The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S13E06

Episode Date: July 28, 2019

It's episode 06 of Season 13. On this week's show we have tales about those things fun and frivolous and frightening. "Blackberry Gap" written by Luke Kondor (Story starts around 00:06:20) Produced by: Phil Michalski TRIGGER WARNING! Cast: Narrator – David Ault, Son – Erika Sanderson, Jonah – James Cleveland "Calvin" written by Carson Ray (Story starts around 00:21:25) Produced by: Jesse Cornett TRIGGER WARNING! Cast: Narrator – Peter Lewis, Mother – Nikolle Doolin, Father – Jesse Cornett "Waterless" written by Rose Blackthorn (Story starts around 01:08:00) Produced by: Jeff Clement Cast: Narrator – Jeff Clement, Gus Boggess – Mike DelGaudio, Dan Parker – Peter Lewis, Doris Nelson – Jessica McEvoy "The Puppy Mill" written by Felix Flynn (Story starts around 01:31:00) Produced by: Phil Michalski TRIGGER WARNING! Cast: Narrator – Jessica McEvoy, Mama – Nikolle Doolin "The Uninvited" written by Carly Racklin (Story starts around 01:54:15) Produced by: Phil Michalski Cast: Nessie – Addison Peacock, Mama – Nikolle Doolin, Papa – David Cummings, Elliot – Peter Lewis, Velma – Jessica McEvoy, Ian – James Cleveland, Maye – Erika Sanderson Click here to learn more about the voice actors on The NoSleep Podcast   Click here to learn more about Kid Cryptid Podcast   Click here to learn more about "Impressions of Death" by Marcus Damanda   Click here to learn more about Luke Kondor   Click here to learn more about Rose Blackthorn   Click here to learn more about Felix Flynn   Click here to learn more about Carly Racklin   Executive Producer & Host: David Cummings Musical score composed by: Brandon Boone "The Uninvited" 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

Okay, time for one of my famous No Sleep podcast phone calls, where I call a fan of the show and send them a terrifying message. Yes, I'm sure it freaks people out, but I'm the horrifying host of the show. It's my brand. Here we go. Brace yourself. It's David Cummings, and I'm standing right outside your window. You will never survive the terror of... Oh, gosh, darn it.

Another dropped call. What's wrong, David? What's wrong? I pay a lot of money every month for my cell service, and I keep getting dropped calls. I pay way too much for what I get. Oh, it's frustrating. If you're still using one of the big wireless providers in 2019,

have you asked yourself what you're paying for? I ask myself that constantly. Look, between expensive retail stores, inflated prices, and hidden fees, you're being taken advantage of because they know you'll pay. Well, that's why I chose MintMobile. MintMobile provides the same premium network coverage you're used to, but at a fraction of the cost, because everything is online. I can't even remember the last time I went to a retail location for my phone.

MintMobile saves on retail locations in overhead, then passes those savings directly to you. How much do you pay? MintMobile made it easy to cut my wireless bill down to just $15 a month. And every plan comes with unlimited nationwide talk and text. I get unlimited data on my plan, but frankly, I'm on WIFT, so much, I barely use much data at all. Stop paying for unlimited data you'll never use. Choose between

plans with 3, 8, or 12 gigabytes of 4G, LTE data. And use your own phone with any Mint Mobile plan and keep your same number along with all your existing contacts. In today's day and age, everything is done online. Mint Mobile embrace that. It's the way of the future. I was paying $100

or more a month. Now I pay $15. It's $180 a year. That's $1,020 saved in a year. of using Mint Mobile. And my coverage is amazing. I've never had a dropped call. Ditch your old wireless bill and start saving with Mint Mobile. I must admit, Mint Mobile sounds exactly like what I need. How do I get started? To get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month and get the plan shipped to your door for free, go to mintmobile.com slash no sleep. M-I-N-T-Mobile.com slash no sleep. I'll get right

on that. Hmm, who's calling me? Hello? and coming and I'm standing right outside your window. Wait, how am I calling myself? I don't know. Remember, to get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month and get the plan shipped to your door for free, go to mintmobile.com slash no sleep. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month

at mintmobile.com slash no sleep. We miss at our own risk. Ready? Ready for the dark tails when we dare not close. our eyes. Brace yourself for the No Sleep Podcast. No Sleep Podcast video store.

I'm David Cummings. Our VCR is ready to play stories about those things fun and frivolous and frightening. For most of us, it's summertime. The kids are off school and they're looking for things to do. Have you considered introducing them to the wonderful world of podcasts?

Now, I realize that our stories aren't exactly kiddie friendly, so may I suggest a great new show which can introduce your little ones to the creepy world around us? Friend of the show, Sean Yates and his young son Elias have created a podcast called Kid Cripted, where they discuss all the creepy creatures which just might be real. They're already 12 episodes in, and you and your little ones can learn all about creatures like Bigfoot, lepracons and the lockness monster. It's a fun, family-friendly show, a great way to pass those long summer days.

Check the show notes for a link to the Kid Cripted podcast. And friend of the show, Marcus Demanda, has recently released a new collection of stories in a book titled Impressions of Death. The book is a collection of 15 stories, 12 of which we've produced here at the No Sleep podcast, and three that will be new to everyone. The last story is called No Sleep Live and the Ghost of Cypress Street.

It's a creepy tale based on actual events from the No Sleep podcast live tour, including notes from the tour team themselves. So check the show notes for where you can get your own copy of Impressions of Death and learn what really goes on when the No Sleep podcast hits the road. And so you now have some summer listening and reading to enjoy. Let's give you something to put a chill down your spine as we start the show. So turn down the lights and grab the remote because it's time for our feature presentation. In our first tale, we meet a father on a trip down memory lane.

