The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S14E07

Episode Date: March 29, 2020

It’s Episode 07 of Season 14. This week we conjure spells for you about the risks involved with having faith in others.“The Road of Ice and Men” written by Paul R. Hardy (Story starts around 00:05:00)TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Narrator – Graham Rowat, NKVD Officer – David Cummings“The Black Bag Job” written by Jeff Miller (Story starts around 00:15:30)Produced by: Jeff ClementCast: The Locksmith – Atticus Jackson, Mr. Black Bag – Peter Lewis, Ben – Mick Wingert, Jane – Erin Lillis, The old man – David Cummings“Womb of New Eden” written by C.M. Scandreth (Story starts around 00:43:00)Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Narrator – Sarah Ruth Thomas, Melchior – Erika Sanderson“The Devil Virus” written by Chris DiLeo (Story starts around 01:04:20)TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Kyle – Dan Zappulla, Rev – Mick Wingert, Ashley – Sarah Ruth Thomas, Sears – Graham Rowat, Steve – Jeff Clement, Ambulette Worker – Atticus Jackson, Doctor – David Cummings“Questions for an Abductee” written by Jared Roberts (Story starts around 01:42:30)Produced by: Jesse CornettCast: Narrator – Mike DelGaudio, Jonas – Jesse Cornett, The Chair – David Cummings, Mysterious Voice – Graham RowatClick here to learn more about the voice actors on The NoSleep PodcastClick here to learn more about C.M. ScandrethClick here to learn more about Chris DiLeoClick here to learn more about Jared Roberts Executive Producer & Host: David CummingsMusical score composed by: Brandon Boone“Womb of New Eden” illustration courtesy of Kelly TurnbullAudio program ©2020 – 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

Hi folks, David Cummings here, showrunner for the No Sleep Podcast. If you've listened to our show before, you know that our ads normally take the form of tongue-in-cheek horror stories, riffing on the product we're advertising. For this ad, though, we've decided not to take that route. Right now, most of us are confined to our homes, either only able to leave from work or not at all. Your home being safe is always reassuring, but even more so right now. Good horror often takes a safe space, and makes it threatening. Subverting expectations of somewhere you can feel at ease can lead to effective scares. Right now, though, it feels hard to joke about that. With all the uncertainty in the world, feeling safe at home has never been more important. It's why I want to talk to you

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It's so important that people look after themselves and their loved ones right now. So remember, that's simpli-safe.com slash no sleep for free shipping and a 60-day risk-free trial. From Simply Safe and all of us here, we're wishing you safety and good health. And now with everyone safe and protected, it's time to return to the comforting world of horror fiction. In our world, there is magic in the darkness. Sorcery and incantations which bring us closer to the essence of the night. Come enter our black magic shop, where we will conjure up tales to frighten, and disturb. This journey will be spellbinding.

Brace yourself for the No Sleep Podcast. Welcome visitors to the No Sleep Magic Shop. I'm your proprietor David Cummings. This week we conjure spells for you about the risks involved with having faith in others. So how's everyone doing? We certainly hope you're well and not feeling too bored these days. If you do happen to be looking for something to do, we have an idea that could help fill, well, at least one minute of your day. I don't often mention this, but it can really help the podcast if you rate and review us on podcast platforms like Apple Podcasts. Five stars and some kind words are always appreciated. And if you aren't already following us on social media, we're at No Sleep Podcast on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.

So there you go, one minute of your time and you'll do a good deed and spread some love. And speaking of love, we'd love for you to listen to this week's stories. Now, close your eyes and embrace the magic. In our first tale, we join a Russian soldier in World War II. He's serving out his punishment for going AWOL by serving in a battalion designed for such things. We meet him on an ice road, marching onwards to his destination. But in this tale, shared with us by author Paul R. Hardy, we're reminded that sometimes paths can end before they're supposed to.

I join Graham Rowett in performing this tale. So when your route is blocked by holes in the ground, it's going to take some unusual, morbid planning to continue on your journey. At least when you're walking along, the road of ice and men. There was a man's face beneath the ice. His skin was pale, and his mouth open wide in a frozen gasp, as his dead eyes stared up past the ragged fur of my boot.

I blinked the frost from my lashes and looked again. I was not mistaken. There was a man beneath me, sealed in the ice. I moved my foot and saw the uniform collar at his throat. He wore the field-gray tunic of a not-a-and-a-haired. sea soldier, nor was he alone. There was another German next to him, and below him, and more all around, laid side by side in rows that were piled one upon another. The road I stood on was built from stacked corpses under shallow ice. I looked up and shook my head to rid myself of the

frigid days in which I'd been shuffling down the ice road. I'd come to a halt almost without realizing it, and so had the rest of the column of ragged men in snow-rimmed coats. We were marching to the front to fight as part of a Stravbat, a punishment battalion, and the road of ice beneath our feet was the only passage through a landscape torn to shreds by shellfire. The jagged earth was frozen hard as stone, too difficult to shape into a normal road with pick and shovel. Instead, a narrow highway had been built by filling a series of interlinked, shell holes with the only available resource. The bodies of dead prisoners topped off with a little water to freeze and make a flat surface.

But the road ahead was smashed to pieces. A fresh artillery strike had ripped a new shell hole down through layers of frozen corpses, smashing them into pieces and scattering frozen chunks of pale meat and dark organs across the snow and ice. An officer pushed past me with guards trailing behind. He wore the blue shoulder boards of an NKVD man and a coat unmarred by snow. He surveyed the damage, then turned back to the column and pointed at the men ahead of me. The first twenty, find all the pieces, fill it back up.

