The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S11E09

Episode Date: July 29, 2018

It's episode 09 of Season 11. On this week's show we have three tales about what evils lurks among the wary woodlands and terrifying trees. "The Winchester Woods" written by Rona Vaselaar and performed by Graham Rowat & Mary Murphy. (Story starts around 00:02:50) "The Five Deaths of Margaret Ann Campbell" written by Carolyn A. Drake and performed by Jesse Cornett & Jessica McEvoy & Erin Lillis. (Story starts around 00:27:00) "The Trees Are Not What They Seem"† written by Jared Roberts and performed by Mick Wingert & Elie Hirschman & Mike DelGaudio & Peter Lewis & Dan Zappulla & Matthew Bradford & Jesse Cornett & Kyle Akers & Atticus Jackson & David Ault & Elie irschman & Nichole Goodnight & Erin Lillis & Jeff Clement & Alexis Bristowe. (Story starts around 01:00:25) Click here to learn more about the voice actors on The NoSleep Podcast   Click here to learn more about Rona Vaselaar   Click here to learn more about Carolyn A. Drake   Click here to learn more about Jared Roberts   Executive Producer & Host: David Cummings Musical score composed by: Brandon Boone Audio adaptations produced by: Phil Michalski† & David Cummings "The Trees Are Not What They Seem" illustration courtesy of Mark Pelham 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

This audio program presents horror which is frightening and disturbing. You let us into your mind at your own. The sunlight fades to darkness. The frightful tales creep into your mind. It's time to give it to your fear because tonight there will be... Brace yourself for the No Sleep Podcast. It's the No Sleep Podcast. I'm David Cummings. for joining us. On the show this week, we have three tales about what evil lurks among the

wary woodlands and terrifying trees. We're doing something a little different this week on the show. We rarely only do three stories, but this week, the season past content is the epic tale from author Jared Roberts, called The Trees Are Not What They Seem. It's a 90-minute production from the author of such classic stories as my dad finally told me what happened that day, Arkansas Sleep Experiment, and the hidden web page. And if you want to hear this great tale but aren't a season past member, it's a great time to remind everyone that you can purchase individual full-length episodes. Just go to our web page, the nosleeppodcast.com, and click on the link to this episode. There you'll see a buy-full episode button. For just $1.00.

and 49 cents, you can get the complete episode featuring the tale among the twisted trees. And as we do every season, we also have our rent-to-own program. When you buy 14 individual episodes from any one season, you can get an upgrade to a full-season pass. A nice easy way to hear all our productions without paying for the full-season pass up front. And so, are you ready to walk among the trees? See the beauty of nature? Hear the calls and chirps of the creatures therein? Well then, let's go. Because the tape is in the machine.

The stories are ready. So let's press play. In our first tale, we meet a man who tells us about his small town and the strange, sinister forest which borders it. As explained by author Rona Vassilar, everyone in the town knows one undisputed fact. No one should ever go into that forest. But the man decides he needs to in order to help in an emergency,

and he soon finds out why that place is to be avoided at all costs. Performing this tale are Graham Rowett and Mary Murphy. So listen to the town elders and stay out of the Winchester Woods. If you live in Birkins, Minnesota, you don't go in the Winchester Woods. It's the sort of thing everyone knows about. Children are told, from the day that they're old enough to crawl with abandon, that they must avoid the Winchester Woods at all cost. Whenever you leave the house, as a teenager, your mother will shriek after you.

Stay away from those woods, you hear? When a newcomer shows up in town, the first thing we tell them, with rigid severity, is to avoid those woods like the plague. The second thing we tell them is how to get back onto the interstate most of the time. There's no legend about these woods. The only thing keeping people out is the certainty that they're so dangerous as to be synonymous with death. Every person in the town steers clear of them.

Not even the teenagers or skeptics dare to set foot inside. Nobody can pin down what exactly about the Winchester Woods makes everyone so afraid, but one thing is certain. It's damn good at keeping people away. We Berkins folk are peace-loving and quiet. We don't go looking for adventure. Those rare ones that do will leave Burkens. when they're old enough and will never come back.

It's better that way for everyone. And so everyone's content to leave the Winchester Woods alone. But I've been in the Winchester Woods. So far as I know, I'm the only Burkens resident to have ever gone in those woods. Maybe others did. But if so, I don't know any of them. Maybe they did and never made it back out. Or maybe they've just been quiet about it all these years.

