The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S10E08

Episode Date: January 14, 2018

It's episode 08 of Season 10. On this week's show we have four tales about insidious injuries and tempting tomes. "The Whispering Forest"‡ written by Alexander Hay and performed by David Ault & Penny Scott-Andrews & Erika Sanderson & Jessica McEvoy & Peter Lewis & Elie Hirschman & Addison Peacock. (Story starts around 00:03:30) "Aaron's Magic Boxx"† written by William Dalphin and performed by Kyle Akers & Elie Hirschman & Matthew Bradford. (Story starts around 00:26:00) "What They Deserved"† written by Annemarie Hartnett and performed by Mary Murphy & Dan Zappulla & Jesse Cornett & Atticus Jackson & Erika Sanderson. (Story starts around 00:59:30) "First, Do No Harm"¤ written by Michael Marks and performed by Mike DelGaudio & Jeff Clement & Erin Lillis. (Story starts around 01:41:40) 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 our Urban Legend Contest   Click here to learn more about the Scary Stories Told in the Dark podcast   Click here to learn more about William Dalphin   Click here to learn more about Annemarie Hartnett   Click here to learn more about Michael Marks   Executive Producer & Host: David Cummings Musical score composed by: Brandon Boone Audio adaptations produced by: Phil Michalski† & Jeff Clement‡ & Jesse Cornett¤ "Aaron's Magic Boxx" illustration courtesy of Naomi Ronke 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. On the show this week, we have four tales about... insidious injuries and tempting tomes.

We're glad to be back with you again after our holiday break. So many exciting things in store for 2018, and we're only a couple of weeks in. And if you're looking to include more scary stories in your podcast listening this year, let me recommend a good choice. I'm sure many of you know the venerable voice of friend of the show, Otis Jiry. Well, Otis has launched his own podcast over on the Simply Scary podcast over on the Simply Scary podcast network. As an homage to the great book series, Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark, Otis's new show is called Scary Stories Told in the Dark, anthology-style horror stories shared

by a master storyteller. Look for scary stories told in the dark wherever you find podcasts, or head over to simplyscarypodcast.com to learn more. And speaking of sharing scary stories, we're starting a new contest where you're you, you can tell us about the creepy urban legends in your town and win two tickets to our upcoming live show in a town near you. Entering is very simple. Make a new post on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram, and share an established local urban legend. Now, this isn't a writing contest, so the easiest and best thing to do is provide a link to your local urban legend. Use the two hashtags, No Sleep Legeons, and Sleepless Tour 2018.

in addition to a hashtag of the city you want to see the show in. Only one entry per person, making more than one post, doesn't increase your chances of winning. The contest will run from now until January 28th. Every post before the end of the day, January 28th, will be entered into a pool to win the tickets. The winner will be picked at random and be announced February 4th on social media and the podcast.

So find your local urban legend and share it with us for a chance to see the Escape the Black Farm Tour live in a city near you. So, with all these scary stories being told and shared, I think it's time for us to join in the fun. Season 10 is back. Episode 8 is ready, so let's start the journey. In our first tale, we meet a man who has just suffered a horrific injury. As explained by author Alexander Hay, after being struck by a car, the man endured fear far worse than the physical trauma of his injuries. Performing this tale are David Alt, Penny Scott Andrews, Erica Sanderson, Jessica McAvoy, Peter Lewis, Ellie Hirschman, and Addison Peacock.

So keep your wits about you as you walk down the road, lest you end up in the whispering forest. It's a terrible thing to lose hope, to know something that is too horrible for words. In hindsight, I wish I had done. I still can't remember when the car hit me. I freely own up to walking across the road gulping at my phone, but I can't even tell you what make of car it was, let alone what it was like to be hit by it. The driver hung around and told the police it was their fault.

Witnesses gave conflicting takes on what happened from what I've heard. In the end, the police let the driver off. Can't say I blame them. The driver was in floods of tears. All I know was that I was the stupid bastard checking their Facebook when it happened. And what I saw next, I have other things to think about. I was in a coma. I even thought I was brain dead at one point because my brain stopped showing activity beyond the odd flicker here and there.

But you see, I was somewhere else. And you want to know the irony? I was in a coma, and now I can barely sleep at all. I remember waking up. I know it wasn't a dream, everything was too vivid and clear, I could feel cold air brushing against me. I realized I was naked, but I couldn't move. All around me was a forest. I thought there was something strange about the trees.

At first glance, they looked like birches, white bark and everything, but they looked misshapen, somehow wrong, like there was something they resembled which I couldn't quite guess. Their branches were long and twisted, thrusting upwards at points at others spreading out like they were trying to catch something. These branches split into any number of others all long and faintly sickly to look at,

like the twitching legs of a spider or the antenna of a cockroach. The leaves seemed wrong too. They were almost black and seemed more like flaps of skin than leaves in the normal sense. I could have sworn they pulsed from time to time, but you have to understand I'm describing something that I've never seen before, something I doubt any person has. All I can say is that the sight left me with a strange feeling of disgust and fear. I realized then that I was only looking out of one eye. I tried to open the other but realized I couldn't. It wasn't there to open. I tried to say something but there was no sound.

