The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S10E09

Episode Date: January 21, 2018

It's episode 09 of Season 10. On this week's show we have five tales about wicked wilderness and ominous outsiders. "Dogs in the Drywall"‡ written by Cameron Suey and performed by Jeff Clement. (Story starts around 00:02:10) "The Lady at the Mail Slot"† written by Marshall Bannana and performed by Addison Peacock & Erika Sanderson & Nikolle Doolin. (Story starts around 00:34:10) "The Forest Through The Trees"† written by D.M. Skulich and performed by Matthew Bradford & Kyle Akers. (Story starts around 00:47:10) "The Adventures of Zombiegirl"¤ written by Garrett Croker and performed by Wafiyyah White & Erika Sanderson & Elie Hirschman & Erin Lillis & Stephan Neubert & Dan Zappulla & Kyle Akers & Mike DelGaudio & Nikolle Doolin. (Story starts around 01:08:30) "The Fetch"† written by Leo Harrison and performed by Peter Lewis & Jessica McEvoy & Jesse Cornett & Mick Wingert & Kyle Akers. (Story starts around 01:44:20) 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 Sirenicide   Click here to learn more about Cameron Suey   Executive Producer & Host: David Cummings Musical score composed by: Brandon Boone Audio adaptations produced by: Phil Michalski† & Jeff Clement‡ & Jesse Cornett¤ "Dogs in the Drywall" illustration courtesy of Jen Tracy 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 Five Tales.

about wicked wilderness and ominous outsiders. I'm happy to announce we have another great opening act for our live tour, which is just over one month away. Our show in Houston on March 3rd will feature the gang from Sireneicide opening for us. So if you're in Southern Texas, come on out and see the ghastly gang kick things into high gear. That's Sirenaicide joining the list of other great openers on the tour. Darkest Night in L.A., John Grills' creepy podcast in Minneapolis, and the White Vault in New York City. And you never know, we may add more openers for other cities.

Remember to go to the no-sleeppodcast.com slash tour for details and tickets. Now, we're not live yet, and barely even alive, actually, but that won't stop us from carrying on with season 10. The stories are ready, so let's start the journey. In our first tale, we meet a man with an office job, and while he deals with the usual annoyances of bad co-workers, we learn from author Cameron Suey that there are other concerns about his office space, and annoying doesn't even begin to describe the torment.

Performing this tale is Jeff Clement. So even if your job is a stressful mess, Be thankful you don't have dogs in the drywall. I hear the dogs before I see them. It's Monday morning. I'm in the bathroom stall, pants down, pretending to shit, and making polite throat-clearing noises every few minutes. The rotten vegetable green paint on the walls never fails to give me a headache,

so I have my eyes shut tight. Still, I can spend 20 minutes here, three to four times a day eating up an hour. More if you factor in the round trip from office to toilets. My legs are numb despite my best efforts to restore circulation. That's my cue to stand up, to go through the motions of wiping, to flush, and to pretend to wash my hands. Before I can lurch upward, I hear them inside the wall to my right. Nails, clicking on press board and metal, fur scraping drywall, breath like a shuttered,

air conditioning bend. It's right next to me, too big to be a rat and far too real. I spin away, dopey grin on my face and some idiot desire to catch someone's eye, to have a shared moment of surreal, did you hear that? Comradery, but I'm alone in the handicapped stall of a men's rest room. The sound drifts away, vanishing at the corner of the walls. I've almost forgotten it as I've wash my hands, getting them wet and soapy for real, feeling unaccountably dirty. I head back into the office with measured slowness in no hurry to sit at my desk and stare with mock pensiveness at a spreadsheet. I smile at the receptionist, a quick, shy twitch. She has the decency to return the gesture, but I see her reflection in the glass wall as I pass, and I know she will crinkle her nose and

scowl at my back. Five times a day, a quick scowl, then she forgets me. The twins, on opposite sides of my low cubicle walls, share a smirk when I return. One taps an expensive watch and the other Snickers. Then they turn back to their monitors, wantonly displaying fashion and travel sites. Both college football sub-stars turned financial middlemen, and I still can't tell them apart. Even though one is black and the other's blonde. Dueling scents of designer colognes fill the air and I feel sick. Monday is a long day. But it ends.

It must. Tuesday, I hear them again on my way to the toilets. They're shadowing me in the hall, inside the walls. I hear a snarl like the whine of an electric drill depressed and bursts. I should be frightened, but I'm giddy at this bizarre interruption of routine. When I stop, the metallic clatter of nails continues past the elevators and restrooms towards the empty offices that once contained an investment firm. It occurs to me that I may be imagining this business with the dogs. I haven't seen anything, only heard vague noises. So why do

I have a clear picture of them in my head, lean and wolfish with beady eyes? I let my bathroom break going extra 10 minutes, as long as I can before the twins will turn silent jeers into outright verbal abuse, and I'll have to acknowledge them. The thought makes me ill. Back in the office, it becomes clear I've missed another meeting. I stand outside the conference room, unsure of whether to enter late or slip away unseen. Over my shoulder, I catch the receptionist frowning at me, her pretty brown eyes turned down in what, of my most charitable, I would call sad sympathy. The look you give a transient, dying in the gutter.