In a quiet suburb filled with the sound of chirping birds, author Luke Condor introduces us to an evil hidden in plainly. sight. Everything looks normal, but memories swirl of a terrible event from the past, horrific and unexplained. Performing this tale are David Alt, Erica Sanderson, and James Cleveland. So be careful when you follow someone into the unknown, because even the most innocuous of places can hide awful secrets, especially when you head into Blackberry Gap. I stand, at the gap's exit, the point at which downside drive meets the back of the garages of the fire service building. There sits a single bush, the roots jutting out from the concrete.

Broken glass crunches under my feet as I walk to it, crouch down. Lifting the branches, I see how solidly the walls meet pressed so tight you might think they came out of a mold that way, forever fixed. There used to be a gap here. I say this to my son, who's behind me kicking his football against the curb, bouncing it back to himself. He doesn't reply. Just keeps on kicking. And Blackberries.

Some Blackberries, too. No answer. But that's okay. He wouldn't understand. This was the Manor Estates, the place where I grew up. My son couldn't give two shits about it, and quite rightly so. But he's a good kid. He's letting me bathe in my nostalgia, wondering how this place could be so small.

Have I grown or have these estates shrunk? Both seem plausible. I think back to my friend, what's his face? Joe, Jerry, James, something with a J at the front. I wonder how I'd not thought of him until now. It was him who told me about the gap, said he'd passed through it many times, that it was like going through. another world. I hadn't thought about it for a long time, but now walking around, past the park

where we used to play hide and seek, the old Archer's house with the crooked tree out front, the same Staneland household at the end, I'm having all sorts of memories wash over me. I remember that I used to be terrified of the Stanny brothers, but now they seem so small to me, so silly. I even consider going and knocking on the door, asking if they still live here, but I don't. because I'm pretty sure that they don't. We've all moved on now, except for my friend Jason. That's not his name, it's getting closer, though.

He doesn't live anywhere anymore. But it's this gap that has me scared, not shitting myself scared, but that creeping sort of scared that has you rationalizing things, reminding yourself how it's all okay, because the gap isn't there. anymore. I must have made it up. Yeah, I must have, because here is where the exit should be.

This is where we came out. And now there is nothing. So where did we go in? I picture the entrance. It was right around the other side of downside drive, up onto Tudor close, to where the garages circle around the gravel road that leads towards town. The place where I fell off my skateboard, gouged out a nugget of flesh from my kneecap. I still have the scar. The gap itself was a weird little oversight of planning construction. It happens. Sometimes the meters don't quite add up.

You find an extra inch here and there, and soon enough you end up with an oddity, a gap, about a thousand meters or so in length, less than a meter wide. The walls on either side were two stories high, skyscrapers to a child's eye. The entrance was hidden. God knows how my friend found it.

He took me there once, led me down behind the garages, past the dried red paint on the floor, some empty beer bottles, and pointed to it. Greenery spilled out from its side, and I saw blackberries growing there. I picked one, went to eat it before I saw a green fly flapping its wings on its surface, burrowing down into the nook between segments.

Suddenly ready to gag, I threw the berry against the floor, where it splattered ruby red juice on the concrete. There was some on my hand, too. A couple of small black seeds stuck to my fingertips. So, the gap, I remember now, it wasn't wide, arm's length at most. One quick peek, and you'd be right to turn away. It was a dark and dank and soggy little tunnel,

all cobwebs and shrubs and lost things, balls, frisbees, a dog collar. Some way further up, there were scattered old newspapers, sodden and stuck to the ground like carpet. It was dark, too, mostly. The creeper vines and brush acted as a ceiling. Sunlight found its way in, but there wasn't much of it. It pierced through in places like fingers of fading lights guiding you on. You've been all the way through. My friend nodded, told me where it came out, the exit, said it wasn't too dangerous.

Hmm, creepy as fuck, though. I nodded, confirmed that it certainly was. Fancy it? He placed a blackberry in his mouth, squinting at its tartness. And it's safe. Safe enough. I don't turn around. I can't now. I'm lost in memory thinking about how people say there are two worlds,

the adult one and the kids one. They coexist these. worlds, but where adults see hills, children see mountains, where adults see a makeshift den in the woods, children see a beatific wonder. And where adults see roads and garages and concrete, children see gaps, and sometimes, sometimes they go into them. It seemed safe enough, sure, but it stunk, something rotten like old dead fruit and lost leathering animals. It very quickly became claustrophobic. We could stand for the first hundred metres or so before the ceiling of vines and shrubs dropped too low and we had to crawl, keeping our hands pressed to the walls as we went, but occasionally

having to brush branches and cobwebs out of our faces. The trail of dropped newspapers led to a thick stack so old and so sodden that they looked like one solid block, all separation lost. The topmost paper mostly faded, but for the headlines. I saw the date and it was old. Ancient history to my young mind. We continued on, me leading the way, my friend just behind, feeling the backs of the concrete garages with our hands, covering them in dust and dirt. innocent snails popped underfoot as more webs caught in our hair, noses, eyes. Then it got tighter. The green ceiling became lower and thicker. Those fingers of sunlight now all but gone. We were passing the halfway point when we heard the noise and felt the earth shake.

A deep vibration that we felt through the souls of our trainers, through the concrete on the walls, as if some subterranean animal was well beneath us, deep in the earth, growling. Chalky dust spilled from above us, and we both coughed on it. I suggested we go back. No point now. We better just go on through. He nodded past me, and I saw the small pocket of daylight, smaller than the size of my hand at the very end.