I realized I could no longer talk. I couldn't even breathe. In a panic I tried to move but couldn't even do that. Was I going to suffocate? All of a sudden I realized there was nothing happening. I wasn't feeling pain, discomfort or anything. like that. I didn't need to breathe. And yet I could feel a deep thudding pulse. A heart, my heart. What had happened to me? I looked around with my one good eye for clues. I realized I was at a

great height. In fact, I seemed to be at canopy level. The forest floor full of strange ferns and curiously jagged, bluish grass was far below, 10 metres or so, I guessed. I looked carefully at each tree I could see. What was it about their twisted, asymmetrical shapes that disturbed me so much? I looked hard at one tree in particular. The knots, folds, and twists of its bark seemed to take a horrible shape near the top, just below the upper branches. I looked as hard as I could, only to realize

I could make out a face, distorted and twisted and warped, but still a face. I could see a misshapen mouth, a bulbous nose that melted around its edges into the rest of the bark, and two ugly grooves where eyes should be. Was this a trick of the mind? But then the face moved, a twitch, but enough for me to see. Then I realized the whole of the tree seemed to move barely but moved nonetheless. And the more I looked at the whitish bark, the less it looked like bark and more like pale, thick, hardened skin. I looked up at the upper branches and those that splayed out side to side.

They now seemed like like arms. their sub-brances, now long, bony fingers, and the leaves, they were flaps of rigid, diamond-shaped flesh, pulsing with blood. And then I noticed each and every tree had the vague intimation of a human body, twisted and misshapen. They had grown many times taller and broader than any human, but the shape still suggested something that had once walked and moved its limbs, but was now rooted into the ground. I realized I could also feel my arms swaying and creaking in the breeze split into sub branches and sub-sub-brances, leaves, or whatever the hell they were, throbbing as they soaked up the light about,

my body straining and creaking as I tried to move and could not. I was one of these things too. I wanted to scream, of course, but I wanted to scream, of course, but I had nothing to scream with. I was silent, and I could feel what had once been feet split up and plunged into the earth, slowly and relentlessly sucking nourishment from the soil. What the hell had I become? I could hear, however, though whether that was a good thing I'm not sure.

How I could, I don't know. I could make out small holes and grooves in the bow. bark of the other trees. And I guess those were how I and the other things could listen. But I wished almost there and then that I couldn't. Because I could hear a strange noise or rather a chorus of noises. Soft whisperings, moans, sighs and gasps. I realized there must be other parts of the forest that could make some kind of noise. And it was horrific. Not quite pain, not quite sorrow, not quite mindless, but all those things and worse. And it would not stop. Was one of those voices mine? The whispers seemed to also be gathering in pace. I could make out a noise.

in the distance a screeching metal wine like a rusty joint or axle slowly spinning. The noise grew ever louder. I can now make out the soft thud of heavy footsteps alongside the faint squeal and the murmuring from the trees, the things like me, gathered pace. Something was coming and I realized it was a thing of terror. A cold dread washed over me. As the noises grew ever louder, I was able to make out the source out of the corner of my eye. It was a wagon, but like none I'd ever seen. It had six heavy wheels and was long, its frame black and perhaps metal, but forged and twisted at disturbing angles, jutting out into sharp points.

The wagon was wide and long but empty, the rear open in order to load something. But the horses dragging the wagon were nothing of the sort. They were vaguely rat-like their small beady eyes and tapering snouts contrasting with the lack of ears, and the long, thin necks that sprouted from squat muscular bodies. They had no hooves, but their long, powerful legs ended in strong, grasping horse. Their naked tails were fleshy, and the sight of them made me kill. Then I saw the three figures riding at the front of the wagon. They wore tattered black or grey hooded robes,

their features and bodies almost completely hidden, except for long, gnarled forearms and strong hands jutting out of their sleeves. They were stooped and unnerving to see as if the small movements they made as they spoke to one another and looked around them had a strange, frenetic jerkiness that didn't seem quite. human. The wagon stopped. The three figures got off

and inspected their horses with perhaps too much interest, their hands caressing the hides of the things as they seemed to purr and chitter in delight. One figure began to gesture to the others at a tree across from where I was. It was then that I noticed

the axes they carried, their handles made of a strange, gnarled, reddish substance, like wood, but none like I have ever seen before. Their axe heads shone bright like silver, but I could just make out ornate patterns engraved upon me. These somehow disturbed me just to look at. Their blades were long,

and their lower point jutted some distance down like a Viking axe, but more subtly curved. One of the figures gestured at a tree nearby. the others seemed to hiss in agreement and proceeded to it. The whispering from the other trees was now all around. I could sense terror now. With my one eye, I could make out the branches of the chosen tree beginning faintly to sway as if caught in a mild breeze.

But I knew on some primal level that this was the tree itself moving as if trying to escape. Suddenly I heard a loud thud as the first axe blow chopped into the base of the tree. The whispers around me became high-pitched like screams. I realised the chosen tree itself was making a faint sound of its own, a low, unending groan. More axe-blows rained down on the base of the tree. As they impacted, I saw the white bark flake and shatter, then some ochre, Waxy substance underneath give way, the Cambian for want of a better word. The axes bit deeper still, and it was then that the tree began to bleed.

It spilt over the axe blades and began to seep into the ground. I could now see the gaping split at the bottom of the tree had revealed its sap wood, but this was not wood. It was sinew, flesh, muscle, denser, and more. denser and thicker and tougher than it had any right to be, but flesh nonetheless. And as the woodcutters hacked ever deeper, they grew ever more flecked with blood. Still, they chocked with a calm, relentless rhythm going ever deeper. I realized then what the handles of these axes were made from.

