The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S12E17

Episode Date: April 7, 2019

It's episode 17 of Season 12. On this week's show we have tales about those things which go missing or shouldn't be there at all. "No Flash Photography" written by Olivia White (Story starts around 00:02:50) Produced by: David Cummings Cast: Narrator - David Cummings "A Ride Through Shenandoah" written by Henry Galley (Story starts around 00:16:20) Produced by: Phil Michalski Cast: Narrator – Jessica McEvoy, Cameron – Kyle Akers, Mom – Sarah Thomas, Dad – Mike DelGaudio, Valerie – Addison Peacock, Dr. Hartley – Nikolle Doolin "Missing Persons Flyers" written by J.P. Carver (Story starts around 01:10:00) Produced by: Jeff Clement Cast: Jake – Mick Wingert, Carrie – Erika Sanderson, Randy – Matthew Bradford, Randy’s Mother – Sarah Thomas, Police Officer – Nikolle Doolin "Clinical Trial" written by Scott Savino (Story starts around 01:31:40) Produced by: Phil Michalski Cast: Narrator – David Ault, Richie – Atticus Jackson, Dr. Jennavive Upton – Nikolle Doolin, Dr. Grant – Mick Wingert "The Rider" written by Michael Miersen (Story starts around 02:05:20) Produced by: Jesse Cornett Cast: Narrator – Jesse Cornett, Allie – Nikolle Doolin, Rob – Mike DelGaudio Click here to learn more about the voice actors on The NoSleep Podcast   Click here to learn more about our sponsors and listen to our ads   Click here to join our Facebook Group   Click here to learn more about Olivia White   Click here to learn more about Henry Galley   Click here to learn more about J.P. Carver   Click here to learn more about Scott Savino   Click here to learn more about Michael Miersen   Executive Producer & Host: David Cummings Musical score composed by: Brandon Boone "The Rider" 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. Tales of horror to frighten and disturb 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 those things which go missing or shouldn't be there at all. If you're a member of our Facebook group, you'll want to join us for a live Q&A with author M.J. Pack. She has written many classic tales for us, but is perhaps best known for stories like, Magic Marty, the Super Bowl Party, and of course, the Soft White Dam, Danny series. So join the group and join us on Saturday, April 13th at noon central time. Come find out more about the author and what makes her mind so devilishly dark. I also want to thank all of you who take the time to listen to the ads we do at the start of the free episodes. We work hard to make them informative and entertain.

And so listening to them without skipping them is a great way to support us. Visiting the sponsor's website, even if you don't purchase anything, can also help. And of course, buying the product while using our promo codes helps us the most. And we're revamping our sponsors page on our website, where you can hear all the ads we've done. Watch for that soon at sponsors.com. the nosleeppodcast.com. So we thank our great writers like MJ, our sponsors, and our great listeners like you.

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 who... You know what? Speaking of sponsors, I'm reminded of something which happened to me recently, and it's kind of related to a sponsor. In fact, Olivia White reminded me of it the other day. It took place at this odd little museum. The Clearwater Community Museum was quiet the evening I wandered in there off the street.

I was in town on business, meeting with a potential sponsor, and I had a few hours to kill between one appointment and the next. The thrill of wandering around the bespoke boutiques and mom-and-pop stores wore off after about, oh, five minutes, so the small ivy-covered museum facade caught my eye. Inside, it was pretty much what you'd expect from a non-profit dedicated to preserving small-town heritage. Broken pots and dusty books, paintings from local artists over the years, some supposedly valuable furniture. The building was a converted house, so... there were only a handful of downstairs rooms to explore before I'd had my fill.

A sign pointing upstairs, buried amidst portraits of stern-looking town elders, proclaimed the second floor to be dedicated to fashion through the ages. Thrilling. I turned to leave, figuring I could duck into one of the local Starbucks and do some work on my laptop. Then something stopped me, and I decided, no, I'll go up and have a look. As I made for the stairs, my bag knocked against a table holding a ceramic jug, and I reached out to steady it before disaster could strike. I expected a museum staff member to come running, worried I was about to destroy a Ming vase or something, but there was no sign of any employees at all.

Probably because there's not much worth stealing. At least there wasn't downstairs. Maybe the upstairs would hold something more interesting. No, not so. I spent a solid 15 minutes scouring moldy uniforms and dusty dresses, no staff members in sight the whole time, before finding a room that piqued my interest. It was through an unremarkable wooden door tucked into the far corner of one room, obscured by a glass cabinet showcasing an 18th century maid's outfit on a tailor's dummy. I only realized the door even led to an exhibit room thanks to a tiny sign that proclaimed Exhibit Room B. Unlike the musty, dusty museum in which it resided, the room I found myself in was sparse and clean, with white walls and floor. The walls to my left and right each housed a

single painting, and ahead of me was a closed cabinet made from dark wood. I decided to check out the paintings first, starting with the one on the left. Unlike the other paintings I'd seen, there were no placards explaining the significance of this one. It was a painting of a chair sitting in the corner of a room as sparse as the one I stood in, just a normal wooden chair by a window. I studied the image, looking for hidden details or something I was missing. I couldn't see what lay beyond the window in the painting, couldn't detect anything unusual about the shadows, the lighting, the wood.

And yet, looking at the painting gave me a feeling of deep unease. The utter mundane normalcy of it somehow sent a shiver down my spine, and I found myself unable to look for too long. The painting on the right wall was also entirely unremarkable and also untitled. This one depicted a woman as posed for a portrait. She wasn't particularly beautiful or young. Her skin was mottled, her cheeks plump, her hair in a modest cut. From what I could see of her outfit, the painting appeared to date from around the 1950s. There wasn't even so much as a haunted look in the woman's eyes.

