The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S12E02

Episode Date: December 16, 2018

It's episode 02 of Season 12. On this week's show we have tales about strange people in places they don't belong. "October 17th, 1989"‡ written by Jeffrey Ebright and performed by Jeff Clement & Addison Peacock & Nikolle Doolin. (Story starts around 00:03:10) "The Dead of Night"¤ written by Christian Riley and performed by Peter Lewis & Jesse Cornett & Atticus Jackson. (Story starts around 00:23:20) "Someone in the Bathroom"† written by Harley Carnell and performed by David Ault & Erika Sanderson. (Story starts around 01:05:30) "The Blue Ghost Fireflies of DuPont State Forest"† written by Eliza Roth and performed by Nikolle Doolin & Nichole Goodnight. (Story starts around 01:26:30) "The Last Bus"† written by P. Oxford and performed by Jessica McEvoy & Addison Peacock & Nichole Goodnight & Mike DelGaudio & Mary Murphy. (Story starts around 01:53:45) Click here to learn more about the voice actors on The NoSleep Podcast   Click here to learn more about Jeffrey Ebright   Click here to learn more about Christian Riley   Click here to learn more about P. Oxford   Executive Producer & Host: David Cummings Musical score composed by: Brandon Boone Audio adaptations produced by: Phil Michalski† & Jeff Clement‡ & Jesse Cornett¤ "The Blue Ghost Fireflies of DuPont State Forest" illustration courtesy of Naomi Ronke Audio program ©2018-2019 - 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

Welcome to our sleepless sanctuary. You enter at your own risk and choose to be entertained with dark and disturbing horror stories. You have been warned for the dark hours when you dare not cluck tales of horror to frighten and disturbed. As the sleepless hours tick. Brace yourself. for the no sleep podcast. Welcome to the No Sleep Podcast Sanctuary. I'm David Cummings.

Our service this week features tales about strange people in places they don't belong. We're now halfway through December, and that means our special Christmas episode will be coming out next week. We'll have a full-length episode for one and all to enjoy with frighteningly festive stories. special guests, carolers, and maybe even some nice, creamy eggnog. Make sure you join us for our yearly celebration of the dark side of Christmas. And for our season past 12 members, we'll be releasing a Christmas bonus episode for you on Christmas Day. So when you're checking your stocking, don't forget to check your feeds for that special lump of coal.

After that, we'll be taking a well-deserved holiday break between Christmas and New Year's. We'll be back on January 6 with Season 12, Episode 4. And finally, if you're looking for last-minute gift ideas, we'll be putting our season-pass bundles on sale in the days leading up to Christmas. Great savings on our Terror Trio bundles and our First Ten and First Eleven bundles. Great gifts to give to yourself. or your loved ones. And we'll be presenting a special

Merry Christmas bundle featuring some of our season past Christmas bonus episodes from past years. Three great episodes full of Christmas tales all for just $1.25. What a great way to make the season bright. I mean, dark.

Make sure you follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram for all the details. But enough talk about the holidays, this week's stories are set. And now, it's time for our service to begin. Bow your heads and hear our words. In our first tale, we meet a man in the days before cell phones and modern voicemail technology. As explained by author Jeffrey Ebright, an old discarded cassette tape answering machine was just what he needed at the time. But when he listened to the message,

is left on the tape from years ago, he learns of a disturbing event which leaves him shaken to the core. Performing this tale are Jeff Clement, Addison Peacock, and Nicole Doolin. So let's listen to the harrowing events which took place on October 17, 1989. In 1993, I got tired of all the cold and snow in the Midwest. I packed my worldly possessions into a U-Haul and headed west. I never looked back. I found a job in San Francisco, making enough to afford a crappy little one-room studio apartment. I mean, what did I care? At least I didn't have to shovel a fucking driveway in 20 degrees below zero. I didn't have any disposable income, so I used to cruise the better neighborhoods on trash day and do some poor folk recycling.

Somebody throws out a perfectly good chair and you have a vehicle to get it home. It belongs to you. I furnished my whole apartment with discarded treasures. Sometimes I'd find other creature comforts. So good for me and my wallet. One day, I saw a couple scratched up end tables curbside when I was going into work.