It was this wood, this flesh. For a brief moment I glimpsed in my mind's eyes, staves, fence posts, instruments, children's playthings, furniture, doors, whole buildings. These things feasting from plates and drinking from goblets all carved from the flesh of this forest. And then I heard a sickening, crunching noise. Looking down, I could see they had hacked through the flesh and were now at the heartwood of the tree. But this wasn't wood either. It was thick and bone-like, the trees spying for want of a better word, and as they hacked through it, I saw it shatter and splinter

until it in turn gave way. And I saw the soft tissue at its very heart. And this too was hacked through, then the other side of the spine, and then once more into the flesh until finally the tree began to lean back. It's never-ending moaned now louder, more shrill. and desperate. The forest around it had reached a crescendo of whispering, and for a brief moment I could almost hear a voice crying out in pain and despair,

and then another, and then another, and then more than I could care to count, until with a final snap. The tree was felled, and the forest suddenly fell silent. The things with the axes threw their heads back and shrieked loudly in trial. Then with short, sharp hooks they pulled from the depths of their robes.

They pierced the felled tree and dragged it towards the wagon. Despite their stooped frail builds, or at least what I could make out under their robes, they dragged the tree with great speed towards their wagon, hoisting it on with strength and nimbleness that belied what I had at first guessed were weak, stunted things.

Then I had seen them hack through that tree with great speed, too. And now, with the tree secure, they climbed down from the wagon. What I assumed was the leader, or perhaps just the forester, gestured at another tree. They were not done. Instead, they proceeded to that tree, and once again, the slow, unrelenting horror continued, the flesh of the tree and its blood giving way as the axes bit ever deeper, and the final creak before the collapse and the loading up of another felled tree.

And then they felled another and another and another and another and another. And all around me the forest whispered in fear and grief. Three more trees were harvested. Then I realized the forester was now pointing, at me. The two other shrouded figures looked in my direction, climbed down from the wagon and loped towards me. I felt a spasm of terror as I saw their axes glinting in the pale light. I wanted to run, get away from them. I wanted to scream. But I could do none of those things. I wanted to pull myself up from my roots, beg for mercy, but nothing. I could hear another moan

now and I realized it was me. It joined with the others in the forest barely audible yet horrible to hear. One of the figures leaned up against me and ran its hands slowly down my body. I felt fear and disgust. Why couldn't I get away? The pain that followed was sudden. A blunted trauma like getting crushed and stabbed at the same time. It was too much to bear. Then the other figure, struck with its axe too, I felt my base give way once more the pain fiery and unending. How I wanted to scream. I felt blood leaking out and was dimly aware that my branches were trying to move. Was it pain or desperation?

And then they continued to chop at my base. Through the pain, I could feel them nearing the heart of my body. Now I just wanted to pass out to sleep anything. to get away from the pain. But instead, I felt every shot cutting into the core of my being, splintering my spine, cutting through the center and beyond.

I heard the creek as what remained of my base snapped, and yet more pain surged through me. I had a falling sensation, and the world suddenly flashed past me at speed as I fell to the forest floor, my mind and vision jarring at the impact. I wish I could say this was enough to knock me out, but even that couldn't spare me. I felt the hooks puncture me.

Vagely, I was aware of being dragged along, then up, the figure's grunts mounting as they hauled me onto the wagon. I knew I was dying, that blood was flooding out of my stump even then, but still I could think, feel, suffer. I could hear the murmur of the trees around us as the figures climbed on the wagon. I felt their weight and could vaguely smell their stench, stale blood, rotting wood, as they clambered over me to the front of the wagon. The forester rasped a command, and the rat things belched a grunt of annoyance. But still the wagon lurched forward. I could hear the forest murmur, still mourning, still ten.

terrified, but I could also hear the faint whispers of the other severed tree things beneath and around me on the wagon too. Faint and weak. They were dying too, but like me, taking their time. As the wagon rolled onwards, I realized my eye could look upwards. It was then that I saw it. And then, and only then, did my mind give way as I fainted through pain. Shocked. horror. He's awake. I heard the nurse shout as I came to. I was in a hospital bed. My body felt more like what I was used to. Could I move? Don't do that, love.

You had quite a nasty accident. You nearly died. How long was I out for? Four hours? You were lucky to survive at all. I realized I could only see out of one eye. Am I? No.

It's okay as far as I can see, but the socket shattered. You've been in surgery. Can I sleep? Of course. What a silly thing to say. It's taken a few months of physio, but I can walk and move again.

The vision in my eye is still blurry, but it works. I should be able to go back to work soon. But I can't help looking at people now, seeing how their bodies could grow, stretch out, split into branches, root into the earth, their movement frozen forever, their mouths sealed up and their voices gone but for a whisper. They say it was a hallucination, an ongoing part of my PTSD. But that's not all I saw.

You see, I haven't said what I saw above me. A vast circular ruin and circled the sky. like the rings of Saturn, but built, not formed, from what looked like white metal and ivory. Other huge things, too shattered and broken apart to resemble anything but wreckage, hung in the sky as if in orbit. Yet that is not what terrified me, because there in the cold sky was the sun, red and bloated and closer than it had any right to be. And the moon, pale and white, was far away, barely visible.

