The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S12E22

Episode Date: May 12, 2019

It's episode 22 of Season 12. On this week's show we have tales about creative expressions of horror and loss. "Gray" written by C.K. Walker (Story starts around 00:02:50) Produced by: Jeff Clement TRIGGER WARNING! Cast: Melanie – Nikolle Doolin, Alice – Kristen DiMercurio, Teagan – Erika Sanderson "Sanguine Libations" written by C.M. Scandreth (Story starts around 00:29:00) Produced by: Jesse Cornett TRIGGER WARNING! Cast: Katie – Jessica McEvoy, Joey – Dan Zappulla, Tori – Addison Peacock "Curse Victim" written by Jazzmin Forrestall (Story starts around 01:10:25) Produced by: Phil Michalski TRIGGER WARNING! Cast: Agnes – Sarah Thomas, Emily – Mary Murphy, Nathan – Kyle Akers "Why I Hate Lightning McQueen" written by Ryan Peacock (Story starts around 01:33:00) Produced by: Phil Michalski TRIGGER WARNING! Cast: Narrator – Mike DelGaudio, Theresa – Sarah Thomas, Daniel – Elie Hirschman, Landscape Gardener – Elie Hirschman "A Car Accident Can Change Everything" written by Lincoln Merch (Story starts around 01:57:40) Produced by: Phil Michalski TRIGGER WARNING! Cast: Narrator – Peter Lewis, Dr. Philips – David Ault, Emily – Addison Peacock, Mother – Erin Lillis, Heather – Nichole Goodnight, Nurse Rhys – Graham Rowat, Sonogram Tech – Alexis Bristowe, Detective Allen – Mick Wingert, Dr. Marshall – Nikolle Doolin Click here to learn more about the voice actors on The NoSleep Podcast   Click here to learn more about C.K. Walker   Click here to learn more about C.M. Scandreth   Click here to learn more about Jazzmin Forrestall   Click here to learn more about Lincoln Merch   Executive Producer & Host: David Cummings Musical score composed by: Brandon Boone "Gray" illustration courtesy of Mark Pelham 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 disturbed as the sleepless hours tick. Brace yourself for the No Sleep Podcast. Welcome to the No Sleep Podcast Sanctuary. I'm David Cummings. Our service this week features tales about creative expressions of horror and loss.

Congratulations to the winners of our Yuppie Psycho video game contest. The emails with the Steam codes have been sent, so check your inbox to see if you've won one of the 20. copies we've given away. Thanks to all who entered. I also want to make a brief mention about how we deal with trigger warnings on our podcast. As many of you know, we provide on our website links to our listeners can be forewarned about certain sensitive subject matters. We have recently enhanced our trigger warnings by providing links to the warnings right in the episode show notes. They're also available on Saturdays when the season past versions of the episodes are

released, so our season past members no longer have to wait until Sunday to view them. As always, we strive to find the best balance of horrifying and disturbing horror in our stories. We recognize some themes can be too intense for some listeners. We always advise that should a particular story veer into a theme which is too much for you, please stop the episode or use the time codes for the stories we provide to skip ahead. This episode in particular would be a good one to make use of the warnings especially regarding stories about children being endangered. But, of course, you're here for horror and disturbing tales.

And it's a good thing, too, because it's time for our service to begin. Bow your heads and hear our words. In our first tale, we meet a woman who's been somewhere many of us can only dream of. space. Only in this tale shared with us by author C.K. Walker, that dream became a nightmare. Performing this story are Nicole Doolin, Kristen DiMecurio, and Erica Sanderson. So prepare to go boldly where no one has gone before and uncover the secret of gray. May I record this interview, Melanie?

I suppose. All right, today is February 19th, 2058, and I am in Brainerd, Minnesota, interviewing Melanie Hagen's of the failed Starburst Mission. It's Richards now. I'm sorry? My last name is Richards now. Oh, of course, my apologies. Mrs. Richards, you have been missing since the return of the Starburst mission, and it was only with great effort and expense that I was able to track you down almost a decade later. Is it true that you were hidden by the government after your team returned from Mars?

No, not by the government. By the others. The others? The others on the mission. I see. And were you aware there is renewed interest in your case? In the events that took place during your time on Mars? No, why is there renewed interest?

I think we all just want to forget about what happened. It was so long ago. It was actually less than a decade ago. Mrs. Richards, were you debriefed when you returned from the Starburst mission? No. Actually, I... I haven't spoken of it in nine years. Since you returned in 2049. That's right. I was sent here to Braynard. I met Ted here. Your husband?

Yes. Why is there suddenly interest in Starburst again? And you haven't spoken about the events that took place on Deco Base with your husband? Of course not. I'm a different person now. I work at the library now, and my name is Kristen Richards. But you are Melanie Hagen's, the botanist on the 2041 Starburst mission to Mars, correct? I used to be. Your husband doesn't know you were an astronaut?

No. He... He what? He wouldn't believe me anyway. Why not? Because of gray. I'm sorry. Who is Gray? She's a little girl.

I'm confused, Mrs. Richards. What do you want to know about the Starburst mission? Right. Melanie, let's start at the beginning. Interviews have been published with all seven other members of Starburst, and every single one of them has refused to speak about what happened during your eight years on Deco Base. Yes, I wouldn't think they would. would want to talk about it.