I was running late, so I told myself, if they're still there on my lunch break, they're mine. They were. So I pulled up and wedged them into the back of my Plymouth Reliant K. Underneath one of the tables, there was a box of knick-knacks. Basic stuff, outdated magazines, yellowed Christmas cards, toys that kids had outgrown or broken. At the bottom of the box, I found an answering machine. Even though it was one of those older bulky models, it looked in.

decent shape. Since I didn't have an answering machine, I decided to take that home too. And if it didn't work, then I'd just toss it, like the previous owner. I guess only older people remember how important an answering machine was in the era before everyone had a cell phone. They were not only great for taking messages, but they kept you from having to deal with telemarketers or people you didn't want to talk to. This is about the same time in history when CompuServe and AOL ruled the internet with online speeds that let you take your sweet time making a sandwich while it connected. When I got home that night, I plugged that bulky thing into its heavy adapter, and a little red power light came on. So far, so good. Unlike newer models, you could use a regular cassette tape

to record messages. I always thought that was pretty handy. because you could stick in a 120-minute tape and record a lot of messages. This model even had a time adjustment dial that allowed you to put a limit on the length of messages. That was a particularly handy feature because some of my friends could be real assholes by trying to eat up all my tape with long, drawn-out messages.

I counted myself lucky when I flipped open the top flap and found a cassette tape already queued up. However, I noticed that. the 30-minute Apex tape was not rewound and looked as if it had used up most of the time on one side. My curiosity got the best of me, and I decided to rewind and listen to the tape before I recorded my outgoing message and put the machine to work for me. The outgoing message was typical. Mark, the guy recording the message, sounded like he was in his early to mid-30s. To me, he kind of spoke like a used car salesman.

Coincidentally, he also had the first incoming message on the tape, too. He was either an architect or an interior decorator. Back then, mobile phones were cumbersome and expensive, and everywhere had a roaming charge. Since the phone was new, I was going with him being an architect. The next message was Mark again. I'm a big baseball fan, so I knew he was talking about the 1989 World Series. I kind of smiled because the A's swept the Giants in four games that year.

I imagined how exciting it must have been to be there when Henderson and the Bash Brothers won the championship. The kid will be in hog heaven and have a memory to last him a lifetime. The next message was a female voice. This must be Ali. wife. She sounded like a cutie. I felt a little uncomfortable listening in on their private conversation, but it's not like they were selling government secrets or having phone sex. Besides, my cable got turned off the week before, so it was free entertainment. Mark called again. I wondered for a second about the background noise. I was a Midwest transplant. I never had to take a California history test

to live here. The answering machine didn't have a time or date stamp, so the machine was no help. My knowledge of Major League Baseball came to my rescue. To a non-baseball fan, no single game stands out, only the final result of the series. Mark mentioned going home to watch Game 3 of the World Series. The third game held on October 17, 1989, was significant because an earthquake, hit the Bay Area. It was a strong quake, measuring 6.9 on the Richter scale. I don't really understand how the scale works either. If this helps, the price tag for the total damage was around

$6 billion. That's $1989. Then the next message, this guy was not a good liar. You could clearly hear the pain in his voice. I found out later the Cyprus he referred to, and the last message was the Cyprus freeway. The freeway was a dual-level freeway, literally one road on top of the other. On October 17, 1989, a long stretch of the upper deck collapsed onto the lower deck. Most of the reported deaths happened here. And it sounded like my... Mark was right in the middle of it.

Next message. Mark wasn't hurt. He was fucked up. When I was 14 years old, I broke my leg in a motorcycle accident. That hurt like a son of a bitch. I cried like a little schoolgirl and couldn't put two sentences together through the pain. I couldn't imagine having three broken limbs and still being coherent. Mark was one tough bastard.

At this point, I was getting pissed a rescue team hadn't gotten to him yet. Next message. A series of hang-ups follow. Four in all. I have no idea who didn't bother to leave a message at the beep. I rewound each one a couple of times, but a tenth of a second doesn't leave much for investigation. I was past the point of frustrated when Mark called again. Next message.

I couldn't get the image of this man trapped in his car out of my head. Tires blown out. Roof crushed to the dashboard, window glass littered around him like a poorly decorated Christmas tree. A busted up man entombed in a metal coffin layered in tons of concrete. Did the previous message begin his lapse into shock and delusion? Or was he trying to keep his sanity through the pain and desperation? I refused to give up hope. Next message.

I choked up. And then I went numb. There were no words. Only unspeakable dread. Last message. Until the message automatically cut off a couple of minutes later. The final okay was like he had finally received the answer he was looking for and relaxed. There was a peace in his voice that was sweet and without a hint of sorrow or pain.