She just stared blandly as if looking just over my shoulder. And yet, when I turned away from the painting, I caught myself glancing behind me to check she hadn't moved. Now, I'm not someone who's easily scared. I don't get spooked. but these two paintings, there was something about them I really did not like. To the point that I almost left then and there, even without looking inside the cabinet. God, I wish I had left. The cabinet wasn't locked.

I had no idea what I'd find as I gripped the small metal handles and swung the doors open. They pulled back to reveal a glass display case, starting from at my waist and ending just above my head, typical of what you'd see in dozens of museums across the country. When I saw what was inside the cabinet, I let out an incredulous laugh. Inside the glass case was me. More specifically, a mirror reflecting my own shocked face back at me. You might be picturing the mirror as some kind of ornate thing, something remotely worth putting behind glass.

No, not so. It was literally just a sheet of mirror. No frame, nothing remotely noteworthy, so pointless that I couldn't help but be amused at this hapless museum and its hapless displays. Even more amusing was the sign affixed to the top of the cabinet. No flash photography. It will startle the exhibit. Of course I had to get a photo. My followers on social media would love it when I told them the story.

building it up only to show my own face grinning back, reflected in the glass. So I took out my phone to snap a pick. No risk of flash photography here. The room was perfectly well lit, and my phone's flash is always on auto. I brought the camera app up and hit the button. A blinding white flash of light reflected off the mirror, temporarily blinding me. My vision shifting from white to black. I blinked once.

Twice. Then I began to panic. The blinding wasn't temporary. I couldn't see. I flailed around frantically in the dark, panic building up inside me that I'd somehow damaged my vision thanks to an erroneous flash. Then my eyes began to adjust. I wasn't blinded, of course not. The lights in the room had just gone off. I couldn't see anything, not a thing, just the vague outline of the capital. in front of me, a subtle differentiation in the shadow. I fumbled with my phone, trying to unlock it or bring up the flashlight app. Ah, it was dead. I whirled around, unable to tell in the dark where the sound was coming from. Piersing light hit my eyes for a split second before the blackness spilled back in. Had my phone's camera gone off again somehow? No, it wasn't my phone. Someone else. Someone else.

else was taking photos. Hello? Is someone there? I felt a brush of air beside my left arm as something shifted in the darkness. Stumbling, I jumped backwards, catching my shoulder against the cabinet. God damn it! Stop! Reaching out, I found the cabinet. Okay, the door was opposite. I just had to back away and I'd be home free.

Every time the flash went off, it was like the camera. was directly in front of my eyes. Light was bursting forth, but it wasn't illuminating anything. I found the door. For a terrible moment, I thought it was locked, the handle unwilling to turn. I tried the other direction and felt blissfully the door swing open in my grasp. Outside of the room was also pitch black. I began to really panic now. It was one thing finding my way across an empty square room in the dark, but quite another. navigating my way through the labyrinthian display cases of the museum's upper floor. Please, turn the goddamn lights on.

Movement again, this time right behind me, in the room with the cabinet. I darted forward, hands outstretched, fumbling, ricocheting off creaking display cases. I banged my hip against something and winced as whatever was inside the exhibit crashed to the floor. I began to pick up my pace, navigating. purely by instinct, knocking into walls and furniture as I went. I could feel movement all around me, tweaks at my clothing, air on the back of my neck. I stumbled, tripped, almost fell, my body lurching forward as my foot met empty air, then crashed down hard on the top step of the stairs. Reaching out, I quickly steadied myself against an unseen banister, and clinging to it like a life-belt,

I began to descend the stairs. Near the bottom, I slipped, crashing down the last few steps at a run, falling against something that felt like a curtain. I didn't recall anything like that blocking the stairs off when I ascended. My terror gave way, and I let out a scream as flashes of white light thundered into my eyes, the sound of the camera shutter firing off like a machine gun. I whirled and flailed, my body becoming more tangled in the curtain. The tearing of fabric rang out as I fell, the material fully covering me.

I hit the ground with a hard thump, my skull bouncing painfully off the wooden floor. Something was clawing at me, pulling at me, trying to drag me through the darkness toward that explosion of white light. Vision flooded back so fast it overwhelmed me. I sat up, dazed, looking around the well-lit first, floor of the museum. A thick black curtain was wrapped around me. I looked up at the stairs from which I'd come, no sign of a curtain rail or anything to which the material had been attached. Terrified, eager to escape, I scrambled to my feet, kicked the curtain away, and headed to the entrance.

Not once did I see an employee, or even another visitor. I had no desire to stick around to find out Who or what had been taking the photographs. Somehow I held it together at my business meeting that evening. And by the time I retired to my hotel, I'd convinced myself I'd imagine the whole thing, that it was my own camera app going off, that nothing untoward had happened at all. I took a shower, put the hotel TV on, and prepared to fall asleep watching a cheesy horror film. That sound outside my door. I ran to the door, but before I could pull it open, something stopped me.

