The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S12E18

Episode Date: April 14, 2019

It's episode 18 of Season 12. On this week's show we have tales about the darkness found in art, science, and nature. "The Red Harvest" written by Mandy McHugh (Story starts around 00:02:25) Produced by: Phil Michalski Cast: Narrator – Peter Lewis, Mother – Erin Lillis "The Ghost Men Project" written by Sean O. Wilkins (Story starts around 00:24:45) Produced by: Jesse Cornett Cast: Dr. Jordan Zavos – Mike DelGaudio, Special Investigator Bryant – Jesse Cornett, Guard – Atticus Jackson, PFC Grazer – Dan Zappulla, Command Operator – Nikolle Doolin "Victoria’s Road" written by Blair Daniels (Story starts around 01:02:15) Produced by: Phil Michalski Cast: Hannah – Jessica McEvoy, Mira – Addison Peacock, Hannah's father – Mike DelGaudio, Woman in purple dress – Nikolle Doolin "The Girl on the Porch" written by R.J. Clark (Story starts around 01:20:35) Produced by: Jeff Clement Cast: Narrator – Jeff Clement, Shelly – Sarah Thomas, Girl – Addison Peacock, Announcer – Nikolle Doolin "Witch of the Woods" written by Brad Tucker (Story starts around 01:42:42) Produced by: Phil Michalski Cast: Narrator – Atticus Jackson, Nan & Beast – Erika Sanderson, Mom – Sarah Thomas Click here to learn more about the voice actors on The NoSleep Podcast   Click here to learn more about the All-Women Horror Anthology Kickstarter   Click here to learn more about Blair Daniels   Click here to learn more about R.J. Clark   Executive Producer & Host: David Cummings Musical score composed by: Brandon Boone "The Ghost Men Project" illustration courtesy of Naomi Ronke Audio program ©2018-2019 - Creative Reason Media Inc. - All Rights Reserved - No reproduction or use of this content is permitted without the express written consent of Creative Reason Media Inc. The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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

Our service this week features tales about the darkness found in art, science, and nature. Our third tale this week is from author Blair Daniels, and she's heading up a new horror anthology book which is being funded through a Kickstarter campaign. It's an all-woman horror anthology called Daughters of VIII. darkness. It's an anthology of 43 terrifying tales written by a group of extremely talented women, many of whom you've heard on our show, including Easy Morgan, Jennifer Winters, Amanda Eisenberg, Kelly Childress, P. Oxford, Katie Bennett, Penny Tails Up, and Blair Daniels. The campaign is in its final week, so check the show notes for the link and grab a copy of this excellent horror

anthology. And since we here at the podcast also kind of like horror anthologies, I think we should present another episode of our own. Because it's time for our service to begin. Bow your heads and hear our words. In our first tale, we meet a man with mommy issues. No matter how hard he tries to deal with the past that haunts him, he can't help but see red. As shared by author Mandy McHugh, the man deals with his maddening matriarch with her paints and her brushes. Performing this tale are Peter Lewis and Aaron Lillis. So beware, or you might just find yourself a part of the Red Harvest. Of the first things I was taught in my college education classes was to never correct papers in red pens.

They cause anxiety and feelings of personal inadequacy in students. Pearls of wisdom from my EDU 101 professor. Listening to one of his lectures was enough to tell me that he thought the red pen as evil, and those who used it were evil by default. Apparently it's much less disheartening to see your mistakes highlighted in blue or black. Or at least my students tell me this is true. Paper bruises heal faster than paper cuts, after all. But still, I wonder, how could a color have that much control over a person?

I know there are studies and data to back up these claims, but I've never been one to rely on numbers fabricated by research groups, funded by some fancy corporation, looking to capitalize on the weakness of buffoons. No, I rely on the red. The prickly... certainty when I just know something. It starts as a tickle in the bottom of my stomach.

The mixed tug of excitement and dread you might experience as a roller coaster reaches the top of that first arch right before you're dropped into oblivion. That split second, you're convinced to that death is imminent. That's as close as I can come to describing it. Most of the time the red can't be ignored. It hits violently, a roiling demon that sweeps over my body, planting the crimson urge of hunger. Statistical research in the world can't overcome the pull this color has on me. When the surge hits, I'm at its mercy.

It's as much a part of me as my own tongue. I was seven when I named it. Mother had decided to paint my bedroom. It was supposed to be a special treat, an early birthday present for her growing boy, she said. We didn't have much money. Lived paycheck to paycheck, as they say now. An entire can of paint devoted to me was a big deal.

My father, if you could call him that, worked as a cashier for one of the oldest gas stations on Hoosick Street by day. At night, he was the favorite bartender of many a patron at the old Irish pub. Neighbors called him a nice man, the kind of man who'd volunteer to help you move on a rainy Sunday. But in terms of intelligence, he was rather dull, and that combination I won't get you far, especially when you're from a small town.