I never intended to go in. It was extenuating circumstances that brought us. me to the tree line just west of town. About 50 miles north of Birkins, a little girl went missing. Her name was Annette Erickson, and she was just ten years old. She'd vanished, you see, right from her backyard one day. She'd been playing outside. Her parents had been inside the house, not paying much attention, and suddenly she was gone. The whole state was looking for this little girl. Notices had been put up hundreds of miles from her hometown, begging people to keep a look out for this little blue-eyed, blonde-haired doll of a child. It struck a chord with me when I

saw it, maybe because my little sister was just about the same age at the time. In Berkins, we all kept our eyes peeled for this little girl. Being such a small town, any sort of outsider was bound to be noticed right away. We watched and we waited, but nobody saw her. Days went by, and people began to fear the worst. Not that she'd be found dead, no, but that she wouldn't be found at all. Her parents were all over the news, hysterical with grief. It was their grief that moved me to suggest we look in the Winchester woods. Police chief, Officer Olson, wouldn't hear of it. He was sitting in his office when I made my suggestion, and he scoffed when he heard it,

sipping on his burnt coffee and leveling me with an intense gaze. Son, you're too old to be missing out in them woods. Nobody can go out there. It just ain't right. I know you probably don't want to hear this, but if that little girl is out there, well, we won't find nothing of her. I can tell you that much.

I left his office, but I wasn't deterred. I brought up the idea to my parents, who shot me down with incredulity bordering on scorn. My mother told me that nobody in their right mind would go out there as she fiddled with the buttons on her blouse out of nerves. My father wrapped a protective arm around her, advising me to leave the place well alone. It was the same old adage.

Nothing good comes out of going there. No reason why. No explanation. Just the usual worried frowns and nervous tics whenever the place got mentioned. Even my friends turned me away. I couldn't quite convince them I was serious. They laughed off my suggestion as though it was intended as a joke.

They couldn't even fathom stepping into those woods. Even so, I wasn't deterred. To me, the possibility, however slim, that we might find this girl was worth the risk. So, one warm summer morning, I took my big red pickup truck out on the highway and guided it outside town to where the line of trees began. I told no one that I was leaving, but left a note on my kitchen table and the door unlocked. Should I become lost in those woods? Should anyone come looking for me? They'd at least know where I was.

I brought with me a bag with some food and water. Not that I plan on being out there too long, but you never know, and it's always better to be prepared. Some rope, a flashlight, and my cell phone. I paused, hesitated, for just a moment. It felt wrong what I was about to do. It went against my every instinct as a Birkin's native. My body and mine were screaming at me to get away,

go back home for God's sake. But my heart was still searching for the... that little girl in every nook and cranny where she might possibly be hidden. My heart couldn't give up the search just yet, and it pulled my brain and body with it. I entered the Winchester Woods. It wasn't easy, because I had to squeeze through the trees at first, worming my way through the narrow gaps between the trunks. I'd only made it a few paces in when I considered just turning around and going back. It was too dense, after all. There was no way anybody could have gotten here, but as I was making my decision, I saw a wider gap between the trees and a sharp ray of

sunshine. I made my way for it, painstakingly slowly, and managed to stumble through it. It wasn't a clearing, but the trees were definitely further apart here. I was only a few feet into the woods, but already they looked like a different place. The sunshine filtered softly through the trees, casting a warm glow on the green leaves. I could hear birds cherolds. I could hear birds chirping, and animals rustling in the underbrush as I stepped forward. Up ahead, I saw a deer look up, startled at my presence, and then bolt away in fear. This would be a good place to go hunting, were people so inclined? Probably a good thing they weren't. Animals need a refuge, too.

The Winchester woods are small, like I said, maybe only three square miles, about the size of our town, actually. I wasn't sure I could cover it all in one day, but I thought maybe two or three days. would be enough to be reasonably thorough. Then again, I didn't really know what I was doing. I'd never conducted a search for a missing person before. For lack of a better idea, I just started walking. Figured I might as well. I went to the left first, thought I'd walk until I hit the tree line,

then turn around and walk to the right until I came to the opposite end of the woods. Repeat as necessary. I whistled to myself as I started off. Enjoying the wildlife, I'm thrilling just a bit in breakings. such a long-hilled taboo. My sweep of the woods was largely uneventful. I didn't see much of interest. I put notches in a few trees to mark my progress,

but otherwise left everything untouched. It was beautiful in there, peaceful. I started thinking about maybe setting up a little shed out there or something. Somewhere quiet I could go when I needed time to think. I was distracted by these thoughts when I tripped over something. It wasn't a pretty trip either. It left me sprawling in the dirt and against a tree root. My hands skinned and my knees banging on a few hidden rocks.

I thought at first that it must have been one of these rocks that I tripped over. I dragged myself to my feet, hissing at the sting in my hands, and grumbling under my breath at my dumb luck. Then my breath stopped short in my throat, as my eyes were drawn to something bright and white among the dirt. There was a hand sticking out of the ground. My heart was hand. hammering in my chest, and my jaw dropped as I stared at it, just sitting there, like it was just

a part of the scenery. I'd come out to the woods to search for something, and now that I'd perhaps found it, well, I just had no idea what to do about it. I walked over to the hand, kind of curious, and melt down next to it. My mouth was dry, my throat like sandpaper. The hand was completely still as I inspected it. I poked at it. It was ice cold. old and rigid. There was a dead body buried there. I panicked. I'm not exactly proud to say it, but it's the truth. Even though that person must have been extremely dead, I started clawing at the earth with my hands, scraping my fingernails against the ground in a desperate attempt to unearth them. The dirt was so solid that I barely left scratch marks. Frustration gripped me.