The glass doors to the meeting room spill open. I hear one of the twins gaffa as the other draws, Well, holy shit. I fake a coughing spell and retreat to the kitchen to drink four glasses of water, hoping to speed the next trip to the bathroom along. It's Wednesday when I first see the dogs, and they are dogs. It's curled up, sleeping at the end of the night. the hallway, so far away that it looks like a ragged heap of discarded gray clothing at first.

But when I stop and squint at it, it uncoils a slinky, silent movement that leaves it standing and facing me. I have the distinct feeling that the eyes are glowing, and I feel, rather than hear, the grinding sounds of its growl. Before I can make out any more details, it dart sideways, into the wall and through it, leaving only a chalky stain on the unbroken surface. It takes me a moment to realize I've stopped breathing. I'm certainly not going any farther down the hallway. Turning on one heel, I re-enter the office.

Too quick. I startled the receptionist out of her good graces and one of the twins stands up to stare. The other whistles from behind two perfect front teeth. There's a sodden patch beneath my right armpit, and an acrid tang of fear and panic leak from my asymmetrical sweat glands. The twins are aware, too, and a few other drones rise up from their cubicles to see me, disheveled and unkempt. For the first time in months, years, I wait to go to the restroom until I actually have to go. I enter the hallway with the eyes locked to the ground, but I can see.

still hear them, growling in low machine tones. I'm almost to the restroom doors when I look up to get my bearings. The dogs are right in front of me. Three of them, lean and wolfish, like I'd imagined. But that's where the similarity stops. They're ragged and filthy. A chalky dust coats their matted, wiry fur. Lean doesn't even begin to cover it.

In the front, skin stretches across a canine rib cage, but behind the rims, beneath the knotted spine, is nothing. Flesh wrapped around a narrow backbone. The back legs have some strange, rumbling threat of power, but they are nothing but literal skin and bones. At the end of each skeletal leg is something I have to stare out for a long, liquid moment before I can accept it. Instead of paws, they have tiny desiccated hands. The hands of a child mummy behind museum glass. Only these hands terminate in perfect shiny wood screws that rasp against the institutional gray carpet. One of the dogs growls again, a power tool with a battery winding down,

and I drag my protesting eyes to look at the thing's head. A shark-toothed smile of gleaming metal nails beneath two gleaming LED eyes, bright and painful to look at. I'm not going to the bathroom. I will find a corner of the office, and I will piss into a coffee mug and dump it into a fake-potted plant.

But it's too late. The lead dog, a foot taller than the other, stalks towards me. The little hands coil into fists, then splay outward with each step, wood screw nails clicking together. It's panting, and a tongue like a rotting gray slab of meat darts between gleaming nails.

The other two dogs are giggling, a low-breat chortle. I turn and run. It lunges after me, howling like a fire alarm, and that's when I realize how fucked I am. Where my office door should be, There's only a featureless hallway stretching on for miles ahead of me. A perfect, geometric banishing point of architecture. No doors.

Nothing. A keening wail of despair fills my throat and I pump my legs, but without any point of reference, I'm not even sure I'm moving. It leaps for me, the sound of little clawed hands on the floor ceasing. screws pierce my shirt and flesh the blow sends me reeling to the floor where i shred my elbows and knees against the carpet i have time to roll over before it's on top of me tiny gray hands clutching at my forearms as i try to bat it away the mouth opens jaw unhinging too far and the dead tongue slides to one side from deep within the black maw With the stale scent of plaster and ozone, something slithers into view. A neon green and shiny tentacle that splits and splays open like a flower.

Wires. Copper wires with green plastic coating spread open like an anemone. At the tips, the plastic peels apart, melting, blackening, dripping away in plumes of sizzling, greasy, smoke. The naked wire at each tip gleams, dancing in the fluorescent light. My arms go slack, drifting across rough fur that can only be fiberglass insulation. A writhing mass of wires spread out across my vision, each pointed tip glowing red hot as it reaches forward to embrace me. The skin on my face is taut in the heat, and my bladder releases wet and warm. And it's almost comforting, like surrendering to sleep. The dog clenches all four of its little hands at once, a spasming embrace. The wood screws dig deep into my chest and thighs, and it thrusts its broken

maw onto my face. The wires burrow deep, and my body erupts in a thousand boiling points of crystal white pain. The wires pierce my eyes with a hiss. The heat quenched in the water of my body. I scream into the thing's open throat as it howls back into mine. I suck in a breath to scream again. Inhale, chalky, dry-walled dust and start to cough convulsively, leaning forward in my chair and spattering my monitor with phlegm. Disoriented, I squint my eyes against the sudden light.

And I try to scream again, but it just comes out as a storm. strangled cough. One of the twins is standing and staring. No clever joke on his lips. He's not the only one. The office is quiet in a field of heads like prairie dogs poke up from behind cubicle walls. All swiveled over to look at me. My shirt is untorn.

My face unflaid. My pants are soaked, of course. The urine already cooling. but I can't stand up now. I manage some facial contraction that passes for a smile and I turn to my monitor, dismiss the Wikipedia article on the screen, and bring up a spreadsheet.

