The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S11E16

Episode Date: September 16, 2018

It's episode 16 of Season 11. On this week's show we have five tales about nasty nature, terrifying transformations, and malicious malls. "My Town is Being Infested by Strange Bees"† written by René Rehn and performed by Matthew Bradford. (Story starts around 00:03:15) "The Taking Tree"† written by Tobias Wade and performed by Armen Taylor & Nikolle Doolin & Erin Lillis. (Story starts around 00:14:20) "It Was A Different Time"‡ written by C.M. Scandreth and performed by Kyle Akers & Graham Rowat & Nikolle Doolin. (Story starts around 00:31:00) "I Want My MTV"† written by Rachele Bowman and performed by Addison Peacock & Peter Lewis & Dan Zappulla & Kyle Akers & Matthew Bradford & Erika Sanderson. (Story starts around 00:56:30) "The Open Secret of East Hall"¤ written by Meg Molloy and performed by Jessica McEvoy & Addison Peacock & Dan Zappulla & Atticus Jackson & Mike DelGaudio & Mick Wingert. (Story starts around 01:19:50) Click here to learn more about the voice actors on The NoSleep Podcast   Click here to learn more about our Season Pass bundles   Click here for tickets to Harmontown in Los Angeles on Oct 1   Click here to learn more about René Rehn   Click here to learn more about Tobias Wade   Click here to learn more about C.M. Scandreth   Executive Producer & Host: David Cummings Musical score composed by: Brandon Boone Audio adaptations produced by: Phil Michalski† & Jeff Clement‡ & Jesse Cornett¤ "My Town is Being Infested by Strange Bees" 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 left 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. 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 nasty nature, terrifying transformations, and malicious malls. I'd like to announce that we have launched a new set of bundles for our season passes. If you've wanted to start or catch up on our season pass episodes, you can now bundle them with some great savings. You can purchase any two seasons for only 3499, or grab one of our Terror Trio bundles. That's seasons three, four, and five, or, season 6, 7, and 8, for only 4999. And if you want every one of our past season passes, that's seasons 3 through 10.

They're available for only 9999. That's almost 500 hours of content for about 20 cents per hour. Makes good sense to me. Just go to bundles.com to learn how you can treat yourself to lots of great horror storytelling content at a great price. And one more announcement. Some of you are familiar with Dan Harmon, the comedy writer responsible for such great TV shows like Community and Rick and Morty. Dan has his own podcast called Harmontown, and on his show recently, he's been quite open about how much he enjoys the No Sleep podcast. He even offered to fly me to L.A. so I can be on his show. And guess what? That's exactly what I'm going to do. So if you're in the LA area on Monday, October 1st, you can join us at the Dynasty Typewriter

Theater, as I'll be a guest on Harmontown. There will be a ticket link in the show notes, and the audio of that episode will be available on October 4th for anyone who wants to hear the show. I'll definitely be bracing myself for some great fun in Harman Town. And speaking of bracing yourself, it's time for you to do just that. Because the tape is in the machine, the stories are ready, so let's press play. In our first tale, we confront the all-to-real issue of those honey-making insects known as bees. But as author René Ren explains,

The small town in this tale isn't facing the loss of bee populations like many places around the world. No, this town has been experiencing far too many, and they're far too disturbing. Performing this tale is Matthew Bradford. So let's hear him explain how my town is being infested by strange bees. If there's one thing I hate in the summer, it's insects. I don't know why, but when it's hot, our small town is flooded by all sorts of creepy crawlies. It could be because of the various lakes nearby, or that our town is nestled between thick forests. Every summer, things are bad.

But this year's heat wave made it even worse. Flies and mosquitoes were swarming my house almost since the beginning of July. Every time I'd open a window, you could bet that half a dozen of them made their way inside. Don't even get me started on the spiders. Worst of all were the bees. I don't know where they all came from, but for a month they were plaguing our town. During the first week, no one was worried about it. Most people guessed that the heat had sped up the breeding process.

and soon enough their numbers would thin out. Instead, more of them started appearing. It wasn't long before bee stings became a common occurrence when going outside. A stranger even was that a second, different type of bee appeared. They had bigger bodies that were a bit too long and were much more aggressive than regular bees. At first, people thought they were hornets or wasps.

But that was never the case. They were some type of, local mutation. Things got especially dangerous at the local nursing home and the kindergarten. The elderly and the little kids were too slow to notice the bees, and many of them got stung. Insect spray became as common as bread and water in our town due to those aggressive bees. Heck, even I got a can. Two weeks ago, this epidemic claimed its first victim. It was a middle-aged woman who went out running. When her husband protested, she disliked. disregarded the warning and said she'd be fine. Her body was found on the same day. A local farmer

founded in a ditch near a hiking trail early in the evening. No one knew what had happened. When the man approached the body, it was teeming with bees. Her face and arms were covered in bee stings and almost swollen beyond recognition. When my friend Robert went missing, I was worried instantly. He was precisely the type who'd ignore the warnings and the danger. His girlfriend, Sue, called me Saturday morning. She'd not heard from him since Friday afternoon. This wasn't like him at all, she said. With all those bees around, only God knew what had happened. I calmed her down and told her he was most likely busy playing some new game. Once I hung up, I tried to call Robert. No one answered. I dropped him a message on WhatsApp and saw that he'd not been online since the day before.

