The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S12E09

Episode Date: February 10, 2019

It's episode 09 of Season 12. On this week's show we have tales about the wicked things which lurk below the water's surface. "The Ocean"‡ written by Olivia White and performed by Jeff Clement & Matthew Bradford. (Story starts around 00:02:20) "The Island"† written by C M Locke and performed by Peter Lewis & Atticus Jackson. (Story starts around 00:29:00) "The Beach"¤ written by Preston Farlow and performed by Matthew Bradford & Jessica McEvoy & Kyle Akers & Atticus Jackson. (Story starts around 01:07:40) "The Pond"† written by Anna Coven and performed by David Ault. (Story starts around 01:46:46) "The Drain"† written by Brenda Fry and performed by Nikolle Doolin & Nichole Goodnight & Graham Rowat & Sarah Thomas. (Story starts around 02:16:16)   Click here to learn more about the voice actors on The NoSleep Podcast   Click here to learn more about Olivia White   Click here to learn more about Preston Farlow   Click here to learn more about Anna Coven   Executive Producer & Host: David Cummings Musical score composed by: Brandon Boone Audio adaptations produced by: Phil Michalski† & Jeff Clement‡ & Jesse Cornett¤ "The Pond" illustration courtesy of Abby Howard 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 clit. 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 the wicked things which lurk below the water's surface. I want to thank the many people on Twitter who showed us support recently. A little while ago, the Apple Podcasts Twitter account asked people to name their top three favorite podcasts. and many, many people included us on their list. So thank you. We're grateful to be recognized like that. And I don't do this too often, but it's a good time to remind everyone

about our social media presence out there. On Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, just look for at No Sleep Podcast. And don't forget the Facebook fan group, almost 10,000 members strong, and a great community to talk about all things no sleep related. And so, now that we're done being social, it's time for our service to begin.

Bow your heads and hear our words. In our first tale, we meet a group of men, sailors, who are on a secret research mission to discover the cause of a strange anomaly in the Arctic. And as explained by author Olivia White, what was initially suspected to be some sort of illegal toxic waste dumping turns out to be far worse and much more insidious. Performing this tale are Jeff Clement and Matthew Bradford. So let's discover what could possibly be out there on the ocean. It was Friday. As much as the days meant anything out on the ocean. It had been difficult sailing. The temperature had dropped a few degrees lower than

unexpected, cold, even for Arctic conditions. Storm swells had been sighted on the horizon, disappearing as quickly as they came, there long enough to send a buzz of apprehension through our five-man crew. We were ahead of the CCGS Amundsen by three days, conducting preliminary examinations and taking samples before our bigger Icebreaker brother would arrive on the scene. It was lonely work, important too. The kind of thing you'd hear about on the morning news if the directive hadn't been classified tighter than a nun's...

Well, an undercurrent of urgency had rippled through the teams when our small crew had departed on the CCGS York some eight days ago. Fishermen reporting mutated, burned fish, ice flows moving in ways. they shouldn't, fracturing of glaciers and sheets that hadn't been predicted based on patterns. It was illegal chemical dumping, they supposed. Some private corp with the means to transport gallons of hazardous waste into the frozen ass end of nowhere, and the money to make it all go away if anyone

did find out. But my crew and I thought we were savvy, didn't miss the worried looks on the officer's faces, noticed the whispers. The brass were worried, big time. Arctic waters don't boil, don't scald. Not in that way. Put your bare hand in and you'll soon see. It's a very different type of burn. We started out as five, four sailors, one scientist. Briggsie, Martinson, Dr. Callahan, McElroy. It was a brakes calling from the cabin. He'd been manning the specialized custom equipment for the better part of two days.

Our vessel was precision tweet to detect any unnatural aquatic heat signatures, but so far we've come across nothing. Now there was most definitely something. I strode to the cabin from my position of the bow where it had been gazing out across the expanse of nothingness. McKellroy hovered at Briggs's shoulder, all wiry energy. I brushed him away and looked at the complex monitor display that held Briggs's attention.

This, whatever it is, should not be here. I can see that, Briggs. It was a cloud of burning red. It floated in the digital ocean like pooling blood. As I watched the screen, the cloud seemed to twitch, turn, shift back, like it was treading water. An amorphous swimmer unsure of which direction to go. About three clicks away. I could feel McElroy's hot, stale breath on the back of my neck.

Set a course, sir. Affirmative. Slowly, though. Don't want to sail. into the middle of whatever this is. What is it, sir? Mikhailroy's voice had that smug, you won't have an answer, tone I had come to expect from him.

He was the kind who always knew best, even when he didn't know shit. He'd have a theory about whatever the hot mass in the ocean was, and he'd be convinced it would be superior to mine. What do you? think it might be, Miguel Roy? Ha, he don't have a fucking clue. Never ask a helmsman what we're sailing into.