Mother stayed home to harvest her talent as a painter. An artist is what she called herself, but very rarely did she do anything worthy of merit. Shoddy landscapes and random sketches of shapes reflecting her abstract, tortured soul were plastered to the fridge. There was never any room for papers I brought home from school. Why would I waste? my valuable space honoring the A you received on a trivial spelling test.

To her, I was merely demonstrating how well I could copy what someone else told me was right. You're not embracing your spirit, and that's not worthy of praise. Then came the birthday announcement. Tell me, boy, what color do you envision for your walls? She never used my name. I hesitated. I knew it was a mistake. Hesitation implied uncertainty, and with her, art, was always certain.

A person either trusts his muse and follows his inner rhythm, or he waits to reproduce someone else's ideas. I stuttered, staring up into her face with my fists, clenching into my stomach. I'd like blue walls. She said nothing, just stared at me with her head tilted, like she was trying to figure out what kind of animal I was. I needed my fingers harder. That demon was emerging for the first time.

Blue. How utterly original. Not Cerulean or periwinkle or azure. Blue. Tell me, boy. Why blue? Had I said blue? I couldn't remember saying anything at all.

My mind was red, a blank space of swirling scarlet shadows. She took a step closer. Blue is for boys. Mother exhaled in my face. The smell of mint and stale cigarettes darkened the red clouds forming in my mind. Stick out your tongue. I did nothing. Stick out your tongue, boy, and do not make me tell you again.

Nausea enveloped my body. My breathing became short and heavy. I stuck out my tongue, following her words and trying to find a focal point. Anything to help fight the red. I wasn't afraid. You see, I was hungry. Mother grabbed my tongue between her forefinger and thumb, dug her nails into the tip. Her other hand wrapped around my neck.

She drew my face close to hers. The stench was overwhelming. I saw my reflection in the curve of her glasses, a boy with the devil in his eyes, and felt disgusted. Behind the fragile barrier, however, I saw joy. in her eyes and knew the demon dwelt in her too. She squeezed my tongue harder, gritting her teeth. An outsider looking in would have thought she was grimacing, but I knew better. She was, smiling.

Drule leaked from her mouth. Her neck twisted to the side with a sickening crack. My child, my child would not choose blue. Because blue is for boys. This filthy tongue right out of your head. Do you understand? She sank her nails in deeper. The red inside me flared, then, whispering its introduction.

I didn't cower or beg for her to stop, winked. She released her grip and unkinked her neck with another blunt crack. shoving me backwards into the wall. Two tiny crescent moons bled into my mouth, slick on my teeth. I spat on the floor twice. Mother crouched and stared at the burgeoning pool. I thought she'd grab me again, but instead she stuck her palm into the viscous puddle,

smearing it like jelly, clapping her hands together until pinkish fluid spatter. cackling. No. No. Your room won't be blue. Simple, calm, matter of fact, like she was reciting a list of items she'd need at the market.

Mother left me there, muttering to herself as she skipped down the hall. Never did get painted, but the trail of my blood she traced along the walls was still there a few years later. when she mysteriously vanished. I heard the shuffle of her dingy marooned slippers dragging back and forth, same as my own slippers now shuffle through my apartment as I read the words written on the paper in my hand. Remembering this now, the red is trying to burrow out of my stomach, ready to be reborn.

The ink has bled through the paper, A macabre mirror of my message. The harvest begins. Sigh, put the paper in my pockets and stare at the jars on my shelf. Except for the one on the end, that one's been complete since the red took mother. They are small and shiny, desperate to be filled. She won't be able to call me a thing now. Not after tonight.

I watch the woman in her window. Our buildings parallel to a spectacular view. I find it astounding that in 2019 people choose not to use curtains. I don't own a TV, not when everything's so easy to stream, but the glare from hers flickers on the window anytime the camera shifts perspective. She is beautiful in her plainness. Tall, but not slim, long hair that's neither brown nor blonde. A mousy color somewhere in between.

There's nothing remarkable about her, except for her eyes. She doesn't wear glasses, unprotected and vulnerable. They remind me of the Atlantic, a blue-gray crested by mounds of frothy white foam, speeding towards the rocky shore. They are exquisite. I must have them. I wonder if they make her vain, give her a confidence over her otherwise ordinary countenance.

Identity is a tricky thing. Society has been trying to solve the problem of identity, since the concept of society was established. There is a strong, even primitive need to be able to label everything and everyone. In school, we call it, clicks. Children evaluate their self-worth by ranking their placement on the proverbial social ladder.