That really wasn't like him. He was the type who was online constantly. I drove to his place right away. I rang the doorbell a few times but got no answer. His neighbor soon called out to me and told me he'd not seen my friend all day. The last time he'd seen him was yesterday. I felt a lump in my throat. I asked the old man if he could have a lookout and,

call me if he saw my friend come home. He was friendly enough and said he'd give me a call. Back at home, I had no idea what to do. I was about to call the cops, but what would I tell him? Robert had been out drinking with friends for all I knew. He'd probably drop me a what's at message soon enough asking what I was so worried about. Two hours later, I got a call from his neighbor. The old man told me Robert had come home. His clothes were dirty. though, and he looked scruffy and exhausted. Robert didn't even react when the old man called out to him. He went inside without saying a word.

I mean, I was so glad to hear he was all right. I tried calling him, but again, I couldn't reach him. My messages stayed unread, too. Shit, what if something had happened and he'd passed out? When I arrived, it took Robert a little while, but he opened the door. He didn't say a word and stood there. staring at me. Hey, man, you're right?

I was worried about you. He just kept staring at me. For a moment, he opened his mouth as if to say something, only to quickly close it again. Finally, he stepped aside to let me in. As I walked past him, I noticed how bad he smelled. Dude, what the hell did you do last night? You should take a shower or something.

No reaction. Robert quietly closed the front door and walk straight towards the living room. And something was off about the way he moved. He seemed to take a short pause before each step, as if to think about it, his feet shuffled over the floor, and it looked as if he dragged his body forward. Why was he so exhausted? Dude, are you sure you're all right?

Instead of answering, he sat down on his couch and kept staring at me. I was about to call him out on his behavior when I had to. heard the buzzing. I couldn't see where it was coming from and started scanning the room. God, I'm sick and tired of the damned bees by now. I'd gotten so many bee stings that I killed them on sight. I couldn't see any at the moment, though. I suddenly pelt a stinging pain on my arm, and noticed that one of the weird or bigger bees had stung me. There was already another one coming towards me. Where the hell were they coming from? Sat down on my arm for a moment, and it seemed if it was looking straight into my eyes.

That was it. I got out the can from my backpack and started to spray it. Wouldn't let it sting me too. At this moment, Robert started to squeak. It was this weird high-pitched sound, and in surprise, I'd turned towards him. He'd gotten up from his seat. Dude, what's going on?

He came tumbling towards me and crashed his body into mine with full force. What the fuck's going on with you? Calm down, man. He started to push me to the ground, and in that instant I heard the buzzing of the bees again. It was even louder this time, but I still couldn't see them. Where the hell was it coming from? Dude, stop! Enough with this! I pushed him off me.

Before I could get up, he came at me again. By now I had enough of this and shoved him back with both hands. There was a sickening, wet sound of something breaking. Then Robert felt backward to the ground. Oh shit, man, are you all right? I didn't mean to hurt you. I'm sorry, you just... And this time, I knew where the buzzing was coming from.

It was from inside, my friend. I watched in horror as a swarm of bees burst from his open mouth and flew straight at me. I screamed and started to spray them, but there were too many. There must have been dozens of them. They were all around me. I felt countless bee stings all over my arms, and in the back of my neck.

In my fury, I used the repellents almost at random, spraying everywhere. The air in Robert's small living room became heavy with insecticides in a matter of minutes. As I fought the bees, I saw Robert's body shake and tremble as if he were suffering a stroke. He was squeaking again. He tried to run from the room but crashed straight against the wall. I saw more and more of the bees crawl from his collapsed body, only to die right on the spot. I tore myself from the sight and ran outside. I collapsed on the brass, coughing and swatting at the last bees that still stuck to my body.

Soon the police arrived. Robert Snaver must have heard our fight and got worried. I told them what had happened, but they didn't believe me. While they interrogated me, an ambulance was called. As they treated my many bee stings, one of the police officers approached me. He was clearly disturbed by what he was. seen. He told me my friend was dead. When I started freaking out, he assured me it wasn't due to our fight or the insects prey. No, he said. My friend must have been dead for a while. This made no sense.

I told the man again that my friend had come home only an hour or two ago. The man nodded, but the paramedics had said that Robert's body was in a state of advanced decay. There was no doubt that he'd been dead for almost a day. When I gave my testimony at the station the next day, I learned more about the whole thing. The police officer opposite me frowned once I'd finished my story. He said he'd typically stay quiet about these things, but what they found during the autopsy was just too weird. My friend's head, as well as his body, was covered in holes and tunnels. and it looked almost like the honeycombs and a beehive. It was clear that Robert had died on the Friday afternoon near the forest, the man said.