Something had been up between the two men ever since we'd set sail. Barbed comments here, dirty looks, there. Doc Callaghan and Martinson were lucky they got to spend most of the time below deck, working on their fish samples or maintenance. other than the claustrophobia, that was a downside. Looks like blood, sir. It's not blood, is it, you dope? It's just red because it's hot.

It's toxic waste or something. On screen, the toxic waste spiraled, then formed into what looked like a perfect circle. In a split second, it shifted back into a shapeless mass. Only one way to find out. We reached the edge of the heat signature as night was beginning to fall. The sunset cast burning rays across the ocean, causing the surface to shimmer with cold fire. Briggs looked heavenward and nudged me.

Don't much like the look of that. A bruise purple storm cloud festered on the darkening sky like a boil. Some are out of sight. Sheets of ice bumped together and I almost jumped. when something responded. It always sounds so lost. It was uncharacteristically poignant for the straight-talking Briggs. In the cabin light, I saw McHallroy shoot him a sneer.

Briggs rolled his eyes. The doc says he wants a 12-hour sample cycle from Carla. Carla was the drone, the one we sent it to potentially hazardous waters to transmit samples back to the boat and provide a fish-eye view of whatever it was we were supposed to be looking for. A 12-hour sample cycle was mostly good news. It meant we could drop anchor and get some rest,

with one-man monitoring in three-hour shifts. On the other hand, it meant we'd be spending the night on the edge of this anomaly, the heat spot, of which we knew absolutely nothing. Still, we were far enough away to be. avoid any real danger and unless a severe stormhead, we'd be fine. While the cloud above caused concerns, weather readings were showing no real risk. I watched the red swirl on the screen. The heat, whatever was causing it, didn't seem to be in any hurry. We'd fired sonar through the

depths to ensure the mass wasn't solid, a sunken boat leaking chemicals, for instance. At that stage, we figured our superiors were most likely right. Waste barrels dumped to the bottom of the ocean, leaking some kind of acid that was reacting with the water, to burn any sea life passing through the cloud. Talks already on Carla. Briggs, McElroy and I left the cabin and walked Starboard to watch the small yellow drone make its forward descent

towards the location of the reading. I'd hoped to see discoloration in the distant water. something that easily invisibly indicated the issue. Maybe there was, but it was impossible to tell. The gleam of the sunset had emblazoned the whole area, and now that the sun was almost below the horizon, the water looked deep, dark, and penetrable. I whirled around.

McKelroy stood in the cabin, one hand on the anchor release mechanism, A shit-eating, who me, boss? Grin on his face. I was too tired to reprimand him for not waiting for my order. I hoped he was talking to McElroy. A gentle breeze brushed my cheek like a kiss. I started awake.

Not quite three in the morning. Good. I'd only drifted off momentarily. Overhead. thousand stars twinkled in the jet-black sky. The rhythmic glow of a satellite pulsed from its position in space. The storm clouds from earlier had dissipated, leaving behind clear night. I stood up, cracked my spine, and looked over at the monitor.

Somewhere down there in that swirling mass of heat, Carla was operating on her AI-driven path, taking water-souths. taking water samples and transmitting them back to Doc Callahan's computer below deck. I had no doubt that the doctor was awake. He was an obsessive, didn't like to take his eye off his work even to get much needed rest. I could relate to that. Falling asleep at my post was uncharacteristic, but it was so beautiful out here, serene and tranquil. No indication that, that just some distance away, hazardous chemicals were apparently polluting the water.

If it weren't for the red swirls on the monitor, the heat signature was gone. All that remained was the green grid on a black background. The lines occasionally flickering in time with the rocking of the boat. The equipment wasn't malfunctioning. Everything was operating as it should. The source of the heat was just... No longer there. It had disappeared in a split second.

One moment I'd clearly seen the patch of red moving on screen. The next, it was gone. That was impossible. Reaction heat didn't dissipate like that. Even if the chemicals had finally burned out, there would have been a cool-down period visible on the monitor. I turned to stare out. across the ocean, towards the expanse of water, I blinked, unable, or unwilling to believe my eyes.

I blinked again, squinting against the sickly moonlight that now seemed too bright. Silently, dumbly, I walked to the starboard edge of the boat, and more casually than I felt, leaned against the side. There, in the exact center of where the heat signature had been detected, floated a small rowing boat containing a single occupant. In the light of the moon, I could see she was young. Early 20s, perhaps, maybe even younger. She was pale. Her hair, dark, cut short around her jawline.

Her hands rested in her lap, folded over a little. a long skirt that bunched around her. She stared at me, but not in a fixed way. Her eyes, never moving, rested upon my face. But from her blank expression, I could only guess whether she was seeing me or not. Her boat bobbed up and down gently on the icy water. She shouldn't be here. She couldn't be here. We were miles from shore over a day away from any inhabited landmass, and that was in our boat with an engine. Hers had no motor, no sails. I couldn't even see any oars.