None of them want to ask if I'm okay, but only the twins return to mockery. I hear them whispering the words, piss and stench over the next few hours. When it's dark outside the tinted windows and I'm the last one in the office, I head to the kitchen, stripping naked and running water over the salt stain in my khakis. I relieve myself in the sink.

I won't be going back into the bathroom. I must brave the hallway to go home. That much is inescapable. With my few possessions in hand, my coat, my empty ornamental briefcase, I step back into the hall. The pack is at the far end of the hallway. their pinprick LED lights track me, but they do not follow. The big one pants, a sound almost like the twins mocking laughter, as copper wires dance at the corner of its jaws.

But they do not approach me. They let me reach the halfway point, and in a gesture that feels like an insult, they turn away, ignoring me as I stabbed the elevator buttons. The car comes without. incident. They don't even watch as I board. The elevator I find has too many buttons, and I have questions I shouldn't have. What floor am I on? Which floor has the exit? The numbers descend to one, then L, then B. I hit all three buttons, taking my chances. The car obliges, sliding downward away from the dogs. The ride takes longer than it has any.

right to, and the digital display is dark and quiet. There are no chimes between floors, and I'm left to make pointless estimates of height and time as I go down. Floor one is offices, a twin of my own floor, whose number I can no longer remember, but there are no dogs. The doors part on L in a wave of light, sound, and smells assault me. Morning sun and the thrumming sounds of people and business. Men and women and fresh-pressed, clean suits step onto the elevator before I can get off. Smells of breakfast and coffee and bagged lunches with ham sandwiches. I'm too stunned to move.

How long was I on the elevator? while in the hallway with the dogs. Before I come to my senses, the doors closed again. The passengers giving me a wide berth, barely concealed disgust as they eye my stained pants and damp underarms. They make a show of covering their noses, grandstanding like vaudeville performers. And I see one of the twins, a grin like ice as he shakes his head. If they hate me now, it's worse when they realize I still have the B button lit up, and the elevator slides downward. Now their contempt is vocalized in little coughs and sighs.

The twin chuckles, low and dry, eyes locked on me until I stare down at my shoes. When the door opens on the basement, a concrete hallway with exposed pipes, I think about running. Spending the rest of my days in the solitude of underground. But I can't bear the shame of moving, so I let the door shut and wear of their hateful sidelong gazes. We ride in silence. People depart at each floor, and when the twin steps off the car, I join him, still unable to recall what floor we work on. I follow him at a safe distance down the hall, clutching my jacket and briefcase, aware in the delicate, scent trail of his expensive soaps how awful I must smell. I contemplate darting into the bathroom

to hide, but my body stumbles, numb toward the office door. The dogs trail me inside the walls, metal nails clicking on concrete, fiberglass fur scratching drywall. I hurry through the door. The office is in full swing, everyone moving with coffee-fueled purpose. But they stop to stare at me and pass like a leper. The receptionist regards me in what feels for a moment like true sympathy. And I want to cry, fall at her feet and beg for forgiveness. But she's cupping a pretty hand over her nose and scurrying away. My desk is a thousand miles away.

They're all looking at me. They know something's wrong. I never fit in here before, but it's different now. By lunchtime, they'll have pitchforks and torches. I need to leave. I failed once, but I will leave this time, and I will not come back. No paycheck, no health insurance is worth this. My briefcase drops from my numb fingers, and I turn back towards the front door.

One of the twins' cracks that it's early for my bathroom break. when I break into a run. The dogs aren't in the hallway, but the elevators are destroyed, dented doors hanging a skew to reveal an empty shaft that drops away into blackness. A breeze comes from far below, cool and pleasant, with a smell that reminds me of childhood,

like a garden hose in summer on a hot and dusty sidewalk. That pleasing little thread of memory evaporates, leaving only the black abyss of the elevator shaft. I know I have to go home, but I have no idea where it is or how to get there. A hand wraps around my heart, a gray and withered child's hand. The elevator shaft calls to me, and I have the powerful urge to leap through them. Instead, I turn and enter the bathroom. I'm unsurprised to see the color of the walls is not green, but a pale blue, and that there are now three urinals and two stalls instead of the other way around.

This is the closest thing I had to a comfortable space. Of course, why should it remain that way? The dogs are here. One is lapping in a toilet with his rotten gray tongue. and another is scratching against the metal door of the stall screw nails leaving shining furrows. Up close I see cheap ballpoint pens and paper clips matted in their furrow. The big one is right there smiling at me.

