The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S11E11

Episode Date: August 12, 2018

It's episode 11 of Season 11. On this week's show we have five tales about the terrifying tension of trapped torment. "HGH"† written by Jimmy Ferrer and performed by Graham Rowat & Atticus Jackson. (Story starts around 00:02:15) "B is for Ballora"† written by Matt Dymerski and performed by Armen Taylor & Addison Peacock & Peter Lewis. (Story starts around 00:22:30) "Creeping Eyes"‡ written by Andrew Nagler and performed by Jeff Clement & Atticus Jackson & Alexis Bristowe & Dan Zappulla. (Story starts around 00:47:00) "The Bird Box"† written by Tristan Lince and performed by Jessica McEvoy & Nikolle Doolin. (Story starts around 01:11:30) "Foliage"¤ written by Gemma Amor and performed by Mike DelGaudio & Nichole Goodnight & Dan Zappulla & Jesse Cornett. (Story starts around 01:25:30) Click here to learn more about the voice actors on The NoSleep Podcast   Click here to learn more about Matt Dymerski   Click here to learn more about Tristan Lince   Click here to learn more about Gemma Amor   Executive Producer & Host: David Cummings Musical score composed by: Brandon Boone Audio adaptations produced by: Phil Michalski† & Jeff Clement‡ & Jesse Cornett¤ "Foliage" illustration courtesy of Krys Hookuh 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 left us into your mind at your own risk. The sunlight fades to darkness. The frightful tales creep into your mind. It's time to give you 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. Thanks for joining us. On the show this week, we have five tales about the terrifying tension of trapped torment.

I'd like to welcome a new illustrator to the show this week, Chris Huka. Chris currently lives in Tucson, Arizona. She has gone to countless schools and did four years in the Air Force, picking up interests along the way. She enjoys listening to people talk and a good mixed drink. She's an only child which has brought her the ability to be easily amused. She has established herself as an illustrator specializing in both commercial and custom graphics. She's thrilled to be doing art for us at the No Sleep Podcast. Thank you, Chris, for sharing the creativity of your mind and hands. And speaking of minds and hands and all the nasty things they can get up to,

it's time for our show to begin. The tape is in the machine. The stories are ready, so let's press play. In our first tale, we meet a man who is intent on making his body as strong as it can be. But as we learn from author Jimmy Ferrer, all that's really important to this man is looking as ripped as possible and showing off his muscles. So when an injury sets his regimen back, he chooses a rather inconvenient shortcut. Performing this tale, our Graham Roe. and Atticus Jackson. So stay fit, stay in shape, just stay away from H-G-H.

My best friend lays at my feet, crumpled in a heap, ribs broken, spine bent at a neat 90-degree angle. A trace of blood trickles down his lips. Some rock music is playing, but I've almost tuned it out and it comes across his background noise. I know what happened, but I'm not content with how this went down, why it came to this. Let me tell you how I got here. Let's begin with the most important factor in this story. Me. Everyone has their addictions. Mine is pumping iron. Every day I grace the gym with my glorious presence, my form putting shame to the sculptures of Michelangelo. Every day I grow bigger, stronger, more stumbling. lifting hundreds of pounds exhilarates me.

Each rep forcing blood into my rippling muscles, the satisfying sensation pushing me through each set, causing a gorgeous swelling effect or pump, as it's most commonly called. My goal is always to leave the gym bigger than I came in, but anyone that does this as long as I have can tell you that plateaus are inevitable. Frustration sets in and some people decide to go a different route. Testosterone. Human growth hormone, Diana Ball, Trenbelone, and so many others.

I was not one of these people, until I hurt myself, and my impatience surpassed my will. My gym buddy of five years, John, was the one person I could trust to not let me kill myself, benching 300 pounds. And today, I was going to need to place all my trust in him. This was the day I would try to beat my personal record. I'd wanted to break for years. My bar was set up with four 45-pound plates on each side. Accounting for the 45 pounds of the bar itself, I'd be pushing 405 pounds of feat not achieved by the average mortal.

Only the elite have strength to move that load. Elite such as myself. If only I knew how far I would fall, close to the bullshit status of average. Need help getting it up? John looked at me with a cocky smirk. We both laughed. My laugh a little less genuine.

All right, let's do it. I popped my earbuds in, and music started blasting in my ears. I flexed once or twice in the mirror and swung my arms back and forth, preparing for my new personal record. I laid on my back against the smooth leather, tightened my wrist straps, pressed my strong hands against the cold steel bar, and closed my perfect fingers over it. John placed his open palms a few inches below the bar in preparation.

Tightening my grip, I forced the bar off the hook. My chest and arm muscles contracted in perfect harmony. Blood rushing where it was needed. My muscles flexed, pushing smoothly in sequence. My technique flawless, letting the bar rest on my chest for a second before pushing it back up. I think felt off. As I was pushing the bar off my chest, I started to feel a pull. I pushed harder.

The bar was almost back at the hook, and I felt a fiery pain shoot through the right side of my chest. I lost my grip, the bar slipping rapidly to the right. But John was able to keep it from crushing me and got it up onto the hook. My chest was on fire, and I looked into my shirt to see a purple bruise encompassing my shoulder and chest on the right side. The pain was unbearable. What was more unbearable was knowing that I'd torn a muscle and would have a long way to go to get back to where I was. Shit, dude.