The government has even threatened a few of them with prison time, but no one will admit how the seven of you escaped Deco Base after the Marsquake. You've never been formally or informally interviewed because no one could find you. Would you like to talk about the events at Deco Base now? Melanie? Are you all right? What are you looking at? She's looking at gray.

Oh, hello. My name's Tegan. Are you interviewing Mommy for TV? I'm interviewing your mommy for an article. Oh. Well, you can't interview Gray. She doesn't talk. And who is Gray?

Teigen, go to your room now. But... Go. I'm sorry about that. Melanie, would you like to talk about Gray? Oh, Gray's just my kid's imaginary friend. And that's what my husband says. I see.

And what do you say? Tegan started talking about her as soon as he could complete sentences. He describes her as short, maybe five or six years old. She... She... She what? She always has her head tilted to the side on her shoulder like this. They say she has one arm raised in the air over her head.

Her little fingers gripping something. They? Both of my children claim they see Gray. Does she speak to them? No. She cannot talk. She only stares. All right. Melanie, do you see her too? Yes. My husband doesn't believe me.

Is Gray here right now? She's always here. See. Melanie, have you spoken to a doctor about Gray? No, a doctor can't help Gray. Oh, right. Well, let's return to Starburst. You were only 24 when you were offered a place on the mission, correct?

Starburst, yes. I had just graduated. My final year, I had a paper published. The Solar Effort Theory. Yes. The IMC thought it was brilliant. They wanted me to test out my theories on Mars. They told me all about Deco Base, which was almost completed at that time. We actually passed Journey 1 on our way to Mars.

Were you very excited? Yes. I was so young and idealistic. I was certain I could grow vegetable-bearing plants in Mars' soil in a controlled environment, such as on Deco Base. So you left in 2040 with your seven other crew members, four other scientists, a pilot, a medic, and a technical expert. Yes. Yes, I was the youngest, but they were all very nice to me. Cragson especially was interested in my research. Mitch Cregson, the geneticist.

Yes, Mitch. Did you get along with everyone? Bonham, the pilot. She and I were close. What about Andrew Belker? I don't want to talk about Andrew. All right, but you got along with everyone. More or less. They were all older than me in their 30s and 40s.

It was hard at first. I'd imagine so. So you arrived in January of 2041. What was that like? It was nice to get off the ship. Everyone had driven each other a bit crazy by then. Cabin fever and all that. Tell me about Deco Base.

It was big. Not that big, thinking back, but compared to the journey, too, it was massive. I only had to share my room with one other person. Amanda Clark. Yes, Clark. She didn't like me much. She was in a relationship with Andrew Belker. Is that right?

I said I don't want to talk about Andrew. Of course. I'm sorry. Now, you were meant to remain at Deco Base for 13 months before returning to Earth, correct? Yes. And when did the Marsquake happen? May. Only four months into the mission. Can you tell me about what happened that day?

Everyone was in the lab. It was the main room, the largest room of Deco Base. Mitch, he noticed one of the tomatoes I had grown was a sort of purple instead of red or yellow. He wanted to document this and returned to his room for his laptop. He hadn't been gone more than two months. minutes or so when it happened. I'm from California, so I knew what it was right away. Everything just shook. I could hear things crashing and falling. I hid under a table. Everyone else did too. It lasted four minutes maybe. Afterwards, so much was broken. A lot of our equipment, the tunnels,

the staging door. And Mitch Craigson? He was trying to do. He was trying to do. He was trapped in his room. The tunnels had collapsed. None of them were compromised, but they were impassable. We couldn't get to him or he to us. Oxygen was still flowing to the lab, but we don't know if it reached the rooms. I hope not. It's better that Mitch just fell asleep than then starved to death. Of course. I understand. Melanie, tell me about the next few minutes after the quake. Everyone was in shock, then mad, at Clark. They thought since she was the geologist,

she should have anticipated the Mars quake. She said that it was impossible to predict. She said it isn't like Earth, and it should only happen once every million years or so. There was a lot of fighting and arguing. I didn't say anything. I was scared. You were only 24.

25 by then. I'd had a birthday at Deco Base. So what happened over the next few days? We inventoried everything. What equipment had survived and what was broken. We talked a lot about what to do. Should we finish the mission and leave in February as planned or depart for Earth immediately? Technically, we had enough food to last, and even if we didn't, we could grow it.

Most of the equipment we needed to continue our research had survived. But we were all stuck in one room together. Everyone had turned on Amanda Clark, even Andrew. Everyone was mad at her. Everyone was miserable. Our communication scatter was wrecked. There would be no further contact with San Diego until we could get in range of earth on the journey too. Which we weren't even sure if the craft had survived.

So what happened? In the end, we decided to return home immediately. Everyone agreed? All of us unanimously. It was horrible all living in one room together. One toilet, two sinks, no shower. So we all suited up and went to leave Deco Base. All right, Melanie.

Most of what you've told me so far has been public knowledge. Everything that happened next has never been spoken of by the Starburst team, so I'd like you to give as much detail about the following events as possible. Melanie, Mrs. Richards, what are you looking at picking at? I need to finish telling you. Everything. Would you like a glass of water? No, no, I'm fine. Melanie, does Gray have anything to do with what happened at Deco Base?

We didn't know she was there. Wait, are you saying there was a child at Deco Base? Melanie, please concentrate. The mission before Starburst was Element. Element built Deco Base. You said you passed their ship on the way. Are you telling me, on record, that they left behind a child? Please just let me finish telling you everything.