I hadn't hallucinated. That forest wasn't a nightmare. It was our future. Our far future. Our ultimate destiny. The imagination of children can conjure all sorts of fanciful tales and experiences. But author William Delphin may not find all imaginary adventures, so charming. He shares a story of two brothers, and when one brother finds a strange yet

magical book, it inspires events which are anything but playful. Performing this tale are Kyle Acres, Ellie Hirschman, and Matthew Bradford. So even though it's only made of cardboard, you really should stay well clear of Aaron's Magic Box. Some nights are worse than others. Some nights, I wake up alone in the dark, with a cold chill settling upon me, seeping into my flesh. Other nights I toss and turn until I wake, with a half-remembered image of my brother Aaron's face. In my dream, it's always the same one. He's lying prone on the floor, his head tilted back, mouth hanging open. He reaches for me, and as he does his fingers stretch, new joints appearing,

allowing them to bend and twist until they manage to grasp me. on good nights I don't dream at all nobody but I knows what happened to Aaron because I never told them the events behind his disappearance are a secret I've kept for over 20 years our parents died believing that he'd run away from home

but he was out there somewhere alive I thought it better to let them think that they might have been half right it's all my fault you see I could have done something I should have done something I saw what was happening to Aaron and I sat back and quietly hoped that things would turn

not okay. They didn't. It was a book, just an ordinary looking hardback that Aaron found at the town library. It seemed innocuous enough, no dust jacket, no numerical library classification, and no sign-out card. You'd almost think that the book didn't belong to the library at all. Its cover was dusty brown, plain with no title or author. Someone had tucked it away on a bottom shelf in the section reserve for works about medieval Western philosophy. And that's where Aaron found it, gathering dust, waiting for him to take it. Inside there was no copyright or publication information, and all the text appeared to be gibberish, written in some other language we couldn't identify. I immediately brushed the book off as a mild curiosity, but something about it

interested, Aaron, and he tucked it into his book bag, making sure no one saw. We were both silent the whole walk home. But as soon as we got inside the house, Aaron sprinted up to his room. When I wandered up later, his do-not-disturb sign was up, so I knocked before. for letting myself in. Aaron had cleared everything off of his desk, save the book, a pad of paper, and his reading lamp. The tone was turned open to a page filled with diagrams and strange symbols, scrawled by hand in a faded ink on yellowing paper.

The top sheet of Aaron's notepad was half filled with his usual chicken scratch handwriting. How are you getting anything out of this? I thumbed back a couple pages in the strange work. Aaron gazed at the open book with eyes that seemed to be looking past the pages, at something beyond. I don't know, but the more I read it, it's like the symbols turn into words in my head. I paused my page turning and looked hard at the text, trying to glean some significance from the marks, hoping to see the text like Aaron could, but it refused to yield its secrets to me.

After a minute I realized my vision was blurring with dryness, and yet I could not compel myself to blink. My eyes refused to look away from the script on the page. something inside me was convinced that the book's secrets were going to reveal themselves to me at any moment but in my mind i was panicking at the fact that i wanted to look away and yet i could not seem to when i finally blinked the spell was broken i twisted away my eyes watering needing to look at anything else and in that same instant i felt a sharp twinge like the point of a knife piercing my skull the headache came abruptly leaving me clutching my temples in agony my knees buckled and i felt suddenly ready to vomit.

Are you okay? Aaron shut the book. I grunted my head still throbbing. It hurts. I don't think you're ready for the knowledge this possesses. I glared at him. What's that supposed to mean? You calling me stupid?

I'm just saying that maybe the stuff in here is beyond your comprehension. Rising to my feet, I stuttered out half an insult, but my stomach was still lurching from the intense pain in my head, and I failed to really put any menace behind my words. Tears blurred my vision and all I wanted was to be somewhere else. Without another word, I walked out of his room, making sure to slam the door behind me. By the time I'd made it to the bathroom and managed to wash my face clean, the stabbing sensation had subsided, leaving me with just a dull ache. Two days later, I spotted Aaron reading the book at

the breakfast table. After he was done, he slipped it into his Star Wars backpack. As I watched, he whispered something into his bag like he was comforting a child. A moment later I could have sworn I heard something whispering back at him in response. And it set all the hairs on my arms on edge. Aaron looked up, saw me watching, and gave a quick nod of solidarity. I didn't nod back. We sat together as usual on the bus. Aaron always got to be by the window.

I asked him what he was intending to do by taking the book to school. Are you going to show it to one of your teachers? No, I've got something I want to try. I felt uneasy about him using anything he'd learned from the book in front of our classmates, especially Bobby Bucharest. Bobby was in fifth grade with Aaron, but was as big as a junior high kid. He wasn't just mean, he was also smart, which made him dangerous. I wish I could say that he came from a broken home,

that a lifetime of neglect or abuse had carved him into the bully that he was, but the truth of it was that his parents were very nice people, both lawyers, who seemed convinced that their precious angel Bobby was a saint. They even invited Aaron to his birthday party one year, which our parents graciously declined. on account of the fact that Aaron was terrified that it was all a trap, and that the Bucharests were going to eat him. But I digress.

What are you going to do? Aaron gazed out the window. You'll see. Watch for me by the swings during recess. After lunch, I filed out into the school yard with the rest of my class. They staggered the recess time of the different grades, so the fifth graders had been outside for about 15 minutes and would be going in soon. I immediately made a B-line for the swings,

which were up a hill around the side of the building by the basketball. court. Aaron was there already, standing still and watching a group of kids play kickball down along the tarmac. Among them was Bobby Bucharest, who seemed oblivious to both of us as I reached the top of the hill. Aaron smiled at me. So, what's up? Not up. Down. Aaron indicated toward our feet. Following his gesture with my eyes, I noticed a circular pattern around his shoes, carved into the the ground, probably with a stick. Some of the symbols look fairly recognizable. A bird's head, Two spirals in a dash, the letter E backward, that sort of thing. But they were just nonsense to me.