At the time, I meant to ask if it was like this the last time he came through, All conversation had left me, taken over by the feral need to survive. I figured questions could wait until we were out the other side. I figured wrong. We crawled on, snagging clothes and hair on the thorny branches and clawing sticks. The nature itself seeming to be catching us, slowing us down on purpose. I cut my hand on more of the broken glass down there. It bled, mixed with the chalky concrete dust.

I would have cursed at such a wound any other day, but I was too focused in that moment. The wall shook again. Icy fingers seemed to stroke the lower of my back. I looked to my friend, saw a speck of blackberry juice on his lip. He looked back at me with the same wide eyes. We both felt it. We didn't need to say anything. We'd both felt the walls move.

On our right side, the wall of pebble-dashed concrete, had shifted. Looking down, we could see it. What would now be the backs of the houses on Tudor Close had moved, maybe less than an inch. Bracken and greenery had bunched up, like the carpet of the gap was being rolled up, squashed shut. The understanding between us was instinctual, maybe even spiritual. All logic flew out of the window, and what we were left with was a simple fact that the gap was closing. The fucking gap was closing. We pushed ourselves through as fast as we could. The overgrowth grew thicker, angrier, gripping at our hands, our knees, our ankles. I screamed as the wall moved another inch. It was obvious then, blatant. The gap intended to close

all the way, like back teeth clamping shut, two hands pressing together, crushing whatever black breeze happened to be caught between. The scramble that followed. The scramble that followed, almost feels like a fever dream to me now. The earth around us continuing to growl that angry whale song as the gap tightened. The pocket of light at the exit grew wider like an eye of sunlight opening. I scraped my way through,

digging my fingers along the concrete walls, losing a fingernail as I went. My friend, Jonas, was it Jonas? Pushed at my back too, screaming such a piercing wail that I almost felt it biting at my subconscious could feel it turning me several shades white. In the end, as I saw through the exit, saw the feet of people walking by not paying attention or not hearing this chaos, I screamed for help as the wall now pressed up against my chest, squeezed the air out of me.

The wall moved some more, seemed to speak to us, seemed to laugh, the way snow does when it avalanches, the way mountains do when they shift and make faults, the way volcanoes do as they bomb. The gap closed its mouth. I made it through, tumbled to the floor and cried, clutched my bleeding wrist and broken ankle. Only now did the adults, a man and a woman walking their dog along downside drive, see me, hear me. I think maybe it was the Stanelin parents. To be honest, I can't remember. They came over, asked what was wrong, but all I could do was scream and cry and shout for my friend Jonah. poor Jonah.

Yes, Jonah. That was it. He's in the gap. I pointed to the exit. That's when the dog, a little staffageable terrier, bumbled over, picked something up, began to shake it around between his teeth. I didn't need to see what the dog had in its mouth

to know it was a little piece of Jonah squished forward like a blackberry seed. Some of that blackberry seed. produce lay on the concrete, where the backs of the houses met downside drive. There wasn't even a millimeter gap anymore. No planning errors, only a little of the vine and overgrowth pouring out from its end. The woman screamed then at what her little Bruno had in his mouth. I go to yell Jonah's name, but my son's ball comes over to me, bounces against my foot. I turn to him and he's staring at me, head tilted to the side.

You okay, Dad? I wipe away the tear that I didn't know was there. I clear my throat, feel that the rough skin have mashed up fingertips on my right hand. Yeah, I'm okay, just weird. There used to be a gap here. I glance once more at the exit that was no longer there. Wonder what other little worlds I lost along the way, jettisoned as I hurtled through to adulthood. losing friends and memories along the way.

My son smiles, and I kick the ball back to him a little too hard. It bounces on and rolls further down the road. I'll get it. I jog to catch up with it, taking all the while, telling him how he'll understand a little more when he's older, how he should make the most of his time as a kid, make sure to stay in touch with his friends and that. I don't reach the ball, though.

I'm stopped as I hear that same low, rumble deep in the ground, the same mountainous chuckles. I turn, fall to my knees, scream as I catch sight of the back of my son's shoes, disappearing into the gap. Pranks can be fun. It's entertaining to play tricks on people who will take them well. But sometimes a prankster's grinning face can be hiding a deep, dark sadness. Such is the case in this tale, shared with us by author Carson Ray. When a young man's father suffers a tragic accident, his previous jovial prank begins to take on a darker significance.

Performing this tale are Peter Lewis, Nicole Doolin, and Jesse Cornett. So pay attention to your loved ones, even if they're laughing on the outside, because sometimes it's just a mask, and pay special attention if they're spending all their time with Calvin. the first time I ever saw, Calvin. It was late and well after dark. Like clockwork, I left my job at the local grocery store just after 11, and drove the two or three miles to my home. Because I still lived with my parents and sisters, I never got the luxury of having a garage in which to park my

truck, due to the simple fact that each of us had a vehicle, so also like clockwork, I parked down just outside the basement door right at 11.10 p.m. I remember slamming my truck door just a tad too loud, making me wince there in the moonlit dark. If I recall correctly, I think I might have even paused a moment outside and took in the full moon, which lit up the forests surrounding my house, casting skeletal shadows across the uncut grass down below the driveway. I was always a fan of werewolves growing up, you see, so a full moon still brought out some excitement deep down in my chest. Living in a house in the woods, a few miles outside of the artificial lighting of town, really gave the moon room to breathe and glow, as it always should be allowed to do.