I was useless like this. Then I remembered it, my shovel. I keep one in the back of my truck in case I ever need to dig it out of something. Like I said, I like to be prepared. I rushed back to my feet and grabbed my rope from my bag. Sinking quickly, I roped off the area as best as I could. Then I set off back in the direction of my truck, marking trees as I went so I'd know the way back. Getting out of the woods was as much a challenge as getting in, if not more, but eventually I managed it. I grabbed the shovel from my truck and retraced my steps, adrenaline flooding my veins. I had found a dead body, an actual dead body.

Man, the town would be talking about this for years to come. I had a moment of panic when I lost sight of my trail in the trees, but I quickly relocated it and found the hand once more. Still there. I was strangely worried it wouldn't be. I pushed a shovel into the dirt with my full weight behind it and started digging. It was hard work, and I had to be careful not to damage the body I was trying. trying to excavate. By the time I reached her head, I was sweating buckets, and my boots and jeans

were covered with dirt. The further down I went, the easier it became to move the soil, much to my surprise. I figured she must have been buried pretty recently, since her hands still, you know, looked like a normal hand. The dirt on top felt like it had been caked for years, but underneath, well, that was a different story. Eventually, I got her torso, unconscious. Eventually, I got her torso, Robert. The dirt was so loose here that, to my continued surprise, I was pretty sure I could just sort of pull her out, which is what I did. I put my boots on either side of the hole I'd dug, which was pretty wide, so I struggled to hold my stance and grabbed her hand. By now I could see that this wasn't a little girl. This was a full-grown woman. Still, a body was a body, and the police would just have to sort it out for themselves. I pulled and pulled. Her body, she was a body. She was a body. She was a body. She was a body. She was started to shift just a bit in the dirt. I moved my grip further down her arm and pulled again. Now she was starting to emerge from the dirt.

I was able to see that she was wearing a dress. It's not unheard of, of course, for a woman in this area to wear a dress, but this didn't look like any dress I'd seen in my time. Still, it was hard to tell because of all the dirt covering it. I gave another good yank, and suddenly, the dirt released her. She was practically launched up into my arms. I fell backwards, losing my already tenuous footing, and plunked my ass right down in the dirt. She fell forwards into my arms, and I felt a shiver run through my body at her cold, rigid form.

If you've never experienced holding a corpse before, well, I wouldn't recommend that you start now. I swallowed the nausea that hit my gut and dragged her out of the hole. I sat her on the ground and wiped the sweat and dirt off my forehead, then more out of impulse than anything else. I leaned forward and brushed the dirt from her face and hair as best as I could. She was beautiful. She had long golden hair and full lashes. She wasn't bone thin, but she was lean.

Her cheeks had a fullness that spoke to me of youth. Her lips were plump. She was everything a man could want, at least on the outside. Wouldn't know much about who she was inside, of course. Her dress looked old. It was a long dress, and the sleeves covered her to the wrist. Buttons ran the length of the torso. God, it must take forever to do those up. She almost reminded me of Laura from the little house on the prairie. I wondered what she was doing wearing that, and more importantly, what she was doing out here. I figured that now was the time to call

the cops. Well, I probably should have called them earlier, but what was done was done. I turned my back on the body and fished the cell phone out of my pants pocket. I figured it would be best to talk to Officer Olson directly, so I called his mobile. I knew he'd be madder than hell that I was out here, but hoped he'd overlooked that long enough to get someone out here to pick up the body. My cell phone wouldn't connect. I looked down at it and saw I had no service. Of course not. I sighed and figured I'd have to walk through the woods and back into town to find someone,

or should I take the body with me? Probably not. I had already tampered with it enough. Should I take a picture on my phone to make sure they believe me? Would that be too strange? I was mulling this over when I heard a rustling sound from behind me. Suddenly, the temperature in the woods seemed to drop about 20 degrees. The chirping of the birds, which had filled the air only minutes ago, stopped.

The very air felt still around me, as though the world had paused to take a breath. And still, there was that rustling behind me. I was quaking in my boots, literally, and had to force myself to turn around. I knew I shouldn't be frightened. I knew the woman's body would be right where I left it. I knew. She was standing behind me. Her eyes were wide open, but unseeing, tilted towards the sky.

Her mouth, too, was agape, and I could see that she must have, at one point, swallowed a lot of dirt, for everything I could see inside her was coated with it as well. Her hands were held out, and they twitched just a little. Great wheezing breaths came from her throat. I stared at her in awe. Surely it wasn't possible for her to be alive. Surely this was some trick of my imagination. I'm not a man given to fancy, but this...

This? Her mouth twitched. Her throat worked, and then... And then... She spoke. I took a step back on shaking legs. She didn't move at all. Her sightless gaze still directed towards the clouds.

