The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S14E21

Episode Date: July 5, 2020

It’s Episode 21 of Season 14. This week we conjure spells for you about the nightmares found in our homes. “FaceTime” written by David Kennington (Story starts around 00:04:45) Produced by: Phil Michalski Cast: Narrator – Penny Scott-Andrews “The Mill Street Scarecrows” written by Osha Lukai (Story starts around 00:14:45) TRIGGER WARNING! Produced by: Phil Michalski Cast: Narrator – Kyle Akers, Tom – Graham Rowat, Martha – Sarah Ruth Thomas, Tom’s Mother – Erin Lillis Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, I'm Atticus Jackson. I'm here to tell you a shocking secret. Life can be stressful sometimes. I know. It's hard to believe, right? But it's true. And it can cause anxiety. And where are you down with mental fatigue? This relevatory information might be a lot to take in, but I'll give you a moment to process it.

Okay, all joking aside, we all know life can be tough sometimes. Whether just from everyday wear and tear or being part of a marginalized group or personal situations causing you grief, your mental health can take a beating. That's where services like BetterHelp are beneficial. If you need someone to talk to or just to listen, they're a great option. BetterHelp will assess your needs and match you with your own licensed professional therapist. You can start communicating in under 24 hours. It's not a crisis line.

It's not self-help. It is professional counseling done securely online. There's a broad range of expertise in Better Helps counselor needs. network, which may not be locally available in many areas. Better help service is available for clients worldwide. It doesn't matter when you need help, day or night. You can log into your account anytime and send a message to your counselor. You'll get timely and thoughtful responses.

Plus, you can schedule weekly video or phone sessions so you won't ever have to sit in an uncomfortable waiting room, doubly important right now during the pandemic. Plus, you can even chat and text with your therapist between sessions when you need to talk about things. It allows you to take control of when you feel capable of opening up, instead of being put on the spot, if you're someone who finds that hard. BetterHelp is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches, so they make it easy and free to change counselors if needed. It's more affordable than traditional offline counseling, and financial aid is even available. So whenever you need some help, visit BetterHelp.com slash no sleep and join the over 500,000 people taking charge of

their mental health with the help of an experienced professional. No sleep listeners get 10% off your first month at BetterHelp.com slash no sleep. So don't suffer in silence. Reach out for a helping hand. BetterHelp can offer that helping hand. So visit betterhealth.com slash no sleep to get 10% off your first month whenever you need it. 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 nightmares found in our homes. Most of our listeners have been, or will be, celebrating their national holidays recently. In the midst of these isolated times, we hope you've been enjoying yourselves and staying safe.

We don't want anyone allowing nasty things inside their body, like viruses or blasts from errant fireworks. Stick to putting the usual things inside yourself, like hot dogs and frosty beverages. And speaking of national pastimes, let's talk voting, like voting for the No Sleep Movie Poster contest. We've had a huge number of votes so far, and it's a tight race. You have until July 12th to get your vote in, so check the show notes for the ballot and let us know which story you want to see turned into a movie poster. Now, close your show. your eyes and embrace the magic.

In our first tale, we join a woman sitting in a cafe with her best friend who needs consoling after some marital strife. We've all done it, sat with a pal while they vent about their significant other, letting it all pour out, sobbing into their mocha frappuccino. But in this tale, shared with us by author David Kennington, it soon becomes clear to our heroine that there's more to this than a simple case of infidelity. Performing this tale is Penny Scott Andrews. So always be alert, but always question what you see.

Maybe look closer or think twice, at least when you're on FaceTime. I'm sitting in a city center cafe in the early afternoon. It's cold, wet, and I've spent literally the last hour. trying to console my best friend. As an only child and not having any relatives my own age, Wendy has always been the closest thing I've had to assist her. We've done everything together from playing dress-up as primary school children through sleepovers, makeovers, ill-advised underage drinking sessions

to nights out on the town, forming some of my best memories growing up. Now we're both pushing 40, married, and in Wendy's case with children. Her husband, John, or to use the current description, worthless fucking bastard, her words, not mine, is the subject of the conversation. John's away, having told Wendy that it's for some work-related training and networking event in one of the east of England's more well-known historic towns.

He left at the start of the week and had been dutifully calling her each night via video chat. I'm not sure if that was his idea or hers. God knows Wendy's always had issues with jealousy, possibly exacerbated by the fact that John is 12 years younger than her and falls under the good-looking and knows-it category. In any case, two nights ago, he had called her at around 9 o'clock. He was in his hotel room, having just had an unspecified amount to drink in the hotel bar. According to Wendy, the conversation was nothing unusual.

By her own admission, the first half was mainly taken up by her describing a terrible day at work, where levels of office politics and workload stress had almost driven her to resign on the spot. In between episodes of nose blowing and eye-wiping, she went on to tell me how she and John had talked about practical matters, such as childcare, credit cards, grocery deliveries, and all the other elements of happy ever after that the 90s romantic comedies were used to enjoy together never really covered.

She'd asked him how the hotel was, and John had described it as having character, an old building with a lot of history. He apparently said it had a real overlook or old dolphin hotel vibe to it. Wendy shrunked with her face. Not being a horror or Murakami fan, she hadn't got neither reference. But at this stage, in their relationship,

she had grown to accept John's obscure references without the inclination to inquire. From how she described the room, having asked him to pan the camera around, ostensibly to see the room, but knowing Wendy, probably also keeping a keen eye out for any subtle evidence of female occupation,

it was pretty grim. Bays walls with polythine-filled cracks, a rusty radiator, a door latch that had clearly been repaired after being kicked in at some point, and a carpet that would probably burn out the battery on a black light. The door was opened to the dimly lit adjacent bathroom. The high-pitched, continuous splash of the gutter announces the bus rolling by outside the cafe, filled with a handful of commuters on the lower deck,

presumably as miserable as you'd expect on a day like this, but unclear due to dripping misted windows. Wendy takes a deep breath, with that staggered exhalation that denotes somebody has cried themselves dry and might now be able to hold a conversation. With a deep tone of sympathy in my voice, I encourage her to tell me what happened next. As the conversation had continued, John had been keeping busy within the room, rummaging around in his travel bag, getting a beer out of the miniature fridge, plugging his Bluetooth speaker into charge. and at this point was pacing the room while talking, smartphone in hand. Wendy throws a hands up and smiles maniacly at me, saying, And that's when I fucking saw her!