Let me drive you to the hospital. You can't afford to sit on that. I already knew how screwed I was. The rehabilitation would be tenuous. The recovery time unforgivable. But worst of all, I would lose muscle mass. I sat in the sterile hospital waiting room for over an hour, marking time until the doctor came back to confirm. what I already knew.

You're going to need surgery, and even afterwards, you're going to have to lay off weightlifting for some time. The doctor went on to explain to me how I'd torn portions of my front deltoid and pectoral muscle. Not partial tears either. Complete tears. Right off the bone. I understand your motivation to get back into the gym, but it's going to cause more harm than good if you jump right into it. Give it at least a month before you try any amount of weight. you for physical therapy. Surprisingly, I listened to the doctor's orders.

I kept lifting and working every muscle that wasn't injured. Unfortunately, that left me with a bum arm and a feeling of fallibility. My symmetry, my perfection, was decaying in front of my eyes, leaving me in a state of depression. This was compounded by my first physical therapy appointment, where I could barely move a five-pound dumbbell. I'd never been so ashamed in my life. I'd hoped that I would rise from the ashes as perfect as I was before, like a phoenix.

Instead, I struggled through simple movements like a gimpy pigeon. More time passed before I could move around a respectable weight, but it wasn't enough. Month after torturous month left me feeling defeated. I'd lost it. I was average, a loser like everyone else. So, I set out to get what I want. wanted at any cost, and what I wanted was my perfect body back. The quickest way to get back to it was performance-enhancing drugs, something that to this

point I never felt the need to use, but I was desperate and all out of patience. Ever heard of the Silk Road? A real-life black market where you can buy anything and everything online. Of all my research, I found that human growth hormone, or H-G-H, had the least side effects and didn't require anything as frustrating as steroid cycling. Cycling entails an on period of taking the drug and an off period where you would need to take estrogen walkers, among other things. Executing a cycle incorrectly could leave you with innumerable hormonal issues. Most commonly, gyneochomastia, female-like breast growth in men. I like boobs as much as the next red-blooded man, but I don't particularly want them myself.

So cycling was out. HGH was in. I made my purchase online and anticipated waiting a few weeks. I was impressed to find the package on my doorstep the next day, properly wrapped in cold packs and dry ice. In retrospect, this rapid delivery should have been my first red flag. Illegal substance purchases aren't known globally for their speedy customer service, after all. But the promise of getting my body back,

caused me to overlook the obvious. Excited, I pulled out a little bottle with the metal ring around the top that held a piece of gray rubber in place. One odd thing I noticed, second red flag, was the label. Like other units for injecting, it had the dosage, production date, lot number, and expiration. But caught my attention was where it should have said the proper chemical name, such as somatropin or somorlin ipomoralin. Instead, it carried a design in bright red letters labeled simply HGH.

I figured this was either a knockoff or lazy labeling, but I didn't care. I wanted results. At the bottom of the bottle was a little white wafer. Once I added the sterile water it came with, the wafer disappeared, producing a yellow liquid with red spots throughout. I took out a bag of syringes I bought and suction the mixture into one of them. I pressed the needle against my skin and pushed the fluid in. I felt a rush as I depressed the plunger and watched it go into my body. This would turn out to be a placebo effect, as the noticeable changes wouldn't be apparent for a few weeks.

About two weeks later, my soreness and pain had lessened, and my strength was returning little by little, much faster than I assumed it would have without this miracle drug. There were no sudden changes. but enough to make a difference mentally. John noticed the difference in me as well. Before long, I was at a place where we could work out without him having to accommodate me. Finally glad you're done moping and getting back to normal. Not as strong as me, of course, though.

I met his laugh with my own mocking one. It's undercoming of you to make fun of cripples. You've been handicapped all our lives. This isn't a new development. I punched him in the arm, and we laughed. The cycle began anew. Wake up, eat, gym, eat, work, eat, eat, eat, eat, eat, sleep, repeat. Months passed, significant gains were made, and I was as strong as ever.

I'd gone from common to exceptional once again. I was a prize to be envied, a goal to strive for. Common men seldom put in the work to reach my greatness. But you know the saying. If it's too good to be true, it probably is. The first incident was small, and I almost didn't notice. One morning before I began my regiment to upkeep my beautiful face, I paused for a moment and stared into the mirror more critically.

In the center of my jaw was a thin line, likely unnoticeable to the less detail-oriented. But I noticed. I ran my finger slowly across the line and felt a small depression in my skin where the mark was. Pushing on it, I noticed that my jaw would move on whichever side I pressed on. I left it alone, but kept it in my mind

to actively pay attention to this detail. The yawn later that day helped inform me what exactly was wrong with my jaw. When my mouth opened wide, I felt a faint pop, like cracking, my knuckles. I went to close my mouth and noticed that the right side of my jaw closed while the left side of my jaw was stuck open. Before someone else could see, I pushed my jaw into place and clenched it tight until I got home. Sure enough, I discovered that when I opened my mouth, I could move the left

and right of my jaw independently. But the weirdness didn't stop there. A week later, I woke up and started screaming. My head was facing the ceiling, but when I looked down, I realized that I was looking at my damn back. That's right. My neck was entirely twisted around, facing upwards while I lay there on my stomach. I slowly turned my body, hoping to set everything back into place, and thankfully it worked. On the bright side, my muscle definition was something else. It was like I was chiseled out of stone by the finest artists. You could see everything. Despite the odd side effects of the HGH, I ordered another month's worth. I just looked so damn superb. The next side effect happened about a month later. I woke up and my vision was foggy, like looking through a frosted window.