I'm not ashamed to say that I cried. With his last breath, he dreamed. of his wife and child. I was haunted the next few days, thinking this tape was too important. I needed to get it to his family, specifically Ali and Josh. They needed to know.

I called off work and headed back over to the neighborhood where I had found the answering machine. It took me a while, but I found the two-story house. With cassette in hand, I knocked on the door. A woman in her early 40s answered the door. I introduced myself and told her how I had trash-picked her curb a week ago. She was slightly suspicious, but told me they were clearing out the basement. It had become a storage room for her family's unwanted furniture and other junk.

Did you know, Mark Bettis? A veil of sadness fell across her face. He was my brother-in-law. He died in the 89 earthquake. I don't mean to bring up bad memories, but do you know where I can find his wife and son? Rise, welled with tears. Allie and Joshie are in the Mountain View Cemetery buried next to him.

Oh, God. spoke softly before closing the door. Died the same day when the Pacific Garden Mall in Santa Cruz collapsed. It's hard to imagine the nightmare of being tossed into the angry sea as your ship sinks to the bottom. But as we learn from author Christian Riley, the sailor and his story is mercifully rescued by another ship. It soon revealed, however, that the new crew may not be able to provide him much in the way, of a real rescue. Performing this tale are Peter Lewis,

Jesse Cornett, and Atticus Jackson. So remember, not every silver lining is what it seems, especially if it comes in the dead of the night. We were against the storm for three days and three nights before our fishing vessel. The Portland's pride finally sank. Failed welds in the hull, most likely. She took water in the engine room, tipped from a large wave, and then sank to the bottom of the Bering Sea.

Except for me, everyone was trapped inside the galley or the wheelhouse, and I'm sure that their deaths must have been horrifying. Just before our vessel went down, a wall of water swept me off the deck and threw me into the sea. I was wearing nothing but rain gear. The waves handled me like a toy, tossing me every direction. The currents sucked on my body for what seemed like a lifetime. The icy water drank itself into my soul, attempting me with each passing minute to let go. Let the sea take me away.

But then their ship appeared from out of nowhere. A golem of steel. against the early morning horizon. The crew of the Aleutian whisper plucked me out of the water just in time, and then I blacked out shortly afterward. I woke the next morning in a bunk, wrapped in a warm blanket. I lay there for a while, glad to be alive. I felt vibrations from the diesel engine below, pushing us through the mild seas. The storm had broken sometime while I slapped, and now the crew was out on deck fishing for crab. I heard the occasional shout, a laugh, and then the unmistakable pounding of the hydraulic crane swinging crab pots against the rail.

Taking a deep breath, I wondered, was it all just a horrible nightmare? When I looked around to the state room, I realized that no, it wasn't a nightmare at all. And then a chill crept back into my I thought about my friends who had lost their lives and of where their bodies now resided at the bottom of the sea. I said a prayer for them, and then I said another prayer, thanking God for my rescue. Fortunately, the cold water hadn't robbed me of any appendages or digits. I discovered this when I climbed off the bunk and made a quick inspection of my body. Although comfortable, I still felt the lingering.

presence of a dampening cold deep within my bones. It was as if a dull current of sadness had nestled into my soul. Again, the sounds from the working vessel rang in my ears as I made my way toward the wheelhouse. The clank and reel of the hydraulic block outside, followed by a few curses from the deckhands. The churn, rattle, and hum from down below in the air. engine room. Then, as if someone threw a switch, a loud stereo suddenly cranked through the cabin, playing La Bamba by Richie Valens. Not the fishing vessel I was used to, but one all the same. I climbed the stairs to the wheelhouse, and there she was. The vast, bearing sea. My stomach turned into a ball of lead at the sight of her, knowing that just hours before, she was, the vast,

before she'd been ploying with my life. Well, lookie here. The captain startled me. About 50, he had a round face and eyes that twinkled like fire. Thin strands of silver hair draped from his bald head, brushing his shoulders. Back from the dead, aren't we? I missed the humor in his words. It seemed like a cruel response.

to someone who just lost a boatload of friends. Name's Bailey. Your name's son? The captain held out a hand. I shook it. Jake, Sanford. How long have I been out of it, sir? Just a day or so.

We picked you up. Was it yesterday? Shoot, I can't remember. You know how this crabbing thing works on a man's mind? Were there any other survivors? He shrugged his shoulders and then turned back toward the sea. Nah, just you, I guess. He guessed?