A brown envelope had been slipped under the door. I picked it up with shaking hands and removed the contents. Someone had taken a handful of Polaroid photographs. Of me, in the museum, in the dark. You could see the fear on my face. From the angles of the photographs, it was clear that the photographer had been right beside me. The final photograph had been taken by me, though. I knew because I'd seen the same one in my own cell phone

when I'd checked it after the incident. Only in the Polaroid there was one significant difference. In my photo, the one I'd taken where the flash had accidentally gone off, you could see me squinting into the mirror in the display cabinet, frowning against the light. It was exactly the same in the Polaroid, only now there was an addition. A face looming over my shoulder, Polaroid camera obscuring the top half of the features, but with a clearly visible mouth split into a grin

and a forked tongue dancing across its teeth. Sibling bonds can be strong, unbreakable sometimes. But how well do we really know the people we know best? In this tale from author Henry Galley, we meet a girl who's forced to confront these questions. Performing this tale are Jessica McAvoy, Kyle Acres, Sarah Thomas, Mike Delgado, Godio, Addison Peacock, and Nicole Doolin.

So don't let your guard down and never stop asking the difficult questions as we take a ride through Shenandoah. When I was growing up, my big brother Cameron was the epitome of cool. The year was 1991. I was five, he was 21, and in pretty much every respect he was the ideal sibling. He attended all my recitals, he read bedtime stories to me at night, and always did the voices, and he even made the effort to compliment the fake refreshments at my stuffed animal tea parties.

But best of all, were the ride-alongs. Cameron would cock his sunglasses like the hero in a John Hughes movie. Hey, Mandy. Want to go cruising? And, of course, the answer was always yes. My booster seat was permanently installed into the back of his 1967 Chevy Corvair, a vintage car he'd inherited after our grandpa died. Cameron had a knack for tinkering, so he kept the old beast in peak condition long after it should rightfully have been junked.

And let me tell you, under his watch, that lipstick red paint job, Shimmered like gold. You could eat your supper often, but I'd probably kill you if you did. We tore through the back roads of our little West Virginia township, sinking along to Cam's mixtapes at tinnitus-inducing volumes. I was his kid's sister, but he never treated me like a kid. And I think that's what I loved most about my time in the back of the Chevy. When I was with Cam, I felt like a grown-up.

Oh, and whenever we pass Mr. Lorami's ice cream parlor on Main Street, he always made the same stupid, corny joke without fail. See, first he'd slow down on the approach to build suspense. Then he'd carefully check his wrist while I suppressed giggles in the back seat. Huh, my watch must be on the fritz. Says here it's ice cream o'clock. That's when he'd pull over, give me a $5 bill, and say, send me on a mission to the ice cream parlor. I'd always proudly return a few minutes later,

with a vanilla soft serve in each hand and change jingling in my pockets. Good job, soldier. Cam worked as an assistant manager at a local gas engulp for most of the week, and on other days he worked evenings, cleaning at a local supermarket. He never went to college or a university, but mom always said he was whip smart. When I got home from school, Rather than sitting around and watching cartoons like most kids my age,

I'd perched myself on the back of the couch in the sitting room, staring out the front window and waiting for him to get back. It was an image I'd seen so many times. Our long front yard with the bubblegum pink cherry tree and Cam's Chevy slowly crawling up the curb and parking in front of our house. He'd get out and he'd always wave to me. Cameron Bukes was the best big brother in the world. but I wasn't the only one who loved him.

Anyone with working eyes could tell you that Cam was handsome. Unbelievably tall, well-built, and blessed with fashion sense that was, by early 90s standards at least, hot shit. He wore his sleeveless denim jacket over designer t-shirts, and you wouldn't catch him dead without his raybans. Because of Cameron's good looks, natural charm, and the fact he owned a car, He got more than his fair share of female companionship. A nasty side effect of this, for me at least,

was the fact that Cameron's many girlfriends would often end up riding along in his Chevy with us. I hated having to share. Mom would often ask about Cam's girls around the dinner table. When are you going to bring one of them home, Cammy? I'd love to cook for them. Cameron gave a wry smile and shoveled a fork full of green beans into his mouth.

When I find the right one, can't give your cooking to just anyone, can I? That's my boy right there. You know, you guys have always been lady killers. Runs in the family.

It gets his good looks from my side, you know. But he gets his tact from me. Cameron turned and smiled at me across the table. When he wasn't wearing his favorite shades,

you could see he had the most beautiful green eyes. They looked profoundly kind, and always, somehow, a little sad. Over time, I became accustomed to Cameron's methods. He'd pull up along the curb and roll down his window for some woman standing on the edge of the sidewalk. A different woman every time, and a different sidewalk. But they often looked similar.

Late teens, skinny, blonde. It felt weird at that age to know your brother's type, but I didn't really think. think anything of it. They all loved me, though, Cameron's women. When they got into the car and saw me buckled up in the back seat, pink dress and chubby cheeks and bountiful golden curls, they just melted. They were all smiles and goo-goo eyes and, wow, Charlie, you're so responsible. My brother's name was not Charlie, but that was often the name he gave them. I remember a conversation with one of them, Valerie. So where you headed?

Cam was all smiles, blonde hair slicked back like James Dean. Winchester? I saw Cam's eyebrows raise above the rim of his sunglasses and the rearview mirror. That's a ways off. I can get a cab if it's too much trouble. Cameron shook his head like it was the most ridiculous suggestion in the world. Are you kidding? The cost would be murder.

It's no trouble. We like a good drive anyway, don't we, Mitzi? He always called me that when we had guests in the car. It was like a fun little game. Something sacred for us and nobody else. I nodded along and smiled at Valerie. That put her at ease. We drove for a while until we were in the woods near the Shenandoah Valley.