I looked in the mirror but couldn't see. I tried rubbing my eyes. That helped. Now I could see. I jumped back, yelping an alarm. Loose skin was hanging around where I'd rubbed. I grabbed a small piece and pulled, feeling the skin peel off my entire face, tearing at the neck. It looked like I'd lathered myself with Elmer's glue and peeled it off once it dried. Head to toe, I was able to do this. It worried me until I noticed how stunning my skin looked.

It shined like I'd just undergone a full body exfoliation, and my muscle tone. Jesus, I looked marvelous. I had some unique anatomy to deal with now, sure. But I looked incredible. My strength was inhuman. And again, I looked perfect. The trouble came when my body started rejecting everything I ate that wasn't meat. I've always eaten lots of meat to get where I am,

but I enjoyed rice, milk, and so on as well. But my body wasn't having it anymore. Not only that, I was hungry all the time. It never stopped. I decided to forget about it all for a night and go out on a date with a girl I'd been seeing on and off. Whenever I could squeeze her in, I mean. A man has to have his priorities, after all.

And she wasn't even in the top five. We had dinner and watched a movie. Honestly, everything was fine until we got to the sex. I guess some kind of animal instinct took over. There I was, wrapped in her legs and arms, mid-carnal exchange. I went to wrap my arms around her as well, and that's when it happened. I could feel her heartbeat so clearly. My body was sending me broken signals every time she breathed out.

It took me a minute. but finally the signal came through as she panted out of breath. Squeeze. So I did. She breathed out, and I squeezed as hard as I could. Her weak little frame buckled, and I swear all of her ribs cracked. She tried to scream, but all that came out was some garbled drunt of air, which, of course, I welcomed with another squeeze.

And that was all, folks. She was dead and crumpled like yesterday's newspaper. What happened next surprised me, although deep down I'd been waiting for it. Without even thinking, I opened my jaw wider than I thought possible and placed my mouth over her entire head, forcing it all the way in. I felt the best I had in days.

Some missing person reports and arguments with friends, later that I found myself face to face with John. He confronted me about my weird behavior and how I obviously had something to do with what'ser face's disappearance. We had a one-sided discussion where he stated he would take his concerns to the police if I continued to blow him off. In response, I grabbed him in a bear hug and held tight against his thrashing and the many unkind words he started yelling. Just like with her. Every time he breathed out, I squeeze tighter, feeling every pop of bone. He had a lot of fight in him. He'd always been so much stronger than me, but now he couldn't get free, despite kicking and punching me as best he could. Breathe out,

squeeze, a pop, and sometimes a scream, which of course I would embrace more points. He could. At one point, the jerk had the nerve to let out a grunt where blood started to trickle out and got on to my favorite custom sky blue V-cut short-sleeved Charmoo's Giorgio Armani t-shirt. That gave me the motivation to snap him like a toothpick. The loudest snap to date, and he crumpled to the floor. This leads us back to where we started, with John dead on my living room floor, looking like a protein-packed. snack. I'm exhilarated. To know I could overpower someone who was stronger than me, even in his rage. It gives me a new breath of life. I'll tell you what, though. I won't need to eat for months once I'm done with John, and I feel stronger than ever. What was in that shit,

you may be wondering. I was too. It turns out that like some medications, the label on my little knock-off-looking bottles could peel back. It reads as follows. Each vial contains. Herpetological growth hormone, 12,000 USP units, Manitol, 100 milligrams with monobasic sodium phosphate and diabaseic sodium phosphate added to adjust pH. Reconstitute with bacteriostatic water for injection containing 0.9 benzal alcohol, store dry, blah, blah, blah.

Warning. may result in irreversible morphological mutations varying in nature. Hormones and gene modifiers extracted from adult Burmese pythons and modified with CRISPR technology for maximum effectiveness. For more information, please call. Turns out it wasn't exactly the HGH I was looking for, but it served its purpose and given me a new one. Hunting nothings like you.

Sure, I prefer to test my might, but if every bodybuilder in my gym started disappearing, it might look a little fishy. I get that you may not like me. Good. I want you to be an angry little worm when I come for you. No struggle means no fun for me. So hate me.

Really feel it. Because I'll cross your path eventually. and I want you to have a little fire in your eyes before I put it out. Just keep an eye out for the man you wish you could be. It seems the easiest way to get people to enter dark and creepy locations is to simply tell them they're forbidden to go there. Just ask author Matt Dimmerski. In his tale, we meet two college kids traipsing around in the tunnels beneath their university,

a place they know full well they aren't supposed to be. Performing this tale are Armand Taylor, Addison Peacock, and Peter Lewis. So don't spend one night down there, let alone five nights, especially when B is for Ballora. I'd heard rumors of steam tunnels under campus since my first day at orientation. Older students claimed one could travel between buildings unseen, and that it was the only way to smuggle large quantities of alcohol across the grounds. I was willing to believe that, but I scoffed at the ghost stories that followed. Supposedly, those that had dared the tunnels at night had heard strange noises

beyond the cacophony of steam, venting air, and stressed pipes. It was mechanical, they'd said, or maybe animal. No two stories matched. Oh, and of course. Of course there were the usual claims that a few students had disappeared down there over the years. Claims which I found ridiculous. Real disappearances involved the police and the news, not college campus rumors. Still, when my friend Emma dared me to go down there with her in late October of last year,

I was hesitant. On the one hand, what red-blooded college guy could refuse such a dare? On the other... No, I couldn't voice those fears without sounding lame. What if maintenance catches us? She silently and carefully lifted the grate from the surrounding concrete. Then we run. She peered down the tunnel below.