The strange bees must have then started to convert his body into a hive. No one could explain how he made his way home, though. It's now a week later. But there is one thing I can't stop thinking about. What if it was those bees? What if they dug into his body? to control him and move their new hive here, right into the middle of our small town. When it comes to communing with God, many do it in their local houses of worship.

But in this tale from author Tobias Wade, we meet a grandmother who is convinced God lives in a tree in her backyard. She soon convinces her grandson that she just might be telling the truth. Performing this tale, our Armand Taylor, Nicole Doolin and Aaron Lillis. So prepare your offering when you visit the taking tree. The earliest memory of Grandma Elias was a Sunday morning at her house. The eggs were firm and golden, and the hash browns were burnt, just like they were supposed to be.

Everything at Grandma's house was exactly right, all the way from the Christmas lights, which never came down, to her little corgi muffins, who followed her like a shableness. who followed her like a shadow. It was time for church, but I didn't want to leave. How come Grandma doesn't have to go to church? She already knows all that stuff. My mother forced me into a jacket like meat through a grinder. But you still have to learn, though.

Grandma stuck out her tongue and waggled it about behind mom's back. I wasn't amused. It wasn't fair. Don't you want to visit God? God doesn't live in a church, silly. He lives in that crab apple tree in my backyard. Would you like to meet him? Yes! Oh, can we, Mom?

Instead of church? I recognized Mom's expression from the time she accidentally drank sour milk. Absolutely not. Please don't joke about that kind of stuff, Elias. You know how impressionable they can be. Grandma shrugged and winked. I was counting on it. another time then

she didn't mention it again though and I forgot all about the god in her apple tree the subject didn't come up again until years later when I was in the 10th grade mom was in the hospital to remove some ovarian cysts and I'd been left at grandma's for a few days while she recovered every morning I'd wake up to find grandma

kneeling beside her apple tree digging around its roots. I assumed she was just pulling weeds or something. Until I caught her burying a row of sealed Tupperware containers filled with leftovers. Is that for God? Yes. I wanted to thank him for looking after your mother. So it's like a prayer.

She shook her head. Is that what they teach you in that dusty old Sunday school? No, you must never ask God for anything. You must only thank him for what he has already done. I watched as she carefully patted the soil into place. Is he going to eat it? What are you asking me for? She moved to put her hand on the tree and invited me to do the same.

I did so without thinking, but jerked away immediately. The bark was warm and dark. pliable like rough skin. My fingers were still tingling, almost vibrating, as though a whisper too deep to decipher still echoed through my body. Grandma Elias just laughed and turned to go inside. Somehow I didn't feel like staying there alone. Mom was released from the hospital shortly after, but a few days later, she started getting sharp pains and had to go back in. No one told me what was going on, but that alone made me know and it wasn't good. I made a point of setting my alarm for the crack of dawn so I could watch Grandma digging around

the roots of her tree. I waited until she left to investigate and see if there were any treats I could steal. The first thing I uncovered were the Tupperware. containers. They were all empty, absolutely clean, like they'd gone through the dishwasher. I figured she must have traded them out for her latest donation, so I kept digging into the newly disturbed earth. The soil was damp here, but I kept going until I uncovered a patch of golden fur. Muffins was buried under the tree. I was trembling from head to full. I was trembling from head to while I slowly covered up the little body again. It wasn't just the horror of what I found either.

I could feel the vibrations emanating from the tree. The bark was so hot to the touch that it almost scalded me, but I forced my hand to remain, to feel the hum of the presence. Not quite a sound, not quite a thought, but something suspended between flooded my senses. I wasn't myself in that instant. I was looking through grandma's eyes as she sat on her bed, hands clasped and shaking.

I was in a hospital room, watching a daytime soap opera on the television in the corner of the room. I was a hundred people doing a hundred things, thinking a hundred thoughts, dreading a hundred futures, and then... It was gone. It was just me standing before the tree, panting for breath, staring at my swollen red

fingertips that still stung from where they'd touched the rough skin. I was scared and confused, but I did not speak of it to anyone. Grandma didn't say a word about why muffins wasn't in the yard anymore, and I didn't ask. She seemed to be in a better mood afterward, though, singing or whistle. to herself wherever she went. Then, a few hours later, we got a call from the hospital. It had been a false alarm, and Mom was already on her way to pick me up. For the first time, I was only too happy to leave Grandma's house.

A couple years later, and I'd left my hometown to go to college. I got swept up in the daily dramas of life and didn't look back. Not until I visited again, junior year, to help Grandma Elias start to pack up her home. She'd grown too old to look after the place herself, and she'd decided to move into a home. All the conversations had been light and optimistic, as though this would make her life so much easier. So I wasn't prepared for the shock of seeing her again. The electric wheelchair was the first. First surprise. My family isn't exactly open about their problems, and nobody had told me that her arthritis was so bad that she couldn't even walk or open doors anymore.