I don't even perceive movement before he's on. Clutching hands, shredding my arms and legs. I sit hard on my ass, the ringing impact against the tiles sent me. stars shooting across my eyes. It drops its lower jaw like a hinge, and I smell burning plastic. The flower of green and copper wires emerges spreading open to embrace me. If I were not wholly empty, I would soil myself and whale the hateful shell. I scream something that must be fuck you, but comes out as an ullulating babble,

and I reach up and grab the bundle of wires at the base hard. Some of the wires curl back to pierce my hand, but I squeeze tighter, and then wrap the other hand around the dog's neck, feeling the metal and plastic frame beneath the fiberglass fur, and I pull, I fucking pull, it hurts. Like reaching into a bag and pulling at the bottom, it turns inside out. The dog falls back in on itself as its guts come tumbling out in a rain of

disposable coffee cups, brown plastic doorstops, and the bright green fabric leaves of fake plants. Where before there were four limbs and the embrace of wire, now a thousand writhing tentacles of metal cabling and plastic tubing lash out with a sudden purpose, entombing me. Every inch of what the dog has become reaches out. A thousand prehensile artificial snakes, each one fixed on piercing my heart and drinking me dry. My body convulses without aim, kicking off the wall and sliding beneath the sinks. But I wear the thing like a perfect suit, molded to every contour of my body. It's skinning me, lacerating and abrading my flesh away. When it starts to grind bone in a dozen places, I open my mouth to scream and it spills inside me. Bitter plastic tendrils force their way down my throat.

I wretch, spewing bitter yellow bile onto my desk over the sticky keyboard. There is no blood on my filthy skin, but I stink more than ever. The tang of fear and sweat stings my eyes almost more than the smell of vomit on my desk. The twins are staring at me. Jokes forgotten. They look afraid, and for a moment, I savour it. I stand up, and I think about spitting at one of them. But then I see the dogs.

Dozens of them, moving through the office without a sound. Devouring. No one sees the things that eat them. One of the twins has only one leg. The other has a raw stump, picked clean by a blossom of hot wires. His dog crouches beneath him like a faithful pet. I run without thought, headlong towards the door. The receptionist looks shocked, fearful of me in my sudden flight.

But she doesn't seem to mind that her dogs chewed a hole in her stomach to root around up in her ribcage with tiny clutching dead hands as everything inside her spills out around her pleaded skirt. A dozen other scenes of casual carnage slide past as I hit the door without slowing down. In the hallway, the dogs, my dogs, emerge, passing through the walls in a puff of plaster dust. They keep pace with me while I run. A game like chasing cars.

They could down me at any time, but they seem to enjoy the exercise. The elevators are still yawning black holes, but I see the emergency staircase next to it, and I throw my shoulder into the door. The stairwell is dim and cramped. The dogs don't follow. I keep on running downward, taking the stairs three, four, of time. I don't slow until I've dropped at least two dozen floors. Too many floors. What stops me

dead is a sudden realization. There are no more doors. There are no numbers. There are only stairs. I keep going for an hour at least past a hundred empty landings. After a while, it doesn't make any sense to go any further down. So I go up. For a day or more. The door to my floor is gone. I keep going. My body screams for sleep.

But I know it will only give up and die. And by God, I want to let it. But not here. Not this building. I will die outside. A thousand flights of stairs pass And finally The staircase ends

A sign Roof access It's twilight outside A cool night The color of a bruise Smelling of car exhaust The rooftop is empty Just a wide field of cracked tiles

I stare out across a city I don't recognize a meaningless field of identical towers. I breathe, deep and clear. I think about my promise to myself. This counts. I'm outside the building. I think this means I win.

It's enough. I smile and enjoy the quiet. When the stars come out, I'm ready. I step up to the edge of the building. look down at the streets below and slip off my shoes i spread my arms wide and i step out into the open air my legs impact just a few feet below on carpet shocked i tilt backwards and crash into a heavy oaken table i lose my balance and go down onto the conference room floor above me fluorescent lights hum everything spins after a while i stand up my shoes are perched on the table next to the telephone at the door of

the meeting room they're clustered staring in at me shocked horrified i can see beyond the frosted glass that everyone is here pressed to get a good look at me leaping to my death from a three-foot wooden table. Fuck them. I pick up a chair and hurl it at the glass. It explodes outward, raining down in a thousand safe little pieces, but it's enough to scatter the goddamn scavengers. I have more chairs.

I throw a few more. Once a half hour or so, if any of them gets too close. The dogs slide between them, unseen. The flying chairs don't scare them, of course. They seem content to just watch. At some point, I doze off, only to wake to strong, firm hands on my shoulders, helping into my feet. I want to weep at how good it feels to have someone not shirk away from me in fear and disgust. To be touched.

I don't recognize these two men in dark. uniforms, but they're whispering soothing platitudes to me and I buy in fully. Yes, it will be all right. Yes, they will help me. Yes, it is going to be okay. They guide me to the door and out into the hall and I'm not scared. I smile at the receptionist as I go and I don't care that she looks like she wishes I was already dead. I understand. In the hallway, the men are no longer trying to soothe me, just hustling me forward towards the waiting elevator.

Inside, there are no buttons, just doors that slide shut on us like a mouth. And I know it's not going to be okay. One of the two men smiles. Behind the grin, I hear the skittering dance of copper wires against his perfect white teeth. The new sense of purpose that comes over me is cool and hollow. If I can't escape this place, then by God I can hurt it, as much as it's hurt me.

I brace myself, planting one foot on the elevator floor, and tense my body. body in preparation to strike. These men, the dogs, they're nothing more than extensions of the building, mindless hands, reaching out from a rotten, hateful abyss. It thinks it has me in its grasp.