The radio was halfway through belting out. Queens don't stop me now when the Chevy suddenly ground to an abrupt stop in the middle of the dirt road. What happened? Engine just up and died on me. Damn thing's a million years old. It happens now and then. Mine giving me a hand? Sure thing.

Cam turned around to me and smiled. Sit tight, Mandy. We'll be up and running in no time. Okay, Cam. I love you. Love you too, sis. He reached over to the radio and cranked the volume up. Now Norman Greenbaum's spirit in the sky was blasting out of the speakers at full power.

He turned the rearview mirror to the side, so I couldn't see into it, and left the car. The Chevrolet Corvair was one of a handful of cars that had a rear-mounted engine, so Valerie and Cam disappeared around the back of the car. I couldn't even hear them pop the trunk over the sonorous tones of Norman Greenbaum, singing about what I would later realize was death. Prepare yourself, you know it's a must. Gotta have a friend in chief. Jesus. I can't tell you how long I sat in the car. But by the time Cam returned, the mixtape had reached its end, and I was listening to the literal sounds of silence. He was whistling spirit in the sky as he climbed back into the driver's seat.

Where's Valerie? She decided to walk. Winchester's not far from here. She didn't even say goodbye. I'd say it's about time we headed back home anyway. Mom said she's making tuna casserole tonight. Tuna Casserol was our favorite, so thoughts of it soon pushed Val's untimely departure out of my mind. I didn't think about her again until a few days later when I was sitting on the couch, watching TV with Dad, and a woman who looked a lot like her came on the news, missing, apparently. That sort of thing started happening a lot more often. Cam would pick up women, as always, his pretty, skinny, blonde Barbie dolls. But more and more now, we'd have engine failures,

and they'd need to step out and attend to these failures with Cam. And the music would be turned up, and the rearview mirror turned sideways. And nine times out of ten, the women would not get back into the car. They decided to walk the final stretch. They live pretty close to here. Prepare yourself.

You know it's a must. Gotta have a friend in Jesus. Sometimes I remember, I'd see women like the ones Cam picked up in the news. But the grand majority, after going to help Cam with the engine, I never saw again. I remembered their faces, though,

and specifically, I just couldn't shake this one moment that happened with all of them, this one look. More often, in the knot when they got into the car. They were wearing an expression that even a five-year-old could read as apprehension. But when they saw me, belted up in my booster seed in the back of the car, all that faded.

There was only relief. For reasons, I wouldn't understand until later. I hated that look more than anything else in the world. Somewhere along the line, Cam really took a shine to drinking. Maybe I'm just retroactively applying a narrative here, but I think it was around the time when they started discovering the bodies of strangled women. The drinking got even worse when an outlet first breathed the dreaded words, serial killer. It seems so obvious now, in hindsight, but age and love can make you oblivious. Another little episode I've committed to memory happened just before it all came.

crashing down. Cam burst into my room at 2 a.m. one night. Eyes red from crying, stinking to high heaven of liquor. He came and sat on the bed next to me, cheeks wet and nose snotty and begged. If I ever have to go away, Mandy, please promise you'll come and visit me. I don't know what I'm do without you. At the time, I was so tired, so confused, and more than a little phrase. and I'd never seen him like this. Seeing Cameron without his cool was like seeing him without his skin. It felt somehow depraved, unnatural. He swigged from a small bottle of Jack Daniels between sentences.

You've got a promise. No matter what mom and dad say, I'm your big brother. Do you promise? I promise. I swear on my life. That seemed to bring him peace. He smiled, tucked me back into bed, and left the room. Cameron was arrested the next day on suspicion of murder.

He went quietly, ever-compliant, a model suspect. None of us wanted to believe he was capable of the things he was being accused of. Naturally, we went out to bat for Cameron, defending his innocence. My parents said there was no way in hell their golden boy was a murderer, and they'd fight to their last breath to prove that. We poured our savings into his defense fund, hiring the best lawyers our extended family's joint earnings could buy. The trial stretched on for months,

and the whole mess became a public circus. So many nights without sleep, fretting over Cam's fate, this awful, terrible, monstrous miscarriage of justice. We'd never let it ruin him and his promising young life. until he confess. Cameron copped to every charge and then some, and corroborated every lurid detail that got trotted out in front of the court. I was learning so many big new words.

Abduction, ligature, garote, necrophilia. Thankfully for my young sanity, it mostly went over my head. My parents tried to give me some special variation of the talk about all this, but they could never make it through to the end without breaking down. They couldn't explain to me why aunts and uncles and cousins suddenly stopped talking to us, why I stopped getting invited to birthday parties, why I had to take so many days and then weeks out of school. Sometimes at night when I couldn't bring myself to sleep,

I'd hear them talking about it downstairs. Them everything, did we not do enough? Sometimes, these things are just beyond our control. We didn't watch the news. Mom and Dad didn't read the local papers. We just tuned out of everything. Mom wept openly, and Dad was rendered almost catatonic when Cam was convicted of the murders of six women.