As John had been talking, he had turned to face the window, and behind him, visible just over his left shoulder, inside the darkened doorway to the bathroom, had been a woman, visible for a couple of seconds at the most, just standing there, naked, and staring at John. Wendy starts to tear up again. I take hold of her hand and ask her,

Are you sure you saw what you think you saw? She tells me that, even though it had been quick, she was certain, that she could actually remember what this woman looked like, even expressing surprise that John would be interested in someone like that. Wendy describes her as having a stare that somehow managed to be both vacant and intense. Pale, clammy skin, long black, greasy hair, and swaying as if overmedicated.

And so, Wendy assumed that John had gone out and picked up the most low-rent sex worker he could find. As she described it, the subsequent minute consisted of her screaming every expletive under the sun at John, demanding to know who the hell she'd just seen, with John attempting in vain to play the innocent, and both parties attempting to shout over each other. Eventually, John, after repeatedly yelling that there was nobody there, brought his phone into the bathroom to persuade Wendy that the room was empty. Of course, Wendy wasn't having any of it, assuming that John was expertly keeping his slut out of shot,

and that maybe that was what he'd been doing all along, some kind of sick joke that he and his whore could laugh at as they collapsed into the bed when the video chat ended. Anyway, despite his protests, Wendy tapped the red button and ended the chat. John hadn't given up. Wendy shows me her phone. Her call log following the video chat consisted of 13 unanswered calls from John, followed by an assortment of text messages, varying in tone between confusion, anger and desperation.

Reading them, I can't help feeling sorry for him. and somebody might seriously consider that Wendy had imagined it. That was two nights ago. Now, sitting here in this bleak cafe, sipping at my overpriced bitter coffee, my thoughts are not with the distraught friend sitting opposite me, but with myself, with the fact that I have been having an affair with John for just over a year now, with the fact that I had arranged to meet him at this hotel last night. only to arrive and be told by the Knight Porter

that he had not been seen since the night of his conversation with Wendy, that a customer in an adjacent room had put in a complaint about sounds of moaning, cracking, tearing, thumping, and gurgled choking coming from the room at roughly the same time he stopped trying to call Wendy, that the maid had entered the room the following morning and found spatter. blood mixed with some kind of putrid slime, mostly trailing into the bathroom. What's preying most of my mind is the mistake I made in having exited the hotel,

looking back and up into the window of John's room, and being greeted by the single most terrifying thing I've ever seen. Though obscured by the yellowing net curtains in the late evening light, I was certain that behind them was a woman, naked, and looking at me with unparalleled hatred. Needless to say, I won't be going back to that hotel, but while I watched my best friend throw back the last mouthful of coffee and signal the waitress for the bill, I can't help but feel that geography is irrelevant, and that the bricks and mortar of an aging hotel are not going to prevent whatever the hell that was. from pursuing me into my reality and fulfilling the promise of that look of murderous intent.

Riding bikes around in summer, is there a more beloved childhood pastime? Sailing around with a gang of friends, the neighborhood your kingdom, tires practically flying off the asphalt, until something causes you to screech to a halt. And in this tale, shared with us by author Oshah Lukaai,

It's Mr. Johnson's field and the eerie installation set up in it. Performing this tale are Kyle Acres, Graham Rowett, Ellie Hirschman, Sarah Thomas, and Aaron Lillis. So avoid the field if you can. Keep to the places you know and don't go near those creepy figures unless you have to, unless you find yourself forced to approach the Mill Street Scarecrows. At the start of the summer, just after my 12th birthday, I met Tom and James. We all lived within walking distance of each other, but had never hung out. Then one day James and I both happened upon Tom while he was making a bonfire.

Tom was always interested in fire and the outdoors. James was a bit less adventurous, but he still liked being outside more than staying in. We hit it off from day one, and never spent much time apart after that. All three of us loved biking around the local area, and some days that's all we do. from dawn till dusk. That summer, I spent as much time with Tom's family as I did with my own. Tom's mom made soap and sold it at the farmer's market in town. With the three of us going all over the place on bike,

she offered to pay us to make deliveries. That was great, because with the extra pocket money, we could go see movies in town whenever we felt like it. Tom and James also spent plenty of time at my house. When I turned 10, my dad had given me this refillable steel lighter. and when he saw how much Tom loved fire, he got one for him too. We lived near a university town, which was surrounded on all sides by farms and pastures.

The artwork of the college had bled into the rural areas outside of it, leading to strange installations in the middle of nowhere. You would see things like a piano hanging in a tree, or permanent crop circles in a cornfield. The house next door to mine growing up had a barn covered entirely on the outside by mirrors. The barn's outline was all you could see it, first, and if you tried to look directly at it, you only saw your reflection. But by letting your

eyes relax, you could see the outline extend in three dimensions. I loved the artwork for the most part, with the exception of Mr. Johnson's scarecrow's. Carl Johnson's farm was on Mill Street, and whenever I went somewhere with Tom and James, we would intentionally take a longer route to avoid it. I knew for a fact that Tom disliked going there as much as I did. James would always laugh at us, but I think inside he felt the same way. There was nothing inherently bad about the scarecrow's, but when you saw them, it always felt like they were looking back at you.