Maybe it does. But I will not go willingly. I will bite back. And when I sink my teeth in, I will not let go. If this place will not let me die, then so be it. I will make it kill me. When we're young, it can be a comfort to have an older person in our life to share our time with. But as we learn from author Marshall Banana,

When one little girl meets a strange old lady, there isn't much comfort to be had. Performing this tale are Addison Peacock, Erica Sanderson, and Nicole Doolin. So while you can lock your door, you still have to deal with the lady at the mail slot. I don't remember much before the house on Maple Street. I remember moving day, having to sleep in a cot because my bed was still packed away. I remember eating takeout for dinner all week long, and I remember the first time I looked over at the mail slot at our front door and found eyes looking back at me.

This was our first house with a walk-up, and our door had an old-fashioned mail slot with a little shelf beneath to catch letters. We hadn't had any mail yet because everything was still up in the air thanks to our move. I had no reason to expect anything coming from there, as I walked through our half-unpacked front hallway. Yoo-hoo! I looked over to the front door and saw a woman, holding the mail slot open with her finger.

All I could see of her were her light gray eyes and part of her hand, but by the way she spoke and the wrinkles around her eyes, I could tell she was smiling. I'm looking for my little girl. Is it you? I had no reason to be afraid of anyone. The only strangers I'd ever met were around my parents, so I had been pretty sheltered up to this point. Besides, she looked and sounded no different from the millions of old ladies I'd already met. I giggled and shook my head.

Oh, mercy me then. She wiggled her fingers. Did you just move in here? I nodded. Then we'll have to be friends then, won't we? You can call me Nana. What's your name? I told her.

We chatted for a while about moving and my toys and other things. She was never anything but sugar sweet, and I never felt in danger. When my mom finally called me for a snack, the lady's fingers retreated, and she let the mail slot snap shut. I didn't say anything about my new friend to my mom. It went out of my mind as quickly as the door shut.

But she was back the next door. day. And the next, and the next. She wasn't very different from any other old woman I'd known. She was friendly, in a nosy way, always wanting to know every minute detail of my day, what I ate, who I saw, where I went. I never got around to calling her Nana, because I already had a Nana, my dad's mom. No amount of explaining got her to stop pushing that, though. Most of our talks were normal, the kind you'd have with any grandparent, but she'd say odd things occasionally. She'd talk about how her daughter had run away, how worried she was about her helpless little girl. Then in another conversation, she'd say her daughter had a baby. That made her a mommy,

and mommies were big girls. I tried telling her this, but the lady only laughed. Once you're born, you're always your mommy's little girl. Perhaps if I had been just a bit older, I would have been afraid. I would have asked why a grown woman would run away from her own damn mother and why she was wasting time talking to me instead of searching. I might have wondered why I never saw more of the lady than a small rectangle around her eyes and her left hand. might have, but I didn't.

She would tell me to ignore my mother when she called me away. Try to extend our talks long past the point where I was done. One time my mother got sick of calling me and found me bent over by the door. What's out there? She turned the knob and pushed the door open. I couldn't speak fast enough to prevent her from hitting my friend in the face, but there was no thought. head, no resistance to the opening door.

Me and my mom poked our heads out. There was just our little stoop, with barely enough room for the welcome mat, and the stairs. Nobody behind the door. Nobody at the foot of the stairs. Maybe if I were older, this would have frightened me. But I was at an age that the woman's eyes, still peering out from the mail slot as my mother shut the door, made a sort of sense. The lady was only at the mail slot,

which just led somewhere else. She dropped me a wink and closed the mail slot soundlessly. The gifts started up soon after that. I would find little things. Clips, she begged me to put in my hair. Cards printed with lipstick kisses. Jewelry, she insisted, I model for her.

It was exhausting. I'd never wanted to turn down a gift in my life, but there were just so many. Plus, whenever I had time to go back and look at them later, they always looked much worse than they had at the door, like something she'd fished out of an old dumpster. I started throwing them away. Our talks took a turn. Now, when she spoke about her daughter, she'd used terms that described me. She started pressing for visits. Oh, I'm sure your mean old mama won't mind if you step out and play with me for a bit. When I reminded her about the door, she just giggled.

What turned the whole thing sour? I said no. Just a simple refusal. I had been a patient child up until that point. But when I got up to go one day and she demanded I sit and talk somewhere, a light bulb sparked in my brain. I didn't have to. I had reached the doorway to the next room

when her voice hit me right in the knees like any good mom tone. You get back here right now, young lady. It didn't explicitly say I was in trouble, but it hinted at worse things to come if I didn't listen. But I remembered that she wasn't my mom. She wasn't anyone I had been told to listen to. She couldn't even move out from behind that dumb old mailbox.

I stepped into the next room. A weight thumped against the door, like someone had thrown a piano into it. I jumped back, shaking all over. You're a little bitch! Her voice suddenly sounded like it had been caught in a drain. It had an angry growl that didn't seem like it could come from something as small as a human throat. You do not turn your butt.

back on me. Do you hear me? Come back right here or by God! I ran. I ran all the way to where my mom was gardening in the backyard and hid in her skirts until dinner time. I had the notion that I would be in trouble if she knew I had disobeyed the lady in the mail slot. I had been told to obey grown-ups after all. My mom noticed how odd I was acting and told me to get up to bed early. Fine by me. I must have taken those stairs three at a time in my haste to get away from the front door. I had nearly forgotten what had happened the next day as I hopped down the stairs for breakfast. The mail slot was already opened by the time I got there. The woman's eyes were no longer smiling.