Melissa Jones, Abby Richards. Chrissy Lutz, April Moore, Whitney Daniels, and Valerie Thomas. He was given life in prison without a possibility of parole, which was the only reason I didn't step forward, seeing as I knew those six were just the tip of the iceberg. We all took it hard in our own way. In the following few months, Dad lost 15 pounds. Mom's hair started graying, and I went for long periods without. speaking to anyone. After all, it turned out my best friend. The person I loved and trusted more than anyone in the world was someone I barely knew at all. I didn't know if I could ever trust again

after that. Five years old and already I was looking at a long, lonely life. What happened with Cam didn't bring us closer. It irreparably cracked us apart. And it never really got better. The wounds just always remained open, always bleeding. They had the Chevy scrapped. Too many bad memories. Family heirloom were not. And the many, many, many correspondences we received from the Mount Olive Correctional Complex

were thrown into the roaring fireplace unopened. In the 12 years that elapsed since, none of us had once visited, and we took our landline phone off the hook when the volume of calls from journalists, armchair novelist, and crazies got too great for our collective sanity to bear. For so many years, it felt like we were all just holding our breath,

waiting for the next phone call or knock that completely and utterly shatter our lives. We all withdrew, knowing contact increased the probability of pain for a few weeks before it all, all sunk in. I'd even sit perched on the back of the couch when I got home from school, waiting to see Cam's Chevy roll up next to the cherry tree in the front yard. Hey, Mandy. Want to go cruising? He never did. Never again. Cameron was gone in a purely literal

sense, but he never really left us. 2003, and little Mandy was long since gone too. Nobody had called me that since Cameron went to jail for the Shenandoah stranglings. From 6 to 17, I'd always been Amanda Bukes. Mandy felt like clothes that didn't fit anymore. I'd grown out of it. This is what I told my therapist, along with the millionth rehashing of my colossal disaster of a life story. Dr. Hartley took fastidious notes as I spoke.

She was a practiced professional in the art of meaningful glance and receptive nod as I vomited my stinking guts up onto her desk. It's his birthday tomorrow. I guess that's why it's been on my mind lately. I left out the part where, lately, had been the last decade in change. I suggest you don't try to instigate any form of contact. I suppress the urge to say, yeah, no shit, Doc. So little had changed on the inside. Cameron was stuck in two jails. One was the Mount Olive Correctional Complex, and the other was my head. He'd just sat there for 12 years, never faltering,

never aging from the moment the security officers escorted him out of the courtroom following his sentencing. He was still wearing his sleeveless jean jacket and raybans. The inside was and always will be in stasis, a time capsule for the worst moments of my life. On the outside, though, I'm practically unrecognizable as little Mandy Bukes, the dainty child on the cover of every tabloid and true crime magazine this side of the state line since 1991. My shoulder-length hair is a vibrant electric blue. I spend an obscene amount of money on hair dye, the cheap stuff.

washes out green, and that was way too close to blonde for me to feel comfortable. I've got piercings in my ears, nose, and eyebrows. And in the last 12 years, I'd done my damnedest to put on weight and keep it on. Cameron's type. All those relieved faces, and then faces and pictures on the news. Skinny and blonde. I could never let myself look like that. I just wished maintaining this transformation stop.

the thoughts. How have these thoughts been making you feel? Guilty. About what? About my role in it. It being... The murders. You were a victim, Amanda. You were five years old. Five years old. Some excuse that was. There were people out there who'd never met me, who hopefully never would meet me. But a hate... my guts because of what my brother did, because he took someone away from them that they'd never get back, and they want him to know how that feels. I'd seen the letters, the texts, the posts on online forums. So many people would like to see that nylon ligature tightening around my neck, because maybe then, and only then, Cameron would finally understand what he did. The weight of loss

would be in his hands for a change. For a while, I went through a true crime face. I figured if I could just understand it, I could put it to rest. Did it work? I read about this guy, Gary Ridgeway. They called him the Green River Killer. Do you know what he did?

I'm afraid not. He used to keep a little picture of his kid in his wallet, and he showed it to victims, because it'd lower their defenses. and I realized Cameron just went one step further and stuck me in the back seat. All of those relieved faces, lambs to the slaughter, and I played sheepdog.

Your brother was an intelligent manipulator. You were a young girl. You can't claim any kind of responsibility here. The deaths of those women weren't and aren't on you. Sometimes, Doctor. All I want to know was how much of it was real. If he ever really did love me, or if I was always just living camo for him. A long pause as Dr. Hartley's clock ticked on.

My hour almost up. What do you think? Answer is always changing. The next day, I was in math class when Vice Principal Gilroy leaned in through the doorway and gestured me over. Confused, I stood up and started walking towards the door. My classmates exchanged whispers and furtive glances, gossiping, wondering, speculating. Everyone knew. The last name, Bukes, had a curse on it around here.

In our little two-horse town, I was what passed for a local celebrity, the little sister of our most infamous criminal, her twisted claim to fame. I asked the vice-principal if I should bring my things. He nodded. Whatever was happening, I wasn't expected to go back. I was ushered out into the hallway where Mom was waiting for me. That haunted look I'd grown so used to sitting in that hollowed space behind her eyes. She and Dad looked so much older than they were, and always so tired.

Amanda? Cameron's gone. I'm taking you home. Gone. The word felt so numb in my mouth. Gone, I'd find out later. Ment, hanged himself in his prison cell with the drawstring of his pants. Mom wanted to make sure I heard it through her or dad rather than the grapevine.

And honestly, during the car ride home, I didn't feel a thing. We've not told anyone else yet. The prison contacted us this morning. He died during the night. I sat in the back seat, looking out the window as the town galloped by. They can cremate him on site. So many of the stores I used to visit had closed down. Windows soaked up or boarded up.

Some rotting, some sheathed in scaffolding. Nobody wanted to live. in the murder town. I'm thinking soup for dinner. Chicken or tomato. Mom used to be a travel agent, so we got discount flights everywhere while we were growing up.