Jocs, preps, goths, nerds. This archaic system teaches people to judge based on what they see, that their identities depend on how others perceive them. They tell themselves that they'll outgrow this, that they turn into better people, capable of seen beyond initial appearances. But this is a lie. They can't even tell themselves the truth. How could they expect others to understand their identities when so few people know who they

are underneath their own pretences. Mother, for example, was a very skilled liar. Every morning she'd smile and wave to our neighbor, Mrs. Mansfield, an elderly woman with three filthy cats and no decorum. She lived alone and was determined to know everything about the people in her community, lest they decide to steal one of her preciouses. A nickname, I'm sure, she unwitting. stole from Lord of the Rings.

Eccentric, yes, but even in her old age, she too fostered the need-to-know mentality. Oh, who are you? What can I call you? What makes you tick? Mother's smile irked me the most. That plastered-on, shit-eating, powdered face she saved for such occasions. Teeth sparkling and bright brown eyes.

like she had for once successfully completed a portrait of the person she claimed to be. It was almost cartoonish. Mrs. Mansfield never saw it. No, she adored Mother. Always offered pleasantries and compliments before skulking her yellow, sagging skin inside to feed the cats. I saw the truth, though, I had something more concrete than the daily fault. falsities with which she masked herself. I saw the creature living inside her.

I tasted the truth. And the truth tasted like salty fingers and acrylic paint. The girl chuckles at something on the screen and the red stirs. A side effect of identity was assigning blame. She made me this way. or he made me do it. It's not my fault, I'm this way. Deviating from the expectations of society,

you'll surely cast blame somewhere. Labeling creates the norm, but it also feeds the outcast, the red. I'm not Norman Bates. I don't blame Mother for the things I've done. The things I have yet to do. Or should I say we? The demon taking shape and my own desire for the hunger.

Or are we inexplicably united? I'm not sure I know. The paint-color incident helped me to name the thing that was already living inside of me. I had to name it before I could embrace it. It would have been easy to blame her. She had her own demon, and maybe it was contagious, huh? But choosing a name, well, that implied ownership. Ask any of my students reading the Crucible, a name is everything.

It is a reputation, perception, and truth. A name is power. I named my demon, the red. and therefore I own responsibility for its actions. I was nine when it happened. Until then, our individual demons remained relatively dormant, clashing every so often in implosive violence. It started as an itching behind my eyes.

No matter how hard I scratched or rubbed or washed, I couldn't stop the insane tingling. Mother saw this ailment as an opportunity, a teachable moment, as they say. She walked into the bathroom as I was unsuccessfully trying to get the bottle of eyedrops to cooperate. Your eyes are red. I didn't reply. I just squeezed the bottle harder, sending a stream of salty liquid running down my cheeks, fake tears. It's a sign, you know. Again with her matter-of-fact, Tone,

the Church of Motherly Knowledge was in full service and she was ready to deliver her sermon. A sign? Of your lies. Your own body rebelling against your sheepish ways. It knows that you're a liar, a lying thing incapable of originality. I put the bottle on the edge of the sink and turned around.

I'm lying? She ignored me. Her hand reached out and stroked my hair. Then came the smile. The real smile that Mrs. Mansfield never saw it. The only way to cure yourself is to admit it. You're a lying sheep, and you will never harvest your talent. Inside my stomach, the red swell.

Stronger now. A swarm of wasps stinging my inside. fighting to get back to their hive. I almost didn't speak, convinced they'd escape. If I opened my mouth, I knew the wasps would attack. Nothing to say. Something got your tongue. You want to see true harvested talent? Her red demon twinkled with glee. Mother's fingers entangled in my hair, pulling me hard behind her. I didn't cry. The remnants of the fake drowel. was enough embarrassment. I pictured myself drowning,

swallowed by a huge crimson wave. The seething water overwhelmed me. I sank into the dark abyss. We stopped in front of my room. This is the truth. She opened the door as if she were cutting the ribbon at a gallery auction. I looked, left to right, slowly.

taking in the scene. Every inch was covered in her newest project. Hundreds of faces bored holes into me. They were distorted and mangled and scribbled over and slashed, and each one was glued to a drawing of a red sheep. I knew you wouldn't mind if I used your school pictures. I think I really captured your essence. I gazed at the me, Sheep and absorbed the red. I let it fill my pores and crevices. When I spoke, the sound that leapt from my throat was not my own, gravely and deep and pierced by shards of glass. I'm not sure when it happened. How I broke the bathroom mirror. How I plunged a jagged edge into her chest. The glass rose. ripping up tissue and tendons and a hand that once belonged to me.