See? This time she stumbled forward a little, like she was a fawn trying to find her footing. She looked as though she'd topple over at any second. Through the dirt on her skin, I could see how pale she was. No living woman has ever had skin like that. And then she launched herself at me. It happened so quickly, and with so much force,

I was quickly overpowered by her momentum. She dragged us both to the ground, her on top, straddling me. She cackled at the sky. Not quite a laugh, something closer to a scream. She was so heavy, much heavier than she'd been only minutes before, and I found that I couldn't move out from under her. I see you. She had her face positioned directly over mine and was screaming at me,

dirt flex spewing from her lips. I was pushing at her frantically, trying to push away. but she was on me like white on rice. I've never felt as helpless as I felt in that moment. She dragged her fingernails down my face, and I felt my flesh opening. She was clawing my skin off, literally. I thrashed, and she raised her hands again, fresh with my blood.

She rambled on, insane ranting, and started to drag her own fingernails down her face, down her neck, down her chest, slicing through fabric with ease, until it hung off her frame in ribbons. She dug her nails deep inside her own flesh until deep gashes riddled her skin. She didn't bleed.

Still, I struggled under her. Still, I was unable to move. Then, she stopped. Her nails were now digging into her abdomen. So deep, I thought she may start pulling her internal organs out. She cocked her head to the side, her mouth falling open again. Those damned blank eyes still looked at nothing.

Everything in the world stopped. I pissed my pants, unable to hold my terror any longer. I was nearly insensible from it. No 3 p.m. 7.03 p.m. August 6.703 p.m. I heaved my body as hard as I could and pushed. She toppled off of me and fell back into her hole. Her fingers still stuck into her stomach. Her body still a mess of deep grooves and gashes.

She'd nicked her own eye with one of her fingers. fingernails and white pus was slowly dripping down her face. I crept over to the edge of the hole and watched as she writhed in the dirt, rolling back and forth like a dog. She screamed, she laughed, but mostly the noises that came out of her mouth were somewhere in between. As I watched, I saw other hands coming up from the dirt, their pale fingers gripping her, holding her down.

She howled now, her screams turning to sheer terror, and if she could have cried, I think she would have. I started sobbing. Tears stung the bloody cuts on my face. Desperately I pushed as much dirt as I could into the hole. Crawling on my hands and knees, I pushed and pushed and pushed until her screams were so muffled I could no longer hear them. I was shaking so hard by that time that I couldn't find it in me to grab the shovel and finish filling the hole. I got to my feet and stumbled out to my truck, hoping to get as far away from that hellhole as I could. Just before it was out of sight, something inside me, a death wish maybe, compelled me to turn around and look back. From out of that dirt hole, I could see her fingers.

Once again, her hand was sticking out of the earth, as though waiting for someone else. Just when I thought my horror had reached its peak, those fingers bent and waved at me. I wore those cuts on my face for weeks, the scars I wear still. People asked me what happened. I told them it was an accident out on my uncle's farm. Nobody would ask him about it, being as he's the town misanthrope and won't speak to anybody unless absolutely necessary, perhaps not even then.

So I figured I was safe. I stopped asking about Annette, then we stopped looking. Word of her began to die out as people assumed she wasn't coming home. Turns out we were wrong, in a way. Her body was found in a lake near her home. hometown. It took so long to find her because she was in so many pieces. The first piece was fished out of the lake on August 6th, around 7 in the evening. I tried not to think too much about it. A few weeks after, Officer Olson came over to my place to have a chat with me. I was almost

expecting as much. I once figured that nobody knew what was in the Winchester Woods, but it's a fact that the old people of this town, of most small towns, know more than they let on. I'd bet that Officer Olson knew exactly what I'd done the moment that he set eyes on my mangled face. After I'd poured him a cup of strong black coffee and invited him to sit down, he spoke. You know, people don't go out into the Winchester Woods. Everybody knows that. People don't go out there. But when they do, which of course they don't, they always go looking for answers.

He gave me a meaningful look. Did you find your answer? I didn't trust my voice. I nodded. I guess I did find out what I needed to know. Not that it did any good. He sipped at his coffee, and I gathered my courage to speak, begging my voice not to waver.

What's out in those woods, officer? He drained his cup and set it back down on the table, placing it right back over the brown ring it had already left there. Nobody knows, son. I couldn't tell you what it is or where it comes from, but, you know, some things is just better left alone. Sometimes it's quiet outside, and the night is still. The moon is shrouded with clouds, and the world exists as if in a trance,

like it's waiting for something, expectant. On those nights, if you listen very carefully, you'll hear a strange, screaming cackle coming from the Winchester Woods. It'll go on for minutes at a time, only to end in a dry-sounding sob. The echoes of that sob will reverberate forever in your mind, resurfacing in your worst nightmare, just to remind you that something terrible is out there. On those nights, I locked my doors and draw the curtains over the windows. I sit down in my chair and stare at the floor.

And I wonder to myself. Did I do wrong? not filling that hole all the way. When a marriage reaches the point of irreconcilable differences, most couples simply get a divorce. But as author Carolyn A. Drake shares, one man chooses a rather violent way to end his marriage to his unfaithful wife. Shame, even such drastic measures, don't appear to be quite so permanent.