I probably stood for a few minutes there on that summer's night contemplating the full moon, werewolves and the beasts within us all. After dispelling my nocturnal reflections, I walked up to the basement door, opened it, and stepped inside. There was Calvin. He was a prank, nothing more, a scarecrow puppet placed inside the basement by my father, who always had a mischievous streak for as long as I could remember. Propped up by a hand truck in several 18-18-inch. Bungy cords, Calvin wore tan carhart overalls, a camouflaged jacket, thick rubber boots, and curiously, a welder's mask. Seeing him there lit by the stairwell behind him was more than a little bit startling. I'm honestly not sure how I manage not to shout or even scream.

Coming home at night and seeing a tall, shadowy figure in a welder's mask in the darkness of the basement was certainly not part of my routine, you see. I'm proud to say I composed myself rather quickly. Calvin, of course, did not move the slightest bit, and after several seconds I could see the hand truck he'd been propped against. Immediately, I knew my father was behind yet another prank, so I was able to relax just moments after shutting the basement door. Nevertheless, I still cautiously approached the steps up into the house proper, due to the... the possibility of my father jumping out of the darkness somewhere the light couldn't touch. While it would have been a perfect opportunity for a scare, my father never materialized.

I paused a moment on my way past this ominous figure to observe what was beneath the eye slit of his mask. All I could see was a pair of wide, terrified eyes leaking bloody tears. Eyes I recognized with a shudder. I knew the rest of the hidden mask featured a gruesome jaw, ripped and torn cartoonishly, moments before the bone was severed completely. I remembered the first time I saw the mask. It was years and years ago when my father wore it as he crawled on his hands and knees, effectively providing all of his children with nightmares for weeks. Here it was, again after a long absence. Though the casual observer with no knowledge of my father's past affection for the mask would just assume the scarecrow was scared of something, they'd have to remove his welding mask to reveal the reason for those agonized eyes.

I stood there for a moment, shaking my head at my father's latest prank, which was easily his best in years. After the initial shock wore off, I found myself admiring my father's youthfulness and heart. hoped I would be as devious when I was in my 60s. I climbed the stairs, turned off the light, and shut the door on the thing I would soon learn was to be called Calvin. The next day I confronted my mother about the thing in the basement, as I wanted to know whether or not my father had managed to startle her with it as well. Apparently, this had not been the case. No, he actually ran upstairs and told me to come see it. He was so proud.

Its name is Calvin. Calvin? Yes. Why did he make Calvin? I think because he was bored. You know how he gets sometimes on his off days. I did know this, so I just accepted her answer and went about my day. My father had been at work.

He had been employed at chart in ballground. as a welder for over 20 years. And while he seemed to enjoy his job, I always got the distinct impression that he carried some mysterious weight that was born out of his profession. Days went by. Every day I left to go to work, I regarded Calvin out of the corner of my eye. I was forced to look at him dead on whenever I returned. I strongly suspected that Calvin was merely part of some longer con to frighten me. All my father would have to do would be to let Calvin stand there for a week or two, steadily lulling me into a sense of familiarity. Then, one night, when he knew I would be returning from work at 11.10, as usual, he could actually dress up as Calvin

and to stand there. When I at last walked through the basement and towards the stairs, Calvin could come to life, yelling and flailing and doing God knows what to send me screaming off into the distant woods. But that never happened. Instead, my father added little details to Calvin and brought in new acquisitions he had purchased from a local pawn shop on his days off. One day I opened the upstairs door to the basement and could only shake my head in disbelief at what was standing at the foot of the stairs. According to my mother, once my father saw something he wanted, the more foolish, the better, he could not rest until he had it for himself. Calvin, who stood a few feet off to the side in front of the stairwell, had been joined by a wooden sea captain, which stood almost five feet high.

Clearly carved and painted by hand, the captain wore the most generic clothing you could imagine for his profession. White captain's hat, blue coat, and white pants. Interestingly, like his roommate, Calvin, the captain had wide, lidless eyes that seemed to stare up into the house proper. I rather enjoyed the sea captain's statue more so than Calvin, and I would often pat his shoulder on my way down to my truck outside. As for Calvin, he always seemed to keep busy. I'll be it in slight ways. For example, one day I'd come home and my father would have turned the hand trucks slightly, giving Calvin a different silhouette against the stairwell light than I was used to.

Much more noticeably, one day I returned to find Calvin holding a meat cleaver. I must say, the initial effect of seeing him standing there in the dark with a weapon was quite effective. But once I moved closer, it was clear that my father had simply taped, of my old plastic Halloween toys to one of Calvin's sleeves since he had no hands or gloves. The sea captain, meanwhile, stood bathed in soft light alone, as if he was reflecting on whatever Calvin had done or planned to do with that toy cleaver. And so time went on, the end of summer wilting away into fall and fall dying into winter. The sea captain, who remained unnamed, to the best of my knowledge, began to wear a grotesque plastic skull Halloween mask my father must have

bought somewhere. Upon closer inspection, it was obvious that it hadn't originally been made as a mask at all. My father had simply taken one of those flat skeletons you hang up, severed the head from the body, and placed the newly fashioned mask over the sea captain's face. Since the skeleton had its own dark eye sockets, I enjoyed not seeing the captain's wide eyes for a few days, before my father became dissatisfied and cut out the skeleton's sockets. The sea captain must always be able to see and watch over Calvin. Some of the changes around that time were not so little or insignificant.