And when I stood over her twitching body, preparing to take my socket trophies, two laughs pushed forward, and filled the stretches, unaware of my gaze. I take the picture from my wallet and lay it beside me. It's creased over the years, but the red outline is still prominent. The sole me sheep I saved in the jar with mother's eyes. I've squandered too much time tonight. The Reds demanding to be set free again. Its stinging insistence burns in starvation.

Tonight, I will nourish it. I will harvest. I'll start her. with her eyes. With science, we can cure disease, advance civilization, and create increasingly smaller cell phones. But as told to us by author Sean O. Wilkins, sometimes science can go too far, especially when it meddles in the realm of the supernatural. Performing this tale are Mike Delgado, Jesse Cornette, Atticus Jackson, Dan Zepula, and Nicole

Doolin. So take a peek beyond the shroud, if you dare, and discover the facts of the Ghost Men Project. Well, let's get rolling, shall we? Guard, could you shut that door, please? Yes, sir. I'm right outside if you need me. Thank you. This is Special Investigator Bryant with the Department of...

I'm here with Dr. Jordan Zavos of... Incorporated. The time is currently 9.000. 47 p.m. on December 9th, 2008, approximately one in a quarter hour after the Tanner Pass Research Facility incident. Doctor, please state your name for the record. You know who I am. You just said it. Doctor, please, it's for the official record. Calm down, all right? You're safe. Are you thirsty? We can get you a bottle of water. Hey, can we get a bottle of water in here? Not, look, I'm fine, okay?

I just want to get out of here and get someplace safe. Dr. Zavos, you are safe here. I can assure you of that. There are over 300 servicemen on this base and armed personnel at every entrance. Nothing can get in or out of here without us knowing. That's bullshit, and you know it. You saw our facility. You saw the body, saw the condition they were in.

Jesus Christ, Jenkins had his head ripped off right in. front of me. It happened so fast, he was still blinking when it hit the ground. I saw that. I saw that with my own eyes. So when I say I want to be held someplace safe, I mean someplace you government boys keep your dark, dirty secrets, someplace deep underground with 10-foot-thick walls and ultraviolet sensors and magnetic... Doctor, please, we need to know what we're up against here, and time is of the essence. The sooner you cooperate with me, the sooner you, the sooner you You'll be moved, and the sooner we can clean out the mess, your corporate stooges left for us up there. Now, let's get it from the top, nice and calm-like.

And don't leave out a single detail. We are on the clock here, Doc. Now state your damn name for the record. Oh, Christ Almighty. I'm Dr. Jordan Zavos. I'm a... I was a project coordinator for... Incorporated.

You were in charge? No. I was just a coordinator. I was the one who made sure all the nuts and bolts came together correctly on the project. Who was in charge? That would have been Henry Jenkins, the project manager. The one who lost his head? Yeah, that would have been him.

He's the one who called the shots, the one I took my orders from. And which project were you working on? Doctor. The Ghost Men Project. Please elaborate. Jesus, where to begin? All right, look, three years ago, I was approached by Henry Jenkins to work on a top-secret project for the company. I was an adjunct professor at the time, teaching particle physics and the occasional quantum theory elective class at a state college in Alabama.

I didn't know much about them other than they were a military contractor with a very lucrative and long-standing deal with the Pentagon. A small part of the bloated and overfunded military industrial complex that's run amuck in this country ever since World War II. At first, I bucked against the idea of my work contributing to the deaths of who knows how many others. But Jenkins was persuasive, let me tell you. He told me that the project they were working on would actually save lives. That it was a breakthrough in physics that could secure this country's future, put my name in the history, history books, right up there with Oppenheimer. And even though my conscience still objected, my bank account jumped for joy. I don't know if you know how much an adjunct professor makes, but it's not

exactly Robin Leach money. So, in early 2005, I began working on Project 7WX-003, unofficially known as the Ghostman Project. I see, and how many others worked on the project with you? All said and told there were 20 of us. And this was at the Tanner Pass Research Facility, near the top of Mount Riker. Yes. It's a difficult place to get to. We had a hard time getting hazmat and rescue vehicles that far up the mountain.

Why put a facility all the way up there, on the edge of a cliff, no less? It seemed pretty precarious to me. Oh, ostensibly, it was located so far away in order to be kept hidden away from prying eyes. but that's not the real reason. It's because that area is special. The magnetic polarity and strength are perfect.

And the neutrino saturation hints off the charts. There are only a handful of spots like it in the world, really. It was necessary for the process to work in order for the subjects to properly enter the shroud. The shroud? That's what we call it, the shroud. It's the in-between place that they exist in, that they travel through. It's not a parallel dimension, not as we understand it anyway. It's more like a blanket dimension, a reality that exists within and concurrent to our very own space time,

yet it's separated by a kind of quantum membrane. It's a pocket of space time that seemingly enshrouds our own, so to speak. Well, neutrinos pass through it constantly, possibly faster than the speed of light, which was how the physicists were able to discover. Doc, I'm going to stop you right there. We've got the entrails of 19 dismembered bodies decorating the halls of a state-sponsored scientific research facility, as well as 3A. Wall Special Forces soldiers, presumably roaming these woods somewhere. I don't need to know how everything worked. I just need to know what happened to them and how to stop them. Look, you wanted every detail. I can tell you what happened.