There was no way possible that a civilian could be out here in this Arctic wasteland, clothed in a summer dress without so much as shivering against the bitter chill. I had no idea how to respond. Nothing I'd ever experienced could have prepared me for such an inexplicable, impossible sight. I felt my brain react, a lurching vertigo that hit me in the pit of my stomach and caused me to stagger against the side of the boat, blinking. She kept staring. I opened my mouth to speak, but the sound caught in my dry throat.

Briggs. I had to get Briggs. I turned, stumbled forward, steadied myself, turned back to the ocean as if drawn by the woman's gaze. She was gone. The ocean was still. Ah! The relief flooded through me so hard I fell my chest tighten. A mirage. A dream. Ailing. mental health and cabin fever. Who cared? As long as there wasn't really a woman sitting in a rowboat in an ice field, the collision wasn't hard, but I still tripped forward, hitting the side of the boat with a wheeze that pushed the air out of my lungs. I looked down. The boat and the woman was there, gently bobbing against the side of the york. She wasn't looking at me now. She was staring at

through our vessel. As if her eyes were fixed on some distant point. The end of my shift. Briggs. Briggs would be coming. We could get the woman on board, and then... You all right, Captain. You look like you've seen a shit.

What? How? Oh, never mind. Don't just stand there, Cap. Help me get her aboard. It didn't take long to get the woman on the deck of the York. She was compliant. Abade Briggs's instructions as he hauled her up and over.

But she didn't speak, nor did she take her eyes off whatever distant point beyond us that she was focused on. When finally we all stood together on the deck, Briggs eyed me. with a pleading look, unlike any I'd seen him give before. He knew the woman's presence was impossible. She couldn't be here. There was no way she could be here. I reached out my hand to touch her shoulder, see if I could shake her out of whatever trance she was in.

Something stopped me. Whether instinct or force, I don't know. But when McElroy appeared, I let out a breath I didn't realize I'd been holding. Guys, the docks found something on Carla's feet. He'd better come see this. He'd better fucking come see this. McElroy was always good at saying what the rest of us felt, but knew better than DeVoise. I expected a smart-ass remark, something crude and incredulous.

But it never came. Instead, McElroy stared at the woman standing with us on deck. His face paled. He began to tremble. He began to scream. Before I could react, Briggs had shoulder barged me out of the way and was rushing McElroy. That's enough out of you, my boy. No, no, no!

Something was touching my arm. As Briggs had pushed past me, I'd stumbled against the woman. Impossible, searing heat began to course through my body. Pain, unlike anything I'd ever experienced. Pain? So sickening, so consuming, that all I could do was collapse to my knees and watched through agonized tears. as Briggs reached McElroy. The following moments were a blur.

The glint of Briggs's bowie knife and the moonlight. Howls of fury and misery. A low, droning, hummed, gone inside my head and made my skull feel like it was about to explode. Distant ice shifting, boiling water, churning up around us. Blood. So much blood.

McElroy screams, cutting off with a sickening, tearing sound. The body stumping to the deck. Briggs, pounding and pounding away. Knife's blade clutched in his hand. So tightly I saw his fingers being severed further from the bone

with each hammer of his fist against McElroy's wretched face. The pain. Hot lava replacing my blood, flowing through my veins, scalding me from the inside out. The smell of my flesh, melting, searing. I fell back, screaming, agonized terror into the clear night sky.

The side of fabric. A summer dress, billowy and beautiful. Sunshine raked my eyes. I stared up into a cloudless, cerulean sky. Everything hurt. I tried to sit up and felt my flesh ripple, like any sudden movement would send it sloughing off my. bones. I sat up anyway. I was alone on the boat. I could tell this with the certainty I could tell my own name.

I felt hollow, abandoned. The deck was awash with blood and seawater. A lone figure stood on the snow-covered ice. So far, we're not. away, she was just a black silhouette. But I could see the gentle billow of her summer dress in the chill air. As my eyes adjusted to the piercing light, I saw the woman was looking at me, not through me, like before, and she was getting bigger. No, not getting bigger. She was getting closer. Her legs were pumping.

Her arms were pounding up and down at her sides like a sprinter. She was charging straight for me. That blank expression on her face. But her eyes undoubtedly fixed on mine. The woman shimmered in the midday sun. Clouds of vapor exploded upwards as her thundering feet melted the ice beneath her. Her droning, scream grew louder. She was almost upon me.

I could see the whites of her eyes. I could see. I was found a day later by the crew of the Amundsen, mostly dead, burned beyond recognition, insured in ways I'd never truly recover from. The york was destroyed, strewn in pieces across the ice field. My crew were never seen again. How I'd survived was anyone's guess.

I was taken to Ontario, to a secure military hospital where I remained to this day. The man who snapped out there on the ice and killed his car. colleagues before blowing up the boat. That's what they said about me. That's what they made me endure. But when they'd found me, when I'd been brought aboard the Icebreaker, during one of my rare moments of lucidity,

I'd seen the faces of the Amundsen crew. Regret and resignation, expecting this. Whatever we'd found, whatever had been done to us out there, they'd been expecting it. We'd been sent out there, ahead of the Amundsen, as bait. I have no idea if they ever secured their catch. I don't want to know.