She had bags under them, and her eyeballs were bloodshot. I will give you one chance to apologize. Say you're sorry for being a nasty little bitch and break. my heart. My parents didn't even swear around me. And suddenly I was being called a bitch. I took a step away from the door. She saw. Her eyes became crazed is the only term I can think of for it. They got all wide and her eyebrows practically met in the middle. It looked like she should have been screaming. But she made no sound at all. She started shoving her fingers. She started shoving her fingers. through the mail slot. They looked longer and bonier than I'd remembered. By the time they reached

their sixth knuckle, I was done. I ran screaming to my mom. She didn't hear the stuff I said about how the lady had impossible long fingers, how she lived in the mailbox, only how I had been talking to some stranger at the front door. That was all she needed to hear. Mom bundled me back to her in dad's room, locked me in, and called the cops. Nothing came of the investigation, since they found no evidence of an intruder and decided I wasn't the most reliable witness. My dad screwed down the mail slot so it couldn't be opened and installed a locking mailbox at the end of the driveway. I got the stranger danger talk, and my mother made sure I never left her side for weeks after that.

I wish that was the end of it. Weeks later, I woke with a terrible feeling in my stomach, like I was midfall from a tall height and had nothing to cushion my landing. I got out of bed and crept downstairs. The mail slot blended in with the door in the pitch dark. I switched on the light in the next room instead of the hall light, so it wouldn't show through the window on top of the door. The screws on the mail slot were coming out.

Slowly, like someone was unscrewing them from the other side. That didn't seem possible to me, but I had already seen a lot of impossible things around this door. Ping, ping, ping, they hit the floor. Once the last screw fell out, I held my breath. My feet were stuck in place with fear. Probably the last thing I'd expect it was a torn strip of newspaper to slither through the opening

but it was almost a relief compared to what I'd been expecting. Then there was another one and another a small pile of newspaper strips formed at the front of the door. I was half curious, half frightened. What the hell was newspaper supposed to do? And then the last one came through and flaming. A deep cackle came from the other side of the door as the pile went up in a flash, a cackle that went on and on as I screamed for my parents.

They told me it was lucky that I was up that late, that the fire could have done so much worse than scorch our front entryway. My dad suspected that I was the one that took the screws out for a while, but then he realized I had no screwdriver to do it. In the end, we got a new foot. front door. One with pretty pebbled glass so you could always see who was on the stoop, and no mail slot. By now you've learned that the forest is a place to avoid. We've made it our mission to inform the public. And author D.M. Schoolich shares another cautionary tale. In it we meet a man

who is smart enough to drive through the woods instead of walking, smart until he has to leave his car. Performing this tale are Matthew Bradford and Kyle Acres. So keep your eyes on the road, lest you not see the forest through the trees. I sighed as I slowed to stop, behind the line of cars at the light where Highway 82 branches off of Highway 62, and look like there was a wreck. And judging by the amount of police cars and ambulances, it must have been a bad one. Lovely. I rubbed my temples and annoyance, shifted the car into park, and tried not to let the dozens of flashing lights give me a seizure. This is what I got for deciding to head back to college for my break overnight, rather than getting up early in the morning and probably

falling asleep at the wheel. I much preferred driving a night rather than the morning. It wasn't the worst drive, only two hours. But this crash was doing its best to make it longer. I pulled out my phone and called up my roommate. Hey, Mark, take a guess who's going to be late getting back tonight. Looks like two people decided that their cars would look much better smashed together a little ways outside Taliqua. You know, you can just go back home and come back tomorrow. Bro, I already used the gas to get this far.

I'm not going to waste it. Plus, I have a bag of leftovers my mom packed for us. And I'd hate to deprive you of that after all. And that case, just floor it past the wreck and get your ass back here. Tempting. I'm going to let you go. Can't guarantee I don't eat the food to survive the weight, though. I hung up with a laugh before he could throw out a comeback.

I looked back at the scene. I should have left ten minutes earlier and avoided this. Or maybe they should have just wrecked ten minutes later. I winced at the intrusive thought. That was a bit too rude. My luck may be bad right now, but I take my position over theirs any day. I made the most of my time by throwing all the truce of my time. by throwing all the trash in my car into a Walmart grocery bag.

It was more than I was proud of. I rolled down the passenger window and tossed the bag. No one would say anything, and I didn't want to put up with the smell of those McDonald's fries I found under my seat. The movement of the line caught my attention. I perked up, thinking everything got cleared up when I wasn't paying attention. But my hopes were just as quickly dashed when I saw that it was only because people were turning around, because they either didn't feel like going to their destination

or because they were just going to find another route. Oh shit, I thought. I pulled out my phone and looked up a mat. There was an alternate route I could take if I drove about a mile back and took some backroads. It beat sitting on my ass, so I did a U-turn and went on my way. The line of cars had built up about a half-mile back.