But they can't be stopped. Not now. And what does that mean? It means, look, when I was brought on, the project was already in full swing. The research was continuing. The machinery was built. The animal testing was moving ahead. Everything was going according to plan. All I really had to do was supervise the mathematical calculations and make sure everyone worked together.

Animal testing was a success, for the most part. Insects and fish were inserted into the shroud and extracted seemingly without consequence. Birds were fine, although a few experienced peculiar behavioral side effects. The rats were tested extensively, of course, as were rabbits and other small mammals. One batch of rats seemed to vanish without a trace, but that was our fault, really. We hadn't tested their subdermal RFID chips before they'd been sent in. It's been generally accepted that they escaped from their cage and died of starvation somewhere inside the shroud. Most of the animals seemed completely unharmed and healthy.

Although approximately 4% seemed to suffer some form of limited cognitive breakdown, it usually manifested in decreased environmental awareness and withdrawal from social interactions. But occasionally, it resulted in violent outbursts. One dog, in particular, raised concerns, a German shepherd that had been nicknamed Shira by some of the staff. She'd been outfitted with a vest containing, a sensor array and a video camera, as was the standard testing procedure, and she disappeared into the shroud without a problem. But we kept her in there longer than any of the others, just over an hour.

She was right there in the lab, of course, right in front of us, but completely invisible and undetectable by conventional means. The camera feedback was grainy, like usual, and cut out completely for five minutes. But according to the footage and the sensors, she encountered nothing the entire time she was in there. But when she came back, she was changed somehow. She ra was unresponsive. She wouldn't eat. She became agitated whenever someone tried to touch her.

Most of the larger mammals had experienced slightly reduced amounts of sleep, but nothing unhealthy. Sheerah, on the other hand, she couldn't sleep at all. She growled and snapped at anyone who came near her and seemed to display signs of growing psychosis. As the days passed by, she withered away into a red-eyed skeleton. She was finally put down less than a week later, after she was found in her cage, gnawing off her left leg.

Then the monkeys came next, and the result was generally positive, although, again, we did have one exception. Zeus, a four-year-old chimp. Not only did he exhibit the same behavioral and sleep problems as Shira, he was also the first animal to exhibit any physical change. Now, he'd been in the shroud far longer than any animal before him, a full three hours, but locked in his cage the entire time. When he came out, there was something off-putting about him that I couldn't place immediately.

But the lead biologist only had to take one look at him to notice what was wrong. Zeus's eyes had turned from brown to blue, and the sclera around the pupil had turned white. He had human eyes. No one knew what to make of it. We could find no cause or any other issues after he was euthanized and dissected other than some light optical nerve scarring. Still, after nearly three years of animal testing,

it was deemed a rousing success by Jenkins and the brass he reported to. After that, there's only one option moving forward. human trials and when did that start the testing on humans May 24th almost seven months ago we should have known better really

on any other project our test results would have been deemed far too dangerous to advance forward with there were still too many unknown variables too many unknown consequences and at the end of three years we still really didn't know shit about the shroud or

what was lurking inside it But we, we were all ecstatic, giddy even. We were on the cutting edge of science, and we didn't want to slow down or lose any momentum. In the Pentagon, well, they sure shit didn't want to either. And who could blame them? I mean, the implications were immediately apparent. We could turn someone effectively invisible. They were there, physically moving around or on our plane of existence.

but at the same time, they were not there. All it took was some finessing of the quantum membrane and boom, instant invisible spy, instant living ghost. You want to know what Moscow has planned? Put someone in the shroud and they can walk right into Putin's bedroom to find out. It was the holy grail of military intelligence and it was within our grasp. We were going to move forward with human testing no matter how many blue-eyed monkeys or mutilated dogs we got back. It was already a foregone conclusion before I'd even come on board. The search for the ideal candidates was exhaustive. We interviewed hundreds, maybe thousands of servicemen from across the various branches of the military.

It was thought that the animals that had shown the visible side effects had been weak or genetically vulnerable from the start. So all the candidates were thoroughly vetted for both physical and mental fortitude. Background checks and medical exams were so detailed that we knew how many freckles each of them had on their ass, and when they got them. In the end, we settled on three subjects who were practically paragons of humanity. Could you name them, please? Yeah, let me think. There was Omar Mahadi, Army Rangers, I believe, codename Red Spector, Gina Lee Andrews, Navy Seals, code name White Shadow, and Myles. Miles Morse, Air Force Special Tactics, code-name Blue Phantom.