From where I was standing, it looked like it ran, right under University Hall. Come on. This is almost always locked. It looks like the latch rusted through and they haven't noticed yet. We won't get another chance like this. I scanned the dark and quiet campus grounds,

but the light dusting of snow was undisturbed in every direction. Our night class had run late, so we were the only ones out. What other choice did I have? She was beautiful, and she wanted to go into the creepy steam tunnels. I shrugged, took a deep breath,

and clambered down into a river of flowing warm air. The shock of actually entering a disallowed space had me looking in either direction warily. Dim orange light made various small jets of steam look like little flames. Condensation dripped in the distance, and my breath entered my lung. humid and fetid. Uh-huh.

Waiting. Oh, right. It had been surprisingly easy to transgress the forbidden, all things considered. We laughed and whispered and stared for a few moments before daring each other to venture further. After two steps, we remembered to return and close the grate behind us. Then we crept past curtains of billowing white moisture, following the warm and pulsing pipes. The first intersection ran dim orange in three directions.

The fourth was lit by a soft green that faded into darkness and back nearly imperceptibly every few seconds. I couldn't see any fixtures for the light. The orange in the other directions came from intermittent bulbs, but I assumed the sickly green was coming from something around the abrupt corner about 20 feet away. Emma made a face. Not that way.

It smells bad. Right. I was more than happy to avoid the foulness coming from that direction. So instead, we turned left and immediately came upon a small office. A gray-haired old man in a maintenance uniform reacted with surprise by jumping up from his chair and hitting a button on the wall, closing a door immediately in front of us. We thought we were caught. But he just stood in front of a small glass window set into the thick metal and peered at us.

Emma and I stared at each other for a minute until we realized he wasn't grabbing a phone. She approached the door and asked loudly, Are you going to report us? The old man gulped. Sending a visible lump down his fragile throat. I'm obligated to tell you that the grant that funded these tunnels in many of the buildings above specifies that nothing down here gets reported. I stepped closer to the door. What the hell does that mean?

He trembled with restrained fear, pointed at his ear, and then pointed upwards. It's perfectly safe. Feel free to explore. He shook his head and warned us with his eyes. Emma and I looked at one another with worried concern. The old man returned to his chair and focused intently on reading his magazine. He ignored our taps on the glass as if he desperately wanted us to go away. So we had no other option but to leave. I asked the obvious.

Uh, that was weird. Do you think we should get out of here? No way. Emma is already moving down the tunnel, while gliding her hand on one of the warm and pulsing pipes. He's just messing with us. It's probably more effective at keeping students out of here if he tries to scare us off instead of reporting us.

We'll go tell our friends, oh, how scary it is, just like the sophomores told us at order. orientation. That made a strange sort of sense, and I did follow her, but I couldn't shake the feeling that the old maintenance man hadn't been acting. He hadn't even had time to assess our identities before he leapt up terrified to close his door. Unfortunately, the only thing I could do about that suspicion was look behind us often and stay alert. A few minutes further on in that endless orange mist, the cadence of the place began getting to me. The vibrations were deep and rhythmic, and air and concrete both seemed to expand and contract ever so slightly around me.

Something about the motion made me feel nauseous and disgusted, but I wasn't sure why. It was then that we came to a three-way junction. One path led to more of the same, but the other diverged into dark crimson. The red light made the sudden patches of moss growing within look black, and a variety of thinner and more numerous pipes gave off a subtle rushing noise. Emma followed them with wonder. Do you think these ones run liquids instead of steam? I did.

By then, I felt like I was breathing, in time with the maze's rhythm, and I very much did not like it. We should probably go back. Oh, just when we found someplace interesting? She didn't wait for my response. I couldn't very well let her go down that rotting crimson tunnel alone, so I followed, warier than ever. We turned a few corners, and I tried to remember the way,

but I was beginning to lose track. Worse, I realized that I couldn't tell where the red light was coming from. There were no bulbs. Hell, there weren't even wires. After a few more turns, I stopped and touched one of the thinner rushing pipes. It was hot and gave slightly at the pressure of my fingers. I couldn't be sure, but I had the strangest notion that the pipes were actually the source of the omnipresent dim crimson colorization all around us.

Emma stopped. Did you hear that? I shook my head and looked in either direction, but saw only hanging black mosses and dim moisture haze. It was like a servo grinding or something. Or maybe a growl. There was only one thing to say to that. Are you fucking serious?

Oh, come on. It's not like the stories are true. I'm sure the pipes make that noise and people just made up the tails around it. Up ahead, I saw a dim aperture, much like the entrance to the maintenance man's little office. I don't know. I... Just around the corner ahead of us, a definite grinding sound echoed forth. I didn't wait.

I didn't let her rationalize it. I grabbed her hand and dragged her forward toward the office door as a dark on-red shadow began to move around the corner. We barely avoided seeing the source of the shadow by dodging inside, and I turned around and hit the button on the wall in the same place the maintenance man's had been. Nothing happened. One shared, terrified glance at each other, and then upward gave us a strategy, and we leapt to grab the base of the door and pull it down. Our combined weight grated off the rust and slowly drew the barrier closer to the floor.