Her face was dried and loose, and her eyes were deep and sunken. I looked up the place she was moving into, only to discover it wasn't a retirement home at all. It was a hospice. My mom still kept talking about all the friends grandma would make there and grandma said she was looking forward to the activities and the company. They were living in stubborn denial and I couldn't take it. The only thing I miss is my garden and my tree. It's not like I can get down on my knees and dig anyway, though. So I suppose it's for the best.

Luckily, I knew where God lived, and I was sure he'd intervene. A small bribe or offering wasn't going to cut it, though. It had been a life for a life when my mother was sick, and I was ready to pay that price again. The more I thought about it, the more sure I was that I could follow through. This wouldn't be a thank you gift, though, and I had no intention of being subtle and simply hoping for the best. In other words, I felt that it had to be human, the most valuable thing I could think to offer. The digging took a lot longer than expected. I came back with a shovel that night.

Grandma Elias hadn't moved out yet, but I was comfortable in the familiar darkness and didn't make too much noise. When I finished the hole, I'd go find some drunk coming home from the bar and knock him out, push him into that hole and cover him up. No one would ever know. Not even Grandma. If Muffins was still here, then he would have set off the alarm by now. But I couldn't even find the little body anymore. I kept at it for a few hours until the hole was a little longer than I was tall.

I hopped inside to test its depth and found the earthen walls rose almost to my chest. That should be plenty. I started to climb out again, grabbing one of the roots for support while I pulled myself up. The root was fire, and I let go immediately, reeling backward to nurse my injured hand. I overbalanced and was about to fall, but something lashed out of the darkness to snatch me around a flailing arm. I stared in dumb shock as the root twined around my arm for several seconds before the the burning began to penetrate my long-sleeved shirt. The intensity of the heat was increasing by the second. I scrambled in the opposite direction, trying to hoist myself out of the hole without

touching the tree. I barely got two steps before another blast of heat penetrated my ankle and dragged me to the ground. Back up to my knees, but an irresistible weight flattened me back to the ground. The heat of the roots withdrew, but the weight was increasing by the second. Dirt and rocks were raining around me so hard it felt like a hail storm. The roots were sweeping all the piled earth directly on top of me. I managed to raise myself onto my elbows and knees to create a small air pocket, but I could go no farther. The last of the meager starlight quenched above me, and I was buried alive. I could still hear the muffled sound of the dirt packing in tighter above me,

or distant by the second. Another sound was replacing it. The same vibrating whispers I'd heard all those years ago. Part of me was still braced on my hands and knees in the darkness, but I hardly noticed anymore, because I was also sitting on a hilltong, staring at the stars with a beautiful girl warm beside me. I was sleeping in a bed,

a hundred bodies and a hundred beds, all breathing slow and regular. And every passing second made me aware of a hundred new people, experiencing their bodies and hearing their maddening cacophony of thoughts. I was grieving and celebrating in ecstasy and agony, all so real that it might as well have been mine, own body experiencing these things. It kept going faster and faster until the part of me that was buried under the tree was so insignificant that I hardly remembered it. Within moments, I must have

been every man, woman, and child on the planet, all their experiences mingling into a single omnipresent hum of consciousness. I felt myself being born in ceaseless explosions of sensation. And just as often did I feel myself die, snuffing out entirely. But each coming and going didn't matter, because I could feel the hum everywhere, and in everything, eternal and immune from the fluctuations of its composition. The feeling didn't last. One by one, Then, in hundreds and thousands at a time, those minds closed to me. My awareness was shrinking again, and my shaking body buried underground, and my shallow breaths were becoming more real. Soon, I had but one mind, one body, one life, and one desperate urge to not let this slip away like the others.

I began to wriggle back and forth, using my small opening to continue displacing dirt above my back. I managed to make enough space to get my feet underneath me, and then the additional power of my legs helped to push upward through the earth. The air was thick and heavy with my own stale breath, but the higher I got, the less densely packed the soil was. My head was growing light, and I was afraid I was going to pass out. But my hand broke through the surface, and a clean, cold gust of air filled my greedy lungs. Inch by laborious inch, I widened the hole and crawled back onto the surface to lay panting on the ground.

I thought I was alone. Until I heard Grandma Elias's voice, only a few feet away, Well, did you get what you asked for? I was too weak to do anything but lift my head. She was wearing a bathrobe, sitting in her wheelchair with her wrinkled hands folded demurely in her lap. She seemed as frail and ancient as ever. Asking doesn't work, does it? I managed to shake my head.

I thought she'd be angry or disappointed. But she only smiled. When your mother was sick, I did something terrible. I asked God to make her better. She was going to get better anyway, but I didn't know that. I thought that if I gave up a life, then I could protect a life. The tree doesn't stop death, though. It gives us something much more valuable than that.

You're still going to die, aren't you? Does that frighten you? I said nothing. I'd felt what it was like to die. A drop of rain in the ocean, gone in an instant, but still part of the whole. Me neither. And that is the true gift of the tree. When times are tough, some people like to scavenge for things they can use or even sell.