Collectively, they were known as the Ghostmen. And what happened to them? At first? Nothing. We prepped them for months before sending them into the shroud, subjecting their bodies to intense magnetic fields, bombarding them with neutrino pulses, immunizing them against any and all-known biological contaminants.

Omar, the Red Specter, he was the first to go. in. He was only going in for five minutes, but he entered the saturation chamber wearing enough hazmat equipment to survive on the surface of Jupiter. I'm telling you, those were the longest five minutes of my life. 20 of us standing there, holding our breath in unison. The video feed cut in and out, as did radio contact, but we were able to stay in contact more or less the entire time. The fact that either worked at all was a triumph of modern engineering. Well, when Omar rematerialized five minutes later and gave the thumbs up, we all burst into applause. Jenkins popped a bottle of champagne and phoned the Pentagon.

Everyone was on cloud nine. Hell, even I got laid that night. White Shadow and Blue Phantom both went in by the end of the week, and both were complete successes. More insertions and extractions soon followed, each round in the shroud lasting a little longer than the last, covering more ground, testing the limits of their physical interaction on our plane of existence. Then all three began going together, in tandem, each with strict orders to observe the other two. No one wanted an invisible soldier going missing, after all. Everything went well for the first couple of months.

A few high-ranking suits flew in and excitedly made plans for field deployment before the end of the year. There was talk of extended employment contracts, of opening new facilities on military bases, across the globe of getting more taxpayer money thrown at us than any of us knew what to do with. It was a scientific dream come true. And then the problems began. Command, this is PFC Grazer. Has anyone seen Rollins? He's not at his post. That's a negative on Rollins. He has not checked in. Goddamas. He's probably taking a shit with his radio turned off.

Sorry about that, Doc. Continue. Blue Phantom, Miles Morse. He was the first to report any side effects. During a psych eval, he reported seeing several strange pathways in the facility that weren't there when he exited the shroud. Each appeared on different floors and in odd places. One was in a bathroom stall behind the toilet, another was 20 feet off the ground up on a lab wall.

Each appeared to be rough-hune and completely dark inside. Oh, neither of the other two subjects saw them. and the video footage showed nothing. We weren't sure what to make of it. Physically, Morse was fine. At first, we just chalked it up to optical strain, a trick of the mind. You see, all three reported that the light inside the shroud was tough on the eyes. The light was strangely intense and dim at the same time,

creating these dramatic shadows on the landscape, making angles appear off kilter, just generally messing with their sense of depth perception. and we figured that the photons were moving at slightly different speeds inside the shroud, causing optical phenomena as a result. No big deal. But Gina Lee Andrews was the next to report seeing something. And she, she caused a small panic when she radioed in seeing an unknown individual in the facility

during a search exercise. She'd entered an office where several lab personnel were working around a desk and spotted a tall, thin figure standing alone in a dark corner with long arms and a short neck. She couldn't make out any defining features, but said that its head was misshapen. That was her word, it. Well, the ghostmen were immediately extracted, and the entire facility went on lockdown for two hours. But ultimately, no one and no thing was located. Gina's camera feed had been too grainy and corrupted to verify anything.

So she was given a few days off to catch up on some rest. She hadn't been sleeping well and was developing recurrent insomnia. In fact, all three subjects hadn't been sleeping well. Each had reported interrupted sleep cycles and bad dreams. But more troubling, they were having trouble keeping track of time. Sometimes it seemed to escape them quickly, as if they lost half the day and didn't know where it went. But other times it slowed to a crawl, much that it felt as if they'd been up and moving for days on end. And as they spent more and more

time inside the shroud, they became more quiet, withdrawn, and more easily startled. I, I voiced my concerns to Jenkins, as did Melanie Stinson, the chief psychologist. Jenkins just blew us off. We'd come too far to halt testing, he said. And the boys in Arlington were chomping at the bid for deployment. They wanted the ghost men in Pyongyang by month's end. The brass were given the orders. It was out of our hands now. So, and so the testing and military exercises continued unabated. Omar Mahadi was the next to report a sighting. It was disturbing, to say the least. While performing a facility sweep, he spotted a hole in the ground in the sub-basement. It was round, roughly 10 feet in diameter, and rough-hewn around. And rough-hewn

around the edges, similar to what Morris had reportedly seen earlier. But he could see inside this one, and it was lined with a pulsing flesh-like material that appeared wet and organic. Long, segmented insectoid appendages darted out from the folds of the flesh walls, expulsing black, dripping strands of webbing that spanned the chasm. There appeared to be no bottom in sight, he said, and somewhere deep down and far below him, he saw something vaguely human crawling its way up through the tangle of black webs and coming towards him. Well, after that, everyone was extracted and testing was temporarily suspended. It was just a hallucination brought on by sleep deprivation, the higher ups said. Except there was a problem with that explanation this time.