The Stravniki ahead of me stumbled forward to seek out the shards of corpses and heft them back into their place. But they soon found it difficult. The chunks of flesh had briefly thawed in the end. explosion and re-frozen afterwards. A weary Stravnik struggled to move half ahead, whose brains had frozen solid and sealed it tight against the ice. The sound of an engine prompted me to lurks to one side in time for a truck to rumble past the column to the shellhole. It was one of the American vehicles donated to the Soviet Union to help with the war, a Studebaker converted to carry water tanks on its back. The driver's

Stop the truck, leaving the engine grumbling to keep the water in the tanks from freezing. He jumped out to speak to the NKVD, officer. Is this all we have? The NKVD man looked disapprovingly at the tanker. The driver nodded, fearful. The officer took a deep breath of frigid air. Well, we shall have to make do. He turned to the Strathnikae gathering up the shattered corpse pieces.

You men, you're not. too slow. Take your clothes off. They stood and looked among themselves. Yes, off with the coats. And those hats and boots. They stared dumbly back at him. The officer turned to the guards. Give them some assistance. The guards came forward to drag the padded jackets from off their shoulders. The uniform was their only valuable possession. They had no weapons to confiscate. Stravniki were

not issued rifles unless they were about to attack the enemy. Lie down. Yes, in the shellhole. The guards shove them down to the ice with the butts of their rifles, forcing them to lie among the frozen shards of hearts and bones and faces. I was next in line. I couldn't help shuffling back, but it was hopeless. The NKVD man pointed at me. You! Yes, you! So this was how my crime would be redeemed.

Not one step back, Comrade Stalin had said as the Nazis swept towards Moscow. Whole armies were thrown in their path and ordered neither to retreat nor surrender. I marched to the front with them and was given the order to kill and to die. And I would have died for the Soviet Union. Gladly, I was no coward. But when I came face to face with the enemy, I could not kill. I looked into the eyes of a wounded man pleading for another second of life and saw the same desperate look I'd seen in the eyes of a pig

when my father put a blade in my hand and told me to cut its throat. He called me a coward when I hesitated, then took the blade and did it himself. Not one step back? I took a thousand before the NKVD caught me. They beat me. They forced me to sign a confession. I expected a firing squad. Instead, they sent me to a Strav-Bat to redeem myself in blood.

They did not care whose. I unbuttoned my padded coat and pulled it from my shoulders. The chill wind stung my exposed skin like a barrage of needles. No, you idiot. Keep the coat on. I did not understand, but I put my coat back on. Step forward. I stepped forward. He looked to a guard.

Give him the hose. The guard rolled out a long hose from the back of the water truck and handed me the heavy nozzle, made of frigid brass, save for a wrapping of rope around its neck, so it could be held by naked skin. Its handle was still metallic, but there was a mitten dangling from it, so it could be used without the risk of frostbite.

Now, operate the hose. I looked at him in horror. My mouth, flapping, defined the words for an objection as the guard went back to the truck and started up the pump. Water slithered down the hose until it reached the nozzle and stopped, held back by the valve. Well, what are you waiting for? I looked down at the men lying among the bloody rubble in the shell hole. Their shivering skin was already pale like chicken flesh,

save for where it was scraped and cut by shards of frozen meat and bone. I look back at the NKVD man. pleading with my eyes. Operate the hose, or lie down with them. I pointed the nozzle toward the men, wormed my hand into the mitten and grasped the handle, a short lever terminating in a metal ball, exactly like the bolt of a rifle.

One of the condemned men looked at me with pleading eyes, mouthing a few words through rhyme-frosted lips. Please, comrade, please. Operate the hose, coward. I squeezed my eyes shut and turned the lever. It opened with a crack, breaking ice that must have been inside. Water gushed from the nozzle. I opened my eyes again and saw the men shuddering as the water rose over their limbs.

One of them tried to struggle up out of icy water that racked his body with shivers, but the NKVD man pointed him out and a guard shot him in the head. Some of the Stravniki near me flinched at the bullet, but I did not. I simply watched. The rest of the men in the hole shuddered as the water covered their faces. One or two gasped and thrashed at the final moment, but they soon gave up and sank back into the frigid pool. Frost formed quickly at the edge of the crater. It would not take more than an hour to freeze solid.

Soon I was ordered to march across to test the strength. of the ice. I looked down. The dead men stared back at me with wide, empty eyes. I knew then that the world was full of such men, whose lives could be spent like Kopex in a cigarette machine. The NKVD officer looked to one of the guards. Perhaps we will make soldiers of these Stravniki yet. The guards laughed along with him. Get moving. The war lies before you. I looked up from the eyes of the dead men beneath my feet and marched on towards the front. Sometimes when the pickings in your chosen profession are slim,

you have to take an unexpected, if not fully legal, career change. At least that's the case for the locksmith, who's seeking work after deciding to moonlight as a safe cracker. But in this tale, shared with us by author Jeff Miller, When a job presents itself, the conditions are somewhat unusual, even for a criminal enterprise. I join Atticus Jackson, Peter Lewis, Mick Wingert, and Aaron Lillis in performing this tale. So remember, sometimes it's better to ask questions, even in a no-questions-asked profession, because otherwise you might find yourself working the Black Bag job.