As shared by author C. M. Scandrith, a teenage boy discovers how his friend is so good at finding items all from an abandoned mall. Performing this tale are Kyle Acres, Graham Rowett, and Nicole Doolin. So let's recall the glory days of the mall when it was open, because back then, it was a different time. Johnny Raisin was poor as shit, and everybody knew it. He lived with his mom and a trailer on the scrapyard, rent-free, because their three mangy dogs kept the rats and the kids away. They were hoarders of the worst sort, keeping everything that other people threw away. Stacked against the side of the trailer was a teetering wall of broken one-wheeled bicycles and tricycles Johnny had collected over the years, streaked with rust and dog piss, like some half-completed Salvador Dali project.

There was so much junk inside the trailer itself, it was hard to move without knocking something over. Johnny's mom was 50 if she was a day, and she complained bitterly about the cold, staying wrapped in a massive woolen blanket that hooked and snagged on every metal object in their home. It smelled in there, too, like old dog food and bug spray. But Johnny had a PlayStation 3 that mostly worked, even though the case was held together with tape. I didn't, so I spent more time in that stinking cluttered trailer than I might have otherwise. I wasn't using Johnny, I told myself. We'd been friends since kindergarten, and when the other kids picked on him, I always stood up for him.

He was practically family. My parents let him come over and shower once a week, and my mom would wash his threadbare clothes while dad cooked him waffles with maple syrup and bacon. Johnny was the brother I'd never had, and I knew that if anything happened to his mom, we'd have adopted him in an instant. The only reason why he didn't live with us permanently was that we didn't want to hurt his mom's feelings. My own mom's forehead crinkled with empathy

when she spoke about her. She does the best she can. Losing her man hurt her deeper than any of us can imagine. So Johnny Raisin stayed living in the junkyard. And honestly, he liked it that way because he had more freedom than any other kids his age. Johnny was always trying to make money at school by selling stuff to other kids. Not just his scrapyard treasures, he was an expert scavenger.

He raided the lost property boxes at community halls and libraries and walked around the streets with his head down, scanning for coins and dropped the possessions. Most of what he found was garbage, but very occasionally he'd have a big win and sell something for 20 bucks. The rare time that happened, I'd know, because he'd promptly blow it all on can. candy and soda, making himself sick on all the luxuries he didn't often get. So when Johnny started showing up at school regularly with his backpack full of milk duds, twinkies, skittles, and cans of Dr. Pepper, all for sale. I didn't know what to make of it. The other kids easily bought the contraband, since Johnny was asking a tenth of the retail price.

They commented on the huge old-school steel cans the soda came in, antiquities from the 80s that Johnny had unearthed somewhere on his nocturnal roamings. I was wary of the long-expired products at first, but the food and drink tasted as good as if they'd been packaged last week, so I happily filled Johnny's pockets with coins, too. The mystery deepened when Johnny started turning up in new clothes. Well, technically, they weren't new at all. They were relics from several decades ago, just like the soda cans. But the colors were crisp and bright, and the fabric still had packaging creases and smelled of plastic wrappers. When I raised my eyebrows at his return of the Jedi T-shirt,

Johnny just grinned at me and jingled the coin-filled pockets of his red beat-ed-era jacket. He looked like he'd step out of some old music video. He jerked his thumb in the direction of the mall. Gonna go by Fallout New Vegas after school, want to come? You know I do. As we walked, Johnny whistled weirdly tuneless elevator music and checked his watch, also in theme, some decades-old swatch model. I knew that he was playing it up on purpose.

He knew I was desperate to find out where he'd been getting all this stuff, but I was damned if I was going to crack first and say anything. After ten minutes or so, he finally broke the silence. So, I've been exploring Emmett's Mall down by the lake. Jesus, Johnny, that's where you've been getting all this stuff from? Yep. But that place has been abandoned forever. There's nothing left in there.

Johnny just kept on grinning, giving me some sort of. side-long glances from beneath the brim of his vintage Lakers baseball cap while I processed the information. Emmett's Mall had been the place to be, once upon a time. Back in the 70s, it had been the hub of the town, according to my mom. Kids would play ball in the park by the lake while parents shopped at their leisure, transported between the two mezzanine floors by fancy new escalators of shiny chrome and steel. A massive underground parking lot meant finding a spot for your car was never a problem, and it had every kind of story you could think of, stocking the latest luxuries from the time.