They were also around 30 of them, all facing the roadway with tattered burlap sacks for heads and button eyes. Calling them scarecrows also might be misleading, as they weren't even in a field with crops. And they definitely didn't keep birds away. That was another reason why we would try any other possible route before riding down Mill, because every time we did, dozens of crows and other birds would fly into the air and squawk at us while we rode past. The only time we had to go down Mill was if

Tom's mom sent us on a delivery, and the customer lived there. Getting to someone on the other side of Mill would take over an hour if we took a detour, so we just had to face the birds and scarecrows. This happened to us one day in early August. We were on campus, outside of the movie theater, trying to choose what to watch, when Tom got a call from his mom. James and I started cursing because Tom rarely got calls from his mom for any reason other than to send us somewhere. Okay, we'll be there in a bed, I guess. Bye, Mom. James rolled his eyes. Where do we have to go? She said three people have orders today. Fuck, I thought we had today off. I'll go get some snacks for the ride.

When we got to Tom's house, we found a bag and a list of addresses sitting on the front porch. The list read, two bars for Bill Jones, 5823 Pine Ridge, one bar for Jan Stevens, 3339 Highland, one bar for Carl Johnson, 7-721 Mill Street. Fuck. The three of us stared at that list for at least a minute. Finally, Tom walked over and got on his bike. You guys coming? Is that optional? Yeah, we're coming. We made the deliveries in the order they were listed. By the the end of the second delivery, we were only a short ride from Mill Street in the scarecrows. James rode in front, followed by me and finally Tom. As we rounded the hill before Mr. Johnson's farm, we could see the crows.

At least ten of them were perched on and around those stupid scarecrows that should have been keeping them away. As we started riding past the first few scarecrows, the birds stayed where they were, not moving. Then, when we were within 40 feet of the driveway, they took off and started flying straight towards us. We started to panic as they swooped at us. We were swerving to avoid them. And as I was ducking, I saw James lean to one side to dodge one of the infernal crows. He must have leaned too far because in a moment so fast I could hardly see what happened. He jerked and twisted before falling forward and over his handlebars. He landed hard on his face, glasses crunching under him.

James! We pulled over in a ditch, then ran to our friend. When he rolled him onto the grass, his eyes were closed, and blood ran thick and fast from both nostrils. Tom bent down beside James's motionless body. Oh, fuck. We need help. I'll go to the farmhouse. You stay with him. Okay. Hurry. It felt like a dream as I ran all the way to the big farmhouse at the end of the drive. I was out of breath and pounded my fist on the door.

Martha, Carl's wife, answered the door. My friend fell off. his bike. Where is he now? Is he okay? He's on the road with Tom. He won't wake up. With who?

Please. You need to call an ambulance. Okay. But they'll take a while to get here. Let me go get the first aid kit. She went back inside and came back in two minutes with the kit. We walked together down the driveway. Martha couldn't walk very quickly.

And I knew that, but I wanted to shout, this is a fucking emergency. Can't you go any faster? As we walked, I saw something odd. One of the big metal T-shaped posts on which the scarecrow's were hung was empty. At a distance, I thought maybe it had just fallen off, but as we got closer, I could see there was nothing on the ground under it.

Hey, where's the scarecrow for that post? He must have fallen. I don't see him on the ground. Oh, well, I... Carl must have taken him into the workshop. As we approached the road, I could see James sprawled on the grass. I ran over to him, leaving Martha behind me. When I reached him, I could see that his eyes were still shut,

but his nose had stopped bleeding. I bent down to feel for his pulse, dread building inside my chest. Heartbeat. Oh, thank God. As I stood, something caught my eye. I crouched back down and turned his head to see better. Holy shit. On the left side of his face, just under his cheekbone,

there were three deep gashes, evenly spaced. I knew those weren't there when I left. Fuck. I looked around frantically as I realized I hadn't even noticed Tom wasn't there. His bike was gone as well. Had he just left? Martha finally caught up to where I was. I ran over to her and started talking in a panic. Where's Tom? Who?

Tom. He's my friend and he was supposed to stay here with James. His bike is gone, but I know he wouldn't go anywhere. Maybe he went to get help. I was supposed to get help. He was supposed to stay here in case James woke up. but he didn't wake up and now an animal attacked him. As I said this, Martha began to grow paler and paler. I looked up at her and seemed to see fear written on her face.

An animal attacked him? Look at his face. Those cuts are fresh and he didn't get them when he fell. Martha looked as though she might faint. In spite of this, she bent down and started going through the first aid kit. She had bandaged the cuts on James' face and started the ones on his head. by the time the ambulance arrived. The paramedics loaded him in,

and one of them asked me who he was and where he lived. I told him, and he thanked me, and then they drove away. Martha asked if I needed a ride home, but I told her no. I got on my bike and started to ride, headed for Tom's house. When I got there, no one was home. Damn it. I rode back to my house, thinking maybe he went there to meet me. No Tom.

At this point, I was starting to panic, but I couldn't search anymore. It was getting dark, and my mom told me to come inside when she saw me in the driveway. That night, I told Mom everything. She seemed concerned, but told me that Tom was probably outdoing something, and would be back the next day. She also called James' mom, who told us that he hadn't woken up yet, but the doctors were certain he would recover.

I could hardly sleep that night. I was worried about Tom and James. The little rest I got was haunted by those horrible scarecrows. After breakfast in the morning, I went out on my bike. First, I rode to Tom's house. His mom said she hadn't seen him since the day before. Wait, he's not with you? I told her what happened, and she looked terrified.

I'll call Helen and ask if Tom went to visit James at the hospital. I rode away, up towards Mill Street. When I got to the place where everything had happened the day before, I got off my bike. The scarecrow's leered at me. My skin crawled as I looked up. them. Then I noticed the scarecrow that was missing the day before. Now it stood in the back, its button eyes seeming to stare into mine. I walked over to it, never breaking its icy gaze.