It was midsummer, and I hadn't had a job, and I hadn't had a job, a little over a month. So a couple of weeks before, I quietly started getting the word out that I was available to work again. I'm not a heavy. I don't carry a gun and I don't rough people up. I'm a safecracker. I used to be an honest locksmith years ago, but that's a 50-hour-a-week drudge. Nowadays, I put in eight or nine hours on a job, and the rest of the month is mine. I was enjoying a pint with a few of the boys at an Irish pub downtown when Ben, the bartender, gave me a look as he poured my second pint. I knew what he meant. I excused myself to go to the bathroom and saw that Ben had beaten me to the back alley.

How badly do you want to work? I could use a job. What's the problem? There's a guy I know, friend of a friend. I can't vouch for him personally, and to be honest, he's weird. But my friend says he's solid. Always pays well. Jobs go off without a hitch.

Weird how. Ben looked away from me and pursed his lips. He shook his head. I don't know. He just gives me the hebi-jee-jee-bees. Really? A hebe-jibis? Hey, fuck you.

See for yourself. He's looking for a good safecracker, and he's sitting in the corner alone. Orange hoodie, can't miss him. If it goes bad, don't blame me. I warn him. He opened the door to the bar. And I better get my finder's fee. Ben shut the door. Hard.

Just as Ben said, he was hard to miss. Bright orange hoodie, dirty jeans, and a Tampa Bay Buccaneers baseball cap. He was chubby and wore an ugly class ring with a false ruby on his left hand. I sat down. The guy, huh? Ben said you need a locksmith. I do. I said you're skilled. Keep your mouth shut. And you follow directions. Is that right? I was beginning to understand what Ben meant. I couldn't tell you why I felt the way I did.

But the more he spoke, the more I felt my skin crawl. That's right. What have you got in mind? Let's take a walk. I did not want to be alone with this guy. But I also knew that I was going to run out of of money in about a week and I didn't have any other prospects so I stood up and left the bar with him shooting a look at my buddies to come look for me if I wasn't back soon we walked down a nearly deserted side street and he gave me the details it was crazy the join he had in mind was a jewelry store downtown I knew it nothing

too pricey but they didn't sell Zircons either Nothing too pricey, but they didn't sell Zircones either. He wanted me to put a black bag over my head and walk inside during business hours. A black bag with no eye holes. He said that once I was inside, he'd tell me the rest. This is your plan? You and Ben can go fuck yourselves. I'm a professional, and I don't put up with practical jokes.

He gave me a shit-eating grin while he reached in. into the pocket of his hoodie. For a second, I thought he was going to knife me, so I jerked backwards. But it was just a lighter. Then he was gone. Vanished. A light tap on my shoulder nearly made me cry out. It was him.

Behind me. You need me to show you anything else? I'm not sure you'd like it. I can be more impressive if you still need convincing. I was too rattled to do anything but shake my head. Tomorrow at noon, then. The park across the street from the store? Yes.

I'll bring the bag. You bring your tools. You like the split. And he named a figure so large it just about made me choke. He continued down the street while I doubled back for another round of beers. I gave Ben a watt of cash for his troubles. What the fuck did you get me into, Ben? He just shrugged and went back to polishing pint glasses.

The next morning, I examined and cleaned my tools, though they didn't really need cleaning, and triple check that I had everything I'd need. Satisfied, I put on my lucky shirt, a genuine Sandy Kofax jersey from his 1965 season. Years ago, we hit some rich douchebag who was into sports memorabilia, and I took it as a part of my share. It hasn't failed me yet. I put a jacket on over the jersey, grabbed my tools, and left to go meet Mr. Blackbag.

He was sitting on a bench in a small park caddy corner from the jewelry store, wearing the same clothes as the day before. I sat down next to him and opened a newspaper I'd bought on the way over. For a few minutes, we said nothing. Then, he placed a large black bag in an old-fashioned key beside him. Without looking at me, he began to speak. I'm going to get up and go into the store. When I enter, count to 20, walk briskly to the entrance and pull the bag over your head.

Bring the key. I'll direct you verbally to the safe when you're inside. With that, he got up and crossed the street, as casually as a man going out for coffee and a bun. I didn't see him put on a mask before he entered, which worried me, because I knew there were guards and cameras inside. A couple of years ago, I cased the place myself, and security was tight. Without someone on the inside, we didn't see how it could work, so we abandoned the idea. I started counting. Every bone in my body wanted to ditch this job, but Ben had vouched for this creep, mostly, and he'd never steered me wrong before.

Besides, if I left, my reputation would be trashed. It wasn't out of the question. I'd get two behind the ear. And with this head case, maybe worse than that. In any case, I didn't hear any alarms or commotion, and it was too late to pull out now. I reached 20, took a deep breath, and crossed the street. I glanced furtively to my left and right. It didn't seem that anyone was paying attention to me, so I pulled the bag on.

over my head. It was made of rough cotton and smelled like old socks. Blindly, I slipped inside. The store was deathly silent. I could feel the presence of other people, but they didn't seem to be moving and certainly weren't making any noise. I'm not even sure they were breathing, but that might be because my own breath was so loud inside the bag. It was hot, but I nevertheless felt goose flesh rising on my arms and neck. Four steps forward. Turn to your right, 90 degrees, and straight ahead for 12 more paces. That will bring you to the counter.