But it wasn't to last. Everyone knew the story. One Monday morning in 1981, some kid's body had been found on the first floor mezzanine. A security guard was convicted of murdering the teenager, smashing the boy's face in with a blunt object, then fleeing the scene. If you listen to my mom,

the case against him seemed a bit light, but a black guy on a minimum wage night shift probably didn't get a very good lawyer. And nobody knew who the boy was. His teeth and jaw were pieced back together, but they didn't match any known dental records. In that typical 1980s kind of way, everyone just tried to ignore the fact that it had happened at first,

to pretend that it was all erased by the guilty verdict. I guess it was a different time. But then the store owners started reporting poltergeist activity, disembodied footsteps, whispers, stock moving by itself. When word got out that people were seeing ghosts, the popularity of the mall began to wane. Eventually, they shut up shop store by store

until the mall was derelict. And in the summer of 1983, the doors were padlocked permanently shut. 30 years later, Emmett's mall still squatted beside the lake, too expensive to demolish and too haunted to sell. Even the homeless folk avoided it, finding other places to hunker down for the night. There were plenty of other places without such.

dark histories. It's kind of a secret. Can you keep the secret? I nodded fervently. You know I can. All right. Sneak out tonight around 10.30, meet me by the mall. Bring a flashlight and your backpack. You'll need both.

Okay. We didn't talk about it anymore after that. Absorbed as we were playing the new game, Johnny Bot. But by the time I went home for dinner, I'd nearly forgotten the little prickle of fear I'd felt when he offered to show me the secrets of Emmett's mall. It was a 20-minute walk to the mall from my house, and I'd left late, because I'd had to wait for my dad to go to bed before I could sneak out. As soon as I got to the patch of weeds that had nearly reclaimed the cracked asphalt leading up to the mall, Johnny called out to me.

His flashlight pointed down, a puddle of light at his feet. Come on, man, or we'll be late. I wondered how exactly we could be late for something that hadn't changed for three decades, but I hitched my empty backpack and hurried after him as he pushed through the tall grasses that grew high around the perimble. of the mall. The steel roller doors were still pulled down over the main entrance and sported rusted padlocks. But someone had kicked in the side of the corrugated metal, betting it in just enough for a

person to climb through. Johnny threw his backpack through the hole and clambered in after it. This is how we get in. I shelved my doubts and followed quickly, finding myself standing in a foyer, littered with broken glass and drifts of dirty plastic sheeting. Come on! On the concourse, empty stores gaped. dark and cavernous, alarming shadows moving inside them as our flashlight swept past.

There was some sort of food court up ahead, or at least the remains of one. A few broken tables and plastic chairs were scattered about, flanked by tiled planters of overgrown ferns, forming a little indoor forest. Water pooled deep in one corner, and Johnny splashed through the shallows to reach the derelict escalator up to the first floor. His feet stirred up a green smell, rotting vegetative. The whole basement is flooded now. The lake must have busted in and filled it all up. There's even fish in there, if you're brave enough to go down.

I shivered. I'd never been good with enclosed spaces or deep, dark water. I sure his shit wasn't going to go anywhere that combined both. When we reached the mezzanine, he checked his watch, then flashed his teeth in a smile and nodded. Right on time. What happens now? Just listen and watch, okay?

You'll see soon enough. We stood in silence for a minute or so, my ear's straining for the slightest hint of sound. At first, I could only hear the occasional drip of water below us in the flooded section of the food court. But as I listened, another sound began to faintly intrude, drifting on the silence of the empty mall. Old elevator music.

It was distant and eerie, tinny and thin and distorted like it was echoing off objects that were no longer there. Chilly fear turned my throat sour, and the beam of my flashlight began to tremble, until Johnny put a steadying hand on my shoulder. It's okay, man. I've done this dozens of times, chill. Faint phosphorescence began to prick the corners of my vision, and the music were perceptibly louder, and more real.

Between one blink and the next, I realized that the gaping storefronts around us were no longer empty sockets of darkness. Instead, a faint gray-white light dusted everything. showing us a sort of ghostly after image of what had once been inside this place. Yeah, pretty fucking creepy, right? It always happens just after 11.11 p.m. like clockwork. Grabbing my arm, he hustled me along the cracked tiles of the mezzanine, making for the scratchy glow from one particular store. This one was Shirley's candies.

Squinting where Johnny pointed, I could see the eerie, pale cursive of a neon sign scrawling itself across a window that didn't exist, spelling out its name. My mom told me about it. She used to love the milkshakes from this place. The music was louder here. Real enough that my prickling ears could almost pinpoint the position

of the invisible speakers it was coming from. Inside the candy store, the scratchy faded white lines of shelves were superimposed over the rotten carpet and humps of broken waterlogged ceiling tiles, like scrapes on the negative of a photograph. Johnny was scanning the ethereal grid of ghostly shelves. Okay, so watch me.

You gotta wait until the music sort of peaks. Then you can grab stuff. His hand poised over one of the intangible shells. We listened as the music ebbed and flowed. Suddenly, it surged and swelled, as though piped directly into our ears from another era. Johnny swiped at the shelves that now seemed less after image and more double exposure.