Once only a foot gap was left, we stopped to avoid blocking ourselves in, and instead dragged a heavyset metal desk over and blocked the bottom. That horrifying, grinding, growling sound moved past slowly, as if something is that something enormous was taking one belabored step at a time and waiting to listen between each movement. Neither of us dared make a sound, and Emma gripped my hand so hard I thought she might fracture my knuckles. Despite the pain, I kept my mouth shut. Nothing had ever been more terrifying to me than the thought of letting that unknown thing in the tunnel know of our presence. We bounced forward as the desk shifted and the door clanged from a massive thumb.

Emma grabbed her own mouth to keep from making noise, and I grabbed one of the hot crimson pipes lining the back wall to keep from falling. The heat seared my fingers, but I just had to take it until the lumbering entity outside decided it was satisfied and moved on. Once it was around the corner, she finally let out a breath, and I finally let go of the pipe. What the hell was that? I held my hand and looked for anything that I might wrap around it. Everything in the cramped office was mossy, rotten, or dusty, and I nearly gave up. Before spotting something, Emma stared at me as I leaned forward.

We have to get out of here. I wasn't exactly polite. No shit! That's what I've been saying! Keeping my burnt hand pressed against my torso, I used my other to open the old filing cabinet. But we have to wait until whatever that was is out of our path. It's blocking the way we came right now. Until then, take a look at this. She took some of the files from me.

Huh. They're mostly intact. I guess the steam didn't get inside the filing cabinet. Then she saw what I had seen. Holy crap, this is like official college stuff. Look there! It's a map of the tunnels! And records from the grant that old guy was talking about. She leaped through the next folder. What's this? Animus Society?

What the hell? This isn't Assassin's Creed. She looked further. thumbing through the papers. Wait, why are there patient records in here? No, more than that, medical records from an orphanage. A bunch of babies, little kids. Looks like these records are from 1965. A sense began creeping over me that something was seriously wrong here.

Even more than the fear that some horrible creature was roaming the steam, tunnels. If I had to get rational with myself, it had probably just been another maintenance worker out there, perhaps one with tools and a breathing problem. That would have explained the mechanical noises and the breathing. But this? These decayed records were real and physical proof that the founding of our college had something to do with 26 orphans whose files all prominently featured the word deceased. I was the first to notice a pattern on the map, but Emma figured out the overall shape.

The steam tunnels contained a maze of random turns to heat and power the campus buildings, yes, but they also held something else. Hidden within the design was a massive pentagram, miles in diameter. At that point, I was nearing panic attack. Was this ship founded by, Satanists or something?

Well, looks like we're going to see for ourselves. The only way out of here without going back towards that growling thing is through the center of the pentagram. Of course. Of course that was the only way out. But there was nothing to be done except push down our fear and make a run for it. As silent as possible, we moved the desk, peered under the door, and confirmed our crimson-lit hallway was clear.

We slipped under, and then half ran, half crept, as quickly and as quietly as we could, in the direction we'd been heading before the unknown creature had made us hide. I was dead certain we were going to see a shitload of bones. I knew it. What else could have happened to 26 orphans at the center of a pentagram? As we moved, the walls round the wall's round. rapidly became heavier with moss, and the pulsing rhythm of the place became a deep throbbing and racing that set my every nerve on edge.

The heart of darkness was ahead, and we couldn't turn away. We almost laughed as we emerged into the massive circular chamber at the center of it all, and found it was filled with large furnaces. Emma shook her head and sighed. Right. Steen tunnels. That means furnaces, not baby sacrifices or whatever. I was feeling pretty silly myself. The large underground dome held two rows of furnaces whose pipes ran off in every direction. It was the heart of campus, really, from whence all the heating and cooling and plumbing originated. There were no creatures and no bodies, because this was. the real world, not a nightmare. The 25 furnace segments were arranged in two rows of 13,

but one was missing. I gazed down at the broken pipes and filthy square in the floor where it should have been. Then I scanned the rows of machines. Each one was different, a unique style of furnace. None had brand names anywhere on them. No. What? No. What a strange notion. That didn't make any sense, but the count matched, except for one, one that was possibly lumbering around these tunnels, dragging itself with its misshapen and maimed body, never dying, always hungry, always in pain. Emma began to suspect around the same time I did. We refused to believe. We shook our heads, told each other it was insane, but then we looked. We had to.

How could any person simply leave that place without looking? I bawled up my jacket around my hand and opened one of the furnace hatches. What I saw within will haunt me for the rest of my life. I can tell you in words, but you can't understand. You can picture it, maybe, but you can't internalize the visceral understanding of what it meant for the abomination inside to exist before you. Not as a nightmare, but in the real and physical world.

There was fire in the world. inside. That much was like a normal furnace. The difference here was a near total lack of working mechanical parts. Someone had tried and failed to fuse two things impossible to combine, so the slack had been taken up by what did still work. A set of oversized tumor-ridden lungs expanded and contracted as we watched, pushing air through the system. A human human, Human heart, maybe two feet in diameter, throbbed with the pulse of the place, dimly glimmering red as it pushed blood through thin, outgoing pipes. I'm pretty sure I saw a mutated intestine, too, glowing green, but I can't be sure. Because above all that, within the inner space of the furnace, a drooping face looked back at us with sad eyes.

they were still alive. The orphans hadn't been killed at all. Somebody had... God, who even knows? What had they been trying to do? Combine machine and man in some horrific manner? The orphaned baby had continued to grow inside the furnace, but whatever it had become had not stopped growing.