Performing this tale are Jesse Cornett, Jessica McAvoy, and Aaron Lillis. So let's hear this sordid tale about the end of their marriage, and not just the one, but the five deaths of Margaret Anne Campbell. The first time I killed Margaret Anne Campbell was the easiest. She didn't expect it, curled up on the couch, reading, sipping a craft beer that I bought for. The fucking horny. I had nothing to fear until my hand was over her mouth. Even then, she thought I was only playing her own, perhaps engaging in some humorous foreplay that would end with her pin to the sheets.

Her Aunt Bridget gifted us two years ago for her wedding. A muffled laugh against my palm turned into a stifle gasp as I plunged the cold cut-cone blade into her stomach. I intended to silence and screams with my hand until her death rattle sounded. But she fought. She never made anything easy. I might have been the one with a six-year degree, the old family name,

and the pharmaceutical career to support our lifestyle, but this five-foot, nothing woman with no family, inheritance or physical power, could verbally tear apart any snarky tourist who made the mistake of sassing the unthreatening woman behind the Wawa coffee counter, and she would do it with a smile. So why I thought that Margaret would die

and without a fine I will never know because she did not. She struggled. She brawled. She even bit my hand. And that almost made me stabber again. But in the end, she sagged into my arms in a way she never had before. And was still.

The hair stained scarlet, fluttering by her mouth. The disposal of the body was difficult, but manageable. By dawn, July sweat stained my shirt. My expensive hiking boots were caked and stinking bay mud from the marshes and grime clung up beneath my ragged nails. But there was no evidence of my wife's body remaining above ground. Four miles into the swamp, I paned over her boggy grave, admiring my work. Six feet under muck, her body, Brad Margaret... The 938,000 acres of the New Jersey Pine Barons,

after all, are not known as the best dumping grounds outside. dumping grounds outside of the hut. I trudged back to the mouth of Wharton State Forest, managing to evade the early morning hikers and be able to the parkway could get me back to Monoccan faster, but the tolls would have captured my easy pass traveling to and from the bogs at odd hours in the night. As such, I turned the escape on to as I drove, texting Margaret's only friend Sam to ask if Margaret had spent the night. I would call the Wawa Convenience Store where Margaret worked and asked if she'd be

she had arrived for a shift that morning. I would call the police to report my wife missing. When they inevitably inquired about my whereabouts, the night of my wife's disappearance, my primary care physician would swear that I was passed out all evening in his guestroom. Family friend and colleague of my father's, Dr. Brendan Grossman, the bachelor doctor, had kindly offered to let me sleep in his guest room for an evening when I complained of chronic back pain and lack of sturdy mattress at home.

Dr. Grossman, unwilling to admit that he had been passed out drunk from the bottle of jack-eye wheedled him into drinking would vouch that Mike had never left his home that evening without his knowing. 938,000 acres, I thought to myself, smiling a little. 938,000 acres and no family or friends to form a search party. My wife would rot in the bog while I put on. on the show of a morning widower who dutifully donated her life insurance to some charity in her name. Then, sometime later, when the case was filed as unsolved, I would find a way to quietly murder her lover, Jake, a bonehead coworker at Wawa, who I had never met but whose explicit text messages I had discovered on my wife's phone over a month ago.

And throughout all of this, I would wear Margaret's Golden Wedding Ring. on a chain around my neck, which everyone knew she always took off before going to work, so as not decoded in mayonnaise when she made hoagies. 24 hours after I murdered her, my wife ran her fingers through my hair. Drowsiness hung heavy on my limbs as I awoke to the sensation of the gentle caress, and in that sleep-hased moment, not what I had done. My eyes cracked open to behold our living room. Margaret's night school nursing textbooks were scattered across the coffee table in my field of vision,

led by the glow of the kitchen lines. My gaze settled there for a moment, and a wave of nostalgia flowed through me that I could not immediately understand or place. Her fingers moved through my hair in a circular, soothing motion. My eyes fell closed, and I sighed in contentment. Feeling her presence. I almost fell back asleep. Then I snapped up straight, yanking out from beneath her hand.

I turned to look at her. Her hair, her clothes, her skin, every inch of my wife's body was plastered with black mud. She was unmistakably a corpse. Her dead, pallid skin was only visible in patches beneath the crime. Her eyes, which had always been my favorite of her features, were open and unblinking. The corneas were scratched, clouded. She died in, was torn on one shoulder,

and then made flashback to murdering her, as I recalled that I had ripped the fabric in our struggle. I vaguely registered that one of her shoes was missing and that there was a trail of mud on the beige carpet leading from the open front door to the couch, where I'd slept. She came home, I thought wildly. I left her in the bog and she came home. She reached for me.