Blue Phantom and White Shadow had both rushed to his aid after he radioed in the same. sighting. Despite all three camera feeds simultaneously failing, both separately confirmed that they'd also seen the flesh pit and whatever was crawling out of it. Jesus Christ! Relax! It's just a power outage. They get them all the time out here in the boonies. See, the generator kicked in and the lights are back on. Command, everything okay out there. Looks like we threw a breaker, possibly blown a circuit. Maintenance is on it. Copy that.

All right, Dr. Zavis, let's wrap this up and get to the point. If what you're saying is true, it sounds like we've got three delusional, invisible special ops agents on our hands. No. What you have is much worse. You see, the brass, we're pushing hard for deployment. In turns, Jenkins pressured me for one last round of testing. After that, we were taking the show on the road. Now, I objected.

I really did. I objected loudly. But Jenkins said that if I wasn't willing to follow orders, he'd find another egghead who wanted the acclaim and the paycheck. I should have walked away from it all right there. I should have. But I couldn't let them take it all away from me. I couldn't let someone else reap the benefits of all my hard work.

So I stayed, and I followed orders, and I sent the ghost man into the shroud for the last time. By then, they were all visibly sleep deprived and on edge. They suited up, entered the lab, and went into the saturation chamber, like normal. They entered the shroud and followed their exercise orders without complaint. They stayed in radio contact and didn't report anything unusual or out of place. Then, after exactly two hours and 47 minutes, in, the camera feeds went dead. They never came back on. We tried to make contact, but there was only radio silence. The facility went on lockdown again, and the search team was dispatched. The RFID

scanners showed them all in the facility's sub-basement, all huddled together far away from where their orders had been to rendezvous. It took a while to locate them, and for good reason. The search team had been feeling around for three unseen human bodies. Instead, they only found three invisible, these minuscule subdermal RFID chips on the sub-basement floor. When the chips were extracted from the shroud, they were pristine. Those chips had been surgically implanted and could have only been removed with state-of-the-art medical equipment.

There was no way these three military grunts with only first aid training could have removed those chips without a drop of blood in next to no time. It was impossible. But there we were with Dick in hand and three vanished soldiers. The brass went eight shit when they found out, and Jenkins nearly had an aneurysm. We were on lockdown for three days straight, with no one in or out of the building until they were found. But they weren't found then. And they never were.

Not really, anyway. Command, this is PFC Grazer again. I think I've spotted Rollins. Looks like he's just standing there in the tree line at the edge of the perimeter, but he's not responding to his radio. Permission to leave post and see what the hell he's up to? Permission granted, private. Maintain radio contact.

Copy that. The ghost men weren't found, but they showed up again. didn't they? I saw the carnage in the lab. They were pissed off and crazy, and they came back and caught you all off guard. I'll accept you. You somehow managed to hide in a biohazardous waste bin and avoid detection while all your co-workers were being butchered. That's some luck. Tell me something, Doctor. How was it? that just three soldiers were able to murder everyone in that facility without anyone evacuating. I know they're invisible, and I know that they're homicidal, but how was it that no one was able to making out the doors? You're right, investigator. The ghostman did show up again, but it didn't happen like that.

Look, care to explain? After they disappeared, expert saw. search teams were flown in. Special machinery and scanners and sensors were set up. We were all questioned repeatedly, interrogated, really, for days on end. The Pentagon was threatening to pull the plug on the entire operation, and our parent corporation was two steps away from shit-cannning us all and disavowing our involvement. Jenkins saw his career and his future going down the toilet and took his frustration out on me. I took out my frustration on a nightly bottle of scotch. Well, on week three after the disappearance, I got an emergency phone call from Jenkins at 2 o'clock in the morning. Get your ass to the lab, he said. There had been a break-in at the facility. The cleaning crew had found a naked intruder sitting alone in the dark on the floor of the saturation chamber.

Security was holding him for questioning, but he wouldn't identify himself. In fact, he was completely unresponsive. All personnel were required for questioning. As soon as I got there and laid eyes on that weird man, I felt sick to my stomach. I told the investigators that I didn't recognize him, but that he seemed oddly familiar to me at the same time in a way I couldn't put my finger on. He was bizarre. His skin was blotchy, pale in spots and dark in others. He staggered when he walked, as if one leg was shorter than the other. His fingers were odd lengths. too. The pinky finger on his left hand was the longest of the mall. His mouth, his mouth was crooked, his teeth a crowded and jagged mess. His right eye was brown. His left eye was bright green.