We did know she was there, but please don't judge us. We didn't know what else to do. There were reports of a pregnancy on the Element mission, but the official summary said the pregnancy was. terminated. You don't understand the state our minds were in at the time. Tell me about the child, Melanie. You have to understand the rest first. It, the door was two-phase. A lever on the security console opened the door to the staging bay, where our suits were. It used a biometric human heat signature to authorize the egress sequence. The lever

When you pulled it, would start a 30-second countdown to let everyone get inside the staging bay. There were a further four minutes to put on our suits before the lab door closed, and the door to the atmosphere opened. It took approximately one minute to don the suit, and the sequence could be aborted at any time from inside the staging bay. And this is what the remaining seven of you attempted. Yes, but the system had been broken. When we tried to initiate the egress sequence, the countdown started.

But immediately after you took your hand off the lever, the sequence aborted. What does that mean? It means that in order to complete the sequence and open the door, the lever could not be dropped. If it was dropped, the system aborted the egress sequence entirely. Meaning that in order to open the egress sequence entirely. open the door to the atmosphere, someone had to remain behind and hold the lever. Exactly. So someone needed to sacrifice themselves in order for the rest of you to escape.

And wait for those of us who had escaped to contact mission control in San Diego. Then San Diego would need to scramble a mission to rescue the remaining person. That would take a year or so, even if everything moved at a breakneck pace. And no one offered to stay behind? Not even one of us. We knew. Well, the IMC was not well funded under the administration we left when we departed Earth. We talked about it quite a bit.

We all knew there was a fair chance that the IMC would not see the cost-benefit in sending a rescue mission for one person after a failed mission. They had just dumped billions into rhiso base on the other side of the planet. Couldn't six of you escape and then open the next? door from the outside to let the remaining person out? No. That sequence was also part of the damaged console. And your technical expert tried to repair it?

Yes, Belker. He said it was all broken. I see. So the only option was for someone to stay behind and pray help would be sent. Yes. Melanie, all seven of you came back. Because of her. The child left.

behind by the element mission? Because of of gray. She was... She didn't talk. She didn't have any facial expressions or personality. It wasn't like she was even a human being.

Melanie, I know Deco Base was large. But how had a child hidden there for so many months? Survived so many months alone and then hidden from your team when you arrived on Deco Base? You don't understand. She wasn't really a person. Can you explain that?

No one ever interacted with her. She was used to being alone or ignored, I think. Melanie, this is very important. Did you use the child you discovered on Deco Base to hold the lever so that seven of you could escape? We had to. You left a child? there? Alone? There was plenty of food. The tomatoes were growing. Potatoes, even cabbage.

She was a child, Mrs. Richards. She wasn't. But she could feed herself. And water? And after you left, you never let anyone know? Organized rescue for her? We couldn't. We knew we couldn't. We talked about it. Everyone would know what we'd. Done. Your team is disgusting. Despicable, but even so, she could still be saved. It's been nine years since you returned. If what you said is true, Gray could still be alive. No, no, she's dead.

The crops would have gone through their natural life cycle. There would be no food after five years or so... No. I can't. Holy mother of God, if true, this is a monstrous... Act. I've never heard anything quite like it. Melanie, what you and your team did was inhuman. You don't understand. She was blank. Just a body. Just a, a shell. No one spoke to her for years. There was nothing there. She was a child and you used her. Sacrificed her to survive. A little girl, alone, on a planet with no one.

No, she wasn't real. She was real. If you used her to open the door, to push up the lever, the biometrics, Mrs. Richards, Gray was very real. I see now why she haunts your home, your mind, even your children. No, you don't understand at all. She wasn't a real child. I have real children.

They smile and laugh and play. Gray was simply a tool. Andrew, he reconfigured the system to recognize her. We taught her how to hold the lever up. She never asked a question, never showed an emotion. She was more of a robot, maybe. No, she wasn't. This is what you and the others tell yourselves to assuage the guilt about what you'd done.

No wonder Starburst hid you away from the public, What you did stripped you of your humanity, all of you. It was eight years. We were stuck in that fucking lab for eight years. You would have done it, too. I know you would have. Eight years. That is what doesn't make sense to me.

You must have found Gray immediately. Discovered her within the first year or so, and yet it took seven more years for you to find the courage to do what you did. You still don't understand. When this drops Mrs. Richards, it will destroy the Starburst legacy and that of the Element. Everyone will be held responsible. You're not listening. Element had nothing to do with this.

Element lied about a pregnancy termination and left a child alone on a planet for five months. She wasn't from the Element Mission. Are you saying she was a Martian, Mrs. Richards? No. A phantom? We come from. We made her. We made her all right.

What are you? Just what are you saying? We needed another person. Someone to satisfy the biometrics. Someone to hold the lever. So you? I was chosen. I was the youngest.

The most fertile. Andrew. He volunteered. It took two months. I was pregnant for eight and a half. Avinson, our medic, he delivered Gray. And then, and then we knew we had to wait. We figured when she was four, maybe five,

she would be strong enough to hold the lever up. You made a baby. You raised it. With the sole purpose, of sacrifice? We fed her, but we barely ever spoke directly to her. Never looked at her. Never touched her.

Amanda hated her. I think because of what Gray was to Andrew. She was the only one who gave Gray any attention. The only time the rest of us acknowledged her was when she was old enough to understand that she had an important job. We described the love. to her, told her everyone had a purpose and this was hers. But she was a small child, malnourished.