I screamed and wrapped my hands around her throat. Touching her skin was like handling raw chicken, coated meat. Her body fell beneath me as I throttled her head back and forth against the carpet, screaming until I was hoarse and cut only. I stood over the dead body of my wife for the second. time. Her eyes remained open. My fingers had cleared the mud away from her throat. My eyes drifted downwards and observed the dried brown blood coating her muddy shirt. My stomach turned in for the bathroom, just making it to the toilet in time. That night,

I pulled my escape into the garage of my apartment and loaded Margaret's lifeless husk into the back. Again, I covered her body with a blanket and my large canvas gym bag. If I were to be pulled over, I would say I was going to the gym to get my mind off worrying about her whereabouts. It was a lousy lie, but I could hardly keep her body in the apartment. This was only day one of the plot I had so carefully envisioned. There would be more than one visit from the police, and my wife's rotting corpse could not be present for these visits. No, she had to go back into the bog.

It took all of my self-control to obey the speed limit on the 40. five-minute drive into the barons. The wheelbarrel I had stolen from the groundskeeper's quarters at the State Park was thankfully still outside of the employee entrance to the welcome center. This time, I also stole a shovel from the small shed and three heavy bags of soil. 45 minutes later, for the second night in a row, I was breathless and soaked in sweat, hauling my sweet wife's body towards a swampy grave. This time, as I dumped her remains into the flooded, whole thick with roots and reeking of dead fish,

I piled three bags of soil on top, still packaged, and whole. I panted and looked into my wife's open, dead eyes once more. I then grasped the wooden handle of the shovel, my wedding ring cutting into the flesh of my left hand, while Margaret's ring hung like an anchor around my neck, and began to heap soil on top of her. Margaret's mouth was opening a bizarre death mask grin. Warm mud ran through her black lips and gushed over her teeth.

But she continued smiling up at me until dirt obstructed her from my sight. I barely made it back to our apartment in time to crawl into bed before the sun rose. Too exhausted and shaken to pull off the act I had rehearsed from my colleagues. I called out of work and collapsed into a black, dreamless void. At least at first, I did not dream. When the dreams did come, Margaret was there. She was a corpse, just as she had been the night before. She was dead, but still, she stood beside my bed,

her unseeing eyes bearing down on me. I want... She bowed closer. to my body on the bed, bending stiffly of the waist like a wooden doll. Her joints frozen in place as her jawed and her black lips curled back to reveal skeletal teeth. What is my? I felt a cold lick my earlobe. I was awoken by a scream that might have come from me.

The summer sun was in the death throes of setting, shining orange and old streams into the bedroom. Shaking, sweating, and panting. I tried to push my aching body to sit up, but the muscles in my back were impossibly sore from burying my wife two nights in a row. Blinking, I turned my head to the side. I wanted to look at the time on the clock set up on her nightstand. Instead, I looked into Margaret's lifeless eyes.

Her moist, blank hair spayed out on the white pillowcase where her living head had rested so many times before. Her skin was beginning to take on a loose appearance, like a cheek rubber mask that hung off of bones. But her cheeks were pulled back, taunt against her skull, revealing a manic grin. A milky film had glazed over her eyeballs. Her breath stank of decay. Margaret, my dear wife, extended her hand towards me, just as she had the night before. four. I scrambled out of the bed and staggered backwards, gripping the dresser that my back

hit to keep standing. My legs felt ready to give out beneath my weight. Margaret slowly sat up in the same bed we had shared for over three years. Her unblinking gaze was glued to me as I stumbled towards my closet. She did not leap after me as I fumbled blindly around my hanging suits. She was not reaching to hit me or to grab me, not even as my feet. fingers found the wooden baseball bat I kept hidden behind my suits. Her palm was open and facing up. She was asking for something. I brought the back.

Wrapped her unmoving body in the sheets. Her Aunt Bridget had given us and loaded her back into the escape. On day three of my wife's disappearance, my neighbors began to whisper. On day one, there had been casseroles and soft words of support. Even on day two, as I had slept the daylight hours away, my phone had been filled with encouraging text messages and kind-hearted inquiries regarding Margaret's well-being. The morning of day three, however, as I returned from bearing my wife for the third time in a row. This time, I had piled all of my dumbbells on top of the sheet that was tied with twined around her body. I parked the car and noticed a gaggle of my neighbors grouped in Terry Maxwell's driveway.

My body soar and spent. I winced and exited the vehicle, aware of the unforgiving sunlight, showcasing the lingering patches of dirt and sweat clinging to my clothes. The gold of Margaret's ring barely glimmered through the muck as it bounced on its chain around my neck. My neighbor's heads were all pressed together, but I could not make out any of their words. I could only hear furtive whispers. At the sound of the car door shutting, they turned towards me, their eyes wide with shock and alarm. I gave a pained smile and a wave.

I received shaky grimaces and uncertain twiddles of fingers in return. Immediately my stomach churned with unease. Bad vibes. That same day, Dr. Grossman phoned to let me know that upon having his story questioned once more, he had been forced to admit that he was drunk the night of Margaret's disappearance and that he did not actually remember anything. He wanted to apologize if this caused me any un- And stupor, I hung up the phone without answering. On the evening of day four, I awoke to the sound of fingernails scratching on the window pane.