The poor bastards. As far back, you couldn't even. tell what was holding everyone up. Another half mile or so I came across my turn. Coffee Hollow Road. I thought about checking my phone again and having it give me turn-by-turn directions, but decided against. Using your phone and driving is already risky enough. More so when you're somewhere you've never been. Besides, I remembered the route well enough. Go straight for a while, take a right, after a mile or so take a left, then a right, and voila. You have reached your destination.

I had mixed feelings about driving at night. On one hand, I enjoyed it. It was calming and provided a good time to just put your body on autopilot and think. Some of my best ideas came about on the road. But on the other hand, it could be unnerving, bordering on scary. A road that I had driven a hundred times before in the daylight suddenly became entirely foreign once I lost the comforting light of the sun. Turns and landmarks would stop being familiar

and leave me wondering whether I was going the right direction or missed my turn. I remembered a few years back when I worked at a summer camp out near Vion, Oklahoma. It was a 45-minute drive if I took the turnpike that had the additional cost of a toll. $1.50 was a bit too steeply. for my blood, so I opted for the path that went through the woods, as I usually did. It would only add ten or so minutes. That was both the first and last time I took that route at night. I constantly felt lost, not recognizing anything I passed. I came to the realization that I must have missed my turn a few miles back. I realized this while going around a curve that was much

sharper than expected. My Mazda's back wheel lost traction, and the car slid off the side of the road, totaling it. I came out unharmed, minus a small burn from the airbag releasing, no small amount of anxiety, and a father who was less than pleased about this sudden expense. I pulled to a stop at the stop sign and turned right onto Willis Road. The road was much narrower than I was comfortable with. I constantly felt like I had to either stick to the right and order on going off the side or stick to the middle and risk a collision. Not that I expected anyone to be driving back here at 8 at night. The place didn't scream bum-fuck nowhere, but it did whisper it a bit.

The road curve before straightening out. I took the curve slowly and anxiously. I did enjoy the ascetic of the place, though. The road was almost perfectly straight. and the sides were lined with trees. They were hardly spaced apart, so it almost looked like a wall of bark, separating you from the outside world.

The trees reached out towards each other above the road. There are empty branches tangling with one another to form a canopy of interlocked sticks. Had it not been the fall, I imagine that it would have looked quite beautiful when coated with leaves. Now, however, they more resembled skeletal fingers

trapping the road underneath their grip. Had I not been so drawn in by the scenery up above, I would have noticed the gnarled claw-like branch that stretched out too far into the road. It screeched like nails on a chalkboard as it raked across the side of my car. The shock of the noise made my foot slam on the brake harder than I wanted.

As my car skidded to a stop, my tightened seatbelt was the only thing stopping my nose from getting real personal with a steering wheel. I sat panting for a few moments before I turned my phone's flashlight on and got out to assess the damage. I was expecting a serious scratch in the paint, but instead there was a slash in the metal

two feet long. The fuck kind of branch! I turned and marched back down the road to find whatever branch of steel just gutted my passenger door. I followed the skid marks on the road to where they began, but didn't see anything. So I walked a bit further.

Nothing. None of the trees had low-lying branches reaching out, and the road was clear. There were the sounds of a branch snapping from beyond the tree line behind me, followed by the sound of branches scratching against each other in the wind. But the air was perfectly still. I cautiously turned and power walked back to my car and hopped back in. As I drove, I focused on my breathing. and tried to slow my heart down a bit.

Once that was done, I paid much more attention to the road. So, you were just distracted and let a branch or something similar to one fuck up the side of your car. Obviously, whatever it was, broke and couldn't be found. But then, and there was just some animal wandering around. Simple. Who are you trying to convince? I ignored me.

Besides, I was more worried about explaining to Dad how I gave my car this stylish new look. There was no way I could afford to fix it. Not after having to get the new car battery last week, plus rent, plus groceries, plus that ticket, I calm myself. I didn't need that stress. How long had I been on that road now? I looked at the map on my phone again. The road should have been no more than two miles. I should have traveled more than that.

I tried looking for my exact location but had no service. I tossed my phone aside. I looked up at the road just in time to see the fallen tree. My foot reacted even quicker than last time, and the force of the stop jerked me forward again, making my seatbelt lock up while my head snapped forward, painting my neck muscles. I doubted I had whiplash.

But that didn't make me feel any better. I sat for a moment or two to calm down and regain my thoughts, just staring at the tree that managed to make that night move up a notch on the shittometer. It looked to be a healthy tree. I don't know what out there could have snapped its trunk. I turned my car around, which required a dozen point turn thanks to the narrowness of the road and started my way back home.

I would drive back to college in the morning. At that point, all I wanted was to get home and pour a stiff drink. This time, I saw it soon enough to slow to a stop. A tree. Fallen in the middle of the road. Again. Lord just kill me now. I pushed that thought aside and got out of the car to investigate.

I gave the tree a kick. Didn't budge. I stood there staring at it, not knowing. what to do. I went and looked at the stump. The top of it was jagged, as if someone grabbed a tree and broke it like a twig. The spot where the tree had been was the only opening in the wall of trees. I stepped through the opening over the stump, keeping my eye on it so I didn't scrape my leg. I came out the other side and raised my flashlight to look around. I had stepped on to another road. and there was another wall of trees a few yards in front of me.