Take your time. There is no hurry. I try not to piss myself and cautiously did what he said. I hated walking blind, but his directions were good. I could feel the gate that led behind the counter. Open it, three paces forward and you'll be at the door to the back office. It will be empty. Close the door behind you and remove the bag.

You'll see the safe. Make sure the key is touching your skin the entire time while you open it. As I opened the gate and walk to the door, he continued to give instructions. Take only the purple sack and close the safe back up. Do not open the sack. Make sure you do not open the door or even look through the window to the showroom without the bag covering your head again. As soon as I closed the office door behind me, I took that god-awful bag off my head and took a deep breath of clean air. The office was small and sparsely furnished.

A wooden desk with a landline phone, a floor lamp that was turned on, and a bookshelf packed with gemology references decades out of date. Plus, a safe. A large top of the line safe. I couldn't crack a safe with one hand, so I shoved the key into my sock. Crazy, I know. But with this guy, I wasn't going to take any chances. Not yet, anyway.

He'd said it had to be touching my skin. Someone had doodled all around the dial with a permanent marker. which was strange, but it was easier to open than I'd expected. It took just ten minutes. The safe didn't make a sound as I opened it. For a moment, I couldn't do anything but stare. I'd expected to see jewelry, cash, loose stones, maybe even drugs or a few guns. But there wasn't any of that.

The safe was full of junk. I didn't look through at all, but what I saw made me... Uneasy. Monopoly pieces carved out of bone. Sapia prints of children with their mouths open wide, what looked like an Elvis Presley death mask. Stack of quarters with Washington's eyes scratched out, you get the idea. The worst, though, the worst was a pile of crayon drawings of the 9-11 attacks. Even though they were clearly done by small children, they felt more vivid and horrible than actual photo. from the scene. After a couple of minutes searching, I found it, a purple crown royal sack with the cords sent shut. I closed the safe and glanced towards the door. It was on the right-hand

wall so I couldn't see into the showroom, but a sickly glow shone in through the window and the door. It made me feel light-headed. Maybe it was the light that made me do it, Or maybe I just wanted to see how far this freak show went. Either way. I know what Jimstones feel like, and this sack wasn't filled with jewels. I sat down at the desk to open the sack. I can still hardly believe what was inside. The sack was full of colorless glass marbles,

and each one contained the roughly sought-off head of an action figure. G.I. Joe, my little pony, Star Wars, and a bunch of others I didn't recognize. I couldn't imagine he was going to all this trouble for fleet market garbage. So I looked a little closer, figuring this had to be some kind of scheme for smuggling. Maybe the marbles melted down into drugs, or were some kind of explosive? Some kind of spy shit, maybe? That's when I started and almost tipped over the desk chair. Every single one of those sawed-off doll heads was facing up.

I'd swear I'd seen those heads turn to stare directly at me. I closed the sack, went to the door, and pulled the black bag over my head. My heart pounding. When I entered the showroom, the guy asked if I'd gotten it, and I nodded. He directed me to the front door and told me to remove the black door. bag without turning around. He'd meet me in the park shortly. Five minutes after I sat down on the bench, he joined me. You got it? I handed him the crown oil sack, the black bag, and the key. You didn't open it, did you? Of course not. When do I get my end? All right now. He handed me a

manila envelope stuffed with enough cash to last me at least six months. I couldn't believe he'd do this out in public, but no one paid us any mind. I stashed it in my tool bag. You did well. If I need you again, I'll let Ben know. And with that, he stood up and walked away. It was nearly 12.30 p.m. and I needed a beer and a burger. Several beers, actually. On my way out of the park, I glanced back at the jewelry store. Customers were going in and out of the front door as if nothing had happened. I sat down at my favorite bar and grill and tried to catch the bartender's attention, but she was with another customer. I dug in my pocket to find my phone while I waited. But instead of pulling out my phone, I pulled out one of those marbles. Embedded in its center was the head of some weird Japanese manga

character. It looked vaguely bug-like with huge eyes and a little grin on its face. I couldn't tell you if it was a boy or girl. I knew I had left every one of those marbles in the sack. I never even picked one up. I stepped outside, dropped it down a sewer gate, and took my seat again, wiping the cold sweat off my forehead. The bartender was standing directly in front of me. You look nervous, honey. Something wrong? Just hungry. Probably coming down with something. Give me a burger and whatever's good on tap.

She didn't move. What are you looking at? I said a burger and a beer. She smiled. What's your name again? Jane, I've been in here twice a week for years. What kind of game are you playing? Just feeling flirty.

I ate the burger and drank the beer, but everything had fun. felt so wrong that day, including Jane. I decided to skip a second beer and go home. I had beer in my fridge. When Jane brought the tab, I laid down a 20, and she glared at me. Not paying with a card? Jane, what the fuck?

I always pay cash. What do you care? Her face turned mean, and she grabbed my wrist with the strength I didn't expect. Why did you steal from me? me. She was so close to my face, I could feel the spittle hitting my cheeks. You do not want me to visit you in person. Give me your name. I broke away and ran out into the street, knocking down an old man with a cane. I apologized profusely and helped steady him with my arm, but as I brought him to his feet, he grabbed my neck choking me.

Who hired you? I will chew the flesh off your bones if you don't tell me. I know someone with power was there. I need the old man in the groin, and he doubled over in pain. People on the sidewalk gasped. One young guy tried to be a hero chasing after me, but I've been chased before and lost him after a couple of blocks. Thankfully, I didn't run into any cops. I chalked that up to my lucky jersey.