We all were. She should have been able to hold the lever at four, but she was slight and short. It took until she was six. They're all monsters. Oh, no, you still don't understand. Gray was the monster. That's why we called her Gray. Her skin was gray from lack of sunlight and poor diet.

She was born without a soul. No personality. Don't you see? Because she was born to be a tool, that's all she was. A shell. There was nothing behind her eyes. If you could see her standing there against the wall right now, you would know what I mean.

You would know we weren't monsters. Gray was. She haunts you every day. On the day we decided we could finally trust her to hold the lever for the full four and a half minutes. We told her to do her very important job. I remember looking back through the staging bay door. I could see her skinny little arm high over her head holding up the lever. She stared at me as I pulled my helmet on, stared still as I turned away for the last time.

See, we never told Gray where she came from, but I think she knew. I think she knew I made her. And she's still standing there, staring at you, holding the lever even now. Even now. She stares. I worry one day. One day she will drop it. It wouldn't matter.

She's a ghost of your shame. and you're safely back on Earth now. The child you created to pay for that opportunity died alone on a distant planet. No one is holding that lever anymore, Melanie. You're wrong. I can see her right now. What you see is only a manifestation of your guilt.

No, no, no, no, there is no guilt. She wasn't a child. Do you get it? We created her for one purpose, and it wasn't. to be anyone's child. Do you understand? This interview is over. Tell me you understand. Tell me you know that Gray was just a purpose, not a human being.

She was only the lever. Thank you for your time. The article will post within 48 hours. She wasn't a child like my Tegan or Avery. She wasn't my child. Goodbye, Mrs. Richards. Wait, wait. Why do people care about Deco Base again?

Why the renewed interest? Because, Melanie, the ICM recently received a ping from the ether of space, from 33 million miles away, right in the vicinity of Mars, actually. But no one is there, right? Except now, we know that is a lie. Gray is dead. Definitely dead. Whatever they're bringing back is...

Fiction. We're all familiar with it. And according to some of our... Our authors, writing one's masterwork can be hell, and even more daunting when you're working on a group project. Consider this story shared with us by author C.M. Scandrith, where a writer finds herself wrapped up in a collaborative book that demands more than blood, sweat, and tears. Performing this tale are Jessica McAvoy, Dan Zapula, and Addison Peacock.

So grab a hot drink and prepare to curl up with a good book in part one of the two-part tale sanguine libations. Early 2017, a group of young horror writers had an idea. Like many such ideas, it wasn't exactly original, but we weren't going to let that stop us. Once we'd winnowed out those who weren't committed enough to follow through, we started our grand group project, a themed horror novel written by nine different authors. The concept was simple enough. We would each contribute a 9,000-word chapter. Then I had the unenviable task of pulling it all together, editing it and molding it into a printable, publishable product. The subject matter was also nothing

special. It was a house of horrors on rails, moving from room to room through a now derelict mansion. once a haven for a collective of serial killers, all themselves murdered. Each chapter unriddles the story of an occupant, turn by turn, until it's revealed that the author himself is the ninth psychopath and is the ultimate killer. It was schlock, but in the hands of halfway decent authors, it could have been a fun read, if entirely predictable. I suspected that if it had been penned by good, even a few great writers, It might have been memorable enough to attain a low level of cult status.

But instead, it was written by us, a motley collection of narcissists, plagiarists, and hacks, whose sole claim to fame was grubbing for upvotes, likes, and retweets across various platforms on the internet. And it turned out, that's exactly what the book needed. individually, the stories were mostly just bad. As a collection, they really stank. A steaming bucket of humid awful, seeping far more ambition than talent.

Continuity was poor. Thematically, it was a Gordian mess. And I knew from the start I had no chance of keeping all the frayed ends tucked in to sustain the illusion of a grand unifying pattern, because none of us had a fucking clue what we were doing. Plagued by strong personalities clashing over every minor detail, I struggled to keep the group focused on the endgame, desperately writing and rewriting my ending

to try and encompass all the nonsensical drivel I was being served up. What we published was a book called Meditations on Sanguine Libations. Who Killed the Killers? A title just as overblown and tortured as the whole person, pernicious little project. But while we weren't the best writers, most of us were extremely good at marketing. Mustering all the clout of our collective social media, we hinted and teased, name-dropped and spun intriguing half-truths, inflating this book into the most brilliant thing

ever written in the name of horror. And to really up the ante, we promise to auction off a very special copy of the book, signed by each of the nine authors in their very own blood. The online reaction was immediate. Bids started flooding in, every click adding to the hype. It might have been a shit book, but by God we were all going to make some pretty decent money out of it. The first printed copy was sent to Alex, who had penned the opening story. The plan was for him to sign the inside cover with his name, using actual human blood, harvest it from a jabbed finger, then package the bloodied tom up and posted on to the author of the second story, Kelly. But Alex, like many of the others, was prone to theatrics. He'd been one of the biggest

problem children in the group since the very beginning of the project, and never did anything by halves. After he'd been sent it, weeks passed with no further sign of the book, and Alex vanished from social media. Eventually, Kelly got sick of waiting and contacted me, asking what the fuck was going on. I knew Alex lived with his sister, and finally managed to hunt out a number to call her after she blanked every message I sent her online. When she picked up, her voice was distant and hollow. She told me the details like she was reading a story. Her brother clearly hadn't been satisfied with just pricking his finger to sign the book. No, Alex had done what Alex typically did.