I didn't know what to say in return, so I stumbled over and I sat on the bench to the opposite side of the captain's chair. I looked out the windows, noticing that the illusion whisper had a forward-facing, wheelhouse. What's up with the Coast Guard? The captain was staring into the horizon, and I saw that the side of his face went solemn as if he had just had an unpleasant thought. Captain? Huh?

Oh, yeah, the Coast Guard. I alerted them. Yeah, that's what I did. His last sentence came out as a mutter, and it snapped at my nerves like a rubber band. What he should have told me was that the Coast Guard was currently searching the ocean for survivors, for dead bodies, for debris. He should have told me that the Coast Guard had asked for my name and that he would relay it to them once he found out himself, which he wasn't doing. Let you go on down and make yourself some food, son, and get comfortable. Are we on our way to port?

All in good time, sailor. Then, in the blink of an eye, Captain Bailey was out the side door, his back to me, and his eyes toward the gloomy sea. His actions were terribly awkward in those fleeting seconds it took him to step outside. There was the brisk manner in which he turned away from me and how he slammed the door on his way out. And then the swift glance in my direction before he faced the open water. I saw his eyes, and they had turned black as night, sharp as daggers. Stop imagining things, sailor, I told myself. On the radio now was Phil Phillips' Sea of Love.

Down below, there was a porthole in the ready room door overlooking the deck. I peeked out and watched as four deck hands in orange rain gear stumbled through the motions of hauling. and stacking pots. I hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary, but I did see that they were pulling up blanks. No crab often makes for a cranky captain. I turned and made my way down the hall and into the galley. A clock above a television was stuck on 10 minutes after four. The digital clock from the microwave blinked 1237. Not a big deal, as I thought about it. I know that some crews ran gear without a working clock in the galley. It's tough to have father time staring back at you when you're cold, tired, and miserable. Opening the fridge, I found a mishmash

of leftovers and half-empty containers. Nothing looked appetizing, so I rummaged through the cabinets for a candy bar. I never heard the door from the ready room open, and I jumped at the sound of the man's voice behind me. Hungry? Jeez. Yeah, I guess I am. I'm Jake, by the way. I reached out to shake his hand, but he ignored me.

He walked over and closed the cabinet doors, then gave me a foul look. My name is Taylor, Taylor Bailey. And the food in here is for working crew only. Keep out of it unless you mean to put on some rain gear. Follow me. I'll show you what you can eat. A river of ice ran down my spine.

How could this man treat me like this, or the captain, for that matter? Nothing about the way both men acted seemed remotely normal. My boat went down, for Christ's sake. I lost friends. I barely survived myself. And now, to be denied the comfort one would expect from fellow fishermen. after being pulled from the sea to be denied safe passage. I followed him down the hall and into the small storage compartment next to the bathroom.

There were containers on the shelves with various dried goods, batteries, miscellaneous tools, but at the bottom and on the floor sat a dilapidated cardboard box tucked into the darkness. You can eat what's in there. Then he swept past me on his way to the wheelhouse. Baffled, I pulled the box out from under the shelf. Inside was a head of wilted lettuce and some moldy cheese. This must be a joke. Captain Bailey and his brother, Taylor, as I now presumed,

since they both had the same last name, were... They were just messing with me. They're probably up there right now, just busting their guts with laughter. When I reached to the top of the stairs, I heard the two men cackling, which convinced me of my previous assumption. Very funny, guys. Moldy cheese? Go on now. You don't need to be in here. Didn't I tell you to go get something to eat? I stared at the two men for a second, a long second. My thoughts were lost, and it felt as a if someone had pressed a hot iron into my chest. But stay out of the galley.

The captain jerked his thumb, smiling proudly. By the way, this here is my brother. Things only got worse as the day rolled on. I managed to talk to the rest of the crew when they came in to use the bathroom or get some coffee. They were all just as distant and remote as the captain and his brother had been. Some of them seemed cheerful enough, but when I asked them about heading for port, they just shrugged their shoulders and walked away.

None of them invited me into the galley for a meal. In what must have been the late afternoon, I went back to my bunk to rest. I thought about my predicament, still hoping that everything was just one big joke and that now the entire crew was in on it. I thought this, in fact, moments before I fell asleep. But hours later, when I opened my eyes, the stateroom was morbidly dark. There were no sounds other than the humming of the engine below. I climbed down and crept out of the room, thinking the crew was asleep. I walked down the hall toward the galley, famished, prepared to steal food.