I had a nasty bruise on my neck and didn't want to see anyone else at this point. So I took back alleys and crossed a vacant lot to my building. When I reached my floor, my mobile started ringing. I stepped inside my apartment and answered. It was Ben. He sounds pissed off. The fuck did you do. I did the job. He paid me. It's done. Well, he's shit in the brick.

Said you'd better call him, or he'd take it out on me. Ben gave me a number and hung up before I could say anything more. What could I do? I called him. Be 40. Marbles? What are you talking about? I didn't look.

It was none of my business. What do you mean what it... The fame the marble looks like. You crazy? A face? What the hell did you have me steal? He went quiet for a moment. When he spoke again, it was in a different tone.

Friendly, almost. I was a little shaken by the sudden change of tone. But I started to tell him anyway. The monopoly pieces, the mask, the photos, the drawings. And then I shut up, because I suddenly knew what he was up to. That weirdo was tracing my location. I opened the back of my phone and removed the battery, thinking what a chore it would be to get a new number.

The battery was in my right hand, and the phone was in my left, but he was still talking to me through the device. hesitation I opened the window and dropped both of them four stories to the concrete. I didn't wait to see them smash before I started packing a bag. As I packed, I noticed a bulge in the outer pocket of my suitcase. Thinking I might have forgotten some toiletries from my last trip, I unzipped it up and reached inside. It wasn't soap or a mini bottle of shampoo.

It was the marble. Again. As I held it. Those huge manga eyes turned slowly in their non-existent sockets to stare at me. The face was no longer smiling. I got a mallet and pounded the marble on a cutting board until it shattered. I flushed the glass down the toilet and melted the plastic head in a cast iron pan. It smelled horrible.

As I jogged in my car, I tossed the pan in a sidewalk garbage can. Ten hours later, I was in a room at a Motel 6 in the middle of nowhere, playing solitaire on a wobbly desk in the corner. The TV was on, but I wasn't watching. I just wanted the white noise. I heard something clank and looked up. The door latch had flipped open, and the knob was turning. I stood up and grabbed the desk lamp. Not much of a weapon, but it'd have to do.

He walked inside, still wearing that hideous orange hoodie, and closed the door as if the room belonged to him. The television made a popping sound and went black. The overhead light faded to nothing. I felt my stomach drop and murdered curses under my breath. I'm sorry to do this. Really, I am. But that marble was one of the really bad ones. You opened yourself up to a... her by opening that bag, and she can get to me through you. It won't hurt, though, I promise you

that. You won't feel a thing. As he spoke, he removed things from his pockets. In his right fist, he held a lighter. In the other, a gnarled human hand with wicks coming out of each of the fingers and the thumb. They were melted halfway down. I don't know how I knew. But I was certain this wasn't a replica. It was real. Or at least, it had been. Once. As he lit it, a pale light painted the room, the color of bile,

growing stronger as each wick caught fire. Once his grisly candelabra was fully illuminated, he put the lighter away and, with a look of disgust on his face, drew a large knife. I stood, frozen. He walked towards me, but stopped abruptly a couple of feet from where I stood, grimacing. He tried to walk forward again, but was stopped a second time, as if he'd run into a wall of glass. I think it was then he realized that the sickly light from his candle didn't quite fill the room. It stopped at the edge of a circle made of sand.

You see, about nine hours earlier, I'd stopped out of McDonald's off the highway for some coffee and decided to look through my old road atlas while I waited in line at the drive-thru. But instead of grabbing the atlas from the glove box, I brought back the same marble for the third time. The manga had looked like it was snarling at me, and I could see fangs in its own.

mouth. I wanted to cry, but after a minute of pounding on the steering wheel while screaming, I regained my composure and accepted that running was pointless. One of these two freaks would find me eventually. When the garbled voice from the drive-through speaker gave me one last chance to tell her who had hired me, the choice was simple. She wanted him, and he almost certainly wanted me dead. I came clean and made a deal with her. She told me the words I needed, and I stopped at a Kmart to buy the materials. A 25-pound bag of play sand was all they had, but the Elmo doll on the end cap told me it

would work just fine. Continuing the circle under the bed and the other furniture was a pain in the ass, and I was terrified that he would break it when he entered the room. But he didn't. He begged me to free him as I shimmied around the edge of the motel room, careful to stay outside of the circle. As I climbed over the bed with my back against the wall, he pleaded with me not to leave him there for her.

But I ignored him. I knew that even if he screamed, she'd make sure no one did anything before she arrived, and she'd said she'd clean up when she was finished. Nothing would be traced back to me. Besides, I was 100% certain he'd still kill me if I let him go. The next morning, I received a box via courier, no return address. Inside was a bright orange hoodie that looked as if it had been half devoured by moth larva.

It was covered in rusty stains. I put on a pair of gloves and dropped the hoodie in the trash. I'd burn it later. Underneath were two more objects. The first was a waxy severed hand with unburnt wicks sticking out of each digit. An ugly class ring burrowed deep into one of the fingers. I guess you couldn't get it off. The other was a handwritten note on flowered stationary.

It smelled faintly of lilac. I'll be in touch. We have so much work to do. centuries there have been debates about the intersection of science and faith. It's a controversial subject and one that's likely to spawn discussion until the end of time. Some see the two as being at odds with one another. Others believe they go hand in hand. In this tale, shared with us by author C. M. Scandrith, were introduced to a group of scientists who could be seen as directly challenging the nature of creation. Performing this tale,

are Sarah Thomas and Erica Sanderson. So beware of men playing God because there's always a danger they'll birth humanity's downfall, at least in the womb of New Eden. Imagine for a moment that much of the Bible is true. Some of you will need to apply more suspension of disbelief than others, but for you Westerners at least, it shouldn't be too difficult.

