listed the entirety of my mother and father's medicine cabinet. And she had no diagnosed mental illness. Rather, her episodes were the trance states of an opiate abuser. From what I did disclose to the investigators, they decided that when Tricia ran out of her pills,

traumatic memories had overwhelmed her, and had triggered her violent and fateful decision. But the detectives drew an incomplete picture. They didn't know anything about the trespassers. Trisha's funeral was held in a historic graveyard. On a drizzling November afternoon, I told my parents that I couldn't stand to go, but I sat watching the burial from 60 feet away, in jeans and a t-shirt. My little brother looked perplexed and mournful, his hands clasped behind his black suit.

But still, he was the same kid I'd told to go wait in the basement. With time, I would drift quietly away from him. I just wasn't a kid like he was. Not anymore. The adults in my life did plenty of things to try to set my development back on track. State appointed therapists, omnipresent guidance counselors hovering past my classroom windows, priests and rabbis appearing from ether at my doorstep because they'd read the news, and it weighed heavily on their minds.

A pamphlet and a blessing. God bless you, son. The news ran everything, except for Trisha and I's conversation. Those final words we shared. I never spoke about that conversation Not to my parents Not to the cops, not to Keith And that's for the better of course

No one needed to know about any of that But maybe you Who've listened to my story Perhaps you wanted to know Well then I hope the knowledge was worth it Or better yet I hope you are totally unfazed And that you don't believe me at all

I mean to be certain I'm grateful that you've sat and listened I felt so painfully glad to get it all off my chest to feel the fear pressed down on my body to feel the tears well in my eyes and to once more accept the things that had happened to me I was glad to let these memories pass you see this kind of confession has long been an annual ritual for me

even as I approach my 30s but no confession no confession will ever erase my accursed knowledge and I hope that you now haven't fallen to the same trap as me. For the curse that it brings is insufferable. A constant process of looking over your own shoulder, always seeing omens. Outside my window, I can see the leaves changing. They wither up, tumbled to the brown grass, and the kids come skipping by, stomping upon the papery leaves, discussing their costumes. It's Friday, October 13th. The theaters are projecting demons

upon their walls. The decorations and the incantations are being prepared, and the air smells as crisp as those dead, trampled leaves. For those of us who know of the trespassers, it seems that they're encroaching. Every day I feel their energy whirring in the air and growing more intense, more amplified. I feel their fingers grace my skin,

and I turn around only to see no one. I feel their eyes upon me in the darkest hours of the night. And I dream of being chased through a labyrinthine tomb. Two gangly hands outstretched from the shadows behind me. I know that these hands only want to drag me to hell. If, in waking life, I slip and fall and hit my head badly enough to die, will those hands return? Will those hands drag me into darkness?

And are these beings invited here by our naive rituals? Are they parasites waiting to absorb us into their realms? into their own little portions of the kaleidoscope? Well, my friend, I can't really say whether or not I really know. Until I someday find the answer, I'll wait and fend off the desire that I sometimes have. The desire to do what Tricia did. The desire to try to wake up the dreamer.

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 2017-2018. 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.