And those eyes, those eyes were completely vacant. And he seemed to be mentally impaired. Things were made even stranger when the medical team revealed that he actually possessed both male and female genitalia. He never spoke a word, but tears poured down his face constantly. I didn't know who he was, but I couldn't help but feel bad for him. Someone suggested that he could have been the person that Omar had seen crawling out from the flesh pit before he went missing, and that theory caused a small uproar among those in charge. Oh, shit. Command, this is Grazer. I need a medical team on my position ASAP. It's Rollins. He's... Son of a bitch. His face has been cut clean off and he's bleeding like a stuffed pig.

Copy that Private Grazer. Hold your position in a weight backup. Can you confirm if Private Rollins is breathing? Yes, Seth. What the fuck is that? It's... PFC Grazer, do you copy? PFC Grazer, please respond. Damn it. Sounds like your Ghostman have arrived. Is there anything helpful that you can tell me right now, Doc? Anything else that can help us put a quick end to this? This? This is just the beginning. Those aren't ghost men out there. God damn it, doctor. Just what the hell are you trying to say?

Melanie Stimson, the chief psychologist. She managed to put it together before the fingerprints could be matched. She'd been having an affair with white shadow, Gina Lee Andrews, Gina Lee Andrews, who had bright green eyes, green eyes just like the one our mystery intruder had. Melanie vomited all over my shoes as soon as she figured it out. Our mystery intruder wasn't an intruder at all. It was our missing ghostmen, all three of them, cut to pieces and reassembled into one awful caricature of a human being. Fingerprints and dental records confirmed it. On closer examination, they were covered and criss-crossed in hairline scar tissue so faint that we needed a microscope to see it. We had no idea where they had gone to,

But whatever had taken them had the surgical ability to manipulate flesh and blood on a level we could barely fathom. And suddenly, it all made sense. The camera outages, the missing time, the sightings. If the shroud worked as a blanket dimension covering our reality, then it could have simultaneously enshrouded another reality, maybe even multiple realities. There was something else moving about inside the shroud. Attention all personnel. Multiple hostels detected within base perimeter. Report for duty at once.

Shit. Sit tight for a second, Doc. Any idea what we're up against here? No, sir. Radio chatters all over the place. No one knows what's going on. Whoever they are. They've already taken out two perimeter posts.

No sightings has a geth. Damn. All right, keep this door locked and the hallway clear. Yes, sir. Oh, God. It's all our fault. All right, enough goddamn small talk. Tell me what they are and how many we're up against.

Tell me now, goddammit. I have no idea. There could be two of them. There could be 2,000. Wherever they are. Wherever they're from. It's from someplace beyond our understanding. But they communicated with us in a way.

They told us what they wanted. And just what the fuck was that? After we finally decided to euthanize that poor, disfigured creature that they had turned the ghost man into, we performed an autopsy on the body. There were rat organs seamlessly fused into the chest cavity, along with a pair of chimpanzee eyes. And those things that abducted them, those same things that are out there right now? they somehow attached all three separate frontal and temporal lobes into a single sensory cortex, along with three sets of raw pain receptors running throughout the entire body. That meant that all three of the ghost men were still aware, still cognizant of who they were

while they were alive in that grotesque body. And they had been in a near constant state. of unimaginable pain before we finally put them down. That was a clear message intended for us, a warning shot, to anyone who came near the shroud. The shroud belonged to them. Stay the fuck out. And we, we didn't listen. What the hell do you mean you didn't listen?

What did you weasily little shits do? We made first contact, our science, our calculations, our determination. We'd gone too far to turn back. We all agreed. It was Jenkins who made the final decision, so we sent in a second round of subjects, another crew of ghost men. Three more individuals, off the books without the Pentagon signing off. You did what? Contact!

I had no idea what had happened before. They went into the shroud armed, but they didn't last long. They were abducted in less than an hour. That was two days ago. They showed up back in the saturation chamber earlier tonight, fused together, a skinless, inside-out, blob of limbs and organs. But they were alive and screaming. They were screaming.

But they weren't alone this time. Their abductors came along with them. Jenkins turned to me to say something, but I never got a chance to hear it. His head was suddenly ripped off his shoulders by invisible hands. And that's when the massacre in the lab began. Shit. Stay behind me, Doc. We're about to find out of these fuckers of bulletproof.

I thought it was clever. hiding in that bio hasn't been. I thought I'd gotten away. They were just using me as bait. They knew you'd bring me here. They want to kill us all. They want to kill us all.

I can't tell if I hit it. Where the fuck is it at? I'm so sorry. We trust Pat. Our service concludes we send you away with our blessings.

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