I'm content to remain here in my dark world, locked away far inland. never again to hear the shifting of the ice or the lapping of the waves. Never again to feel the impossible burning heat of the ocean. And never to watch the footage I heard them talking about. The footage from Carla, the footage, that according to any official records you might like to check, was never recovered.

When a pair of friends set out on a sailing journey on the Java Sea, it's a good thing one of them was an experienced sailor. As we learn from author C.M. Locke, it's the adventurous spirit of the sailor which inspires him to explore an unmapped stretch of land which mysteriously appears before them. Performing this tale are Peter Lewis and Atticus Jackson. So grab your paddle, if you dare, and go explore the island.

We had set sail at dawn under a hazy sun. I was itching to cross the Java Sea and head further east. Midday had come and gone. Pursued by the dogged offshore winds, we'd made good headway, long since leaving behind the coastal islands, the last of which had amounted to no more than a protruding rock face. We're to next. Shall we head back to the coast?

Carl left much of the planning to me. This made sense. I was an experienced navigator, gaining much of my experience in the waters of the North Sea with its treacherous frets, storm surges, and icy blasts. Wait, I'll show you. Carl took over the rudder while I descended into the cramped cabin, seating myself on the dry, elevated roof of the cabin, I spread out the map and opened up my chart.

We had purchased such detailed maps of the region that we hadn't yet needed to power up the GPS, instead keeping it stowed, fully charged for emergencies. I had plotted our course to the outermost islands south of Sulawesi that splintered off in consecutive tapering archipelagos. It was difficult to get a clear idea of how hospitable they would be without seeing the bays. Reefs could surprise you in the absence of an established harbor, and our insurance on the boat was limited. But I was open-minded. Keep east-northeast.

I held out the map and placed the compass over the line I had drawn so he could trace the course and a degree from our current position. Carl held his mop of blonde hair from his eyes to inspect the map more closely. Are we supposed to make that by tonight? We've come far enough for today. Let's head back and stick to the mainland. We had set out with vaguely different notions about this trip. Carl appreciated the comforts of life and had been visibly relieved when the only prospect of ready accommodation was a luxury hotel.

It had taken only a couple of sleepless nights. to disabuse him of any notion to sleep beneath the stars or suffer the cramped cabin. I had been prepared for greater hardship and anticipating intermittent storms when we might be required to seek the shelter of any land that presented itself. I had purchased a butane burner, cooking equipment, a tent, and a host of other provisions and safeguards before we'd even departed home. I was no stargazer, but that's not to say I didn't get glimpses of a bigger picture. I needed to push things to get my fix.

I couldn't live any other way. The weather's supposed to be fine. I checked this morning. We just need to keep a lookout for tankers. I don't know. There are pirates in these waters. Besides, the islands look pretty scattered. You might miss them at night.

I grinned, predicting me. reaction. Then we continue on to Papua. Carl knew I wanted to stretch our trip to the corals and coastal volcanoes of Papua, a place that struck me as a frontier, a place of beginnings and endings. He was far less keen. No way. That's not part of the plan. Look, when we get closer, we can use the GPS. That way we'll be sure to make land. We don't exactly have an ocean going ship here. Who's talking about oceans? Besides, oceans have been crossed

in far less than this. Where's your spirit of adventure? In two months, I'll be pushing paper and fighting for promotion. You think that's what life's about? No, no way. I want something to look back on.

Call me a cynic, but what I do just keeps the world spinning on its axis to some place that all the busy worker ends we'll never get to see. Good speech. But remind me, how did you get this paid sabbatical? Didn't your company swallow all that earnest bullshit

about improving your sailing for their benefit? Pretending to walk the corporate walk. You're the last guy who deserves a sabbatical. Well, it worked, didn't it? They take it seriously. They have their own yacht, and I've won two competitions for them already. My intrepid voyage to Papua

will be something they can boast about. to clients. I told you, I don't want to go that far. Why not? Because I don't want to be the collateral damage for your explored illusion. You may think you're a pro, but I'm a Sunday sailor at best. Now, don't do yourself down. Flattery was the best way with the guy. Carl smiled loosening up. Fine. We'll cross the sea. You're right about one thing. We're lucky to be here. Oh, that one to you. had just said, no way when I mentioned this trip. She thought I'd be making a beeline for the Bali sunset. She got it in her head that you're the responsible type. When you extended the invitation to her, well, that put her on the back foot. She didn't warm to the look of the cabin on the website.

That was inspired. You think I'm a sucker for comfort. By her standards, even with all the pit stops, we've been slumming it. It'll be a close call, but if the wind keeps up, we'll be fine. We've got some leeway, anyhow. We can see if anything else shows up first. You're the boss, but if we can help it, I'd rather not spend another night scrunched up in the fucking cabin like Quasimodo. Tottening the sail and directing coral to fix on a tighter course, I let the sound of the sea buffeting up against the hull induce a state of mindlessness.