You drew a circle. Okay. Now watch. Aaron took two steps over to me. Nothing seemed to happen. I shrugged at him. As if on cue, I heard Bobby's voice rise from behind us down on the tarmac. Hey.

I turned to see him staring at us from the sidelines of the kickball game. He was standing by his crony friend, Greg Collins, waiting for his turn to kill. But as we watched, he excused himself from the game and started marching our direction. Oh, great. I spun on my heel to get ready to come between Bobby and Aaron if I had to. But Aaron had stepped back over to his drawing in the dirt and was smiling patiently as if nothing was wrong. What is it, a bully summoning circle? Aaron pursed his lips.

Shh, you'll see. I felt a heavy hand grabbed me by the shoulder and spin me around. Even a year behind me, Bobby still loomed several inches taller. But despite the height advantage, he had never picked a foot. fight with me. Not because I could beat him up, mind you, but while he knew that he could frighten Aaron into silence because they saw each other in class all the time, with me there was a strong likelihood he'd end up in the principal's office. Piss off, Bobby. He curled his lips up in a sneer. Years later in high school, I'd take great delight in punching him right between those fat, smugged

cheeks. I just wanted to talk to you, two twerps. So talk. Well, where'd the other twerp run off to. I glanced over my shoulder. Aaron was still standing there silently. He wasn't fidgeting or trying to creep away like he usually did. I shrug Bobby's hand off my shoulder and stepped away from him to stand by my brother with my arms crossed. Bobby didn't move. I saw you both up here a moment ago talking to each other. Yeah, so what? He looked all around surveying the rest of the school yard. So now he's hiding in some little dingy hole somewhere. I guess. What do you mean? His last statement threw me off guard. I looked at Aaron again to see if he was just as baffled by the conversation as I was. But he continued to perform his statue routine, silent and

immobile. Looking from Aaron to Bobby and back again, it finally dawned on me. Bobby couldn't see him. For whatever reason, to Bobby, he and I were alone. I'll find him. Bobby snorted before turning to make his way back down to the ballgame. As he did so, Aaron finally moved, stepping forward out of the circle and bringing his arm up. calmly, he placed his hands squarely in the center of Bobby's back. Here I am, shithead. A shockwave erupted from the air directly between Aaron and the bully. The air in front of us rippled like heat rising off a desert highway.

Bobby was thrown from his feet, hurled about a yard forward where he skidded across the pavement, only barely saving his face by putting his hands out in front of him. Aaron, by comparison, remained completely unfazed. only his hair blown slightly back. As the air in front of him abated, he lowered his arm and turned his hand over. On his pomm he had drawn another mark, a three-pronged lightning bolt

surrounded by a triangle of other assorted signs. He looked at me and smirked, but there was something unfamiliar and hostile in his grin. Several kids from the kickball game ran over to see if Bobby was okay. Both his arms were all torn up from hitting the pavement. A yard monitor came and escorted him into the nurse before returning to find out what had happened. Fortunately, none of the other kids had witnessed the event.

When Aaron and I were asked, Aaron casually explained that it looked like Bobby had tripped going down the hill. That excuse seemed to suffice, though there were rumors whispered among the entire student body for the rest of the day that Aaron and Bobby had gotten in a fight. The rumor didn't last. Nobody wanted to believe that my brother, gentle Aaron, would have heard anyone, not even Bobby Bucharest.

And me? I was both amazed and frightened. Aaron had stumbled upon secrets that, while they seemed beneficial, may not have ever been meant for our eyes. Secretly, I hoped that he would come to fear the book as I did, maybe see the underlying darkness of the things it was teaching him and try to return it. But instead, what was happening was quite the opposite. He relished the discovery and kept the book with him every waking moment after that. Almost a week went by before the book came up again, on a quiet Saturday afternoon.

Our father had walked over to his office to get some last-minute grading day. down, and mother had gone to a friend's house to have some tea. I was lying in the middle of the living room, drawing a monster from one of my nightmares and listening to the radio. Aaron was up in his room like he'd been every single day since Arjunct at the library. I had stayed clear to him in his book, and he had remained tight-lipped about anything more he'd been gleaning from the pages. From upstairs there came a crash.

Good gravy. Moments later, Aaron came bounding down the stairs, two at a time, yelling loudly. I did it. I did it. I did it. I did it. I did it. I did it. I did it. He came to a halt in the living room doorway with a mad grin on his face and shook his hands like a lunatic. Did what? It sounded like your bed collapsed. You have to come upstairs.

He looked around checking for signs of mom and dad. You have to see this for yourself. I stood up and brushed myself off. All right, but if this is just you dressing up the cat again, I'm going to be pissed. We went up to his room together, Aaron. and taking the lead, chuckling the whole way. At the door, he stopped and gripped the knob tightly, looking back at me with a suddenly serious expression.

You cannot, under any circumstances, tell anyone what I'm about to show you. Give me a break. Swear. I swear I swear I won't tell a soul. I crossed my heart and held up my hand. Aaron slipped through the crack in the door, then shut it in my face. I started to raise my fist to bang on it, but before I could, he cracked it back open, looked me up and down and swung the door open wide and ushered me in.