When I was only a few feet away, I saw that its hands and feet weren't just tied. They were nailed to its frame. I looked at the ground under this demon's feet and saw something that sent a chill through me. The lighter, my dad had given to Tom, lay broken in the straw at the pole's base. I grabbed it and ran back to my bike. When I got home, I went into our garage. When my dad had given me the lighter for my 10th birthday, he also bought nearly a gallon of replacement fuel. I took the bottle of lighter fluid and got right back on my bike.

As I rode, all I could think of were that scarecrow's lifeless, evil eyes. When I was almost halfway there, my phone started to ring. It was my mom. I hung up the call and started to pedal faster. Finally, I made it back to Mr. Johnson's farm. I threw my bike into the grass and marched toward the thing that had taken my friend. I stood staring at it for a minute and then started to pour the fuel on its arms and legs. On its chest and head, all over its eyes, it still seemed to mock me.

I grabbed a stick, wrapped it with one of my socks, and doused it with the fluid to make a torch. My phone started to ring again, and I just hung up. I lit my torch and stood back, looking at the top. deep into the eyes of that scarecrow. I thought I saw a glint of fear. Good. I jabbed it with a flaming stick, and a wave of heat washed over me. The flames burst from every part of its body and rose high into the air above it.

I ran back to the street and got on my bike. Before I started to ride, however, my phone rang again. I looked at the number and saw that it was James. Hey, man, are you okay? Do you remember the crash? Where are you? I tried to call your home phone and then your cell. Your mom said you left.

I woke up about an hour ago and had to talk to the police before I could call you. The police? What happened? Tom and I were attacked yesterday after you went for help. The doctor could tell I hadn't gotten those cuts from the crash and told my mom. Do you remember anything? Yeah, but I'd rather talk about it in person. Where are you?

I'm at Mr. Johnson's farm. Jesus Christ, get out of there. It's okay. I found Tom's life. lighter with one of the scarecrow's. That scarecrow wasn't there yesterday when you got attacked. I burned it to the ground. A scarecrow didn't kill Tom. Mr. Johnson did. Wait, Tom is dead? I found out the whole story from James in the local news. James had started to wake up when Mr. Johnson came towards them, carrying a rake and a bat.

Johnson hit Tom over the head with the bat. And then, seeing James begin to move, smacked him across the face with the rake. That's the last thing James remembered. Carl Johnson was never arrested. The police found him hanging by his neck from a tree when they arrived. Martha claimed she didn't know what her husband was doing, but she had known he took pictures of kids that went by. The police found these pictures in the Johnson's workshop, along with Tom's bike. No evidence was ever found in the workshop or house to confirm whether murder had taken place there, however. The crimes were meticulous and precise, which is why I'm still glad I set that scarecrow on fire.

If I hadn't felt the need to avenge my friend that day, they might have never found where all the bodies were hidden. Hi folks, Cummings here. We have fresh pre-made horror stories ready to serve up in minutes. And speaking of, do you know I get fresh pre-measured ingredients and mouth-watering seasonal recipes delivered right to my door with HelloFresh? It's America's number one meal kit.

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Additional restrictions apply. Please visit hellofresh.com for more details. Remember to get $80 off. That's hellofresh.com slash 80 no sleep and use code 80 no sleep. And now get ready to dig in to more delicious horror. Vermin, where would we be without them? Scratching inside our walls, dashing around in our attics, keeping us up all day and night.

A short-term solution is to drown them out with a podcast. but generally it's better to, you know, get rid of the invaders. But in this tale, shared with us by author John Mark Zalapa, we discover that sometimes it's not quite so easy to get rid of unwanted houseguests. Performing this tale is Atticus Jackson. So get your best stocking gear on, get yourself fired up, and prepare for the showdown of a lifetime. No, no, we're not hunting Wabits,

because there's a mouse in the house. What do you do when you have a mouse? Get a cat, I suppose. Seems logical. But what do you do when the mouse eats the cat? Well, I decided to study the fucker. Turns out, that was not the best idea I've had. Okay, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Let me back up. I live in what some might consider a shithole. I myself consider it rustically charming. So, living in an older house with, shall we say, ample opportunities for renovations, you're bound to end up with the odd freeloading quadruped about. It started simply enough. Little gnaw marks on my cereal boxes, chew holes through my trash bag, Small black ducy pellets littered hither and yawn.

Evidence that I had an interloper who was attacking my cinnamon checks. Nobody, but nobody fucks with my cinnamon checks. You see, I don't have much anymore after that a harlot left me, heartbroken, penniless, and with a 400 credit score. My entire world consisted of work, whiskey, and cinnamon. checks. So anyone attacking one of my three pillars of this shit existence was branded as my nemesis. The first act was to try and catch the son of a bitch myself. I set out about my dilapidated three-story garbage heap to try and find the fucker's hiding spot. The problem is I really didn't have baseboards to speak of, and one would be hard pressed to find a section of wall, floor,

a room that didn't have a mouse-sized hole in it. After about a week, none of the traps were sprung, and I had all but given up on hunting this serial thieving bastard. Even laying down flour near his normal dining area to try and trace footprints back to his escape hatch was fruitless. It seemed that the flour was too obvious for the conniving little douche. So, I decided it was time to up my game and find myself a natural predator. As fortune would have it, my shithole house was in a shithole neighborhood, and I had an abundance of semi-feral felines roaming the alleyways. One never had to wait too long before one of the local Tom's knocked up an alley hussy, and she spit out a litter of furry fanged hellspawn. It took little more than a hunk of mcgarbage on a bootstring to corral one of the wee gutter snipes into my foyer so that I could apprehend him.