I was cut off by an ear splintering crack of wood directly behind me. I launched forward and turned as I fell so I didn't faceplant. I was met with the sight of a wall of trees with no opening. The fallen tree had somehow righted itself again. Without thought, I shot up and pushed at the tree. No give. I tried climbing, too smooth. I looked for a gap to squeeze through.

The trees were too close. I stepped backwards to the middle of the road and sat, hands gripping the side of my head, hyperventilating. I looked side to side. No, no, no, no, no, no. The first help. I started controlling my breathing. In four seconds.

Out, four seconds. In four seconds. Out, four seconds. I don't know how long I sat there before I finally steadied myself. My phone read quarter to nine. I got up, nothing, but a road leading to darkness on both ends, enclosed by an impassable wall of trees, as the canopy of tree branches, which were more entwined than earlier, entirely blocking out the night sky. A tunnel were my options.

I could walk until I found somewhere, or I could sit and wait for morning. but could I even tell if morning came through that twisted ceiling of branches. And if I just sat there, my phone would die, leaving me in absolute darkness. Walking, it was 9.30, 50% battery life. I began to notice a slight change in scenery. While no passable gaps ever appeared between the trees, trees themselves began to look less living. It was subtle. at first, with the occasional tree looking a little grayer than the rest, and a few more,

until all of the trees were nothing but gnarled grotesque columns of wood, with interlocking tendrils coming out of the top, but still just as sturdy as before. They gave off a horrendous odor as well, smelling of rot in the dead. It permeated the air, and only got stronger the farther I walked, to the point where we where the air was thick with a smell, and I could feel it sliding across my face as I walked, along with the tears it pulled out of me. I passed the time focusing on not puking, mentally repeating my mantra. In four seconds.

Out four seconds. 10.30. 25% battery life. The trees were looking at me. I knew it. And they knew I knew. Some had slightly bulbous parts coming out with holes in them that stayed locked on me wherever I went. I kept my distance.

Staying in the dead center of the road, I was safe on the road. That much I knew. I sat down to give my feet a rest. The smell wasn't as bad now. Or maybe I was just getting used to it. I lay down on my back. Maybe I'd just rest. Only for a moment.

I turned my flashlight off. No point in wasting battery after all. Not while I was in the safe zone. The darkness was all encompassing. I almost couldn't tell whether my eyes were opened or closed. But even though I couldn't see anything, I knew they were still watching me. Their dark holes glaring,

hoping I moved too close to them. I closed my eyes. I awoke to a strange feeling around my left hand. I grabbed my phone and shone the light on it. There was a wooden vine stretching from a tree across the road. The end of it wrapped around my hand, wrapped around, encompassing, swallowing. I yanked my arm away, elbow on the ground for leverage,

putting my entire body into it. The vine snapped. My hand was still covered. now entirely numb. I smashed it into the ground to break it over and over, but it was as solid as the trees were. The road wasn't safe. Nowhere was safe.

Before I knew what I was doing, I was on my feet, full sprint, ignoring the burning ache of my legs, ignoring the smell, ignoring the wooden monstrosity that used to be my left hand. And that's when I saw it, the dead end. Where the roots of the trees rose from the ground and twisted together, writhing.

You chose the wrong path, you fool. Shut up, shut up, quit intruding. I wished I didn't say that aloud. That was what they wanted. They knew they were winning, and I bet they were all laughing with each other. I turned around and started my way back to the other side. 11.30, 15% battery life. The road was narrower than I remembered.

They were gaining ground. What would happen first? My phone dying or the road ending. I didn't dare stop to rest my feet again. I knew their tricks now. All I needed to do was to make it to the other end. And I had won. Assuming there is another end.

I kept walking. Midnight. 5% battery life. The tree was in the middle of the road. That's not fair. I inched my way closer to get a better look. It didn't look like the other trees. It was shorter, had a more protruding bulbous part,

narrower branches that were lower, and bent in the middle with five long twigs shooting out of the end. And its base was split down the middle from the ground to a few feet up. The bulbous part, the head, twisted all the way around to face me. Two empty sockets met my gaze, and the bark underneath them split open in a curve. A smile, the pit of which was just as black as its eyes. One of its legs moved forward.

Then the other, its arms twitched about, bending any which way while it extended its long. long, needleed fingers. The void of its eyes never left me, smile widening. My legs felt as numb as my left hand, buckling and struggling to keep me up. Every step it took towards me, I took one back. I wanted to run, but my legs refused. They had all they could take. I looked at my phone, 1% Zero And darkness took over I did the only thing I could do

I stood there I could hear the rhythmic creaking of its steps Each one slightly louder than the last Hurry up Agreed The creaking came from a foot away And I stopped I waited

How long didn't matter I noticed I was holding my breath. I let the air out as quietly as I could. In four seconds. A breath of pure rot filled my nostrils and made my stomach heave inside me. Five tendrils wrapped around each arm, followed by a numbness. It began in my feet as well, sliding its way up my legs into a coalesced all around my My torso, then my neck.

I felt like a floating head. It crept up past the back of my skull. Its breath washed over my face. One last. 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.

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. 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.