He wildly gesticulated toward the item on the green rug in the center of his room. It was a simple, large cardboard box, apparently left over from our move into the house many years ago. I could still see the faded marker scrawl on the side which read Aaron, B.R., in our mother's hand. Above her writing, Aaron had taped a piece of black construction paper and written in bold white crayon, magic box with two X's for some reason. To this day, I don't know why he wrote it like that. He was 10 and it wasn't like he didn't know how to spell the word box. On the adjacent sides, he had taped more black construction paper,

covering the packing instructions and the address of the store from which we'd purchased the boxes back in Maryland. White crayon-doodles decorated the paper. It's a box. Aaron smirked. It's a magic box. Look inside. Will it kill me?

I glanced at him sideways. He shook his head. Peeling back the lid, I examined the contents of the box. The inside was lined with more black construction paper and covered with symbols like those I'd seen in the book and in the dirt at school earlier that week, all in white crayon. Whatever they meant, Aaron had written them into strange repeating patterns

that twirled and diverged into multiple branching pathways like a labyrinth. In the center of the bottom, all the lines of symbols converged at a single image of a large, unblinking eye. quickly I looked away. My heart racing with fear at the thought of getting caught up in another hypnotic trance from the symbols. More hieroglyphics from the books, I take it? They're ruins, symbols of power. Great, but what's the point of filling the inside of a box with them?

Aaron stuck his thumb out pointing behind him. I also lined my closet with them. Okay, but what do they do? Allow me to demonstrate. Aaron strolled over to his captain's bed where a black and white tabby Hyperion was curled up and looking dower in the dinosaur costume Aaron loved to torment him with. After a gentle pet, he plucked the cat up from his resting spot and carried him back to me in the box. Get ready to shut the lid, okay?

Aaron soothed Hyperion, scratching him behind under his collar. I stood on the opposite side of the box with my hands on the flaps. Nothing better happened to him. Nothing bad. Aaron then carefully placed Hyperion inside the box. Good boy. Stay put. Okay, shut it. I closed the flaps on top of the box.

A disdainful meow came from within the box's confines, but Hyperion was a pretty easygoing animal, not prone to panicking, except when he found himself too close to the bathtub. I waited several seconds without anything happening, then looked at Aaron. Now what? Aaron was watching the box silently mouthing something to himself.

Aaron, now what? As if in response the box jumped under my hands. Hyperion started to make. meow again, but his cry was cut off halfway through. There followed a long, drawn-out silence, each passing second, heightening my anxiety. I started to open the top of the box. Wait!

I froze, staring at him, noting the look of concern that briefly passed over his face. Finally, he nodded. Okay, go ahead. My hands couldn't move fast enough opening the flaps. The box was empty. Hyperion was gone, just a few stray hair stuck to the bottom of the inside. Certain that it was nothing more than a trick I turned the box over. Clearly the cat had squeezed out the bottom when the box had lurched earlier.

But no, the bottom was securely taped closed, and there were no tears or loose flaps. The cat had simply vanished. Is he invisible? Like on the playground? Without a word, Aaron walked over to the closet, turned the knob with a flourish and opened the door. Hyperion bolted out, wide eyes,

and his tail puffed out like the time he'd had to run in with the neighbor's dog. He immediately ran to the other side of the room and began pounding frantically to be let out. My mind reeled, trying to come to grips with what my eyes were telling it. The cat had just teleported from the container into the closet. Come and see. Aaron went into the closet and pulled the cord for the light. But don't shut the door. The inside of the closet was wallpapered with more black construction paper

and thoroughly festooned with the enigmatic symbols. They weaved and curled. spiraling and shrinking in some places in such a way that made them look like you could fall into them seeing them again my stomach lurched like it was trying to do some teleporting of its own i had to bend over and put my head between my knees to keep from puking right there when i did i found myself face to face with another large meticulously drawn eye staring up from the center of the floor when i finally cut my breath i had to ask how i followed the instructions in the book Once you understand the symbols, it tells you things.

You make it sound like it talks to you. It does. I mean, like, it literally speaks. Aaron blinked but didn't respond. Aaron, this isn't natural. This seems dangerous. He laughed. It's only dangerous if you don't know what you're doing.

How can you be so sure you know what you're doing? Because the book told you? Well, yeah. Then his face seemed to darken. I thought you'd love this. We can teleport. We can go anywhere. I fitted the closet to teleport to the box,

but think about it, we could inscribe the inside of one of the closets at Gramma Gramps and just teleport to see them any time. He paused and stroked his chin. Hell, with some more reading, I could possibly even teleport into Bobby Bucharest bedroom and slit his throat in his sleep. My jaw drop in stunned silence.

The gleam in Aaron's eyes that soul, often seemed full of excitement and glee. It had been replaced with one of malice and hatred. It gave his whole face a more sinister appearance. Have you gone through the teleport? Aaron put his hand on my chest. I flinched anticipating a shockwave like the one he'd used to lay out Bobby. But all he did was slowly pushed me out of the closet.

His eyes stared deep into mine, and I felt a sudden rush of fear. The shine in his eyes was gone entirely. only a creeping dullness remained. He shut the closet behind him and stood there, his eyes burrowing into me. I haven't. Hyperion was actually the first living thing I sent through. But look at him.