Mexico, France, Singapore, Greece. I remember heading to the local print shop to get our holiday snaps developed and printed out. The print shop had since closed down, along with the town supermarket and video store. He had to drive out to win. Winchester if you wanted groceries or entertainment. Oh, and the photos were burned,

along with everything else that reminded us of what we lost. Mom hadn't been a travel agent in years. We didn't do vacations after Cameron was sentenced. Felt wrong, after all, to not bring the whole family. Your father took the day off work. He's at home, cleaning. He'd polish, vacuum, disinfect, straightened, photo frames, straighten couch cushions, make beds, then remake beds because the first time they

weren't straight enough, and then wipe down surfaces and mop floors and dust off knick-knacks and wash dishes, always by hand. He said the dishwasher left little spots, and he couldn't abide by that. No matter how much he did this, he was never satisfied. We all tried and failed to process it in our own ways. The spaces between mom's words were just uncomfortable silence. I wasn't feeling talkative, and we couldn't risk turning on the radio. Hearing certain songs come on in the car had been known to provoke certain physical reactions in me. It wasn't worth the risk.

Do you feel relieved? I looked back up at her, and she averted her givorbed. If she could somehow swallow the words back up, I'm sure she would have. This was the worst part of losing a family member to their own terrible crimes. You couldn't even grieve. How could you mourn the loss of someone who you'd gone out on a limb for, who had then made steely eye contact with you while they sawed that limb off? Cameron was a killer first, a liar second, and my dead brother.

Another third. We drove past the broken down husk of Mr. Laramie's ice cream parlor. Someone had spray-painted its ice cream o'clock on the door. He would have been 33. That's how old dad was when we had you. Normally, after Cameron was convicted, we ate our meals separately on lunch trays in our bedrooms. We would feel his absence too palpably at the dinner table, so it was. just left to gather dust, one of the many things made redundant by the heavy hand of post-traumatic avoidance. Some things in life, you just don't get over. They stay with you, wound you, and keep you from functioning, like a kind of emotional limp. There was so much that Cameron's presence had forever tainted for us. A small thing, for example. I hadn't eaten ice creams. I hadn't eaten ice cream,

since that day he was arrested, and probably never would again. Mr. Laramie's ice cream parlor went out of business in 1997, and I can't say I missed it. Change from the new routine was a rarity, but the night Cameron died, April 3, 2003. For the first time in 11 years, we ate at the dinner table together. It was mainly just silent and awkward, forcing food into our hollow faces, unable to get into the rhythm of appropriate dinner table conversation. But it was something.

It's good soup, Maria. And that was about all, he said, the entire time. It was good soup. Mom was an excellent cook. Afterwards, Mom and Dad did the dishes together while I stared. into my empty bowl, like the answer to some burning question was hidden away inside. The whole day, I just felt like a ghost. Like, I wasn't quite real.

I needed to focus on objects to stop myself from floating away. The soup bowl, the warm metal of the spoon in my fingers, the textures of my clothes against my skin. I had to keep telling myself, this is real life. And you exist in it. I'd been on a mix of prescribed uppers and downers throughout my teenage years, because Cameron couldn't even leave my neurochemicals be. The Shenandoah Strangler ruined everything he touched.

Amanda, could you take the garbage out? Sure, Mom. The night air was cool and still. 7 o'clock p.m., somewhere between dusk and total darkness, as I walked down the length of our front yard with a heavy black garbage bag lugged over one shoulder. It always felt like there was a mile

between our house and the sidewalk. Back when mom used to garden, she appreciated having the extra space, but neither of my parents really had hobbies since Cameron. In the first few years after the incident, there used to be constant shouting matches, playing hot potato with the blame. Maybe they'd breastfed him for too long, or not enough.

Maybe Dad never taught him about the birds and the bees, so he went off the rails and found his own fucked-up methods for getting his jollies. They accused each other of doing too little or too much of everything, and that's why my brother was sitting between Bundy and Dahmer in countless dollar-store true crime encyclopedias. These days, they were too tired to fight, so they just quietly went through the moment. emotions. I couldn't tell you if they still loved each other, but if there was any reason they

were still together, it was that nobody but each other would ever know how they felt, would ever truly understand the nightmare they'd been through, and were still going through, and probably would until they died. So they both settled for what we had. They lived very quiet lives, and so did I. Finally, I reached the end of the end. of the yard, a few feet to the left of the cherry tree. I dumped my cargo and prepared to head back to the house. To do what? Who knows? Like I said, I didn't seem to do much of anything anymore. Read, maybe, or stare at a wall. That's when I saw something across the road from me, and I just froze. I'd never really taken an interest in cars, but something about it. I was a

the car sitting across from me immediately caught my attention. It'd been around 12 years. No, exactly 12 years, since I'd seen something like it. Parked in the shade of our neighbor's apple tree was a vintage Chevrolet, its paint job, an immaculate, shimmering breath. You could eat your supper off it, you might even say. But I'd probably kill you if you did. It was a moment I had seen in nature documentaries so many times. Predator and prey, face to face, both just frozen. My heart pounding in my head, breaths getting shallow, the beginnings of sweat standing out of my pores.

It couldn't be him. He was dead, and we'd had that car scrap. It was a cube in a junkyard somewhere or recycled into washing machines and microwaves. But it looked just like his. When the window began rolling down, I felt my heart almost stopped. Inside was just a silhouette, not something I could fully make out, but I felt the head turned towards me. It was looking now, staring, and I was staring back. The figure in my brother's car was watching me.