Its face was several feet wide, and its exposed brain was a half-mossy exposed lump hanging over the side near the flame. I did have a pocket knife. I didn't care about the burns. I stabbed and stabbed and stabbed within until those pleading eyes went dim. Emma tore me away as a grating sound and heavy breathing approached from one of the tunnels, and we ran. Every great above was locked.

We turned, ran, turned again, tried another grate, and kept going. I was furious and terrified and despairing all at the same time. What monsters had done this? And why? We had to go all the way back to our original entrance. And this time, we crept up silently on the old man and surprised him before he could close his door. Emma held the knife as I demanded an answer. He sobbed, and tears began to run down his cheeks,

as if finding catharsis for some long-held pain. She always wore sunglasses, even inside. She was sensitive to the light. I didn't want to, but we took her money. It took 27 tries. but it worked. We took her money and we used what little she knew of the process to replicate it. We did it. We took her money. The others didn't trust me after she was gone, so they stuck me down here where the guilt has kept me quiet for over three decades. But what was he admitting to?

I still couldn't wrap my mind around the true extent of the horror. 27 tries. 26 kids and her. But why? Why would she want this? The old man grew quiet then, and his sobbing stopped. Even as tears glinted on his cheeks, he looked me right in the eyes. She just wanted her husband.

to love her again, but he didn't care about those made of flesh anymore. This was the only way. Emma withdrew the knife and stepped back to stand next to me. We're going to call the cops on this. Please do. And so we left him there, doing his eternal duty as guardian of the children. We did call the cops, but the... school board convinced them to keep the whole thing out of the media. The world must know the true

nature of Mrs. Afton, the original patron of Afton Community College. She was not a saint. In her desperation to become something her husband could love, she became a monster. And as far as I can tell, she's still out there somewhere. A new job in a new location means a new place. A new new place to live. And as author Andrew Nagler shares, if you find an apartment which looks great at a great price, you can be sure there's a reason why it seems to be too good to be true. Performing this tale are Jeff Clement, Atticus Jackson, Alexis Bristow, and Dan Zapula. So keep your ears open and listen. It's far better than seeing creeping eyes. It all began a few A few weeks after I moved to Durham, North Carolina for a cushy new job working in marketing

for a large tech company. Being a lifelong penny-pinger, I decided to find an apartment within two miles of my new workplace so I could walk to work. Low rent and no driving commute? A frugal man's dream. To my surprise, when I went to visit the cheapest listing in the area, it seemed worryingly nice. The property bordered on a greenway, it had a huge common room with cashier.

Kelly Green felt pool tables, old but well-maintained faux wood dining banquets lined the room, dotted with a wide array of hors d'oeuvres. It housed an Olympic-sized swimming pool and even a high-tech community gym, complete with the latest workout equipment that looked better suited to a Google Tech Park than a complex with dirt-cheap apartment listings. As you've likely been told since you were a child, if it seems too good to be true, it is. We're really quite the community here at Craven Hills.

The rep showing me around was an older Hispanic woman with hair like gray straw. It certainly seems that way, Maria. I just can't believe I locked out finding you on such short notice. You probably get this all the time, but I must ask, everything about this place from amenities to price to location are more than most could ever dream of. So, uh, what's the catch? Well, I'd love to say there isn't one, but we pride ourselves on honesty here.

She still brandished that penetrating smile shared only by those in the service industry and brazen sociopaths. We're reopening an old building that is yet to be renovated, but it certainly has some rustic charm. And because the apartments haven't been refurnished yet, you get a real deal. We can tour one of those right. now if you'd like, just hand over some ID and we can be on our way. Of course. I flashed a belabored smile, handed over my driver's license, and followed her out of the door with my optimistic outlook on this apartment complex, beginning to wear off.

As we drove past Stout two-story brick building after Stout two-story brick building on our godly branded green golf cart, I realized we were headed all the way to the back of the complex. There must have been 50 or more buildings we passed with over a thousand different units. I could see how the company was able to hire so many bright, smiling staff now that I saw the scale of the operation. We pulled nearer to the building at the very end of the road, and my first thought was how strikingly similar it was to every other building. Upon a second glance, however, I realized something very wrong with it. Windows.

Not a single unit in the entire building had a window. It's never apparent how unsettling a brick building is, in principle, until you see one without windows. A brick rectangle with no entrance or exit aside from a solitary door at the front of each unit. It looked less like a place of residence and more like a voluntary clay-fired tomb. We pulled into a spot directly in front of the brick bunker. I, well, I imagine you know my next question. Ah, yes, the windows. Well, truth be told, I'm not quite sure why this building has no windows.

When the parent company bought this place, almost a decade ago, they decided to use it for storage. I didn't work here at the time, but we promised these units shine plenty to make up for the lack of sunlight. Ugh, I had just about reached my quota for the month on cheesy PR statements. As we walked up the stairwell to a second-floor apartment, I noticed another peculiarity about the lack of windows. At the front of each unit, there was a square of much less worn brick where you would traditionally expect a window. They had been bricked up.