The front door was not only latched, but I had shoved the dining room table against it. The couch blocked the backsliding door. The garage door was deliberately obstructed by the escape from the outside. There was no way Margaret could get inside of our apartment that night, dead or alive. This did not stop her, however, from appearing at our bedroom window at 2 o'clock in the morning. When I opened my eyes and rolled over, I was at first relieved to see that she was not in the bed this time, but on the other side of the glass. Her eyes were on me, but there was nothing she could do except scrape her fingers uselessly against the window. Outside, a steady drizzle of rain was falling on the corpse, washing over her filthy, matted hair.

As she continued to drag her nails down the window pane, the flesh peeled and flaked off. Her scratched corneas were fastened, unblinking on me. Seeing those eyes was more than unnerving. Something inside me shattered. What do you want? Margaret's corpse paused her movements and tilted her head as if she was listening to my screams. Thoughtfully. Her voice gurgled in my mind.

This is yours. I bought this. I bought all of this. You think your shitty retail salary paid for anything in this apartment? You think coffee and hokey's paid for any of this. Nothing here belongs to you. As I stared at Margaret, there was a knock on my front door. From one morbidly comic moment, we both stared down the long hallway to the living room area,

and then back at each other. She did not blink. The knocking became insistent. I tore my eyes away from my wife's undead maw and stumbled my way to the front door, weeping it opened. One of my whispering next door neighbors stood in her slippers on the Star Wars welcome that. Margaret had gotten for me last Christmas. Yoda stared up at the woman who had curlers in her hair with more serenity than I possessed in my pinky.

Oh! Patrice Morgan jumped a little at my frazzled and sudden appearance in the doorway. Well, goodness! Ah! Oh, Mrs. Morgan! My eyes scanned the corner of the apartment building, waiting for my zombie wife to amble over the bushes towards the now-unlocked front door. Is everything all right? I heard such screaming.

Yeah. I nodded, but my eyes did not leave the corner of the apartment building. Totally fine. I mean, I'm not fine. I'm just, you know, I got a little upset. I thought you needed help. No, no. I just, I just was, I was upset.

It's hard at night. I'm having her here. Oh, I'm sure. You know, when I lost my Bernard, I couldn't even think about eating. Leaves rustled behind her. Or was that the sound of a shuffling, dead-weighted gate? Sorry. I cut the old bitty off and grabbed her by the elbow,

steering and dragging her as I all but ran towards her door across the sidewalk from mine, keeping my eyes on the corner of the building. I've just, um... Um, I've got stuff to do. I deposited the old woman into her living room, then slammed the door behind me and scrambled on my hands and knees across the sidewalk, back into my apartment. I skidered across the tiled floor just as the rustling grew louder.

I kicked the door closed, and, on my knees, fumbled with a metallic lock. Come on! The lock slipped out of my sweating fingers. Come on, come on! At last, I turned the lock home, releasing a sigh of relief. I rested my forehead against the cool door. I thought I heard the bedroom window open. Trembling, I returned to the bedroom with a golf club.

To find Margaret sitting on my bed, she merely sat there and outstretched, palm open. I bashed her in the head and wrapped her now motionless body in the comforter, and then dragged her ass into the garage. My muscles were too spent to carry her another height and loaded her into my escape once more. I drove the 40 minutes to Wharton State Park, this time stopping it lows to purchase a wheelbarrel and duct tape. I knew that would look bad.

I could not bother to care. There was no way I could carry her body a single mile, let alone four. Hours later, under the silver moonlight, cocooned in our comforter and secured with layer upon layer. of duct tape, her body was back in the bog, waded down with my driver club and the wheelbarrel itself. I let her sink into the water, and for some time I simply stood there at the mouth of the grave,

watching for any movement or air bubbles. More than an hour of stillness must have passed when I finally dragged myself back to the grave. Was no sleep. I called out of work once more. Nothing was going according to the plan, but I was beyond caring. I spent the morning dozing in and out on my couch. I kept a loaded nail gun on the floor beside me as I slept. The police visited my apartment around two in the afternoon. As I stood in my living room, unshaven and unshowered, they explained that they were terribly sorry to intrude, but they had a rather pressing question.

Why, they asked quite innocently, had I been making so many late-night trips in the last few days. A car had been stationed in my apartment, they explained. Apparently, Jake, a head coworker who had been boning my wife, went to the police two days ago, and confessed to the affair. He had reported that ours had not been a happy marriage. Margaret was going to leave me, Jake, the bonehead said, for him. A car had been placed outside of my apartment, and the police were. were confused as to why a man anxious for his missing wife to return home would spend so many nights between the hours of midnight and four o'clock in the morning away. While I fumbled over a panicked,

painfully fabricated reply, one of the two officers pointed to a patch of mud on the beige carpet. My stomach went cold. A small trail of size six footprints wound from the doorway to the couch left over from the first night my wife had returned from the den to stroke my hair. I mumbled that I had done some yard work that day, which made absolutely no sense, given the fact that I rented a fucking apartment. When the police asked to take a sample of the mud, I snapped. I began screaming about a warrant. Within seconds, they were on the sidewalk outside of my front door, staring at me as I spent

curses into their blank expressions and slammed the door. When they were gone, I dumped a bottle of bleach onto the carpet. The word reverberated in my head as I stared at the bleach mess before me. Too late, I realized that the last 20 minutes of my life made me look extraordinarily guilty of knowing more about the disappearance of my wife than I was letting on. But I did not know what I was a free thing had fallen apart. As the fumes from the bleach seared my nostrils and my eyes wandered, I sank to my knees