On one cold, dreary winter's day, I returned home from visiting a friend just before darkness fell and found my mother, a normally fierce woman with long and curly red hair, running through the house screaming. She kept carrying on and on about some phone call she just received, but her words sounded jumbled together with no coherent pattern. It took me several minutes to calm her down before she could articulate the soul. source of her anguish. Your father got into a fight at work some disagreement with a co-worker. I don't know. He's in the hospital. As my mother screamed out this information to me and my two younger sisters, the 16-year-old twins, Caitlin and Kim, cowered in their shared bedroom. I still remember their whimpering, squeezing through the walls. I convinced my mother not to force my sisters to accompany us to the hospital until we knew what was really going on. Eventually, she agreed.

After telling my sisters to keep an eye on their cells and wait for my call, I drove my mother to the hospital. To say she was still in a frantic state would be putting it most likely. When we arrived, we met with a few of my father's co-worker friends sitting in the waiting room. Though they were polite and repeatedly stressed that they would help us out, in any way they could, I knew it was worse than I feared, by the way they constantly avoided eye contact and dodge questions. After a few minutes of interrogation, I gave up and followed my mom to my father's room, the root cause of the argument still eluding me. My father sat propped up in bed, his face wrapped tightly with gauze. His right eye significantly bloodshot and slowly leaking

thick tears peaked out from the gauze above a slit for his swollen lips. Seeing my father like that, it chilled me to the core of my being, which finally opened up a small measure of panic in my chest. Though my mother was frantic, I was very grateful that she didn't scream when she saw him there, since his appearance was not unlike the mummy in those old Universal Studios' monster films. She reached across the bed and hugged my father's chest. His only eye stared across the room into a muted wall and a television that had never been turned on. He said next to nothing that entire first day.

Steadily we pieced together what had happened. My father and a man he worked in close quarters with suddenly broke into a heated argument startling everyone else nearby. Everyone I spoke to said that there was. was no build-up, they simply began to yell at each other. Though there was an initial burst of thrown punches, things spiraled out of control within seconds. The fight got so out of hand that the co-worker took a welding torch to my father's face, more or less melting his left eye and a good portion of his nose. Not only that, the assalter battered my father repeatedly in the face

with gloved fists once he was down. I can still recall the anger and fear that surged through me. What had my father said that warranted having half of his face melted off? Had he done something or had he caught the other man doing something? Though the nature of my father's injuries became clearer to us, answers regarding the argument itself were not forthcoming. It would nag at me at all hours of the day. and only rest whenever I was asleep, sometimes not even then.

Some time passed. I can't say I remember how long. If you have ever been stricken by tragedy, especially the sort born out of violence, you know how it slides a hot knife into your routine and changes everything. My days became a revolving door of nurses, doctors, family, and friends walking in and out of my father's little room. My father steadily began to respond more often,

though the fact that his usually cheerful voice was hollow and devoid of emotion unsettled me to no end. In fact, it was hard to tell that the quiet man in the gauze was my father at all. Though the cause of the argument that would end up destroying his life continued to elude me, I learned that the man who disfigured my father's father's... face had been promptly fired and arrested. It occurred to me then that perhaps my father's co-workers didn't even know themselves what had been said between the two men. Perhaps only my father and his attacker knew the true reason behind their disagreement. Regardless, the attack was so sudden

that my father had been unable to defend himself before the flame kissed his face. To her credit, my mother managed to hold it together longer than I thought she would, especially considering the severity of her initial meltdown when I found her screaming at the house. She was no doubt more than a little shaky sitting there beside my bandaged and near silent father in his hospital bed, but those long days revealed her to be the fierce woman she was. She didn't even scream when they removed my father's bandages. Looking back on it now, I think my father desperately wanted her to scream and run out of the room. Maybe he just wanted her to drop what he saw as an act and recoil before him,

driving home the horror that had been done to his countenance. I could tell that my father didn't feel human at all anymore, so why should he still be treated like one? Had my mother screamed and abandoned him, maybe he could have crawled away somewhere and mourned alone in the door. dark. Whatever was going on in my father's head, I could see in his remaining eye the heartbreaking truth. He wanted my mother to leave him, leave him and be free of him. He did not want her chained to a monster. But that did not happen. My mother didn't so much as flinch when the

nurse removed the bandages. She didn't cry out. She only stood there and was, When my father was fully exposed, sat beside him and hugged his heaving chest as ragged sobs sounded throughout the cold room. As we already knew, my father's left eye was entirely gone. In its place remained a tangled mass of shiny tissue, so bright in the light it appeared to have been made out of an entirely different substance than skin. More than half of his nose was buried beneath that terrible clump of melted skin. The right nostril, the only discernible similarity from weeks before.

Though a good portion of his left cheek was burned as well, the damage was nowhere near as severe. Seeing my father displayed in such a way, truly drove home the fact that his attacker had not only gone straight for the face, but straight for the eye itself. While the average bystander would probably believe I should have been livid and make no mistake I was, when I saw my father's new face for the first time, all I could feel initially was, well, an overwhelming relief that his attacker had left him one good eye. He didn't talk much in the weeks that followed, even after he returned home. He would just sit in his recliner in the living room for hours.