After all, we live in a world saturated by, Christianity. From the holidays we celebrate, right down to the words of our nation's anthems. Of course, I don't mean the details of all those Bible stories are true. Just most of the broad, overarching concepts. There was a tower of Babel of sorts. Eden existed. Human beings used to live ten times as long as they do now. That sort of thing. And God is omnipresent, in a way. We know that because we tested for the existence of him, with science. We created many different environments and scenarios, observing and recording everything we could,

no matter how irrelevant the data points seemed. Exactly how we did this isn't important. The key is what we did with that information. Because it follows that once you know how to detect the presence of God, then you can probably divine a way to block the sight of God and render yourself invisible to his gaze. And that's precisely what we did. We knew our money came from a religious organization,

presumably some sort of megachurch operation that sucked money out of the devout and funneled it straight to us. Whoever was running it all certainly knew what they were doing, because our labs and offices were easily the nicest I'd ever worked in. But you're not really interested in all that. You want to know about the thing we built, the thing that could block what I christened, God particles.

It was ugly on the outside, this edifice. Inside its huge hangar, it was a sprawling mess of coolant pipes, humming fans, and ceramic hexagonal tiles the size of trampolines. It formed a dome in the center of the vaulted space, encircled by backup generators and the console desks that monitored the functions of the structure. The ceramic hexagons had been one of my major, contributions to the project, my own invention. They looked dull, each one thick Palestinian

clay on the outer surface, but the inside was banded with pure iron, then bronze, silver, and finally, a layer of nanometer gold. I could tell you where I got the idea, but if you know your Bible well enough, you'll already have figured it out. There was only one entrance to the dome, a hexagonal doorway in the west wall that contained a kind of airlock setup, where people needed to wait for just over 11 minutes before they were allowed to enter the godless interior. The consequence, if you didn't, I can only describe it as a sort of spiritual decompression, where if you leaped directly from one environment to the other, the sudden lack of, or return of, G-particles, would send you into a kind of spiritual shop,

not unlike decompression sickness. And inside the dome itself? Well, that's where my story truly begins. At first, the space was a curiosity, a huge, empty dome with an inner shell made of pure gold. The project director hadn't liked the gold, and asked for it to be painted white, which made the place eerily directionless and infinite.

The floor lighting bounced off the stark whiteness and homogenized everything. An area of space, free from God, didn't actually seem very useful at the start. We considered hiring it out to politicians so that they could make plans free from the sight of God, but nobody was interested. It seems politicians have never cared over much about morality. We experimented with growing plants without the presence of G particles, which didn't change their physiology or development in the slightest. Some of us worked in there, hoping that being free from God might inspire us to wild scientific

breakthroughs, but no such thing happened. The only effect we could discern, other than the spiritual decompression, was that people who spent more than three continuous days inside were prone to headaches when they came out of the dome. Everyone was racking their brains for potential applications, but it took the only woman on the team to realize how the dome could be utilized. That woman was me. I was 28 then, my body in perfect working order. Like the others, I spent my scheduled time inside the dome, experimenting, trying to find a real use for the unique environment I'd helped create. But I possessed one piece of human physiology my colleagues did not, a womb. For our comfort, bathrooms, showers, and a kitchen had been set up inside the dome, and it was by sheer coincidence

that I realized it. When I was in there, menstruation stopped completely. In fact, it stopped the very moment I set foot inside. I had found the point of difference that would lead to our breakthrough. Humans were the only animal that experienced the effect I discovered. No other animal has our unique cycle of endometrial build-up and shedding. Reproduction is quite uniquely cruel and onerous for human women. From my childhood Bible readings,

I recalled the story of the expulsion from Eden and mankind's great punishment. Adam was sentenced to toil in the earth until he returned to it. And for her part in the betrayal of the serpent, Eve's lot was to bear terrible pain and suffering in childbirth. So, did being free from God inside the dome mean that women were also freed from the horrors of childbirth? Since this was a uniquely human problem, human testing was the only way we would find out. Being young, and already so invested in discovering the answer, I volunteered to be the first test subject for a godless pregnancy,

with the help of another one of the researchers, who was more than happy to provide the required genetic donation. Quarters were created for me, my home for the duration of the pregnancy. A private room was built inside the dome, with sufficient comforts to keep me from going crazy for the next nine months. Once it was confirmed I was pregnant, all other work stopped inside the dome. I was made the priority, with doctors constantly hovering over me,

monitoring, measuring, pricking my fingers for hemoglobin counts, and making me pee into an endless array of sample jars for testing. But all of us had seriously underestimated what would happen to a pregnancy inside the dome. After 28 days, the experiment came to a shocking end. It was so abrupt and painless. I hardly registered anything was happening. One moment I was sitting on the end of my bed, pulling on a shirt. The next, there was warm fluid spreading under my thighs and an odd pressure in my pelvis.

The fetus emerged intact, barely bloody, a perfect human in miniature. And rather than being a fatal miscarriage, as I initially assumed, the baby was whole and alive. It was just small. It was taken from me immediately. prodded, swabbed, injected, sampled. It was an ordinary baby girl, all organs fully formed and functioning, all Apgar scores too, but barely one quarter the size of an average newborn.