And for the first time since my childhood dog died I sobbed without control Late afternoon of day five Before the sun began to set Before Margaret could crawl out of her grave Once more I crept out the back door Hopped the apartment realty fence into the woods

And stuck my way through the trashed backyard of the rednecks Who lived beside our luxury-gated community A police car had been parked directly outside of my apartment ever since I had thrown the cops out that afternoon, and I did not desire for them to follow me to the place where my wife was buried. Once I reached a side street, I took an Uber to Wharton State Forest. The sun had just begun to set by the time we arrived. I paid the driver, pulled out my phone to use as a flashlight, and, for the first time in five nights,

I did not weigh myself down with shovels, wheel barrels, or dead bodies. I simply began to walk. I reached the bog an hour later. When the sky and the surrounding woods had reached full dark, no other hikers traveled the trails alongside me. The park was closed, and navigating the swampy brambles was becoming increasingly difficult. I fell on more than one occasion

and the knees of my jeans were torn and soaked through. The stink of the bog clung to the air as I traveled deeper and deeper into the woods. My terror grew as I approached the nondescript location of Margaret's burial, but when I managed to climb through the gnarled mass of trees, foliage, and roots barcading the clearing of my wife's not-so-final resting place, I almost felt relief upon seeing her tattered form standing upright, already exited from the watery grave.

The corner of my mouth twitched until a mad half-grim before falling. She's stubborn in death as she was in life. And I possessed room for any emotion but terror. My heart may have swelled with fierce love and admiration for this corpse bent and broken before me. Fresh wounds had appeared from further decomposition and one must have been an all-day battle with her duct-taped cocoon. Skin was torn in places across her bare shins. Her collarbone appeared to have been broken in the... the tussle with the sheets as white protruded bone was visibly jutting out through her skin her arm below the elbow

was clear gone she did not seem to notice these injuries however quite calmly margaret my deceased wife stood still in the clearing watching me as i trembled and took the last remaining steps towards her until we were standing face to face mere feet away from one another i waited my breath coming and shaky short bursts. She did nothing. She did not even blink. She just stared at me. What do you want?

Margaret did not answer. My dead wife only held her hand out, palm up. I want what is... Her fingers appeared to be pointing straight at my chest, and I looked down. Of course. I ripped the chain from which her prize hung from around my neck. and my wet knees weak. I stepped forward and dropped her small golden wedding band right into her hand.

There, her grit did not move. Her white bulbous eyes remained locked on my living ones. What else do you want? When she did not answer, I looked down at my left hand. Shaking, I pulled my own wedding ring off my finger and place the warm metal beside hers in her palm. She did, after all, give it to me. I thought wildly grasping for any sense of logical thought.

Maybe that's all it is. Maybe that's all she wants. But still, Margaret remained motionless. My corpse of a wife, letting the wedding rings rest on her open palm, glittering in the white moonlight. Sobs trickled out of me in heaps and puffs of air. I tore my eyes away from her dead stairs shuddering, looking at the rings. I could see a vague hint of the engravings we both had placed on the interior of the rings,

tracing back to an inside joke from when we first began dating. What's yours is mine, and what's mine is mine. She had said playfully, stealing a bite of cheesecake off my plate during dinner one evening. The phrase had become a running joke between us. And so, the engraving on my ring red, the engraving on her ring red, I'm yours. Margaret's eyes did not waver from mine, but she tipped her hand, allowing the rings to fall into the filth of the bog. Then she righted her hand once more, waiting, weighed down my limbs. I gaped to had her white, dead palm for only a few seconds.

And then I made my final decision. vision. There was nothing else to be done, really. I placed my warm fingers in her decomposing flesh. The bones in her fingers clacked as her hand closed around mine. Keeping her sightless eyes on mine, Margaret stepped backwards, her barefoot sinking back into the swamp she had crawled out of. Muck squouched as I followed. Black water seeped through my side. and dirty the hem of my pants. Tears stained a trail down my grimy cheeks, but my eyes remained on her face.

My wife's lips pulled back into a skeleton's grin, and as the warm summer sludge crept up my shins and knees, the corners of my mouth tugged up to mirror her ghastly smile with one of my own. And so together, hand in hand, we descend into the mud. If run out of tape, it's time to press eject and end the show. We thank you for letting us perform for you. If you would like to find out how you can hear the full-length versions of our audio program,

please visit the no-sleep podcast.com to learn about our season past program. 60 hours of content for only 1999. On behalf of everyone at the No Sleep Podcast, we thank you for listening. Join us again next week when we'll insert another tape and press play. It is copyright in 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.