He was a feisty little shit. The first afternoon that I made him my prisoner, after distracting him with the other half of my McYucky sandwich, I attempted to pet him in sort of an act of friendship, or maybe solidarity. He bit me for my trouble. I named him Dick. He didn't care.

I figured Dick would probably be too full of processed beef abominations to want to sniff out my intruder. But I grossly unresed. underestimated the veracity of an infrequently fed feral feline, and he set about with much haste, tracking around the other critter's munching ground. Low to the ground, I watched Dick as he slinked about my mismatched wood flooring in search of a live, wriggling meal. He made his way, weasling up the stairs like a slinky in reverse onto the second floor.

He paused for a minute, regained his bearings, acquainting himself with the yet. undiscovered level of my domicile before proceeding up the stairs once more, en route to the attic door on the third floor. I personally never made many trips to the attic. When I had moved in, I noted that it was filled with rubbish and ruined furniture from previous tenants, probably dating back a few decades. Between the mildews smell and quiff squeak of the floorboards, I found no reason ever fully explore that particular room. To be honest, my time was spent drinking on my dirty jizz and tear-stained futon with occasional trips to the commode to shit, shave, and shower. But I digress. Dick stopped outside of the attic door, which had a sizable gap between the

base of the old paint-peeled door and the discolored floorboards. The threshold long ago either rotted or kicked away. He got almost flat to the grass. and began to let out that low guttural cat yodel, signaling that his target had been acquired. He stared at the door, tail twitching in a perturbed manner, and continued to grumble. Well, this should be short work. I trekked back down the stairs to my futon in a cheap bottle of whiskey to drink and sulk myself to sleep, as percustom. The next morning, I expected to find the gory evidence. of mouse murder. Gore, I found in spades. Mouse bits? Not so much. What I did find was a ragged, jagged,

gnawed, hunk of a cat tail just outside of the attic door. This was an unexpected turn of events. So, shitsnacks. I may have grossly underestimated my rodent opponent. What should I do now? I'd like to pause and interject here. As I am relaying this, I am more or less sober. This is a great deal different than my usual states of incredibly drunk or incredibly hungover. In moments like now, I have the virtue of extreme hindsight and clarity. At the time, this was not the case. Instead of realizing that something was truly amiss with this creature,

sharing my house, I just assumed that it was more rat than mouse. And being that dick wasn't full grown, I just passed it off as a battle royale that ended up in the rat's favor. Perhaps I surmised there were two or more rats involved, a gang of rats even. So I decided to adjust my tactics and impose a hardier predator to take on this vermin infestation. In much the same manner, used in attracting dick, my urban fishing skills, I mean, I wrangled two decent-sized surly tombs, who clearly regarded me as their lesser, and they strutted, gonad swinging across my floor to the plate of McDiscontory that I had prepared for them. For sure, I thought this would be the end of my invader, and none too soon, after all, it had cereal to think of. In much of the

the same way, the two tough tombs skulked their way up to the third floor attic door and yowled at the brood beyond. This time, I thought, I was out to win the game. I grabbed my bottle of turpentine-flavored whiskey and proceeded back up the crumbling steps to the third floor, where the terrible tom sat outside the door to my attic. In fact, I grabbed a camping chair and a bag of stale barbecue-flavored chips to complete the ambiance, and prepared for a little mammal-on-rooted gladiator primus. I quickly set up camp and opened the door to the attic to set loose those magnificent bastards and was immediately assaulted by the mole's scent and a new yet undescribed funk.

Something deep and rich in its bile churning awfulness, laced with the slight twinges of metal at its outskirts. As if the mold wasn't bad enough, I imagined this was the rotting remnants of poor little dick from the other day. The Tom's wasted no time and bolted into the shadows in the back of that rotten attic. Obscured by the foul-smelling darkness, the sounds of mayhem and murder ripped through the otherwise silent room. Munching my stale chips and hooting my drunken encouragement to Team Tom,

I wondered if I should grab a flashlight to catch the action as it unfolded. The action, however, lasted as long as a Mike Tyson fight. Within a few short seconds of the melee's onset, I could tell by the tone of screeching from my two tough tombs that the tide of the battle had shifted against them. The low, guttural war cry sharply shifted to a pleading cacophony of retreat. Retreat, however, was not on the enemy's agenda. The serial stealer gave no quarter, no mercy.

Briefly, I saw the mangled form of one Tom try and drag his way out of the dank darkness into the safety of the hallway's light, like a soul damned to the pit, groping skyward. for the heaven he would never reach. The poor shit was dragged menacingly back into that awful blackness to assuredly be ripped asunder by whatever ungodly creature resided in there. After the battle's deafening defeat,

I sat for a long time and pondered what had just occurred. In as little as three weeks, whatever had taken residence in my home had graduated from cereal to kitten to full-grown alley-cats, in as much time. This did not bode well for yours truly. It seemed likely that the whatever the fuck would soon attempt to eat my face while I drunkenly slumbered. The thought of that made me shudder in my half-inebrated state.

But much to my later chagrin, whiskey has the dubious moniker of liquid courage for a reason. My thoughts shifted from fear to anger at that home. that thought it could intrude on me, eat my cereal, and my fucking cats. It didn't matter that I had them each for less than a few days. They were like my miserable extended family, a reflection of myself and their shoddy, unloved, and disheveled states. An inexplicable rage burbled up inside of me, like the first wave of a violent bourbon-induced vomiting. I leaped from my chair and grabbed my now empty bottle of whiskey to swing like a deadly

cudgel against whatever mutant rat was living in my attic and fucking my poor excuse for a life. I burst through the entryway like a demented warrior, bottle raised above my head, yelling my war cry at top lung and hitting the room at full drunken lumber. As I closed my distance into the shadows, Time itself slowed to a heated heartbeat pace. Each still frame in those few seconds is now etched forever, like a camera obscure into my thalamus. No matter how much I try to kill the memory with boos. First heartbeat.