hours and hours staring at a blank television and mumbling to himself. While my mother was clearly and rightly worried, she seemed able to take comfort in the fact that he was still with us. My father seemed completely unable to see things in that light. He would speak when spoken to, but beyond that, he was a silent, brooding presence in the middle of a once lively house. My sisters tried to engage him in conversation when they could, but they might as well have been talking to one of my father's pranks. I can't say I blame my father, though half of his face looked the same as ever. You couldn't really see past the new side. You go through life knowing disfigurement is one of the worst things that can physically happen

to a person, but that fact truly doesn't hit home until it has. happens to you or someone you love. The person changes both physically and mentally. My father changed so much. There were times I thought I could see the change in his heart before I saw the change in his face. It was like that for a time. I began working extra shifts, working as close to overtime as the company would allow. My mother eventually went back to her job at the bank, having strained all the vacation time she'd built up. My sisters resumed their sophomore year of high school, their grades only slipping just a bit. And my father sat in his chair in complete silence, not even the overhead fan on to generate some shred of noise. Every night I came home to see Calvin standing in the

basement, his plastic cleaver still raised at an awkward angle. Though he was macabre in every sense of the word, after my father's accident, I began to see him as a relic from a much happier time. Each time the thought entered my head, it cut me deeply. The simple thought that my father's youthfulness was no more, being a tough pill to swallow. Then, suddenly, there were signs of life. One night I came home and was almost up the steps before I turned around and noticed that the sea captain was now wearing a wide-brimmed hat. Like Calvin, the sea captain had been untouched for months and seemingly forgotten by everyone else.

Here he was wearing a hat my father often wore in the rain. It's strange to say that a hat on a wooden statue could instill me with hope. But that's what happened. Maybe my father could come back from this after all. And for a while it seemed to be. like he was doing just that. It all started with the simple things, a hat placed on a statue, the television switching on, a chuckle at a good joke. He would move around the house a little more,

occasionally shuffling into the kitchen or just stretching in the living room. Sometimes he would even make or answer phone calls. Sometimes, during those fragile days of rediscovering who he was, He would find reasons to go downstairs. During that time, I was still working extra hours to help pick up the slack, so I was never home enough to see my father go down to the basement and tinker with his little prank hobbies. I was amazed at how subtle my father could be. Sometimes Calvin and the sea captain would have shifted positions by only a few feet.

Sometimes the skull mask would be on the sea captain, sometimes not. For the most part, Calvin was never tinkered with too much, beyond some slight shifting and rearranging. My father was oddly proud of his grotesque creation. So much so that I heard him referring to Calvin as his oldest son when he was on the phone with a co-worker. At first, the comment struck me more than a little odd, but this was my father, after all. His eccentricity was endearing, if occasionally misunderstood by people outside his family and close social circle. After a few months, he even went back to work. No doubt he was nervous and self-conscious due to the burns on his face,

but I was proud by how rarely he showed it during the days leading up to his return. I heard he was warmly received, which didn't surprise me in the slightest. My father, wherever he went through life, has been well liked by just about everyone. I had never known him to acquire a rogue's gallery of enemies until the moment I heard he'd been placed in the hospital by someone he worked with. Him returning to chart was the last piece of the puzzle. For a time, everything, not counting my father's appearance, of course, went back to normal. Looking back on everything as I'm doing now, I would say the cracks.

began to show after my mom received a strange phone call from Doug Evans, who worked at chart with my father. I didn't think much of it at the time, but I can't blame myself for that. After the conversation with Doug, my mom sat at the kitchen table with a confused look on her face, which was how I found her as I was getting ready for work. I asked her what was wrong and she told me what Doug had said. For the most part, my dad was the the same in the work setting. He was jovial, especially considering the circumstances, and his joking nature seemed to strengthen and become more pronounced by the day. But Doug had noticed something was off about him, whenever the two engaged in extended conversation. For example, Doug said that

my father would occasionally slip and get the names of his own children wrong. While this was disconcerting, I immediately chalked it up to my father's nerves about returning to work and to the real world in general. But that wasn't all. Every now and then, my father, in the midst of an already established conversation, would suddenly swerve into entirely unrelated topics that made no sense of any kind. When my mother pressed him, Doug couldn't recall most of these topics, though he did remember my father saying something along the lines of the black goat. calls to all of us. Doug repeatedly informed my mother that it was all nonsense and strongly advised her to keep an eye on my father. Should he get worse, Doug recommended a grief counselor that had helped him

through the sudden death of his brother. My mother thanked him and hung up the phone, saying nothing for several minutes after. Initially, I wasn't worried. After my mother told me everything Doug had said, I immediately made the argument that my father was still struggling with trauma. How couldn't he be? Half of his face was melted off by an insane co-worker. Trying to assimilate back into the flow of his everyday life before the attack must have been placing some strain on him. I urged my mother to not say anything at first so he could quietly gauge his behavior when he was at home. Since these strange memory lapses and sudden conversational detours were news to us. I felt that there was a chance they were only

occurring because of a spike in nervousness in the workplace. I was wrong, simple as that. It took a few days, but eventually my mother confided in me that my father was saying strange things at the house as well. Due to my work hours, I was almost never home when my father was awake, so it fell to my mother to carry out the brunt of our silent investigation. He seemed jovial enough the few hours I saw him during those days, other than the fact that his current level of ease and happiness around the house was a far cry from what it used to be. He was just happier than he was during the first month or so

after returning home from the hospital. But, yes, eventually he began saying strange things in front of my mother, though to the best of her recollection, he never. mentioned anything about Doug's black goat, he still hit her with some bizarre statements. Once during a conversation about an upcoming car insurance payment, my father randomly informed my mother that, and I'm paraphrasing my mother here, to the best of my memory, the headlights can't see three feet into the dark outside the door. When my mother asked him to repeat what he had said, my father had no idea what she was talking about. Soon my father's words began taking on an even more

sinister edge. Things like tears fall from the shameless eye. The young babble endlessly in my dreams. Why does God laugh at me whenever it's dark? The beast drags the ship down into the depths. Black flames burn higher and higher. Oh, each of these statements are certainly distressing, especially considering that there was no build-up or logical lead-in before my father said them. After he said these things, he would immediately zoom to another topic or back to the ongoing one. Once again, when my mother asked him to repeat himself, my father seemed legitimately dumbfounded. I myself never heard my father say anything so ominous, which I am now more than thankful for. Soon my father's little prank hobbies resumed in earnest.