He's fine. I turned to look at Hyperion, who was still desperately attempting to get out of the room. I don't know. He looks terrified. Aaron walked past me and started to pick the cat up, but Hyperion dug his claws into the wood, arching his back to try to keep all four paws on the floor.

for as long as he could. The moment he left the ground, he turned and lashed out, hissing at Aaron and swiping at his face. Hey! Aaron dropped the cat, clutching his armward and thrashed with his back claws. Frowning, he opened the bedroom door, watched Hyperion squeeze through the moment the crack was wide enough, and then shut it again. That little shit. Yeah, he seems fine. He's just a dumb animal.

He walked back across the room to the box and shut the lid again. I'm going to try it. I looked at him incredulously. What, now? Sure. Why wait? You won't even fit in that box. It's too small. I'm not going in the box. I'm going in the closet.

He rubbed the arm that cat had scratched and started walking toward the closet. Quickly, I stepped in front of him and put my arms up, obstructing him from going in. Aaron, wait! My whole body tensed up. I wasn't sure if he still had the mark on his hand, but I suspected that he did. why wash something like that off after all? My only hope was that there was still some shred of love in my brother's heart, that he would to use it on me.

Aaron tucked his chin down and froed his brow, glaring at me with an icy stare that caught the words at my throat. Through gritted teeth, he hissed. You want to know something else, the book told me? It told me to be careful who I showed its secrets to. It told me that weak-minded people would be afraid of what I would learn. I didn't think it was talking about you. When he finished his rant, a low whispering began.

At first I thought it was him, but as I listened, I realized it was coming from their desk just off to our right. There on the desk, the tome sat alone, an unnatural voice emanating from its open pages. Just thinking about it now, I remember the moment with perfect clarity, and the goose flesh spread down both my arms. Even without understanding the language it was speaking in, I could remember what it said. It's as if the words bored into my brain and imprinted themselves there. Aaron raised his arm out straight and I saw the mark of the lightning bolt on his palm. He held it just inches from my rib cage. Maybe I should make you go first.

Don't do this. It was all I could muster. My eyes were fixated on the book and I can't really say anymore whether I was talking to Aaron or to it. The toome had me under its spell again, unable to look away, frozen in place. realizing I was petrified, Aaron used the opportunity to shove past me and walk in the closet. I couldn't see him anymore once he was behind me, but I could hear him stepping carefully on the construction paper, trying to make sure not to smudge any of the ruins.

Calmly, he addressed me. Stop acting like I'm going to blow up the house, Bill. This is just one small step for man. And then he shut the door. I was grateful that our parents took as long as they did to come home. My father returned first, having finished his grading and whatever else he did at the office. Mother came home a bit later, stopping at the grocery store to pick up a few items for dinner. Neither one of them noticed that Aaron was missing at first.

I wasn't able to concentrate on anything, my heart too busy racing, waiting for one of them to ask about him. Finally I was sent to fetch him for dinner. My hand shook as I went upstairs, knocked at his bedroom door, waited a bit, then went in and paced around pretending to look for him. I actually did look in the closet just for a second to make sure. When I came back downstairs, I told him that he wasn't in his room. room. Dad went out on the back porch and called for him to come in. And mom pressed me on where I'd seen him

last. I had to confess that he'd been in his room almost all afternoon, but that I hadn't been paying any attention. And I thought I'd heard him thumping around before they came home. My plan was to provide clues that hinted at Aaron running away. It was a hard sell. Every word I uttered I had to say slowly and carefully for fear they detected the waiver in my voice. My hands wouldn't stop shaking, so I kept them in my pockets. I'd managed to be pretty meticulous about it. everything. But I spent the next week in perpetual fear that I would give myself away. Or worse, Aaron would return. First, I had run up to the attic and gotten the suitcase down that he always used when we went to visit our grandparents. I packed a bunch of his clothes in it and then put the suitcase

in the closet and shut the door. Sure enough, when I opened the closet moments later, the suitcase had vanished. I'd also gone and gotten his shoes from their spot by the front door, his favorite jacket, and several his favorite books and toys. All these items went into the closet, where the runes diligently did their job and teleported them away. Finally, I took the book, that hideous work of evil, clenched it tight to my chest for a moment, hearing the muffled whispering even then, and threw it into the closet,

letting it strike the far wall and fall open on that ghastly eye. As soon as it landed, I heard its terrible, penetrating voice starts seeping from the pages. But before it could choke me with them, I slammed the closet door shut and collapsed, crying. It took me a few minutes to collect myself and do the last thing. knowing that once I had done it there would be no going back. Carefully, making sure to prop the door open,

I pulled up all the ruin-covered paper in the closet and hid the sheets in one of my art books. When my parents went and checked, all they found was an empty room. Some of his dresser drawers were tossed open in a hurry, and his pillow and favorite stuffed animal were missing. They followed my clues, never once questioning anything they saw, and came to the conclusion I had left for them.

Aaron had run away from home. My mother, grief-stricken, called all her friends for help before calling the police. My father grilled me about Aaron's behavior of late, how he always locked himself in his room after school, and whether he and I had gotten in a fight. Of course, he was never found. How could he be? He was in the box. But I guess you're wondering where the box went, why I lied to our parents about everything.