I hit the separation between the light from the landing outside of the attic door in the dark of the inner attic sanctum. Second heartbeat The shadows revealed themselves to me Like a $2-dollar whore dropping her filthy dress To the cigarette-burned carpet of a seedy roadside motel Third heartbeat From the level of my waist

Eight glowing orb So red that they were black Shot up at my direction and fixed on me A predator honing in on its prey They spoke to strong their gaze, and that gaze was pointed right at where my giblets were housed. Fourth heartbeat. A low, hungry rumble undulated from just below the glowing orbs.

It was a song of death. My death. I was man-bacon, and I had stepped directly into the motherfucking frying pan. pan. Fifth heartbeat. I shifted my forward momentum to one side of my body and spun around on my heel, parlaying my forward drive into centrifugal force, propelling my terrified ass directly out the way I had come. In my head, I imagined running with no traction, like a Scooby-Doo cartoon. Sixth heartbeat. Suddenly sober, I sprinted with every ounce of fleet footage. I could muster. Pure and primal survival kicked in as I heard the scraping its nails made as they dug into the floorboards for traction, preparing to make me into its next meal and presumably grow to full human height.

I managed to grab the door, slamming it shut mere seconds before the, whatever the fuck it was, locked its teeth into my ass cheeks. I heard it slam into the door with a thud and a grunt. As I continued my sprint into the half-functioning bathroom. See, like a proper loser, I kept bottles of whiskey in about every room just in case I found my idle hands wanting. Opening the top, I ripped my shirt off and stuffed it into the open maw of the whiskey bottle. After taking a solid pull from it, of course, because fuck sobriety right now. Then I produced the Zippo, my bitch of an ex had bought me one birthday. Lighting it with a practiced flourish, I set ablaze the Molotov cocktail right as that eight-eyed carnivore discovered the concept of doorknobs.

With the skill that only middle relief pitching in Little League could bring me, I chucked that flaming bottle at the mass that held those goddamn eyes. In a magnificent explosion of whiskey-fueled fire, the cocktail hit home and set that shit-weasel ablaze. It began to thrash back to the shadows of the attic, lighting the old boxes and musty furniture at its retreat. As the fire quickly spread from shit heap to shit heap, the creature made its exit through the window, screeching as it fell. I paused a moment to catch my breath, smiling like an idiot in victory, until I realized that my house would probably burn around me if I didn't get the hell out of Dodge post haste. Grabbing another bottle of whiskey on my way out, I walked away like the closing scene of a John Wu film, building artistically blazing behind me. I paused, a sudden thought occurring to me.

So few times in my life had I fought a battle and won that it seemed a waste not to revel in my solitary triumph a bit. I took a hearty swig of my dime store booze and sauntered cockily over to the rear. of my flaming house to physically piss on my fallen foe. As I rounded the corner, I saw in full, clear view what I had unwittingly vanquished. Lying, twitching on the ground was what looked like a rejected H.R. Geiger sketch of a spider, the size of a dog with a pale, hairless, smooth, white body. It had dagger-like legs and menacing. mandibles which were still soaked in the blood and visor of my poor, poor pussycats.

I could see that my flaming onslaught had melted three of its eight eyes, but other than that, it looked more dazed than wounded. Staring at it, swaying drunkenly, I lost myself momentarily in the wickedness of the thing. What a perfect predator, quiet, sleek. ruthless. I wondered for a moment how large it would grow if left unchecked. It began to stir, ever so slightly, proving to me that I had indeed only stunned it. Any moment now it would shake off the haze like the end of any of my lonely whiskey-soaked nights, courtesy of a heartless succubes who took my time, my money, my happiness,

and left me for some cocksucker with a better job at a sports car. And then, the angel on my shoulder was smited by the devil on my other, as a dark grin cracked over my face, growing until my teeth bared and my skin began to crack. A box, some tape, a pretty pink bow and a short drive was all it took. She always liked surprises. And I recall she often told me she was fond of my eyes. Well, I have new eyes to show her. And those eyes scream out murder.

Listen, by now I've given you every warning possible about horrific things to expect in the attic when you move into a new property. But what if you move into an attic and everything. up there is fine, and yet you know something is awry somewhere. And in this tale, shared with us by author Amanda Fernandez, a young couple discovers it's all downhill from here when they're at the top, and the horror can only come from below. I join Dan Zapula, Matthew Bradford, Alexis Bristow, Addison Peacock, and Peter Lewis in performing this tale. So the attic is just fine. It's the basement you've got to worry about. And it's not being down there.

That's the problem. It's when you try to come back up, when you face the climb. After graduating from university, my boyfriend and I started sharing this attic apartment in an old house. Rent wasn't too bad, and while we were a little too far from downtown, at least we had our own bathroom and even a tiny kitchen. Most importantly, the house had its own washing machine and dryer. Since Raphael and I were both tired of dragging our laundry baskets to the nearest laundromat, that actually influenced our decision to move in. Now, I'll admit that every laundry room is a little bit creepy.

They're always in the basement next to noisy boilers that can make some truly blood-curdling sounds. They are humid, cold, and generally unpleasant. This laundry room, though, wasn't too bad because the basement had pretty decent lighting, and the machines were brand new. If I tell you now that neither my boyfriend nor I liked to go down to the basement, don't think it was because it was a dark and scary place that brought all of our childhood fears to service. It was mostly because of the stairs. Because the house had been split into two separate apartments,

plus the attic where we lived, we could only access the basement by going around the house and down a narrow flight of wooden stairs. The steps were a little too short and steep, but other than that, Raphael and I had been rather impressed with the house. We looked around a little bit, commented on how convenient it would be

to have a laundry room at our disposal, then went upstairs again. I had been so distracted talking to Raphael about signing the lease, that I almost didn't notice the creeping feeling until it made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. I turned sharply. Raphael called me from the door right above me. You okay there, Mark?