As I approached to the ready room, I... I saw a man lying on the floor. And my first assumption was that he had passed out after coming inside. But after close inspection, I realized he was dead. It was Taylor lying on his back, eyes and mouth stretch open. A face of death staring at the ceiling. I noticed streams of what looked like yellow earwax that had bubbled and oozed. out of his ears, and there was a putrid smell lingering in the hall like rancid milk.

Nerves now rattled, I stepped past the body and approached the galley. I wasn't sure what had happened to the man, and I certainly wasn't going to touch him. Briefly, I suspected a heart attack, and that nobody had found him yet, since everyone must have been asleep. But then I thought about all that earwax, and the smell. My thoughts spun into a different direction after entering the galley. I found the rest of the deck hands, and all three of them were sprawled on the floor. Eyes as vacant and vast as the Bering Sea, and each of them had that yellow goo dripping from their ears.

I choked on my breath and ran for the wheelhouse. Captain Bailey's head was drooping over the back of his chest. chair. His scraggly hair swayed absently from the motions of the boat. His arms hung low. His eyes stared at the wooden paneling above. His mouth gaped crookedly as if the jaw had become unhinged. And from his left ear, a mound of goop the size of a tennis ball, I had awoken into a nightmare, A gruesome death that had touched every man on the illusion whisper, except for me. I was both chilled and mystified. And in the grip of this terror, I reacted.

I grabbed the captain's body and flung him to the floor, tenderness aside. Yes, the man had saved my life, but so what? Panic set in, and I quickly surveyed the instrument. The compass. I looked for a map. My legs got the shakes, and my imagination got the best of me. I pictured some kind of monster on the ship, a yellow blob searching for its next victim. So I flipped the masked light switch in response. A blink of the eye and the illusion whisper turned white against the black hollows of the night.

Some kind of monster. Then I thought, That was just an irrational fear, but still, every man was now dead. Hadn't I been in this same situation only the night before? The lone survivor? I reached for the radio, the word Mayday clinging to my lips when suddenly... A turn of the head, and he was there, standing, glaring with those fire-lit eyes. The pale face of death now leered at me in the form of Captain Bailey.

I froze at the wheel, eyes locked with his, and then with blinding speed he grabbed me. His hands wrapped around my neck. He snarled, his face contorting into a visage of lunacy. He squeezed at my neck with impossible strength, some kind of monster. The horrific thought broke my initial shock, and then I punched the captain in his nose. His jaw dropped open, releasing a foul breath of hair. His hands were successfully crushing my trachea, and he had me pressed up against the side door. I clutched the strip of hair on his head and jammed my thumbs into his eyes.

I tried to push him away, but he wouldn't let go. The captain was killing me. Again, that breath, stinging my eyes. I dropped my hands and reached for the door handled behind me. I turned it. And then the wind took over. I collapsed with my back to the railing. The sweep of the black ocean struck instantly with a light mist swathing across my face,

clinging to my hair while the creature known as Captain Bates. just stood there. He stood in the doorway, scowling, and for sure I expected him to drop down on me and finish the job. But he simply turned and walked back into the wheelhouse. The icy wind snapped me out of it. I stood and observed through the doorway, studying the captain. I couldn't believe my eyes. It was a nightmare as that could. could be no other explanation. Or so I thought. I left the dead man as he was pacing the wheelhouse

and climbed down onto the deck midship via the side rail. My body screamed for warmth. I was freezing. My hands shook with fear and my stomach churn. I needed to get back inside, but I wondered about the others. Would they be just like the captain? The door into the ready room gave an aged metallic squeak as I opened it. I cringed and carefully slid my way through.

I walked toward the galley. They were still there, all four crew members, and I was careful not to touch any of them. It seemed my own hands had brought the captain back from the dead and into the unwholesome state of a mindless sentinel. Obviously, I didn't dare reproduce this scenario with the others, but I needed to get warm. I needed extra clothing and possibly some rain gear.

Like a mouse, I stole my way down the hall and into the nearest stateroom. Rummaging in the dark, I found a wool jacket and a cap. I put them on and crept back to the ready room, avoiding Taylor's body. There was a set of rain gear hanging on the wall just above him. Carefully, I reached over his body and grabbed the gear. But as I pulled it away from the hook, a pair of gloves fell from within its bulk and onto Taylor's face. I picked and threw myself out the door and onto the deck.

I slipped and fell, but swiftly regained my footing and then ran behind a stack of crab pots, where I promptly turned and looked back toward the door. The corpse I had just awoken was now sporadically breaking the light from the hall and the galley as it wandered to the inside of the ship. Taylor stayed put, however he had. He stayed in his area, and so the hours passed. My stomach churned and toiled with an angry hunger.