She was so little I could hold her in one hand, like a warm, pink doll. But when she latched to my breast and began to suckle, it was clear that her appetite was that of a regular-sized baby. She gained rapidly, making up for her premature birth weight within a matter, of months. We named her Eve. Of course we did. What else would you call a baby girl born outside the side of God, and therefore without original sin? Aside from the abruptness of her gestation, she grew as normally as any other child. I think many of us expected something mythical or miraculous, or catastrophic, that she would grow to be an adult before her 10th birthday

or have some other kind of extreme abnormal physical development. But she was as ordinary as could be, given the circumstances of her upbringing within that godless environment. Before Eve was five, a second woman was brought into the dome, to birth a second child, a boy, to be both a companion to Eve and a future donor of genetic material when she was old enough to bear children. It seems strange to me now to talk so clinically about it,

We were all so detached, so invested in an outcome from our project that we barely considered Eve human. It was as if being hidden from the sight of God meant that the things that we did to her didn't matter, that she wasn't truly one of us. But even so, I did care for her, as much as my duties allowed. She was still my daughter, even if I'd only carried her inside me for a month. Our first inkling that something was wrong came with Adam's initial stirrings of manhood. Eve had always been a wonderful child, polite, compliant, rational, and calm. Conversely, Adam was wild, unpredictable, and prone to rage. The first time he hurt her, he was disciplined into contrition, and we thought the matter done with.

But he hurt her again almost immediately, without any regard for the consequences. It quickly became clear to his caregivers that he had a pathological need to harm other people, and Eve was the only target over whom he had any physical power. So the decision was made to separate them permanently. The dome was divided into two areas, Adams, more like a prison, and Eve's, more like a home. Eve, despite her isolated upbringing, was intelligent, social, and inquisitive. She devoured whole books in single days, and even read my papers on the dome's construction and the research we were doing. I thought it important that she understand what we were doing, that if she was aware, then there would be a certain amount of consent when she was deemed old enough for the second phase of the project.

And I felt vindicated in that choice when the day came for her to be inseminated, for she seemed perfectly happy to comply. But then again, she was always compliant, no matter what anyone asked of her. her. The male researchers had wanted Adam to impregnate her naturally, but even at 16 years old, he was almost too violent for his handlers to keep under control. I refused to allow him anywhere near Eve, because the slightest glimpse of her, even a mention of her, would send him into a berserk frenzy, harming others and himself with a determination that was disturbingly inhuman. In the end, the sperm sample was extracted via needle aspiration while Adam was sedated. Eve's pregnancy began in a laboratory.

Her harvested eggs fertilized under a microscope, then implanted into a womb that had never shed blood, but was healthy and functional as all her other godless organs. What would happen next, we had no idea. As the first few days of her pregnancy progressed, we collectively held our breath, concerned that the implanted zygotes would be rejected by the smooth, vascular walls of Eve's uterus.

Our concerns were misplaced, Her gestation was even more successful and abrupt than mine. We hadn't even considered performing the first ultrasound, as Eve was just one week into her pregnancy when she knocked on the door of my small office inside the dome to tell me she had birthed three children, and that all three displayed the same tiny size and perfect development as she had when she was born.

The frenzy amongst the researchers and doctors was immediate. I was not permitted to actually see the triplets for weeks, but I was handed the reports and read through the data in the interim, just as fascinated as everyone else by these miraculous humans, gestated and born in a single week. They were sexless, these grandchildren of mine, fused labia and a urethral outlet the only external genitalia in evidence. No internal structures were present, no ovaries, no undescended testes, no uterus.

But other than that, they were, incredibly healthy and grew at a phenomenal rate. The miraculous predictions we'd initially held for Eve, that she'd be an adult before she was 10 years old, we should have saved those predictions for the second generation. Eve named the children for the three wise men who had visited Jesus in his manger, Balthazar, Caspar, and Melchior. The staff at the research facility began to refer to them as the triplet boys, even though they were truly neither sex. I finally met them when they were six weeks old, each the size of an average six-year-old, chattering and playing with their mother and each other. They regarded me with obvious intelligence,

listening attentively to Eve as she explained that I was their grandmother. When Melchior asked for his grandfather, I explained that a fellow researcher had donated genetic material, just as had been done with their father for their own creation. Can we see our father? I kept my tone matter of fact, but told the truth. Perhaps when you're older, your father has behavioral issues that we were never able to fully address. I didn't see any point in lying to the child. After all, the information wasn't presented negatively, and we still maintained our efforts to try and deprogram Adam of his psychotic rage

and eventually allow him to interact with other people. I look forward to meeting him. Melchior then returned back to the board game he was playing with his brothers. Three months later, the boys had matured into what we considered a dozen. Their development had essentially followed the pattern for eunuch boys, gleaned from accounts of the Castrati singers from previous centuries. Deprived of indigenous sex hormones, the triplets grew tall, long-boned, fine-featured, and oddly androgynous. There had been talk of experimenting on them with sex hormones to alter their physiology more male or more female, but these ideas were discarded. These children would be the control group to compare to their future siblings.

There would be time enough for such experiments. Eve was already pregnant with the next batch of zygotes, unfrozen and implanted, now that we knew the children were able to grow to maturity without any known complications. There were some other curious anomalies with the triplets that we could not explain. Their lungs were almost 30% larger than regular male human lungs, and their blood needed far less oxygenation. Red cells were present, but their blood was dominant. by plasma and platelets, rendering it an odd red-gold color.