He'd gone all in and gouged his name into his wrist, carefully reversed. That way he could press those four bloody letters to the page and reap additional drama points by posting pictures of the healing wound online and have a gnarly scar to show off forever. Well, he got more than he bargained for, but he wouldn't be around to collect it. His sister had to do that for him. Exactly how it ended up with him cold and exeguinated on the floor of his basement room, we can't be sure, but it sounds like the kid hit an artery and didn't stop cutting. Knowing how his mind worked, I'm guessing he thought some impressive extra gore and danger would make the story even better.

but by the time he'd blotched his signature, complete with an artful underline of arterial spray, then realized his mistake, he'd already lost so much blood that he passed out. He then bled out all over the threadbare carpet of the converted cellar where his poor sister found him. As soon as I posted this information to the project group, everyone went fucking bananas. The bids on the book were already well into the thousands. and we'd all been eyeballing that money for bills. Every single one of us was making plans for that cash before we'd collected a dime, and this scandal potentially meant a lot more dimes, albeit at the expense of a dead kid.

Debate raged back and forth about what to do, but at least half of the authors threatened to pull their stories from the project if they didn't get paid what they had expected. In the end, I made an executive decision. I had to talk to Alex's sister again. I wasn't sure whether I was looking for permission or absolution, but everyone made it pretty clear that whatever the moral action was, it needed to be the kind of moral with a payout.

We'd all been telling ourselves that it was what Alex would have wanted. Fortunately, his sister said it was what he would have wanted, or at least she did after I told her how much the story of his death would add to the appeal of the book and how much money we had the potential to make. I got the distinct impression that things hadn't been great between the siblings, that Alex wasn't the success he'd made himself out to be, and that he'd left his dear sister with a bunch of debt to clean up. And, of course, his posthumous share was still on the table for his grieving family to collect.

We went back out to our fans and carefully tailored the story to fit our narrative. Our magnum opus, meditations on sanguine libations, had legitimately killed one of the authors who had contributed to it. There wasn't a true horror fan alive who could resist a story like that. With our project not only salvaged, but even more promising than before, the bickering in the group died down, and we went back to the original plan. I asked Alex's sister to send the book on to Kelly, who was to sign the defiled hardback and pass it on to the third author, Joey.

Kelly had told us she didn't want to have to have her. hang on to the thing for long. So her plan was to pick the book up from the post office and take it back to her car, where she'd draw blood from her fingertip with a diabetes lancet. She'd sign the bloody book in her vehicle, then take it straight back into the post office and send it on immediately. But the book had different ideas. The parking lot was next to a highway, separated from the busy road by only a grass median and a flimsy fence. Neither of the car. of which slowed down the semi-truck and trailer that had blown an axle. Kelly probably had no idea what hit her, intent on signing the book as legibly as possible with

human blood. That was the kind of person Kelly was. She might not have been the greatest writer, but what she did, she did meticulously and thoroughly, never leaving anything incomplete. I knew it would have pained her greatly that the last letter of her name, the very last thing she ever wrote was smeared clean across the page. She was killed outright in the collision. Her mangled body cut from the wreckage, curled around meditations on sanguine libations as though protecting a beloved child. It was a story straight out of Hollywood, a better story than any of us could ever have written, and it was starting to scare the shit out of all of us. Of the seven remaining authors, Joey was next in line to sign the book as the writer of the third chapter.

He'd always danced a fine line between hucksterism and reputability and had been the least keen to contribute to the project, but I'd managed to persuade him by applying a not inconsiderable amount of flirting. Joey was, in fact, convinced we had a beautiful thing going on, even though we lived in different states and had never met. in person. As well as being emotionally malleable, Joey was also an unfortunate combination of extremely bright and quite superstitious, and he wanted nothing to do with the bloody tome that had witnessed the untimely deaths of his peers. No amount of wheedling and cajoling could convince him otherwise. He even banned me from coming into his presence with the book, on pain of ending our

relationship. He also couldn't see why I wouldn't just forge his signature, even though I had explained that I didn't want to risk devaluing the book if that got out. And there was more to it than that. If I did that, I had to justify in my head that Alex and Kelly had paid the ultimate price, while Joey got to wriggle out of his responsibilities yet again. It was a five-hour drive to Joey's place, and by the time I pulled up outside the suburban home he shared with his parents, it was late afternoon, and I was more than a little cranky from negotiating the traffic. My intention had been to sweet-talk him, to play up the girlfriend angle just long enough to convince him to sign the book. Hell, I'd done much worse to get my previous titles off the ground.

After a stilted meet-and-greet with his parents, I ended up in the backyard with him talking about the book. He was fidgety, strained, and talking too fast, quick to fill me in on his theory. His conclusion was worthy of a pulp horror novel in its own right. We'd created a nexus of negative emotion, comprised of the stories themselves, and the fraught interactions within the group while we pulled everything together. And Alex's death had been the catalyst for a sort of literary awakening within the book. It's a book about serial killers, so of course,

Of course its primary motivation is to kill. So, you're saying that if it was about fluffy bunnies, it would be trying to find a pet store? Well, no, because that's not how these things work. People aren't scared of baby rabbits, so it doesn't generate the same aura. You're afraid of the book, aren't you? You're not? I shook my head. Joey might believe in this sort of nonsense.

but I certainly didn't. He held the stare for a long minute, searching my face for any hints that I was lying, genuinely unable to comprehend that I wasn't on board with his brilliant deductions. Anyway, where is the damn book, Katie? You've avoided saying other than it's not with you. I asked Kelly's folks to send it to my place, airmail.