I knew that the book was evil. It was unnatural. It corrupted my brother, convinced him that he was going to become a purveyor of great secrets and powerful magics, but in the end, it twisted him. Literally, it warped him beyond recognition. Aaron shut the closet door, and the whispering immediately ceased. Lenny's buckled and I fell, catching myself with my hands and squatting there, looking across the room at Aaron's magic box. The words taunted me, and I wondered again why he had purposely misspelled that last word. Seconds ticked by. I called out, hoping to hear him respond from the closet.

Aaron? Instead of the reply, I hoped for there came a guttural howling. I'd seen a nature video a year back, and there was a part where a wolf had gotten its leg caught in a bear trap. It made a sound something like what I'd heard. And it didn't come from the closet. It churned up out of the cardboard box like it was swirling around in a flushing toilet. The box lurched again, only with more force and the top flopped open. Two arms, Aaron's arms, reached up.

and began twisting around each other like a helix. His elbows made a sickening crack, and his arms bent, his hands coming down and grasping the edges of the box with fingers that seemed to have more joints than normal. They bent, and then bent again, and again and again, nails digging into the cardboard. And still the howling continued. The flimsy material bent under his weight and then tipped over.

Oh, God, it tipped over, and he started crawling out. only it wasn't Aaron anymore. It was a hideous monstrosity, twisted and deformed. The features of his face were stretched across his skull at the wrong angle, mouth torn wider at the edges, the cartilage of his nose piercing the skin of his cheek. I could only see white and red in his eyes. They had rolled back in their sockets, exposing the nerves. I countered his unending screaming with my own.

This broken thing that was once my brother. its fingers kept digging into the rug, pulling itself further out of the darkness of the box. Next came his upper torso. His shoulders hunched, spine twisted like a spring. His shirt had somehow merged partially with his body, grafted onto his flesh, and as I watched, it ripped in places,

exposing raw muscle, causing him to wail in further anguish. I'm sorry. I have to pause. just reliving that moment. I can't take it. Please, Aaron, forgive me. I wish I had been stronger. Thank God I at least saved our parents from suffering,

from having to see what you did to yourself. My brain started to shut down. It had seen enough horror in those few seconds to last a lifetime. But at the same time, my survival instinct kicked in. Aaron was turning, having heard my voice and was seeking me out. Maybe he was looking for me to comfort him in his final moments. I'll never know. I was too afraid.

What if he blamed me? What if he wanted to pull me back into the darkness with him? I scrambled to my feet, averting my gaze from the abomination, steadily emerging from the remains of the box. Reaching behind me, I found the knob and pulled the closet door open wide. Quickly I sidestepped Aaron's hands. He must have sensed me passing.

Maybe he felt the slightest breeze as I walked by because his arms flailed out, trying to catch my legs, I could still see the mark of the lightning bolt on his palm, even though that was now twisted into something else. With a short yelp I got on the other side of the box, the thing that was no longer Aaron screeched, its voice coming up from its throat like out of a gurgling sink drain.

Closing my eyes, I dug my shoes into the floor and pushed. There was a thick, sickening squish, then a prolonged squeak like sliding down a fireman's pole as Aaron in the box came off the rug onto the wood flooring. it moved surprisingly easily possibly greased by some unmentionable fluids seeping out of the ever-widening tears in Aaron's flesh

I heard him cry one last time his hands reaching out to either side and clawing at the door flame he knew what I intended my only hope was that pushing him into the closet I didn't ruin any of the ruin work he had done on the floor thankfully Aaron had been very meticulous in taping down the construction paper

it didn't tear or crease at all and I guess in his tormented, pain-stricken state, he didn't think to rip up any of the paper. It was as if, in the last moment, he accepted his fate. I slammed the closet door and leaned hard against it, catching my breath. I'm so sorry, Aaron. It wasn't immediate, of course. And honestly, I wasn't even sure it would work.

I heard his nails clacking on the floor and his twisted wreckage of a body thumping around the inside of the box for what felt like years. The alarm clock by his bed ticked off every second as I lay there in a heat, holding the door shut and trying to keep from crying. Inside the dark closet, abandoned by those who loved him. Aaron suddenly let out a blood-curdling shriek that stretched into a whine, then a shrill sound that seemed to never reach its peak. It only lasted seconds, but it cut through the wood of the door, stabbing into my brain. And I had to hold my hands over my ears to keep it out.

I imagine it was the sound of the magic box being teleported inside. itself and Aaron along with it. Part of me had the disgusting thought that I'd open the closet and find Aaron turned inside out, his organs decorating the floor and his bones sticking to a pulsing pile of goo. Thankfully, that wasn't the case. I can honestly say that I don't know where the box and Aaron went. Maybe to whatever places lie in between. The station where items go to catch the train on the other side of the teleporter.

Only, once there they found no destination available anymore. Maybe he's trapped forever in limbo In his misshapen, pain-wrecked remains of a body Every night since that night I've prayed to God that he put Aaron out of his agony I hope that he's with our parents now in heaven Watching over me and forgiving me for what I did But some nights

I lay there thinking The book came from somewhere Maybe it came from hell Or maybe it was crafted by a person Who meddled with powers they shouldn't have Who knows? But if there was one, there could be more. Some other poor soul could stumble upon a plain-looking book,

pick it up, and have it whisper its lies to them. And when I think about that possibility, I think that maybe, just maybe it's also possible that they'll remake Aaron's magic box. And if they do, maybe he'll still be there, waiting to come home, wanting to see his older brother again, wrap me in his twisted arms and never let me go. Those are the worst nights. 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 past 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.