When we toured the inside of the unit, it was actually pleasantly surprising. It was quaint with relatively new appliances and cable hookups. But one thing unsettled me, In the bedroom there was a glass set square that faced nothing but brick, with a crack in the corner of the grouting, just large enough to see a little sunlight. I hesitate to call this square a window because of the connotation of the word. When I think of a window, images of shimmering sunlight and kaleidoscopes of human activity come to mind. But when I gazed out at the back end of a hastily bricked wall,

I felt a twinge of fear. I couldn't accurately play. I'd seen plenty of NYC-based sitcoms that joked about their brick view, so I knew this happened in some places. This wall, though, there was something about it that struck me wrong, but I'm a rational person. These fears were tucked away, and I told Maria, I'd take it on the spot. The night I first moved in was surprisingly relaxing, given the hustle and bustle associated with replanting a life. I met my downstairs neighbor, a tattoo artist named Danny with a hearty smile

and a heartier build, and the two cats and I spent the day lugging over stuffed old computer boxes crammed full of half-forgotten memories into temporary homes throughout the eclectic space. I ended up sleeping on the couch in the living room after one too many beers and enough third-rate delivery pizza to have me rethinking my life decisions in the morning. The trouble came on my second day living there. I had most of my things together, and Danny decided to invite me to his place to have a couple of beers and watch the football game.

His apartment was strikingly similar to mine and design, but it was clear my unit had been furnished far more recently. Carpeting, cabinetry, appliances, shit, even the paint job gave off a more polished and inviting vibe in my new home upstairs. Aside from these features, there was a musk, quickly attributable to a source. scraggly old mut on the waning edge of continents that kept the place feeling more somber than warm.

So, how do you like it here? I tried to ignore his territorial dog Nika, burying her teeth at me as I sat on the disheveled couch across from the two of them. Well, they don't fix it like they should, and it can get a little noisy. But other than that, it's pretty nice around here. I'm more interested in how you're liking it here, since you're the one who decided to move into the infamous apartment 206. I cocked my head slightly and furrowed my brow.

Infamous? What do you mean infamous? I thought the whole building having no windows was odd, but now you're telling me my apartment is extra on? Huh, they didn't tell you the stories. Assholes. Your apartment is the whole reason the windows are bricks shut in the first place. It's been empty for a while. At this point, do you even want to know why?

You may just be better off not knowing. He could barely keep down his laughter to get through those words. And for some reason, that really touched a nerve with me. Of course, I want to know what kind of thing to expect in my own home. Tell me the stories. I'm pretty thick-skinned. Don't expect me to run off anytime soon. He realized my frustration and collected himself.

All right, all right. I'm like you and don't read too much into that kind of bullshit. But the fact that they didn't even tell you was a real kick in the nuts, don't you think? Well, here's how it wind, as I remember. I didn't live here, so this is all secondhand from what I heard on the local news. This was actually the first building built in the entire complex. It was also the nicest for a long time. Because of this, the old owner and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Hess,

used to live here in the very same unit you now occupy. By all accounts, they were wonderful people, philanthropists, churchgoers, real pillars of the community. But after a few months of owning this place, Mr. Hess started to change. He became more reserved. Eventually, people started seeing him outside their apartment just staring through their window. People started getting worried, and business began to slow because of his antics. It was on one of those slow nights when the tragedy finally struck. Apparently, one of the few remaining tenants heard a female scream late at night.

When the police arrived, they saw something truly horrifying. Mr. Hess was standing outside his window of apartment 206 whispering to himself. I can see you. I am watching. I can see you. I am watching. I can see you. I am watching.

What they saw on the other side of the window was the real nightmare, though. Sitting on the window ledge inside the apartment, staring back out at Mr. Hess, were a pair of stark white, milky eyes. The white orb sat alone with the stringy remaining nerves hanging from the back, stained red with blood. The pupils were facing out the window in a gruesome mockery of a stare. The eyes were the same pale blue of Mrs. Hess. Mr. Hess was taken away, but there wasn't enough evidence to pin the crime on him. He claimed he just found the eyes and had no idea where his wife had gone. After that, he sold the facility, and the new parent company bricked up the building.

Nobody's exactly sure what he's doing now, or where. Last I heard, he was voluntarily checked in to the local loony bin. I sat there for a moment, frozen by a mixture of shock and terror. They sold me this monstrosity without telling me the story behind it? How was I supposed to sleep in there after hearing about what went on here? At that point, I was locked into 12 months in this House of Horrors. I really had no choice anymore. Well, I understand my rent price now.

It's certainly a lot to process. Let's talk about something else for a while. Danny chuckled, and we watched the game together without much incident. That night, I decided to sleep in the bedroom. Surprisingly, I had a very easy time falling asleep. I may have been shocked in the moment, but at the end of the day, I'm the type of person who has a comparatively easy time explaining away the things that go bump in the night.

I also sleep like a log soaked in ketamine. However, this began a spout of nightmares that still danced behind my eyelids every time I close them. I never used to dream, and I would have honestly forgotten about the Hess family story if it hadn't been for the nightmares. They were the most vivid I'd ever experienced, and they were absolutely ghoulish. Every single one was exactly. the same. I would be in bed and the brick wall would be gone from in front of my window. I'd look out that window and see nothing but a dark silhouette with two floating, bloodshot,

white orbs staring intently at me. I knew it was Mr. Hess, and I could hear his whispers over and over. His voice would grow as though a hungry sea engulfing the shoreline with the rising tide. The sight of his weary stare was never what petrified me. It was his voice. The words grew with a feverishness and fiendish reverence as though he was reaching crescendo on the only true prayer to save his immortal soul. And every night as he would reach that frenzied peak, I would awaken. I would wake up in a cold sweat staring directly at that brick wall. But I never stirred before morning light. Like I said, nothing could wake me from my slumbers.