I'll deal with it when I get home. The tension Joey had been holding in his shoulder, Eads a little when he heard the book wasn't anywhere close to him. He leaned forward, a crooked smile burgeoning below his patchy mustache. How about we forget all this stuff for a while? We could try some of those things you were hinting at in your IMs instead. He flicked his eyes at the sliding doors to the den, then back to me. My folks will be upstairs watching TV.

They won't hear a thing. I sighed inwardly. But of course I'd been resigned to this. There was no way Joey wasn't going to make a move on me, but I'd still been hoping to avoid any really messy intimacy. There was nothing wrong with the guy. I just seriously wasn't interested in him. Even as I was mentally bracing myself,

Joey's meaningful stare slid upwards until he was gazing somewhere above my head. I turned as he pointed into, the sky. Whoa. Katie, what the hell is that? Following the line of his finger, I saw the dark, familiar silhouette of a plane against the afternoon sky, but the thick drift of black smoke billowing behind it was no normal jet trail,

and my brain took a second to process the rest. A puffball of white rose like a sinister mushroom from the side, marking what looked like an explosion erupting from the fuselage. Engine failed? I don't think so. Shit, look, I think that's actual debris falling. As we stared, the white cloud flashed orange and dispersed, trailing comets of flaming junk arcing earthward from it.

I felt a sudden frision of real fear, then hauled my gaze away from the sky to look askance at Joey. Um, should we get inside the house? Yeah, yes, quick. Let's get inside. Joey's voice sounded faintly slurred in my ears, as though time had slowed down a fraction. I remember grabbing his hand and pulling him toward the house, but he was a big guy, and as we made for the patio, it felt like dragging a reluctant steer.

The first piece of debris from the stricken plane hit the outdoor table we'd been sitting at, bounced off, then rolled into the bushes, smoldering. The second piece struck Joey in the back of the head. A bright scarlet blossom expanding from the stem of his spine. I knew it was the book. The instant had struck. I didn't even need to see it. The corner wedged into the meat of Joey's name. For a full three seconds, I stood there, stupefied and frozen, before the third piece of debris. thumped down, as if it was a final missile targeted to make quite sure the job was finished. The chunk of fuselage smashed what remained of Joey's skull, splitting it open like a melon. The dangerous goods blowout on the plane had been caused by a mislabeled package, and Joey's death was ruled to be the accident it was. I stayed with his parents for two weeks, playing the part of the grieving girlfriend. by turns numb and inconsolable at his loss.

Before you think too ill of me, there wasn't much acting involved. I'd definitely been fond of Joey, just not in a romantic way. Witnessing his awful death was traumatic, something that I still struggle to process even now. The story got out very quickly to the remaining authors, and the ripples of shock and disbelief were possible. Helpable. Crystal and Rick, the writers of the fifth and sixth chapters, did actually refuse to believe

it was real, insisting this was some sort of elaborate stitch-up to get the fans slavering for more. But I'd been there. I'd seen Joey's body sprawled on the back porch of his parents' place, sanguine libation sticking out of the back of his head, misted with his blood. I saw it over and over. every time I slept, and I heard the damp hand clap of the impact every time I stepped outside. I hadn't told anyone it was the book that had killed him.

Cause of death was attributed to the final blow that had pulted his head beyond recognition. Only I knew that the book had hit him first, that the last impact had, in fact, jolted it free of his flesh, to land right at my feet. I wasn't sure if it mattered anymore. We'd have been able to reconcile the first two deaths, but this was too real to brush aside, even for a group of greedy horror aficionados who had all imagined far more gruesome fictions. As the writer's group dissolved and the book auction was pulled,

everyone groused about finding other ways to pay their bills. But the most honest of us admitted they felt safer for it. Without our avarice fueling the push to give the book our blood, it seemed quiescent, harmless. I'd put it inside a Ziploc back, then I put the bag in a shoebox and pushed it under the bed in my studio apartment. Originally, I'd intended to burn it as a sort of crematory service to the three deceased writers. After all, they were infused into its pages in more ways than one. Maybe that's why I felt like I needed to touch it, to read it before I put it to rest, to viscerally interact with the thing we'd created in our folly.

I owed at least that much to Joey, whose memory filled up a lot of my waking thoughts. The signed names weren't legible anymore. The triple dose of gore from the three deaths had subsumed them, also soaking through a good third of the pages, leaving them brown and stiff. But the stories themselves were still legible through the stains. And as I carefully pulled the crusted pages apart and leaped through the first chapter, I found myself caught up in Alex's writing, drawn into a story that was much, much better than the one I remembered. By the time I reached Kelly's story, I knew something was very wrong.

I wasn't misremembering. This wasn't just some kind of rosy hindsight applied out of respect for the deceased. This was not the same chapter she had submitted. This was a different book. Plot perfect. Every turn of phrase, polished and professional, where each chapter could only have been written by the very best versions of Alex, Kelly, and Joey. And it wasn't just good.