The landlord, a rather pleasant man in his 60s, gave me a wary look, but said nothing. Yeah, it's fine. I threw the basement one final look, searching for something out of the ordinary. There was nothing. I couldn't really put it into words at that moment. It happened so fast and so briefly

that I just brushed it aside as one of those creepy feelings everyone gets sometimes. It wasn't until later that night when we started packing that I told Raphael what had been bothering me. I thought there was someone behind me. He looked up from the box he'd been filling with textbooks. When we were coming out of the... basement. I felt like someone was right behind me. You too. You felt it? Yeah, I thought it was you at first, but then I turned around and you were like five steps behind me. Did we make a bad decision signing the

lease? Would be just our luck to end up in a haunted house. Yeah, fuck, ghost. If I never have to share a bathroom with five other people, it'll be too soon. I laughed, but couldn't push aside the uneasiness I was feeling. The fact that Raffa didn't look nearly as shook as I felt led me to believe that he hadn't felt exactly the same thing as I had. When climbing those stairs, I didn't just think there was something behind me. I knew someone was there, trailing in my steps and coming so dangerously close I could almost feel their body against mine, as if I were in a crowd and a stranger was about to collide with me. In all likelihood, there was nothing to worry about.

You're probably right. I put that out of my mind and didn't think about it until a week after we'd moved into the attic and I had to do the laundry. Despite my initial worry, the memory of being spooked by absolutely nothing had quickly been pushed to the back of my mind as we spent the next couple of weeks packing. I went down to the basement, loaded the washing machine, added it. added the detergent, pressed the button, then started up the stairs wondering what I would do with the next 50 minutes. My feet had only touched the third step when I felt it again. The certainty.

The absolute certainty that someone was standing right behind me. I stopped to look over my shoulder. There was no one behind me and I felt right. rather foolish looking back at the washing machine. Nothing scary here. No one was reaching out with a skeletal hand to pull me back down and take away my soul. I continued up the stairs trying to ignore the fact

that the feeling didn't go away until I opened the door. Then, like a pair of shackles weighing you down, the sensation was gone. Isadora, one of the sisters who shared the second floor apartment, was coming back home and she must have seen me shudder. Spooky, isn't it? What? The stairs?

It's okay. Everyone feels it. We think there's a friendly ghost living down there or something. Seriously? Sure. We named him Joe. Isadora smiled and I couldn't tell whether she was joking or not. Right.

Well, if there were any violent crimes in this house, I don't want to hear about them. It wasn't that I was particularly superstitious or troubled by the idea of a ghost living downstairs. I just couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong and that this was not as harmless as I first thought. If I was forced to examine it closely, I might even consider moving. We didn't, though. Rent was reasonable and our housemates were quite pleasant and quiet. Raphael and I continued living there for almost a year, but we never really got used to the stairs. Isadora and her sister Elena clearly had, and they made jokes about it and mentioned their friendly ghost as if it were an invisible pet they were fond of. They speculated on the nature of the haunting with gloomy yet gleeful theories.

Maybe some guy killed himself and his ghost is trapped in there. Or maybe there are bodies in the walls. under the stairs. I didn't think there were bodies hiding anywhere. The floors were made of concrete, the wallpaper hadn't been changed since the 1950s, and the stairs had opened steps. The only thing underneath it was a pile of junk

the landlord and his wife had accumulated over the years. Raphael and I were not horror junkies and took no pleasure talking about the ghost in the basement. Rafael commented on how much, much he hated those stairs every time he had to go down there, and said he was glad at least the rest of the house was peaceful, which was the strangest thing once I thought about it. Nowhere else in the house could we feel a presence, not even a little bit. Nothing ever changed places, no weird noises could be heard in the middle of the night. No shadows or strange

reflections ever caught us off guard. It was only those damn stairs. About six months in, Raphael offered to do all other chores as long as he didn't have to do laundry anymore. He was white as a sheet, and I could tell he was barely holding it together. I don't care what it is. I can even do dishes every day if you want me to, but I'm not going back there. What happened? Did you see anything? It touched me. What do you mean it touched you? I felt it touched me, Mark. Not like before, it wasn't behind me.

It brushed past me. I swear I could feel their knuckles against the back of my hand. I tried to tell Raphael that the girls had probably gotten into his head, and he had only imagined someone touching him. I told him about how our brain sometimes fills the gaps of what it cannot explain with unreasonable facts. Basically, I repeated out, allowed everything I had been telling myself for six months in order to keep my sanity. Raphael told me to go fuck myself with my psychology degree.

You know there's something weird, Mark. You know it, so don't be stubborn. It wasn't a long fight. We made up fairly quickly. After that, I took laundry duties upon myself, and nothing out of the ordinary happened for a while. Some days, the certainty that someone was following me outside was nothing but a wish. in the back of my mind. Other days, it was so strong I actually walked up the stairs backward to keep an eye on the basement. There was never anyone behind me, but I swear I could still feel it standing in front of me.

Its pace matching mine, its invisible body, undeniable, even if I couldn't see it. If I closed my eyes and put some effort into it, I'm sure I would have been able to picture its face in my mind, but I never did. I just walked faster, taking the stairs two or three steps at a time, not giving whatever it was that lived in the basement the chance to catch up. That was until two months ago, when two full loads of laundry meant I was slowed down considerably. As I slugged up the stairs, I could recognize the feeling when it crept up on me, but I told myself it would vanish once I opened the door. It always did. I guess our friendly ghost didn't like

going outside. It came up to me, one step after another. I could tell that its feet dragged at the same pace as mine, as if it too were dragging something heavy. It would vanish in a moment, I told myself. It would vanish as soon as I... Something leaned into my ear. I thought of Raphael and how he'd said he could feel the knuckles of this person thing. I don't know. He could feel it touching his skin and, oh, God, now I could feel their fucking lips touching the back of my ear and its icy breath. Thank you. I dropped the clothes I was carrying and they tumbled down the steps as I ran for the door. I don't think I'd ever been so scared in my life.