One reality layered over the top of the other. With a whoop, he held up a very real box of Charles and shoes. And as the music faded away again, he stuffed the box into his backpack. You never know quite what you're going to get, but that's half the fun. For the next two hours, we moved from store to store, pilfering random goods from another time, until the music finally receded completely into the dark, replaced with the echoing silence of the abandoned mall. I thought about the mall a lot over the next few days, wondering if what I'd experienced had been some weird fever dream or hallucination. But the boxes have expired candy

under my bed and the gleaming new Atari 2,600 beside my TV, told a different story, one I was still struggling to believe. We went back again, nearly a week later, the unearthly ancient musac haunting us as our hands groped for forgotten treasures in those strange, small hours when the two different worlds seemed to cross over. This time was easier at first. My lingering fear of the unknown had all but worn off, but Johnny suddenly grabbed my arm and pulled me to the ground, hissing a warning. What? I could feel my pulse ramp up as I crouched on the rotten linoleum.

Putting a finger to his lips, Johnny shook his head, then pointed through the smeared phosphorescence of the shelves in front of us. On the other side, a figure moved. Like the shelves, it was grayish-white and featureless, but certainly humanoid and somehow deeply, deeply threatening. My vision stuttered. My bladder clenched suddenly, and the urge to piss nearly. overwhelmed me. As the creature moved toward us, Johnny kept his hand in a fistful of my

hoodie sleeve, pulling me right through the insubstantial shelves and onto the mezzanine, where he ducked into another shop. He looked like I felt. His eyes wild and his breath coming and ragged gasps. What was that? I'd never been so afraid of my life and I had no idea why. Ghost, you got to watch out for them. They come after you sometimes. Chase you if they see you. Jesus, fuck, Johnny, you never said anything about ghosts. He spat into the darkness. Well, it's a fucking haunted mall, isn't it? What the hell do you think would be here, Lewis?

What do you think everyone up and left in the first place? I swallowed my own sour saliva, not wanting to think too much about what had just happened. What do they do if they catch you? I don't know. I've never been caught. Maybe they pull you into the ghost world. Maybe they steal your life to make themselves real.

I'm not a fucking ghost expert. I just know when my gut... that if they catch you, something bad will happen. You felt that, right? You could feel the bad all around them, like death are coming for you. The Muzak was fading away now. It was almost 1.11 a.m.

The time when the ghostly mall closed. Heading for the foyer, I shook my head, shouldering my loot-filled backpack. Well, in that case, I'm not ever coming back here again. It's not worth it for some old candy and some ancient video games. Johnny said nothing as he climbed after me through the hole in the steel door.

I wondered how many times he'd been here, and how many times he'd almost been caught. I wondered why I didn't just stop. Worry ate at me every time Johnny turned up with a bag full of mall contraband to sell at school. He had an eBay account now, after buying his first laptop, and was starting to see some real profits from selling mint vintage goods to actual collectors. I tried to tell myself that he knew the risks, but the fact was he didn't. We had no idea what would happen if he got caught by the ghosts of Emmett's Mall. and I felt like the world's shittiest friend

for letting him put himself at risk like that. I'd always been Johnny's defender. Everyone knew it that if they fucked with little scrawny Johnny Raisin, then Louis Belmont, the tall, fast kid, would come and beat your ass for messing with his friend. Now he was facing something so much worse than kindergarten bullies.

And even if he was doing it out of choice just because he wanted the money, I felt like crap for not being there when he needed me. When Johnny turned up one day with a big bruise on the left side, of his face and a welt on his hand. I knew exactly what had happened. I fell. Like hell you did.

He gave me his lopsided grin and shrug. Well, they didn't catch me. I got away. Not without getting fucked up. I'm okay. You're not okay. You need to stop, Johnny. His grin stuttered and faded.

And I heard the receding mall music in my memory as his smile deserted him. Fine. If he need to keep going, back to that place, I'm coming with you. At the very least, I can be your lookout so the spooks don't get you. I thought about how weird it was, that we were talking so casually about otherworldly spirits, as if they were some mall security that we needed to dodge while shoplifting. It was more fun with you there anyway. Well, I guess that settles it then. They seemed more vigilant now. The unnatural

denizens of Emmett's Mall, aware of us somehow, as though we'd been seen pilfering from their world and word had spread. I wondered if we'd outstayed our welcome, but Johnny was convinced everything was still okay. Whether that was just his greed talking or whatever else was driving him, I wasn't sure. But with my baseball bat tucked under my arm, I felt less scared of the spirits that haunted this place.

I figured if they could hit Johnny, maybe I could hit them back. We did all right for a while there, staying out of trouble. It was a big mall and two hours seemed like a short enough time to not get caught. There had been a couple of close calls. Johnny couldn't run as fast as I could, but we knew the place well enough now that we could always find somewhere to hide. Then it all came crashing down on us.

We'd been switching the days we went to the mall, as if it would confuse the ghosts, assuming they thought like we did. This time it was a Sunday. I'd been on guard at the top of the escalators when I heard pelting sneakers. Then Johnny calling out to me. True alarm in his voice. Clutching one strap of his backpack, he was running a little. as fast as he could along the top of the mezzanine, his stupid Michael Jackson jacket jingling as he ran.