My mouth went dry. I put on the rain gear and was mildly warm, but my body shivered endlessly from fear. Yet despite all of this, the hunger, the thirst, the ceaseless terror, my eyes also grew heavy. A sailor. I woke with a start. What the hell are you doing back there? It was Taylor, and he was wide-eyed, alive, breathing the cold ocean. air without a moment's pause, as if the notion of being dead the night before would have seemed a

preposterous one had I brought it up. Found some rain gear, eh? Good. You could be arbiter, then. He turned and walked back toward the galley. I felt the sudden urge to release my bowels. Had I become a madman? Was I insane?

The ability to process this astounding, unending night. Nightmare seemed an impossible task. My mind flailed. Their baiter? Minutes later, the others came out, and before long, the crew members were working the deck, getting ready to pick up pots. Hey, bait boy, get to work already. We're coming up on the gear. Unsure as to what the consequence for disobedience would entail, I stumbled out from my hide. Taylor pointed to the bait table on the port side of the boat. That a boy. Walking past the man, I did a double take after spotting that yellow goo smeared across his right cheek.

My hands trembled violently in response. I must be going insane. At the bait table, I took a deep breath. I had done this job a thousand times before, and insane or not, I'd work on autopilot. as I considered how to escape this hell, and I would stay out of their way in the process. But now, and to my complete wonder, the bait table was empty. I turned and walked toward the engine room door. On a normal vessel with a normal crew, there would be 25-pound boxes of frozen herrings

stored in the freezers down below. I found the freezers, but they too were empty. Baffled, I went back up on deck. How could I be the bait boy if there wasn't any bait? I saw the bait jars, a few dozen or so, hung on a wire across the bait table, but there appeared to be nothing to fill them with. Hey, where's the bait? The deckhand just gave me that dead response, the shrug of the shoulders, the broken eye contact.

A crab pot ascended onto the launching table with a clamor of noise, and two men grabbed it with dull weariness. as if they had been doing this task for all of eternity. It was absent of crab, of course, but I did my job, nonetheless. When the captain commanded us to put her back in, I climbed into the pot and replaced the empty bait jar with a different empty bait jar. I climbed out, helped tie the door shut,

and then watched as the pot went over the side once again. Then I looked at their faces. They were distant, remote. I looked at the immeasurable gray sea. I looked up at the wheelhouse. The purest form of madness was here from my taking. Twice we dined on staled bread and strips of beef jerky in the course of the grim day. The crew consumed this food in silence like dumb cattle and then moved back outside with a mindless shuffle. In the cold Alaskan air we hauled our gear. I hung emmer. I hung empty bait jars into pots. I coiled wayward rope and cleaned the boat to make myself look busy

as my mind wrestled for a means of salvation. I observed the crew as they bustled about on deck, and always I looked out toward the sea. Without pause, I would have leapt into the icy waters and swam for any vessel or shoreline on the horizon. I would kill for such an opportunity. But to My anxious dread, the day slowly came to an end. It was the evening that lurked on the horizon now, and I wondered what this would mean. I thought about the night before, and as the first stars appeared in the amethyst sky above, I was quick to make myself a shadow amongst the outer edges of the boat. I hid, and sure enough, they died.

With soft-padded footsteps, I skulked my way to the wheelhouse via the side railing. I avoided the main compartments, the galley, the ready room, the state rooms, where I knew the others lied in death yet in wait. And when I reached the wheelhouse, I looked through the side door window and spotted the captain, once again in his chair. Like before, his eyes were staring at the paneling above. My heart sank as I had hoped to find him at best dead on the floor, but he was in his chair, and because of this it would be difficult, if not impossible, for me to take control of the ship. I went back down on deck and decided to brave the interior. I was hopelessly tired, hungry, and cold.

My clothes were damp. My thoughts were floundering through depression, searching for a way to be. escape this hell. Bate boy for life, perhaps even for all eternity once I finally died myself. I realized I needed a cohesive plan. I went down into the engine room, found a dark corner to hide in and waited. I stirred over my situation and its incredible absurdity. I was a prisoner on an aberrant ship with a supply of aberrant men who slaved my mindlessly throughout the day only to die at night. Yet in their death they could also wake.