The open sea never ceased to be liberating, allowing my mind to stretch beyond its habitual color. confines into borderless possibilities. What about there? What does your map say? What? The island. I raised my hand to shield my eyes from the sun and followed the line of his outstretched arm.

He was right. A hazy blue silhouette had appeared on the horizon directly in our path. My vacant gaze had missed it. But then I hadn't been expecting landfall for hours. I reached out slowly for the maps, all the while keeping my eyes fixed on this fresh feature on the horizon. Lowering my gaze, I traced the chart once more. Finding no reference to an island on this cross-section of longitude and latitude, there was nothing even close.

Small islands could be missed from surveys, I'd supposed. From this distance and angle, the island certainly looked small, no more than a dark cluster of greenery. I attributed its diminutive size to the omission. No idea. I can't find it here, and this map is supposed to be the best. What? That's fucking weird. I guess these smaller islands get missed from time to time. The very existence of this island jarred against my careful logic and planning to the extent that I half expected it to fade like some thirst-induced. mirage in the desert. Instead, it grew before us into an ever more clear and undeniable reality. It was not so small, after all. Well, I had been seeking the unpredictable. Be careful what you

wish for. What do you think, Theo? He only used my name when something was wrong, when he needed to grab my attention. He looked as disconcerted as I felt. He was setting up now, his expression tense, evidently torn about which way to guide the rudder. He had shaken off his erstwhile indolent expression, and there was expectancy in his eyes, waiting for my leadership to inspire confidence. I don't know. I didn't see it on the map. Well, it's there all right. Right in our path. Decision time.

I didn't decide to stop there, and nor did Carl. We just, we didn't go around it. We were silent before this unexpected landfall. Despite my pulling in the rope to tauten the sails, our speed decreased the slower we got. The wind must have dropped. The shallows appeared to stretch out some way from the rocky coastline, interspersed with only minimal flecks of golden sand. When we were some hundred meters from the shore, I let out the mainsail to lose what remained of our diminishing speed.

Best not to get too close. It's not safe to go any further. Coral proceeded to swing the vessel to starboard so that we were sied on with the shallows, but still safely in the deep. The flax rustled faintly in the negligible breeze as the sloop drifted. Thick jungle clung to the edges of the island and continued. to stretch out to see in the guise of mangrove trees that dotted the shallows, singly, and in clusters. This side of the island was characterized by rocky shallows, with only sparse traces of sand at the points where they met. At first glance, there was little to recommend the setting. It struck me as an eerie place. At least no one else beat it to us this time.

We'd weighed anchor at some beautiful settings, but all too often found ourselves sharing the white sands and crystal waters with hordes of other island hoppers, carrying with them all the noisy detritus of the world I had sought to leave behind. This one's probably not such an attraction. I'm starving. Let's stop for a bit. Then we could just carry on to somewhere, I don't know, with more people? We pitched anchor sufficiently far away from the shallows to prevent a mishap if the wind picked up. Not that there seemed to be much risk of that in the short term. We won't make much progress until the wind picks up again.

Carl nodded unconcernedly. I pointed to the shore. You want to look around? Not really. I guess we can't tell what the other side looks like, but I doubt we'll find anyone. No boats, no beaches. is, my guess is there's nothing here. And even if it does mean we can split the journey,

I don't feel inclined to pitch a tent with the kind of spiders I read about. Carl was the biggest arachnophobic I had ever met. And you could be sure he'd done his research on that front. Okay, okay. Just let me take a closer look in the canoe. Search yourself, but you'll be missing out. Carl had a knack for getting onside with the cooks at the guest houses. We had always left with the sumptuous arrays of packaged main dishes and desserts.

Although I wasn't going to say as much, it was beginning to show. In no rush to eat, I passed him the cooler before rummaging around in the under-deck storage to bring out the inflatable two-man canoe that we had purchased for mishaps or simply to get to shore. There was little space to play with on board, and this had proven to be an inspired solution. I set to work inflating it from the foot pump while Carl looked on, his expression relaxing as he tucked into the plastic takeaway box of rice and curried chicken. There was no need for a life jacket. I lowered myself from the ladder at the stern and pushed the canoe adrift with the paddle, heading for the westerly face of the island that remained largely obscured from this angle. I'll be about an hour.

Don't take too long! I felt happy as I paddled into the shallows, the seabed and the assortment of rock and sand. No matter who, the traveling companion getting on each other's nerves, was inevitable. It didn't hurt to have some time alone to satisfy my adventurous cravings. Scanning the seafloor as I paddled, towards the western tip of the island, I became aware of certain anomalies. When I had come across such shallows before, they had been covered in seaweed. I had been able to make out abundant populations of fish, sometimes exotically patterned.