I don't even think it was because of the incorporeal voice whispering in my ear. Rather, it was its tone. It sounded almost like a mockery of what gratitude was supposed to sound like, as if it had heard those words in the lips of others several times before, and it had learned with the sole purpose to scare me with it. I asked Elena to go fetch my laundry and then told Raphael that I'd read, rather use the laundromat two blocks down from that moment on. He didn't fight me on it. The girls asked me about the ghost, dying for some firsthand experience. I answered their

questions for five minutes, then told them to never mention it again. It hadn't been funny. It had been fucking terrifying, and I didn't want to know what kind of thing had a voice like that. More to the point, I didn't want to know what it was thanking me for. Ignorance was bliss, and I wish I could have stayed that way. Last week, our landlord let us know that he would be renovating the basement. He said it was time because the boiler was too old, and the place hadn't really gotten a fresh coat of paint in decades. I think, though he never confirmed it, that he thought changing things around, perhaps getting rid of the clutter and the peeling wallpaper, would make a difference.

Maybe once the renovations were done, we could all go downstairs again and realize this whole ordeal had been nothing but a figment of our imagination. Since our landlord and his wife were in their late 60s and not in the best of shapes, the girls offered to move all of the junk the couple had accumulated in the basement upstairs. I can only assume that they wanted to explore the space in more detail, maybe contact the dead while they still had the chance. Raphael and I made the decision to stay away while they moved things around. If they did find a body in an old suitcase, we wanted no part in it.

However, that afternoon, Elena knocked on our door. She didn't look disturbed, only a little confused. Hey, sorry to bother you guys, but can you come downstairs for a moment? We found something a little weird, and we thought... Yeah, we're really not interested in examining demon-possessed dolls or whatever you found. No, no, it's not that. It's just a bunch of old junk, nothing creepy. But we think there might be some sort of wild animal living in the basement.

Could you just take a look? We decided there was no harm in that and followed Elena to the basement. The sisters had moved a large collection of old chests, cardboard boxes, and assorted knick-knacks to the middle of the basement, clearing the space under the stairs. Turns out, the girls had gotten one thing right in their speculation. There had been something under the stairs all along, just not what they'd expected. Right behind a heavy chest, next to the wall, there was a whole big big, big. enough for a small person to squeeze out of. I took a closer look trying to see how far it went, but I couldn't tell. It was very dark, so I can only assume it was rather deep. Around it,

we could see deep scratch marks, as if a wild animal with particularly sharp talons had clawed its way out of the hole several times. What kind of animal can dig a hole in concrete? I have no idea. I was a little relieved, to be honest. Sure, it was a little creepy, but if that hole led outside, then maybe we had all been the victims of a harmless draft and let our imaginations get the best of us. Think it could be a raccoon or... Animals don't make holes like that.

I looked at Raphael. He had his eyes on the hole, but he didn't look curious or interested in it. Rather, he looked as if he were putting numbers together, trying to reach the solution to a problem. How deep do you think it... Where is Isadora? Elena looked at him, then around the basement for a moment, as if realizing for the first time that her sister was not here.

You know what? I'm not sure. I guess she might have went to the washroom when I went to get... We're going upstairs now. Rafael grabbed me by the hand and forced her. me up the stairs. When I felt something brushing up against my back, I picked up the pace. The landlord had no idea there was a hole in the basement. The house had been his father's, and the basement had stayed relatively untouched for the past 30 years. Rafael insisted that he go downstairs to check, but refused to go along with him. He shuddered when he walked back out

a moment later, followed by Elena, who still didn't seem bothered by her findings, nor by the fact that her sister seemed to have vanished into thin air. The landlord looked worried. Yeah, that's a big hole. It's going to cost an arm and a leg to fix it. Mark and I are moving out. The landlord stared at Raphael. I did the same. We're very sorry about the short notice, but we can't stay here anymore. I tried to speak. He ignored me and went on. We understand that we're breaking the terms of our lease. You can keep our deposit, but we are moving out as soon as we find another place. Honestly, I think you should do the same. There was some discussion. Our landlord was actually a pretty nice guy, and he liked us because we always paid on time. He also didn't

want to have to find other tenants on such short notice, but Raphael was adamant about it. I was too stunned for words. The moment we got to our apartment, I exploded. What the hell, Raffa? We can't just move. We're packing. Again, I couldn't do much more than just stare at him. Excuse me? We're packing, and we're staying in my parents until we find someplace else.

His parents still referred to me as that boy who's your roommate. Spending an undetermined amount of time in their house was not my idea of fun. Raffa, don't you think you're overreacting to a hole in the floor? I watched as he bent down to pick our suitcases from under the bed. My patience was wearing thin. Okay, I know that the stairs are creepy and that there were a couple of incidents that we couldn't explain. but listen, that hole actually explains a lot. Maybe the girls are right and that there are wild animals living in the...

Raphael stopped what he was doing to look me in the eye. Mark, nothing lives in that hole. I hadn't thought about it. I don't know why, because it seems rather obvious in retrospect, but I don't know. I just never realized. Realized what? Nothing ever follows us back down. I don't care what's in.

that hole mark. But whatever they are, I think we've been leading them out. 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-sleep podcast.com to learn about our season pass program. On behalf of everyone at the No Sleep Podcast, we thank you for listening.

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