It would be a few more days of relentless hell before I put together a plan. And on the fifth night, aboard the Aleutian whisper, I was prepared to set this plan in motion. I thought hard about what I needed to do, and I prayed for the courage and strength to carry out my will the following day. I would begin during the lull of picking up and dropping gear. My timing would need to be perfect, of course. Gray, for as far as the eye could see,

the boundless ocean that surrounded us was cast in this dull shade of maniacal terror, and the heavens above sheets of muted silver as they were only mocked my torment. A torment consisting of nothing but gray. This was how it looked aboard the illusion, whisper the following afternoon when that lull I'd been waiting for finally presented itself. I had to be quick while the men dawdled on deck, preparing for our next set of gear a few miles away. On my way to the cabin, I passed Taylor. Gotta use the restroom.

He nodded, and then I opened the door and crept into the ready room. My knees were limp with fear, and my mouth dry with the taste of our. a rising conflict looming on the horizon. This was the hour, but could I go through with my plan? From the wheelhouse, the radio was playing Elvis Presley's all shook up. I found the irony unnerving, but took advantage of the radio volume to dampen my climb up the steps. Absently, my hand went to the pocket of my coat.

It was still there. Captain Bailey sat in his chair, as usual. staring at the open sea. From his peripheral vision, he could have spotted me. I was prepared for this, but to my enormous luck, he turned away, starboard side. I tiptoed up the final steps and took a position behind the man. I stood less than a foot away, holding my breath. Could I really do this? I doubted myself. I was on the verge of giving up, but then, amazingly, to the far, horizon, I spotted land. It was all I needed, the final push up that hill of terror. Quietly, I reached into my pocket and pulled out the ice pick I'd found earlier. I stared at the back of Bailey's head.

I took notice of his defectively thin hair, but more importantly of his shiny, bald scalp. I took notice of the skin and skull as it stared back at me, leering. laughing, whispering that forever more I'll be a prisoner on this ship. Bate boy for life. From the crux of my scream came a mighty blow to the back of his head. And with the sound of a crashing melon, Captain Bailey fell to the floor. Blood spilling out of his punctured skull. I did it.

I killed the man. My heart ran. wild. My entire body trembled as I made a quick sweep of the wheelhouse. It's common for a captain to keep a weapon of some sort near him. I had hoped for this to be the case and was thrilled when I found the revolver clamped underneath his chair. I grabbed the gun, pausing only briefly to give Captain Bailey's fallen body a moment's notice before I made my way back down the stairs. I had others to kill. Hey, Benny. Captain wants to see you. I had seen this guy go up to the wheelhouse on more than one occasion, so I hoped he would fall for my ploy.

Then I shut the door and ran down the hall. I stepped into the shadows of an adjacent stateroom and waited anxiously. What if Benny went up to the wheelhouse via the side railing? It was unlikely, but possible all the same. Matters would turn profusely complicated if he did. I'd be forced to use the gun sooner than expected. But then I heard the creak of the door as it opened, and adrenaline shot down my spine like liquid fire. I heard the door shut. I heard Benny curse.

I heard the movement of his body as he ambled down the hall toward the wheelhouse. Intuitively, I pulled myself further into the darkness. Then I heard my own breathing, which seemed so loud. My awful breathing, I thought, just before I spotted Benny or Iive at the steps. It had to be swift. and silent, it had to be now. In a blur, I moved out of the shadows and behind Benny. I raised my killing hand, ice pick dripping with blood,

and with my other hand, I grabbed Benny's hood, twisted, pulled, and yanked back with tremendous violence. He didn't even have a chance to gasp. I brought the pick into his head and chest a hundred times, for so it seemed more than enough to kill the man, with all the blood, a pool of him. out of him and the disfigurement of his face. Left with a sudden urge to be sick, I ducked back into the stateroom and began to dry leave. My job was nowhere near finished. I needed desperately to compose myself, so I took a few minutes in the darkness, breathing deeply. Then I went to the sink in the bathroom and splashed cold water on my face, thinking about my neck.

victim. It was Stovich, the small guy, not too strong, as I had observed. I knew I could overwhelm him with my strength, and so I did when he came down to the freezers to help me bring up more bait jars. With a three-foot length of rope, I wrung the last breath out of the man. I was amazed at how simple it was, like lifting a heavy box onto a shelf or climbing a short flight of stairs. Finally, I was ready to use the gun and end my torment. I had seen the next step of my plan a hundred times in the movies. It would begin with a casual stroll toward their proximity. The two men left on deck.