For a few seconds, nothing but my heartbeat and the blood rushing in my ears. Then I heard the first few bars of a familiar tune. The figure began whistling Norman Greenbaum's spirit in the sky. It whistled just like him. That's when I snapped out of it and broke into a mad. dash across the yard back towards my house, the whistling still loud and clear behind me. I ran so hard my lungs and legs burnt, making a 40-second walk in about eight seconds flat. Of course, I knew I'd feel like shit from this later, but I was painfully aware of the fact

that my life was in danger when I was near that car. That didn't stop me from making the mistake of assuming the house was any safer. I bounded in past the threshold and slammed the door behind me, madly twisting every single lock into place and pulling the chain across. In my heart, I just knew it wasn't enough. We needed triple locks, boards, barricades, anything to keep him out. It wasn't until my parents rushed into the hallway that I realized I'd been screaming. Amanda, honey, what's wrong?

I turned to them, tears streaming down my face. and said those two impossible words. They didn't ask who he was. They didn't need to. He, that nameless, terrible thing too awful to speak aloud. They knew. We all knew who he had been for the last 12 years. That's impossible.

Dad didn't say anything. His eyes were open so wide I felt like they'd fall out of his head. head. I hadn't seen him like this since the day of the arrest, when a legion of armed police troopers materialized on our lawn and changed our lives forever. Go look out the window. While my parents filtered into the living room, dazed and terrified, I bolted to the back door and double-locked that too. The backyard was pitch black. You could imagine anything out there standing in the dark, unseen but watching through the defenseless glass of the double doors. We were trapped.

I ran back into the living room where mom and dad were staring out the window. It can't be him. He's dead. He's dead. He's dead. Not only was the Cherry Red 1967 Chevy Corvair parked down there on the other side of our street. Its driver's side door was open, and nobody was inside. Amanda, call the police.

John, get your gun. If it was who we thought it was, would either really do us any good. I grabbed my phone, a bulky Nokia, from the kitchen table, and switched it on, beginning the almost interminable booting up period. Meanwhile, Dad disappeared upstairs to grab his revolver from the lockbox in his bedside. cabinet. Mom just stared out the window, zombie-like, tears beginning to drip down her face. Dad came rumbling down the stairs shortly after, loading bullets into the revolver. Everyone stick together. It's probably just some copycat nut job trying to scare us.

He finished loading the revolver and pulled back the hammer. In his other hand, he carried a pair of binoculars from his old birdwatching days. Just stay calm, we'll get through this. Dad pulled the binoculars up to his eyes and looked outside. Shit. He let the binoculars fall to his side, and I snatched them from his hands, and looked outside. Just like I thought, the door to the Chevy was open, and nobody was sitting inside. But it was more than that.

Now, three perfectly tied nylon nooses, like the ones we were shown again. Again and again and again during the court hearings, hung from the branches of the cherry tree, swaying gently in the beginnings of a nighttime breeze. One for each of us. My phone finally came to life. I returned the binoculars to Dad, who was now keeping a white-knuckle grip on the handle of his revolver and punched a 911 on my cell phone. Just stay close to me. Maria, go grab a knife. She nodded and ran into the kitchen. I put the phone to my ear, willing with every fiber of my being for dispatch to pick up. But I heard one of those robotic auto call voices instead. You are receiving a call.

With an involuntary, ragged breath, I hung up and slid my phone back into my pocket. What's wrong? Nobody's coming to help us. Without a second's hesitation, Dad and I scrambled into the kitchen. revolver at the ready to take on whatever the hell was doing this to us. When we got there, we were relieved to see that mom was at least physically unharmed. She stood as rigid as a lamp post, clutching a kitchen knife with a trembling hand and staring with a look of abject horror at the kitchen table.

It was covered in an enormous pile of letters, all marked Mount Olive Correctional Complex, and dated from 1992 to yesterday. I reached forward and opened one, which contained a note reading, Liar, written hundreds of times, overflowing, overlapping, covering every inch of the paper. I opened another one and another,

and each one was the same. Liar, liar, liar, liar, liar. But the configuration was always different. Someone had handwritten every single one. How did they get here? I just turned around and they were there. When the power went out, and we all stood there in silent darkness. Just outside the house, the whistling had started again,

as perfectly clear and audible as if it was happening right next to your ear. It moved along with loud, crunching footsteps outside the house. seeming to move one way and then another. Up, down, side to side, in places that didn't even seem to make sense. On the walls, on the roof, whistling in footsteps everywhere, always Norman fucking Greenbaum.

Something shot past the kitchen window at light speed, and we all recoiled. It's him! Come on, stay close to me. It can't get us if we stick together. When did he become It. Our eyes had adjusted to the darkness, so we were grouped around that and began heading back into the living room at an inch a minute,

staring around us in a state of constant paranoia, training the gun on absolutely anything that looked like it might be capable of movement. It confused and amazed me how we could have a gun, a knife, and numbers on our side and still feel at a disadvantage. Maybe it was because, if this really was, somehow Cameron, he was a lot more experienced at taking lives than us. All those sickeningly relieved faces flashed through my memory once more. Out of the kitchen, past the stairs in the front door, and back into the living room. Someone had thrown a brick through the bay window, blasting a hole almost a foot wide into the glass. How could he do it?