But the ghost was faster. It loped along beside him, all silvery white limbs and rangy pale body, bearing down on him even as I ran to help. My baseball bat primed a swing. And then it caught him, and everything turned red. Blood spattered the mildewed tiles.

Bright at first, then darker. And darker as the ghostly thing smells. smashed Johnny's head to a pole. I remember every detail vividly, watching my friend's skull cave in with each impact from that blurry gray-white arm, the limb too long, a streaky smear rising and falling.

I felt like I was running through invisible barriers, distortions in the musty air too slow. The bat swung hard in my hands, connecting with something solid, knocking the ghost away, and out of our world, but far too late. For just a moment,

the wreckage of Johnny's ruined skull gaped up at me, all glistening brain and bright bone where my friend's face had been. And then he flickered out of existence, just as the hall muzac ebbed away. Even as I raged and sobbed and paced, hunting up and down, waiting for the music to swell again, I already knew Johnny was gone forever. There had always been something nagging at me about this place. It was more than just a ghost mall. The things we'd been stealing had been too real, too genuine and new. But that was a secondary concern. I knew that finding out her son was dead would quite literally be the end of Johnny's mom. I got no sleep that night. For the next, I begged off school with a migraine and sat on my computer, looking up anything I could

about Emmett Small and finding nothing. Eventually, I emailed the local newspaper asking if they had any of the old articles on file, and they obliged, sending me the original scanned article about the body. When I read the description of the battered corpse, all my fears were confirmed. Boy aged between 13 and 15 wearing a red jacket, a Lakers cap, and new Levi jeans. The original body that had started at all, the body that had cursed them all in the first place, had been the body of my best friend, Johnny Razen. We had to been stealing from a ghost mall at all. We were the ghosts, shoplifting goods from the past,

making the people who own the store think the place was haunted. I was so stupid. I should have been able to figure it out. Worst of all, I'd failed Johnny. I'd failed his mom, too. There's no fucking way I was ever going to tell her how he died. The article contained the name of the security guard who'd been charged with the murder of the unidentified boy.

I looked him up immediately. He'd been sentenced to life in a maximum security prison, where he died several years later, killed by another inmate. The man had always protested his innocence, but I knew what had happened. I'd seen Johnny's death with my own eyes, and it was certainly murder. But with the man dead already, there would be no justice for Johnny. No way I could pay him back for what he'd done.

I had the baseball bat propped against my desk, remembering how solid Johnny's attacker had felt in that moment, how tangible the impact when I'd managed to knock him away. Maybe there was a way to get payback after all. While the police hunted for Johnny Raisin, missing for a week now, I hunted for his killer. Every night I went to the mall waiting for the ghost. Sometimes I saw it, waving the pale smear of its long arm like it was taunting me, and then it would vanish. Sometimes it ran for me and I'd give chase, ready to pay it back for all it had done to my friend.

It was elusive, as if it knew I was hunting it. Sometimes it disappeared from one spot, then reappeared on the other side of the mall almost before it had faded from it. in front of me, almost as if there were two versions of it. It became my mission, the focus for my grief. I managed to clip it with a pretty good swing one night, but it vanished again. I stood and howled with rage, shaking my bat at the ceiling and swearing I would fucking kill the damn thing. And then it would eventually happen, exactly as it should have. I could tell the ghost had its back to me, and I ran right as the music peak, echoing through the abandoned ball. Hearing me, it turned, then fled along the mezzanine.

Yelling incoherently, I chased it down, putting everything into my long strides. I was faster than it was. And as it stumbled, my bat came down on its head. Silver sparks exploded from it as it went down, screaming with triumph. I struck it again and again, until brilliant silver pooled around what had been its skull. Too late, I saw another ghost approaching, charging straight for me, and then a powerful blow smashed straight into my jaw, knocking me sideways. As I lay on the filthy floor, the world stuttered and flickered for a moment like a slipped film. And I saw red, a red jacket, a Lakers

cap, a mangled skull, and an achingly familiar boy standing over us, holding a baseball bat. It's been eight years since I murdered Johnny. Eight years since I discovered that there were never any ghosts in that mall. Just echoes of ourselves. All tangled up in a big mess of temporal spaghetti until none of it made sense anymore. Johnny's mom died a year after his disappearance. I arranged for her to be buried near the John Doe of Emmett's Mall, so she could still be near her boy.

There's no way I can forgive myself for any of this. No way to atone for it. Emmett Small still sits there, slowly rotting away, tempting me with its quantum mysteries, telling me I can go back and stop myself from killing Johnny, that I can fix everything. But time doesn't work that way. What's happened has happened.

There can be no paradox, no change. Johnny's life was a perfect loop, and I was the hand that spliced it into shape. Maybe one day I'll be rich enough to buy that time-forsaken Mullen smashed it into the dirt. But for now, I still have too many demons to deal with. Until then, I urge all of you. Just stay the fuck away from Emmett Small.

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