I would make myself busy, perhaps find some rope to coil. And then, as smooth and swift as the hydraulic block used to pull crab pots up from the ocean, I would simply walk up to the first man and put a bullet in the back of his head. Then I'd unload the remaining cartridges into the other man before he realized what had just happened. I'd kill the last man, Taylor, before his stupid face would turn into the scowl I'd seen back in the storage room when he offered me moldy cheese. Seconds after the first man's brain blew out of his left eye, I stood on the deck and stared with dumb horror. Taylor's face twisted into more than a scowl as there was something much hand. Heavier than anger in his eyes, his bent brows, his quivering lips.

He came at me, a cannonball of fury. I fell with a thump landing on the slick deck. My hand that held the revolver smacked into the base of a crab pot, and the gun slid down a scuppering into the sea. Taylor cursed as he laid one fist after another into my gut. I gripped his hair and tried desperately to push him away. Think you're a killer, eh? I'll show you how to kill.

He reached up and scratched at my eyes. I screamed, and then one of his fingers fell into my mouth. Clamping down, I bit, chewed, and ripped away at it. I got to my feet and searched the deck for a weapon or a place to run, but it was too late. Again, he was on me like a charging bull. He smashed me into a crab pot. his ribbed siding, and he reached for my throat. Terrified, I realized he meant to strangle me,

and I knew from experience just how easy that would have been. I knew he'd kill me in seconds if he got his hands around my neck. I made a quick shift of my hips and used the slick deck to my advantage, sliding between his legs. The void left behind caused Taylor to fall forward and smash his head into the steel girder of the crab pot. When I stood, he was blinking and rolling his eyes. There was a naked gash on his forehead, leaking blood.

I'll kill you. Those were his last words before I sent him unconscious to the deck with a smashing fist. The time it took said kill four men. The time it transpired with some effort, but before I knew it, I was struggling with my greatest to challenge yet, getting the dead into the crab pot before they woke again. Taylor, now bound with rope, moaned as I shoved him in with the rest of the crew. Far to the horizon, the sun was a sliver of orange fire, sinking deep into the frozen sea.

Why are you doing this? Running controls on the hydraulic crane, I spotted the shadows of night rising from the north. northeastern corner of the world. Let us out. A gull passed through the ship's rigging before circling back to perch high on the mast. We saved you, damn it. We pulled you from the ocean. You'd be dead if it weren't for us. I brought the pot onto the launch table, then stepped away from the controls. For a long minute, I stared at Taylor's twisted body as it lay on top of the others. His back was to the ship,

And he thrashed about in vain to turn around so that he could see me. He cursed, spat, and begged. But when I finally threw the control switch, he was the first one to go in. And just when the pot crashed into the ocean, not surprisingly, I saw hands move. No, no, no! I saw fingers grab at the cage, bodies wriggle against one another. I saw Captain Bailey look up from the mouth of his cold grave. I saw his eyes, beads of fire burning a hateful path straight to mine,

and those dead eyes of his burned for a full fathom before disappearing into the blackness of the Bering Sea. My subsequent conflicts were long and arduous. Close to land, I hurried to gather gear, water, and food, and stowed everything into a motorized dinghy. Once ready, I set the Aleutian whisper on a westerly course, then struck for land in my little boat. And as I drifted away from the wheelhouse came the sounds of Elvis Presley's Don't Be Cruel.

At last, I was liberated from the ghostly terrors of that abominable ship and her abominable crew. But was I, really? 30 years later, and I now live in the basement of a colonial-style house near Seattle, Washington. I'm known as the recluse of the town, the old man who keeps to himself. In the evening, I seal my door with three padlocks, fearful of what might happen if I don't. And always, in the small hours of the night, I hear the dampening sound of a crab pot slamming into the mud. I see squirming cadavers as they jerk, pull, and claw for way out. I see them in the darkness, in my mind's eye, in my terrible dream that has woken me each and every day since that awful night.

And in my ruined thoughts, I picture the dead crewmen staggered to shore, at last broken free of their grave at the bottom of the sea. But in the end, none of the... These terrors compare to what I must cope with once I rise from my bed. My single horror has spawned from the night before and from the cold depths of my subconscious. The mound of yellow goo I must cleanse away each morning. As our service concludes, we send you away with our blessings. If you would like to find out how you can hear the full-length versions of our audio program, please visit the no-sleeppodcast.com to learn about our season past program.

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 in our sleepless sanctuary. This audio production is copyright 2018-2020 by Creative Reason Media, Inc. All blessed rights reserved. The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors. No duplication or reproduction of this audio program is permitted without the written consent of Creative Reason Media Inc.