The sea captain was turned at the bottom of the stairs to face anyone, mostly me, who came in through the basement. He purchased an assortment of random objects, an old hair-drying chair from the 50s, a green and black box. boxing dummy, several glass bottles with little ships inside and cartoonishly large spectacles. My father claimed he needed these nonsensical items to help further his important work, which I never took seriously as he followed the statement with a conspiratorial wink. For the most part, Calvin remained untouched during this surplus of odd behavior. Those wide bloody eyes stared back at me in silent terror each and every night I returned home, though by now I had trained myself to never ever look at my father's oldest son in the face.

In my mind, Calvin came to represent something I even now can't seem to put into words as clearly as I want to. Calvin was easily my father's most sinister and disturbing creation, but I had to remind myself that he was born before the attack and burning. As my father's unfathomable behavior and strange statements increased in frequency over the next few weeks, a distressing thought steadily began to burrow its way into my mind? What if my father had already been losing his mind before he was attacked? It was a simple thought with endless potency. Had I been mistaking my father's quirks and eccentricities as harmless nonsense when they were in fact evidence of a fraying mind? Was it possible that his burning and disfigurement, though temporarily suspending my father's usual moods and action?

in a veil of depression exacerbated a mind already on a downward spiral. My father refused to go see Doug's recommended counselor with my mother, actually getting outright hostile at the suggestion. By the time I heard the yelling from my room at the end of the hall and opened the door, my father had already scaled the steps down into the basement. I comforted my mother, her face swollen through crying and she, sheer stress before stealing myself for worse as I too began making the descent into the basement. I wasn't even a third of the way down before I froze in place, heard my father whispering to Calvin.

His words were soft and quiet even in the stillness of the basement, but I could hear the rage and hurt in his voice. He whispered breathlessly into Calvin's non-existent ear, as if he expected it the grotesque to turn its head and rattle off some sage, endlessly helpful advice. The sound shook me to the core, but I managed to recover quickly and resumed walking down the stairs with thudding footfalls, alerting my father and giving him more than enough time to compose himself. I was surprised to find him visibly shaken. He was clearly embarrassed that he had raised his voice towards my mother. His hands were even trembling.

Seeing my poor, disfigured father, shaking with shame in a dark basement, really took the fire out of me. Any predetermined argument or choice of words I had intended for him withered away in an instant. Mother, is a good woman. The bastard her of his, she's chained to a hideous freak. For the rest of her life. The words sliced through me like a hot blade. All this time I had believed that my father was steadily recovering from his ordeal. Had all the signs of his progress, the laughs, the jokes returning to the workplace,

been nothing more than a ruse? Some sort of brave face to replace the one he felt had turned him into a monster. In the basement, next to a silent Calvin, I listened to my father, spill his heart out. It was real. I know that deep in my heart. I won't repeat it here. Those words will stay just between us. Just know that he did not utter one bizarre sentence that derailed the sentiments that came before. He did not cry, but there were more than a few times when I so desperately wished he would. Maybe it would have helped to break the terrible tension. Maybe it would have just made things even worse. worse. No son normally likes to see his father cry, no matter how badly the situation calls for it.

I wouldn't have liked it, but I believe and still believe that it would have been preferable to the almost robotic state I often found my father in. Everything was all right again for a few days following our heart to heart in the basement. The tension in the house was still palpable as if some explosion could set any and everything ablaze at the slightest drop of a hat or wrong word. My father called out of work, which was no problem at all, as his co-workers and bosses now probably felt that he shouldn't have returned so soon in the first place. For the two days, he just sat in his recliner with his feet kicked up and watched Westerns. He was cordial and respectful towards my mother and sisters,

he was spoken to, but he never seemed to initiate any conversations himself. It was a strange thing, seeing him sitting there and watching those movies, which was a regular pastime of his long before the accident. What once brought him joy and comfort now only seemed to underline the normality that he felt had been taken away from him. Soon the strange babbling started up again. One day he decided not to turn on the television after I got out of bed, opting instead to sit in his recliner, stare at a black screen, and whisper to himself for hours and hours. Though he would stop immediately and respond to anyone speaking to him, he would resume the whispering seconds after the end of the conversation. Sometimes I would walk into the living room and just stand there and listen to him, trying to pick out what he was saying. He was so quiet that I could pick out only the occasional, nonsensical word or phrase.

My mother now seemed to have perpetually swollen and pink eyes. Don't know what to do anymore. I feel like I'm lost. Lost in a house I've lived in for almost 30 years. With a man I've known and loved even longer, it's like he's a different person. It'll be okay, Mom. He's just... he's still adjusting. Why don't we call Doug and see if he'll come over for a visit?