It was fucking magnificent. Torrey Ryarden had always been the best writer in our group by a long shot. Her prose was matchless, but unfortunately her ideas were sparse. She struggled to find originality in a genre that she'd overconsumed. Practically born, Goth, Tori liked to point out that she quite literally dwelt in nearly perpetual darkness. She lived in the northern reaches of Alaska. When I first emailed her the transcription of the irrevocably changed sanguine libations,

she refused to consider for one second that I might be telling the truth. I should have been flattered. Obviously, she thought my editing skills were remarkable, if she suspected I'd wrangled those chapters into the masterpiece they clearly were. But after I sent her unadulterated photos of the heavily stained pages,

she agreed to meet to be in the presence of the book. She was a tiny creature, turtled in a huge sable trench coat and silver studded boots. Mask-like, her stark white face was defined by jet black lipstick and heavy eyeliner, the effects half hidden behind a curtain of dirty blonde hair. She was intrigued by the book, turning the pages reverently, lovingly. One chipped black fingernail traced the words to the end of Joey's chapter, then faltered as she began her own story. What's wrong? For a moment, I'd been transported.

I'd delved into a chasm of perfect, all-consuming darkness. But then I was cast out. Cast out the instant I started my own story. I'm sorry. No, you're not to blame. This was never going to be my best work. Nothing is. I just can't find my voice anymore.

Whatever gift I had when I started writing horror, I lost it a long time ago. The book sat open between us on the coffee table. It's gruesome stains in tune with the dark decor. poor in Tori's spacious and well-insulated home. Rent was cheap at the edges of civilization, apparently. Tori began playing with the myriad silver necklaces that dangled below her throat. I think we both know what my story needs. And that's why you really brought the book here.

Guilt assailed me for a moment. But then she smiled. It was a truly beautiful smile. full of strange peace. Her dark lips, those two rows of tiny teeth were like strings of baby pearls in a black velvet box. It's okay. I wanted it. I wanted to see it happen with my own eyes.

If this is my only chance to be a great writer again, to be a vital part of a real literary legend, then I'll take it. No matter the cost. She unhooked a razor blade from one of her necklaces, then rolled back the sleeve of her heavy woolen sweater. Numerous livid pink scars puckered her skinny arm, overlaying a disused railway of much older, wider ones. Not my first rodeo. She began searching for an unmarked scrap of flesh to cut.

We'd all known Tori's history. when she signed up to the project. Two of her past suicide attempts had been quite viciously publicized by the less savory members of the wider online horror community, and she'd confessed to me during our various online chats that there had been many more, ranging from premeditated cries for help to very serious attempts stymied only by chance. She cut without hesitation, opening a half-inch wound that, that welled immediately with bright blood. Dabbing her finger in it,

she smeared the blood across the first paragraph of her story, pausing to refresh her rudimentary pen when the ink ran dry. Under her ministrations, the letters darkened, then blurred. As the blood dried, red fading to brown, the letters crept back into focus, subtly altered from the forms they had held before, Oh, beautiful. The razor was already poised for a deeper cut.

I felt a pang of something I couldn't quite name. Wait, Tori, are you sure you want to do this? Really, really sure? What do you mean? I have to do this. No, no you don't. I can take the book away. Burn it.

Throw the ashes in the sea. Tori's eyes flayed me, exposing my half-hearted protests for what they were. Her face was no longer a mask. I'd never seen anyone look so alive. You want this as much as I do. You want to see the story finished. To be part of whatever this thing comes. Don't be ashamed of that.

But you won't see it finished if you kill yourself. then you have to make me a very solemn promise. Promise me, you'll finish it, that you'll send it on to Rick and Crystal so that they can complete their part. Then on and on until it's done. This is crazy, but she knew I didn't mean it. I was just following some internal script,

saying the things I thought I should say, given the insane circumstances. The razor's edge was kissing her skin. There's a shopping center a few miles south. Go to all the stores and then the diner. Make sure you're seen on lots of cameras. Spend half the day there. When you get back here, dial 911 and let them know you've discovered a suicide.

I shut my eyes because I couldn't stop looking. at that thin, sharp line of steel, shimmering in time with her pulse. I should call the cops now. I should stop you. But you're not going to. Three minutes later, I was on my way to the township, sleet hammering the windshield of my rental like an admonishment from God. My phone stayed in my pocket, untouched. The fourth chapter was bleakly beautiful, and aria sung by a freshly fallen Lucifer. I knew Tori had read it to the end. She'd traced her shaky initials on the last page, a secret message to let me know she'd seen her greatest work being born in blood, rewriting itself even as she closed her eyes for the last time.

I took it from her as gently as I could, and I knew the smile on her bloodless lips was also meant for me. I didn't mention the book when I dialed emergency services, nor when I was briefly interviewed by the local police. They knew Torrey's tortured history. The EMT who spoke to me first had even found her close to death before, bleeding out in the snow in a local reserve, just three years ago. My promise to her seemed bound up in the book itself. It felt heavier for it, resting in my backpack, swaddled in a towel. The weight of it urged me to get it to Rick and Crystal, to get them to play their part as soon as I could.

The long flight home gave me plenty of time to think, to mull over how best to approach the fifth and sixth authors of sanguine libations. Rick and Crystal were a couple, although how or why they remained together was anyone's guess. They fought like territorial cats, publicly and noisily, complete with endless howling and posturing. It was well known that each of them had cheated on the other more than once, but somehow, even that seemed to have driven them closer together, their sticky infidelity oozing a complicated glue that only bound them. them tighter, locked in a heady spiral of lusty, mutual hatred. As you'd expect, they'd been a complete nightmare to work with. Only the penultimate author, Silas, had been more of a pain.