Consequently, they were hyperimmune, and when the facility came down with the winter flu, they were completely unaffected. Pathogens virtually dissolved on contact with their tissues. They were also very strong. Their long bones and wide pelvices gave them a stability and leverage that would perhaps have been frightening if we weren't scientists. It was most easily explained by regular physics. We were planning some treadmill experiments, as we suspected they probably also processed lactic acid at an accelerated rate.

But we didn't get the chance to start that program. When they were just six months old, the triplets rebelled. In hindsight, I shouldn't have given Eve unfettered access to the experiment data, because that meant she knew as much as any of the researchers. And being a calm, rational, and patient teacher, she had imparted this knowledge virtually verbatim to her. three sexless children who were ferociously intelligent information sponges. The morning of their rebellion, the alarms on Adam's cell blared briefly, then turned off.

We assumed it was an error, as Adam often had episodes, and nervous guards would fairly regularly trip the alarm in panic. Twenty minutes after that, I received an urgent call from a breathless junior researcher, babbling about the retribution of God and his angels. The last word stretch into a prolonged scream. Shortly after that, the line went dead. Several panicked calls later, we organized for an armed emergency security crew to assemble near the research facility. They entered the hangar first, and with extreme caution. Inside was Bedlam. Everything that could be smashed or broken had been, including the staff who had been on duty. They lay in the shattered glass of the consoles on top of the torn tabling. Their smashed bones and ruptured organs

spread about them in macabrety of what had been done to the machines. The dome itself had been completely sealed. The bodies of Adam's captors dumped outside in a discarded heap of mangled flesh. The soul survivor screaming and shaking in the middle of the mess, not from his wounds, but from sudden spiritual decompression, his soul being burned by the abrupt return of God to his system. At first, I thought perhaps Adam had intended to use the staff as hostages to bargain for his release. But when we ascertain that the dome had been disconnected from everything, including air and water, that made me believe otherwise. That seemed the action of someone irrational.

Without air, everyone inside the sealed dome would be dead within a few hours. But of course, they never intended to be in there that long. The heat on the ceramic surface of the dome manifested first, as a little. a ruddy glow, then grew more palpable as the air inside the hangar started to heat up. A few of the researchers had followed the security team once it was clear there was no immediate danger, and as we shucked off coats and sweaters, the hexagonal tiles started to turn yellow, then white gold with the rapidly rising temperature inside. When the dome shuddered like a living thing, I began to realize what was happening. The dome, although that's what it appeared to be,

was less a dome more an egg. The whole structure was an oblet sphere, half of it buried, containing generators, cooling tanks, and other equipment needed to maintain the structure. It had to be a sphere. G particles came from everywhere, so had to be blocked from every direction. As the dome began to shake, it also began to sink.

The others thought it was going to collapse, but I knew better. It wasn't destroying itself. it was sinking into the earth, and I was soon proved correct. Within minutes, it was gone, only a gaping crater full of rubble to Markets' descent into hell. With the experiments so abruptly shut down, few of the survivors really knew what happened. But while everyone was gaping at the crater where the dome had been, I availed myself of the security footage still resident on the undamaged servers. It was poor quality, as storage space was still at a premium in the early 2000s,

but it was good enough to show me the start of the sequence of events inside the dome on that fateful morning. Their rampage began with the disposal of the guards assigned to Adam's cell. The triplets picked the men up with their long arms and casually dashed their brains out on the walls, barely testing their inhuman strength. When they freed Adam and took him to Eve, there was no violence. The children's parents embraced briefly, then began talking to their offspring. From there, the cameras began to blank, one by one,

as the triplets methodically tore the whole facility to pieces and murdered the staff who had been on duty. I couldn't bring myself to watch all the footage of what my demonic grandchildren did to my colleagues. Demonic is exactly the right word, I believe. When we blocked that dome from the sight of God, when we created beings with souls untouched by him, we didn't just recreate what could have happened in Eden

if the serpent hadn't been present. Instead, I believe we created a scenario that was much worse. The totality of God's plan had been revealed, and the serpent took full advantage of that. You see, the big problem with Lucifer's fall was that he took only a third of the angels with him when he fell. Even a brilliant strategist couldn't win with those of us, and so he lost, banished to his pit of fire.

But if he'd had the means to create a soldier every seven days, a soldier who could rip a grown man to pieces at just six months old, well, then he'd have a good chance of winning, especially if he also had the technology to hide his gathering advantage from the side of God. When I finally thought to look into exactly who was funding our ill-fated research, I found it wasn't some megachurch-styled operation after all. After chasing paper trails until I was nearly crazed from the labyrinth of money laundering,

the only origin I could find for the cash seed that had started all this was an abandoned master blacksmith's forge and a name, Wayland. Whoever or whatever Wayland might be, I'm confident now that they were in the employ of the enemy. And that with every week that has passed since that dome sank into the bowels of the earth, Lucifer's army grows another form. fallen stronger. And there isn't a damn thing that God can do about it. He doesn't have a clue there's anything wrong. The spells are wearing off for now, but the magic will linger.

The shop will be open again next week with more spells to enchant you. 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. This audio production is copyright 2020 by Creative Reason Media, Inc. All rights reserved. The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors. No duplication or reproduction of this audio program is permitted without the written consent of Creative Reason Media, Inc.