It was like he was everywhere at once. I noticed that something was tied to the brick, something white. I momentarily split from the cluster of my family, racked with bone-shaking anxiety to pick it up, and saw it was another letter from the Mount Olive Correctional Complex. My parents both saw it and recognized it, like the hundreds they'd shredded, torn up and burned without opening throughout the last 12 years, when Cameron was only dead to us.

like the ones that appeared again en masse on the kitchen table. Their eyes widened and their faces fell at the side of it. I opened it up and inside was a single handwritten note just like the others. The note read, You promised again and again and again. Sometimes you can feel dread like a physical presence stapled to your back. You wear it like a cape made from pins and needles that prickle at your skin. When I read that note, I felt dread on me.

Prepare yourself, you know it's a must. Gotta have a friend in Jesus. The voice sang from behind me, behind all of us. A voice we hadn't heard in 12 years, save for news reports and nightmares. We all turned for what felt like a hundred years. And there he was, standing on the other side of the living room, bathed in shadow. We could make out his size and frame, and that was enough. Cameron Bukes was six-four.

There was really no mistaking him. Step, by careful step, he started getting closer, whistling. Amada. Get upstairs, lock yourself in the bathroom, and don't come out until we give you the all-clear. But Dad! Go, Amanda! We need to finish this! I opened my mouth, but no noise came out.

Instead, I ran out of the living room and up towards the stairs. Cameron's head turning to follow me the whole way. When I was halfway up the stairs, I heard the first gun shot. When I closed the bathroom door, I heard the second. When I twisted the lock, I heard the third. When I sat down at the edge of the bathtub, I heard the screaming. It was mom and death, letting out animal shrieks at the top of their loves, in terror, pain, or boat. Not a sound from Camry, just the intense, hear splitting screaming from my parents for about a solid minute.

All silence. I sat against the edge of the bathtub. and cried quietly to myself, knowing nobody was left to help. Hey, Mandy. Want to go cruising? Oh, come on, sis. Is that any way to speak to your big brother? There was a long silence after that.

It was really happening. It was him. You made a promise, Mandy, and you didn't keep it. Can you imagine how that made me feel? I fell onto my side, hugging my knees to my chest, near insane with fear. You left me alone, Mandy, for 12 years, as if I'd do the same to you. If you don't leave, um... You what?

Seriously, Mandy, what? Nobody's coming. Nobody. It's just you and me. The way it should be. Let's go for a ride. For old times' sake? Somehow, he looked just like he did all those years ago.

That same tall, handsome 21-year-old wearing his sleeveless jean jacket and raybats. His hands were covered in blood. You look so different. You don't? He smiled at that. Let's go. It's almost ice cream o'clock. We were driving.

Cameron had walked me down the stairs. stairs, trance-like, covering my eyes while we walked past the living room, so I wouldn't see what became of mom and dad. You don't need that, Mandy. You don't need that. When we walked out onto the desolate nighttime street, and I tried to open the back door, he'd stopped me and assured me that I was old enough to ride shotgun. You're a little big for the booster seat now, Mandy. And like I said, then we were driving. Cruising through the night, Cam's mixtape blasting out of the speakers. Nothing felt quite real, but I knew it wasn't fake either.

Dream and reality mixing like running paints behind the dash of Cam's lipstick red 1967 Chevy Corvair, the Shenandoah Strangler Murder Car. Why'd you do it, Cam? Do what? Kill all those girls. Imagine a want so powerful it could outlive you, a need so deep that it keeps searching for satisfaction, even when it has nobody to satisfy. That doesn't exist. Mandy, sweetie, you're talking to it.

It's all that's left. We drove down Main Street, past the boarded-up, derelict shell of Mr. Larammy's ice cream parlor. When Cam saw it, he tutted and shook his head with what seemed to me. like genuine regret. The times they are changing. As we drove, the streets changed. Sidewalks were splitting to give way to trees and foliage. Buildings turned to thicket.

The concrete road underneath us just crumbled into dirt. We did not move from town to forest. The town became the forest around us. The same forest we'd cruised through, So many times growing up, I looked out the window, staring into the thick, dark tangle of trees. Faces in the black, then bodies, and so much blonde hair. They stepped forward and stood at the tree line. Their faces relieved and blew with asphyxiation.

The ligature tied tight around their neck like a fashionable scarf. Cam's victims waiting and watching in the forest, recognizing the face that put them so at ease just before my brother squeeze the life out of them. You dodged the question earlier. Why did you do it? I don't know. I guess it's because it excited me.

Did you ever really love me? Huh? Back then, did you ever really care about me? Or was it all just a means to an end? He turned to me and let his shade slip down his face, showing me those kind, sad eyes of his. If you don't know Mandy, then I can't tell you. It occurred to me now more than ever that I didn't know this man.

But really, you can't know anyone. They always keep parts of themselves hidden, from you, from themselves, from everyone else, and some of those parts should probably stay that way. We drove. The women were gone now. It was just Cam and I on this seemingly endless road. You know, Mandy, you've become a beautiful young woman. Halfway through Queens, don't stop me now, the car ground to a sudden halt. What happened? Engine just up and died on me.

Damn thing's a million years old. It happens now and then. A flash of panic too deep in my heart for my body to act on. I looked up into the rearview mirror and saw Mitzie sitting in the backseat. Pink dress and chubby cheeks and bountiful golden curls buckled tight in her booster and looking afraid for me. I think I was crying. Cameron opened his door. except he didn't look like Cameron now. He was older, more haggard, probably in his early thirties.

He wore a prison jumpsuit and around his neck an expertly tied draw string ligature pulled so tight it turned the skin on his neck, bruised purple. He looked at me and I looked at him and things were just like old times, but different. So horribly, monstrously, irrevocably different. This new Cameron smile and gesture it outside. Mind giving me a hand? 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,

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