They fought about whose story should go first, then fought over who would get to use which of the pet concepts they'd both been working on. They bickered constantly in our group chats, and each had flounced multiple times during the course of the project, only returning out of jealousy when the other partner hadn't walked away. You're probably wondering why I hadn't simply kicked them out and recruited better writers who were less hassle to deal with, and that was due to the biggest problem with R&C, that they used their considerable influence with the online horror community

to tear down and destroy anyone or anything they didn't like. To put it simply, it was safer to have them on side than offside. As I wrestled with the problem of convincing them both to do what needed to be done, my mind wandered back to the book, approaching it like a supplicant. In my cramped cattle class seat, I read the first four sublime chapters over and over, convinced the book itself would offer me up a solution. And every time I reached the fifth and sixth

chapters. A visceral disgust would overwhelm me. The perfection of the previous chapters so completely ruined by the piss-poor riding from that pair of toxic assholes. Crystal had managed to get her piece finished first. Her serial killer, a ponderously inept poisoner with all the personality of a toilet roll. She'd blatantly stolen the poisoner concept from one of her partner's old flash fictions. Rick had been furious, and in a fit of petty revenge had taken one of Crystal's pet projects for his own story, and basically fucked it as hard as he could. Both their chapters reeked, bad writing made worse by one upmanship and clumsy jibes. As I held the book in my hands, mulling over my options, inspiration hit me. Two text messages left.

my phone when I landed, one to Rick and one to Crystal. Both messages were identical, except for one detail. The name included. Expect a package from me within the next few days. It's the book. Please sign and send back, but don't tell Rick slash Christmas. It will be our secret. The next day, I carefully packaged up sanguine libations and sent it to California, where the couple lived. The first confirmation that Rick and Crystal were dead came from a breathless online post made by one of their little group of sycophants, hinting about a double homicide at the hands of an intruder. But when the story began to hit the local news, the truth became much clearer. Over the next few weeks, I scoured various

sources to tease out every detail I could find, putting together a roughness. picture of what must have happened. It seems that on the day the book was scheduled to arrive, there was a screaming, acrimonious shouting match heard at RNC's house. It was loud and lengthy enough to register with the neighbors, but the whole street was so used to the couple's fights that nobody bothered to call the authorities. The next day, around 11 a.m., Rick left the house, put something in the garbage, then drove his car into town. When he arrived a couple of hours later, his driving was erratic, and he smashed into a streetlight. He half fell out of the door of the damaged vehicle, then managed to stagger up the steps of his home and get the door open, before collapsing in the front hall.

A neighbor called an ambulance, and not long after the paramedics arrived, so did two police cars at speed. Rick died on the way to the hospital while the cops cordoned off a crime scene. The bloody body of Crystal had been discovered inside the house. Further details were scarce, but there was a lot of speculation. Crystal had poisoned Rick, intending it to be fatal and quick, but he had discovered her murderous plot and stabbed her to death before he succumbed. The theory had some merit. It would explain why Rick's driving was so erratic after he returned from his trip into town, and why he hadn't sought medical attention for himself.

There was a danger that his crime would be discovered if he revealed he'd been poisoned by his partner, and he probably assumed Crystal had bungled her attempt to dose him, just like she fumbled everything else. But even though sanguine libations appeared to have done its wicked work, the book itself couldn't be found. The friend who helped clean up R&C's place after their respective funerals found no trace of the tome, and my careful inquiries to the family and police turned up nothing. It seemed that Rick and Crystal's final act of grand assholery had been to lose the book. In death, they had achieved the destruction of the project, and each sabotaged the other's only chance at greatness. far better than they ever could have in life.

I'd like to claim that guilt ate away at me, that the toll of lives lost to sanguine libations weighed heavy on my soul. I wish I could say that I was forced to confront what can only be described as my own sociopathic tendencies. But instead, I made excuses, telling myself I'd done what I thought was right and reminded myself of the promise I'd. made to Tori.

Besides, nobody would miss, reckoned Crystal, not even their little coterie of online hangars on, who were already using the juicy details of their relationships with the deceased as rungs up the newest social ladder. I'd done a great service to everyone by ridding the world of them. I'd really done nothing except to expose their true natures. They had committed the murders. My hands were clean.

And yet, even as I neatly reconciled my actions, I itched to get my hands on the book, to read the freshly completed chapters. No matter how I tried to busy myself, thoughts of it consumed me, and I compulsively read and re-read those exquisite chapters I'd managed to transcribe. It also seemed I wasn't the only one obsessed with it. The deaths of two more authors stirred up new interest in the lost book, with increasingly exorbitant amounts of money being offered for it. The persistence and determination of some of the potential buyers began to worry me. Initial emails were almost subservient, wheedling and bargaining. But as I failed to respond, the messages became demands, turning suddenly, then quite openly,

threatening. In the end, I just stopped checking my messages. I tried to immerse myself in my writing. I did everything I could to purge the book from my life. I reluctantly deleted the transcripts and the photos, shut down the project forum, and burned my handwritten notes. Nearly two months later, when I finally felt I'd regained enough equilibrium to return to the online world, Hundreds of messages awaited me. Almost all of them were about the book. And amongst them was an email, written in all caps, from the seventh author. Katie, I have the book.

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