Dad could use a friend. Mom made the call and Doug said he would be free the next day around seven at night, which I felt was perfect considering I had an earlier shift at work that would allow me to return home around the same time. After the phone call, my mother and I embraced. The sounds of my father's whispering strifting down the hall. way like some broken children's toy that should have been thrown out long ago. Today was the day of Doug's visit. I had left for work around 10 this morning, and I admit I was glad for it. When I left the house,

my father was more or less comatose, his whisperings from the recliner barely audible. My mother nodded from the kitchen as she was serving pancakes to the twins. Seeing my sisters there at the table, Their faces dominated by grief and worry made me realize that I had neglected them during this entire ordeal. I felt shame as I walked down the steps, past Calvin and the sea captain, and out of the house. The weight of Doug's impending visit made work pass by like an idiot beast crawling on its belly. The slow dragging of the day was made worse when I realized that I must have left my cell phone at the house. Nevertheless, on my lunch break, I used one of the work phones to call home and see how everything was going. My mother answered on the first ring, her obvious nervousness, an interesting

counterpoint to the thick fatigue in her voice. He's still in the recliner, talking to himself. He hasn't even got enough to go to the bathroom or eat anything. Christ. Oh, you left your phone on the kitchen table. Did you want me to bring it to the store? Nah, leave it. I've only got a few more hours left. I'll see you guys soon. The last four hours of work dragged on by. It was actually a bit longer than that as I got held up and wasn't able to clock out until 30 minutes after when my shift was supposed to end. When I reached the time clock, I was nervous. The thoughts of my family and my family.

and Doug awkwardly sitting in a room with my near catatonic father racing through my head with reckless abandon. I ignored the speed limit on my way home. As I pulled in the driveway, I saw Doug's green S-10 parked in the yard and drove around in front of the basement to my normal parking spot. I took a moment, no more than five seconds, to compose myself out in the dark before entering the house. The air was crisp and cool, but not unbearably so. Stealing myself, I entered the basement and shut the door behind me. Dly, I noticed that Calvin was gone. The tall, haunting figure was not standing in front of the staircase.

The soft orange of the single light bulb fixed above the steps did not wrap around and embrace any dark silhouette. Conversely, the sea captain was still there. albeit knocked haphazardly face first onto the ground, the hat and plastic skull mask had fallen off and tumbled a few feet from the fallen statue, for a moment in the silence trying to understand the implications of what was in front of me. Then I climbed the steps as quietly as I could, reaching the door with a shortness of breath and sweaty palms. Can't fully articulate to you how confused and scared I was on that top step of the staircase. I turned the doorknob quietly and practically tiptoed into the house proper. And as it turned out, that fear was justified. I walked into the living room. Doug was there on the

floor, great streaks of blood spiraling out from his body in all directions like the crimson legs of some terrible spider. Red stained the carpet some six-saint. seven feet away from his body. Doug had been hacked and stabbed repeatedly with a heavy sort of blade. His face was a near unrecognizable wad of gore. Great sickening cuts marked themselves all across his forearms and hands. Clear signs of the brutal struggle he was never destined to survive. I must have stood over his body for several minutes,

desperately trying to force my mind to accept and comprehend the sight of the terrible living room decoration. My mother, she had at least made it to the kitchen. I found her face down on the hardwood floor, her back hacked and cleaved countless times by the same instrument that had ended Doug's life. There were deep gouges in the wood around her body where she made. to squirm away from a few of the blows. The house, the tips of my toes, ever so lightly, grazing the hardwood floor, and then the carpet, and then back to the hardwood floor of the hallway. Ever since I had walked up into the house and found Doug, my body and my brain had been

acting and functioning almost independently of one another. Near to the twins' room, I felt pure fear rack into every pore of my skin. My palms were so sweaty that it took me several seconds to twist the doorknop. Turned and vomited on the wall when I saw them. I stood there, but at some point I must have recovered to some degree and lumbered towards my room. That's where I currently am. I see now that I not only locked the door during my shocked days, but I also further barricaded myself in with my chest.

chest of drawers, nightstand, and bed. It's like there's a small hole in my life from the moment I opened the door to my sister's room to when I came to in my small recliner in my room. The only thing I could think about when I awoke from whatever haze had seized me was that my father had helped me drag the recliner into my room just a few weeks before his accident. In my paralysis, I was a while he was I had completely forgotten about my cell phone in the kitchen. I had locked and barricaded myself in my room with no means of calling for help. After I woke up again, I turned on this laptop to see if I could send someone a message. But it appears that the Wi-Fi has been cut off.

After that, I toyed with the idea of jumping out the window. But I swear I saw movement out there in the dark before I closed the bullet. lines. I could practically feel the eyes of some predator observing its prey. So I decided to type this all up in case the worst happens. To give you, whoever you are, the whole story from my perspective, there is a good chance that this will never be read, but I had to try. It's all I could do, really. I do have a shotgun in my room. rounded out by three shells, so the future isn't entirely bleak. As I finish these last few sentences, I'm stealing myself for a fight.

A few times during the creation of this sad little story, I am certain I heard the soft footfalls of thick rubber boots landing on the hardwood floor of the hallway leading up to my room. What is he waiting for? I guess it doesn't matter anymore. The shotgun is loaded, and I'm as ready as I'll ever be. I just hope that when I move the barricades and fling open that door, that I will see Calvin's wide, bleeding eyes peering from the slit in his mask

as I lift the shotgun. I'm in some. In some. strange way, that would be a sight my mind could understand and make peace with. Don't think I'll be able to pull the trigger if I see only one eye staring back at me. As the lights come back on, our stories come to an end. Please remember to be kind and rewind. If you would like to find out how you can hear the full-length versions of our audio program,

please visit the no sleeppodcast.com to learn about our season past program. On behalf of everyone at the No Sleep Podcast, we thank you for listening. Join us at the video store next week. Our door is always open. This audio production is Copyright 2019 by Creative Reason Media, Inc. All rights reserved. The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors. No duplication or reproduction.

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