But here I saw no seaweed, no fish, and indeed no evidence whatsoever of underwater life. The seabed was characterized by sun-bleached rocks that intermittently protruded. sharply from the sea, but I paddled on regardless, quickening my pace to make the most of the limited time. The view ahead began to open up. When I estimated that half an hour had elapsed, I paused to make a U-turn. I checked my watch. I didn't understand that only ten minutes had passed. The second dial was still moving, although the interval between movements seemed longer than usual. But I had come some distance since the boat was now out of sight, obscured by the mangroves that clung to the shoreline. I felt suddenly dizzy, and I couldn't think about it anymore.

I put my perception down to the mid-afternoon sun that was pounding down through a cloudless sky. Seeing a cluster of mangroves ahead, I sought out their shade. Laying the paddle across the canoe, checking my watch and taking a swig from my water bottle. The watch must have slowed. Everything around me was perfectly still. There was no breeze to take the edge off the stagnant heat. The shallow water was brackish, enclosed by an organic circle of boulders and mangroves, together creating an enclosed lagoon.

The trees with their sinewy meshes of amphibious roots lacked the innate familiarity. of other trees. They seemed possessed of a watchful ancient animus. They gave the impression of stooping over the canoe as I paddled between them. Ignoring the baseless superstitions to which solitude amidst nature could sometimes give rise, I resolved to see what lay around the bend. Maneuvering the canoe through the boulders, the unseen flank of the island began to present itself. I gas. as I succeeded in positioning the canoe in an opening between the lagoon and a long enticing strip of glistening white sand. Before my eyes, and for as far as they could make out, stretched an irresistible beach. Its coconut palms so stooped, their fronds must have been seeking their own reflections in the tranquil shallows.

It was clear that our first impressions had been deceptive. From the angle of our approach, the island had concealed its true scale and its best feature. Land extended out indefinitely before me in a narrow, distended wall of jungle bordering this endless strip of beach. I could not, for the life of me, understand how any cartographer had overlooked this place. If only Carl could see this, we had discovered the deserted paradise we dreamed about, Despite what he had said, I was sure we'd be of one mind once he'd seen this for himself. We had the tent, the stock of provisions, an endless supply of coconut, and best of all, this place was untouched.

This would be one for the grandchildren. When I tried to exit the lagoon to access the beach, something caused me to turn to examine the tangled roots of the mangrove trees that spread out across the rocks, forming a myriad of arches looping out over the water. The deep hollows within the tangled mass of roots were impenetrable to the naked eye. Some dormant sixth sense must have awoken. There was no other way to account for the sensation that I was being held in secret vigil. That same sense now told me in no uncertain terms that it was time to turn back.

Besides, I told myself reason accounting for intuition, I had seen what I needed, and it was only fair to share my discovery. I swiveled the canoe and made for the most direct route between the mangroves. Panic washed over me as the bottom of the canoe grated and then tore against what must have been the jagged edge of an underwater rock. In the minutes that followed, the canoe began to go limp as air escaped from the center. air pocket. Fuck, Carl! I hoped that my voice would carry to Carl through the stillness, thinking he could bring the boat around the shallows without my needing to swim back.

No reply. Carl! No acknowledgement, nothing. For the moment, my best bet was the beach. With the remaining buoyancy, I paddled furiously towards the edge of the rocky circle, but the canoe was beginning to sink, and I was forced to clamber out when the underside ground against another rock. Jumping from the sinking canoe, I felt the sharp pain as my foot landed on a jagged edge.

Despite the pain, I tried to keep my balance as I made for the trees, cutting my feet to ribbons in the process. Hauling the deflated canoe across the network of routes, I slumped onto the beach, panting and inspecting my lacerated feet. I cursed myself for bringing neither the repair kit nor the first aid. Carl had not heard my repeated shouts. I would need to make my way across to his side with the limp canoe, which would still be salvageable.

My feet were a mess, but that was the only way back to the boat. Fantasizing about the painkillers and bandages in the first aid kit, I got up. It must have been the watch slowing earlier, because the second hand was now fast asleep. Gathering up the canoe and squeezing out the remaining air, I inspected the forest edge to find signs of a makeshift path. The jungle looked dense and for the most part impenetrable. Okay, relax, I told myself,

this is nothing compared to some of the other predicaments you've faced. Carl is sitting on deck, eating his lunch, and contemplating his navel, and you just need to take a stroll through the woods, find a way to swim out to him, and you can fill your belly too. This is nothing. This is nothing. The gap left by a fallen palm presented the best option for my entry into the jungle. Padding towards the forest edge, I scanned the beach one last time. At various intervals it was divided by the encroachment of palms. It was at one of these points that something jarred with my vision. I retraced my steps to get a clear view squinting beneath the palm of my hand. Over a hundred meters away, close to but discreet from the forest edge, something stood on the sand. It could have been the silhouette of an outlying shrub or a tree trunk.

with what looked like foliage at its muffled head. But the base was too narrow for the trunk of all but a sapling and a disproportionate one at that. It certainly wasn't obvious enough for me to rest on that assumption. Padding over the sands to investigate, I stopped with some 50 meters left to go. I felt suddenly afraid, deeply afraid. He was tall, very tall.