Eventually, as strange as it sounds, I started to get used to these nightmares. While it sounds unbelievable, holding on to a rational belief that dreams could neither hurt me or directly impact me was reassuring. They say you can get used to anything, and I'd say I'm living proof of that. I was slowly starting to settle into a groove here, with work going well, a fairly cheap place to live,

and the comfort of my two fluffy companions. The dreams were becoming less and less upsetting with each passing day, until the day it all fell apart. I was having a beer with Danny that Saturday afternoon, and he seemed tired. Long night last night, champ. He could keep some barking and waking me up. She seems to hear you running around all night and can't keep it to herself, you night owl. I froze.

I have to be at work very early every morning. I'm never up late. Could you at least turn your TV off when you go to bed? The noise keeps me up sometimes. He seemed genuinely annoyed. Growing annoyed myself, I responded in kind. Quit messing with me, man. I feel like every time we hang out you try to freak me out.

out. I'm not joking. Maybe it's just the cats running around. He seemed genuine, and I wasn't sure how to respond. I've got to go. I moved out of the room. It was at this point that the peculiarities began to get to me. The murder, the windows, the dreams, the noises. It was all becoming too much. That's why, last night, I decided to stay up and fain being asleep. And I really, really fucking wish I hadn't. I don't think I'll ever be able to get a full night's sleep again. At around 10 p.m., I decided to lay down, relax. For the first two hours, things were relatively calm.

Nothing was out of the ordinary. Then I heard the creaking of stairs. I knew I couldn't move as I had to continue my charade of slumber. After a few minutes, the creaking ceased, but a quiet, unease permeated the whole of my apartment. I felt the rippling silence as though it were the physical wave of force after a detonation, before the destruction can truly be assessed. Eventually I heard my two cats hop up onto something and began meowing incessing. The final horrific complication that ended my masquerading slumber was the soft whispering rising from outside my non-existent window.

I couldn't keep still any longer. I opened one eye slowly and saw that my cats were staring directly at the brick wall with eerie concentration. They seemed almost entranced by fear or... intrigue, I wasn't quite sure. Their meows sounded almost empty, and they sat with the stillness of statues. I decided to slowly crawl out of bed and began to walk towards the door. With every step, the barely perceptible whispers grew to belabor to guttural repetitions. With each creek of the floorboards against my bare feet, I felt my heart flurts. fluttering erratically.

I finally found myself at the glass square lined with brick. Near the edge of the window, I saw the grouting that had begun to crack and break away and immediately had a realization. Where was the orange glow of the streetlights that typically came through that crack? Breathlessly, I focused on the whispering. Every single hair on my body stood on end, as I felt a chill from my head. head all the way to the tips of my toes. My world began to spin as though I were inside a giant brick battleship amidst a storm. With trembling hands, I braced myself on the window ledge and peeked through

the crack. On the other side of the crack was an eye. It was bloodshot, and the pupil was consuming almost the entire iris, wild with the unmistakable dialect. of madness. Fear began to grip me, but I tried to force it down, letting the voice of reason and rationality guide me. We had a police officer on duty at all times for the complex. If I called up, he would be here within the next five minutes. I dialed the security number, told the dispatch that someone was trying to break into my apartment. But the police called done, I tried to ignore the growing cacophonous chanting. I am watching.

I can see you. I am watching. I can see you. I am watching. I can see you. All of a sudden, I heard a loud, booming voice. Step away from the window. I grabbed my cats and ran to the door and twisted the handle, determined to leave and never

enter that apartment again. Upon going outside, I saw a man with wispy white hair and a white hair and a one. wild stare, who I assumed to be Mr. Hess. He locked eyes with me and began to ramble wildly. You have to, to watch it. It's sneaky. They know you. They see you.

If you don't, it, it gets you. It takes you. It leaves the eyes, though. It should have stayed inside, but it sees and takes and sees and takes through the glass. I looked safer. They promised this, this building would be closed.

It takes feeds, takes, feeds, takes. Watch, watch. See and watch for it takes you. The eyes, it never heard her. He was cut off as the officer hurled him into the back of the squad car. There was a relief that washed over me even in the midst of his madness. I was going to be gone from this place and on to somewhere new. The cop was bewildered by the man's behavior and he told me to come to the station tomorrow to give a statement and to have a good night.

I was free. Get in the car, have movers clean out my place and restart my life. Even though that was the scariest point in my life at that moment, it's not what still haunts my dreams. That could have been the end of it. Were the ramblings of the crazy old man unsettling? Yes. Was it horrifying that he was stalking outside my apartment, muttering and staring at me while I slept?

Of course. But that could have been the end of it. Unfortunately, I couldn't let his words just pass. Watch what. What takes? What feeds? Who was hurt? His wife?

Everyone knew he killed her. Why would he lie about it now if he'd already gotten away with it? Why couldn't I have just left it alone? Why did I look? Why did I peek through that crack? I could have just gone on with my life. I wouldn't have to live knowing what's out there. I was almost gone.

My things were in the car. my cats mulling in their carry cage, I could have just walked out, left the place behind me. But no, I had to return to that window. I had to satisfy my own curiosity. I stood in front of the bricked up window. Leaning down, I peered through the gap in the scraped-away grouting. Just because...

Just because I can't leave things well enough. Alone. Through that crack, I saw it. A single eye staring back at me with a pin-prick pupil, narrowed. Not Mr. Hess's eye, not the eye of anything human even. And as I stared at the eye and the eye stared back at me. I heard a whisper. A whisper, and still echoes through my mind, even now, months later. A whisper I think I'll hear every night in my dreams until the day I die. I'm to press eject. 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,

over 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. 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.