and his height was further accentuated by what could only have been a tremendous headdress. His skin was a pallid white from what could have been a coat of dried clay or earth. Stark symbolic lines of red criss-crossed his body like deep, root-like cuts. I stopped and waited, panicking over what to do. Just as I resolved to leave him well alone, Slowly, almost imperceptibly, he turned in my direction. The profile view had not accurately conveyed the shock of his appearance. Even the uniquely strange headdress didn't conform to any preconceptions I might have had about

tribal dress. The man now stood directly before me. I was no longer a mere watcher. We were silently interacting. The elongated mask had been dyed with the same betelnut red as the lines across his body. Violent black, concentric circles had been painted around the eye slits to hypnotic effect. Whether adorned by palm leaves or feathers, the edge of his frame appeared serrated against the mid-afternoon sun. He might have resembled an ancient witch doctor or a mage, but struck me as an anomaly,

Like part of the forest caught out of its element, he too might have grown up from the rarefied soil of this isolated setting. The lines of fate had got twisted up like the entwining roots of the mangroves. I had seen him now, and I couldn't take it back. We stood face to face locked in this motionless encounter. There was nothing remotely benign in his inactive. stance or his steadfast gaze. I probably would have found it more reassuring if he had held a spear or a wooden club. But the man held no weapon. It would have been more natural if he had rushed at me, but he stood as still as a tree. There was something severely out of place about his presence here,

as though the doors of reality had yawned open, creaking on their hinges. soliciting a view into a place I was not meant to access. Such impressions can be stifled or perversely ignored, even buried over time, but in the moment only a fool doesn't heed his instincts. I backed away. I wanted to turn and run, only I couldn't drag my eyes away. I was overwhelmed by the knowledge that he meant me harm. I couldn't tell what he intended.

It took all of my resolve to break the spell, and with those deep spiraling eyes burrowing their way into me, to say it was a spell was no overstatement. I looked back only once at the mouth of the jungle still marked by the deflated canoe. I didn't doubt that he was capable of catching me in an instant, but he remained perfectly static, unwaveringly watchful from behind the masked eyes. Running where I could, I kept the mangroves marking the shoreline to my right.

Perhaps I needn't have hurried, for turning repeatedly there was no indication that he was in pursuit. In fact, the only noise besides my crashing was the intermittent crackling noise on the forest floor, of which I initially took myself to be the cause. As I slowed to listen, it became all the more noticeable due to the total absence of bird song and other typical forest sounds. It could have been tiny hushed droplets of rain or falling insects except for the fact that everything was bone dry. And I could spy something falling from the branches. I put it down to fire ants, ticks, or some other insect, but to this day I can't be sure. At first the sound was limited to my immediate surroundings, but all my noisy rushing caused it to spread like wildfire.

The microscopic rustling expanded rapidly outwards from my location. With every footstep, the forest floor came alive with sound. Then, like some trick of the mind, ascent to bend my sanity, the noise receded whenever I stopped to listen, before starting up again with my slightest movement. It was when I felt the stinging on my already lacerated feet that I felt more directly threatened by these insects. I never caught sight of them, but I certainly felt their bites or stings.

I tried to navigate my way through the jungle to the shoreline, but my feet became like burning coals of agonizing, stinging heat. Feeling ceased in my feet, so that after a few minutes I might have been hobbling on wooden stumps. That was not the end of it. The pain continued to rise up through my legs. The climbing numbness followed, and with it came the first pangs of dizziness. Reaching for the support of branches, I stumbled on, arms flailing, disorientated,

tripping on roots and falling over myself. The more desperate I became to fight my way clear, the harder it was to push away the dawning realization that I wouldn't make the boat. Overwhelmed by the dizziness, I succumbed, collapsing heavily into the foliage. Consciousness must have fled soon after. The screams came to me through a half-lucid state. It felt as though I was being carried. I must have blacked out again.

When I came to, the forest was shrouded in darkness, and my body was aching. as though it had been stretched on a rack. I felt cold despite the warm night air. I shifted my position and quickly realized that my limbs were half submerged, caught up in the spleen roots of a giant mangrove. I was so weak that it took me what felt like forever to twist, contort, fight,

and squirm my wiry body free from this makeshift cocoon. I had no idea how, I'd even got there. Moonlight shone through the openings in the canopy to reveal what looked like a saltwater swamp. Mangroves packed together so densely that their interlocking roots formed the walls of intersecting channels. Creepers hung from the branches, obscuring my vision and creating low-lying curtains between the trees. My memory was hazy at best, but what fragments there were did not account for my getting here on my own. The thought that I might have been carried here chilled me to the marrow. Who was that Carl? It didn't sound like Carl, but then I had never seen or heard him in that kind of

state. Spurring myself into action, I slid down the roots and into the stagnant, shallow water. I began to wade my way carefully over the roots in the direction of the sound. Pursuing the widest of three channels, hemmed in by the knotted roots that stretched upwards into the wide trunks of mature trees. The pale movements in my peripheral vision could only have been the ripples of reflected moonbeams triggered by my shuffling. The channel deepened, and I suspected the sea lay ahead. By now the water was deep enough for swimming. I lowered my body into the water and propelled myself forward with wide arcinges. strokes. Had that been Carl screaming? Perhaps the screams had come from the man on the beach.

The last thing I wanted was to encounter him in the darkness. My priority was to get back to the boat. In the event Carl wasn't on board, I would call the Coast Guard, then come and find him with the appropriate gear and whatever the boat could furnish in the way of a weapon. Hearing movement in the swamp waters, I swiveled my head sharply, but could distinguish wish little at the outer edges. I carried on swimming, fear triggering a fresh burst of adrenaline. I picked up the pace, switching to front crawl. There it was again, fleetingly glimpsed between strokes. That pale peripheral movement. Scanning the mass of roots, I saw nothing but the dark alcoves within. Returning to the channel ahead of me, I concentrated on my strokes and my breathing.

Ahead, the forest trailed off, providing the opening I saw it. When the pale impression next caught my eye, I turned suddenly, catching it this time. A pale face punctuated the darkness. Its feeble ashen body faintly discernible within the enveloping cage of roots. In all but pallor, it was human. It was not the only one. I began to notice that the anguished eyes were, were all around me, staring out from the dark hollows of this mangrove prison.

Arms began to flail out into the narrow watery channel. Their outstretched hands clawed as if to hold onto me to, to drag me in to share their fate. They were ghostly in the moonlight, but when I scrutinized their faces, they appeared not to be staring at me, but back towards the swamp. As they found and focused upon the apparent source of their torment, their beseeching eyes and plaintive expressions shifted as their faces became agonized, twisted gargoyles of fear. One by one their mouths opened to project piercing, deathly screams.

They screamed in a deafening unison. It was the endless, eternal scream of consciousness. awaking to some unimaginable horror. The noise was enough to shatter my nerves and my sanity. The man in the mask stood where the corridor of roots met the open swarm. Fear for my own life now replaced the suffering that surrounded me. Powerless in the face of their misery, self-preservation took over, and I found myself running and then swimming like a madman,

noisily splashing, summoning untapped reserves of energy. Where swimming was impossible, I crawled on raw hands and knees across the rocky shallows over the jagged edges of what I could barely look upon, but knew to be skeletal human remains. My lungs were fit to burst by the time I stopped, divided by a mass of water from the island, far beyond the treacherous shallows. I don't know how long I spent swimming to find the boat. The exertion was unyielding. I didn't stop until I had hauled myself on board.

I vomited over the side until my insides were empty. Adrenaline exhausted. I fell back as my body gave out on the deck. I called out weakly for my friend, but I couldn't move an inch further. Soon I couldn't even open my eyes. Carl was not there in the morning, but then neither was the island. I scoured the horizon, but there was no trace of land, proving the accuracy of the maps. No trace of the shallows.

The sea all around me was deep, at least as deep as the weighed anchor. If there had once been an island it had been reclaimed by the sea, Carl may have lifted anchor to come and find me before weighing anchor once more, but I'd been able to swim to the boat in full sight of the island, and he hadn't been on board as far as I could have known in my condition. Finally, I called in what had happened. Four hours passed before the Coast Guard arrived, giving me plenty of time to dress and conceal my cuts, and think about how to explain this in a way that would not implicate. me or call my sanity into question. Carl had disappeared. That was true, but there was no way I would tell them how. We had been taking turns on deck through the night.

I told the translator as officials looked around the boat. We had changed over at 4 a.m., and when I awoke at 8 a.m., Carl was nowhere to be seen. No, I had no idea what would cause him to do this. There had been no disagreement. I mentioned that the inflatable canoe was missing, thinking that would give them something, and even if it was never recovered, that wasn't an insurmountable oddity. Their suspicions were indeed alleviated when a deflated canoe was discovered a mile away

from the sloop. I made no mention of the rocks, of the island that had claimed my friend. I allowed them to form their own dubious conclusion that a shark attack was the likeliest cause of the ruptured canoe and coral's subsequent disappearance. Years have passed. My memories take on such a dreamlike quality that I struggled to tell what was real. The island may have been a phantom. The idea is not without its precedent in the old tales of mariners, but to my mind it had contained a reality more intense than any I have known. I wonder if vast, buried chambers of an unseen subconscious can be opened up and their contents spilled out through the fragile borders of our reality. Perhaps the island was a repository for our nightmares,

a hidden chamber of hell. I see him in my dreams, standing where the channel met the swamp on an island that never existed. A keeper had the gate. of sanity. He is terrifying, whoever he is. I see the roots and the faces looking out, and there is a new face in their midst. He begs me to come back. He begs me to return to the island and to find him. My dreaming self tells him that I would if I knew how. He tells me that I need to Come back so he can live. No way, Carl. I say in my sleep, according to my wife, Anna,

she has never heard of any Carl. 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-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 in our sleepless sanctuary. 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.