The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S14E25 - Season Finale

Episode Date: August 2, 2020

It’s Episode 25 – the Season 14 Finale. This week we conjure four stories for you wrapped up with a series of Canadian paranormal encounters. “Panic at Manic-5” written by Manen Lyset (Story starts around 00:05:00) Produced by: David Cummings Cast: Narrator – David Cummings “The Rathwick Ritual on Sentinel Hill” written by P.L. McMillan (Story starts around 00:15:00) Produced by: Jesse Cornett Cast: Narrator – Jessica McEvoy, Taxi Driver – David Cummings “Vision in the Ra Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I'm your host, David Cummings. This episode is the finale. of our 14th season. And for this special season-ending show, I'd like to do something a little different. Yes, we have four stories to share with you, but I'm also going to share some other tales with you, tales which will allow me to highlight the country I'm proud to call home.

Let me put all this into context. You see, it's not easy being the host of a popular horror podcast. Being famous can be a chore. It's an endless string of a world. adoring fans, movie premieres, and fancy restaurants. Or so I'm told. But since I'm not famous, it usually amounts to reading some tweets and watching Netflix while chowing down on delivery pizza. But what it does mean is I get to speak to people about the strange, creepy, and downright paranormal things they have experienced. And since I'm Canadian, I have accumulated quite a few

unique tales from my own country that defy explanation by common logic. Over the past couple of months, I've been putting out feelers to friends, family, colleagues, and even strangers to collect and share real paranormal encounters they've experienced here in Canada. Turns out if you ask around, almost everyone has some sort of paranormal encounter or another they're willing to share. So join us as we share tales of the strange, the creepy, and the paranormal in this, shall we say, maple syrup-flavored episode of the No Sleep Podcast. To begin, we journey to the province of Quebec. Not far from the geological center of the province, you'll find the Manacugan Reservoir, a huge circle of water formed by a meteor impact around 214 million years ago,

give or take. It's an impressive lake and river system, looking like a massive round eye staring up into space. And all that water flowing means power. All that's needed is a way to harness it. So let's find out how one man was damned to discover another source of power on that river, as he experienced a panic at Manic Five. This first story comes from a friend's cousin, Jean-Francois, who worked at one of Quebec's largest hydroelectric dams back in the early 1970s. He was hired by Hydro-Quaback as an engineer, and his job mainly involved patrolling the Manic Five powerhouse, checking the valves, maintaining the turbines, making necessary repairs, that kind of stuff.

He was never alone at the facility, but the workforce was fairly small, so he'd often go hours without seeing anyone else. Now, before I begin his story, I just want to put a few things into context. I'm sure everyone already knows how hydroelectric dams work, right? What? No? Well, here's a quick and easy explanation. Number one, build a big old wall on a river, in this case the Manacugan River, to create an artificial lake. Number two, build a powerhouse with turbines nearby downstream. Number three, funnel water towards the top of the powerhouse and use the awesome power of

gravity and water pressure to spin the turbines which generate electricity. Number four, harness the almighty power of electricity. And number five, dump the water back into the river at the bottom of the powerhouse. The cool thing is, if the river has a good enough flow and is long enough, you can build multiple hydroelectric dams on it and keep juicing that same water for all its worth. Hence, the name of the powerhouse Jean-François worked at, Manick 5. Manic for the river, Manacugin, and five for the dam number. Thus endeth the lesson. Now, Manic 5 had only been running for a few months when Jean-François was hired, and Hydro-Quebeck was having

trouble staffing the powerhouse. He figured it was due to the dam's remoteness. It was about three to four hours away from civilization, with only one lonely road to and from. The distance made it impractical to commute, so the staff would spend the entire week at the facility and swap out with the second crew every other week. Jean-François recounted the first time he drove up to the dam. He described it as a massive concrete behemoth peeking out from above an ocean of trees, like the outer wall of a castle that didn't exist. It had a weight to it that went beyond that of its building blocks and the water it held back. He felt like it was watching him. The wall was the only thing between him and a flood of water that would wash him away forever. A guardian, a tombstone.

The powerhouse was so close that if anything were to bring down the damn wall, he'd have just enough time to know death was coming, but not enough time to run. I guess you could liken it to living under a volcano. He was paranoid the dam wouldn't hold. He inspected it every chance he got, searching for fissures and leaks, but never finding any. Intellectually, he knew it was well-engineered and wouldn't break, but he couldn't shake the nerves. It was like looking out over a cliff and knowing there's only a guardrail between you and certain death. How strong is that guardrail? Do you take it at face value that it'll hold? Well, he barely slept his first week there, keeping his ears open for any sign of impending doom. But at first, all he heard was the

ceaseless drum of water rushing through the turbines. Then, one night, as he was staring at the cold concrete ceiling in the makeshift dormitory, he heard a dripping noise. Any deviation from the norm naturally struck a chord of terror within him. It was kind of like bracing to feel the iceberg hit, and then hearing a light scraping along the hull. where there's smoke, there's fire. Already drenched in sweat, Jean-François got up to investigate. The powerhouse was full of criss-crossing concrete corridors, making the source of the sound difficult to pinpoint.

With nothing but a flashlight in his shaky hands, he walked up and down, straining his ears to differentiate between echo and source. It was only once he'd reached the lowest floor that the sound became loud. enough for him to confirm he was headed in the right direction. He swept his flashlight left to right until he caught something shimmering on the floor. As he approached, he realized it was a puddle coming from under a door where they'd been planning on installing a security office. Now, if it's not obvious enough, water inside a hydrodham full of electrical equipment, yeah, it's not a good thing. He scurried to the nearest supply cabinet and slipped into these really thick rubber boots for insulation.

He returned to the door and found the puddle had grown. Not a good sign. Unsure what he'd find inside, he cautiously opened the door, imagining a wave of water waiting to sweep him away. He found the room empty, but for a large puddle of water in the middle of the room, slowly spreading towards the corridor. This was a relief because it meant it was likely just a leaky pipe and not, you know, a tidal wave of doom. So there he was, in the room, searching for the source. He checked the walls. Nothing.

He checked the ceiling. Smooth as silk. He crouched down and inspected the floor to see if it was bubbling up through a crack. No, nothing was... He felt a droplet hit the top of his head. Okay, he figured he'd probably ruled out the ceiling too fast. He backed away and aimed the flashlight up, squinting to find the source. He heard a few drips but couldn't see movement or water clinging to the surface.

He looked back down to the puddle and saw a droplet splashing into it. This is the part of the story where Jean-François's voice began to falter. I could tell, even so many years, later, it still freaked him out. There was this distinct uncertainty in his voice, as though he was both afraid to say what had happened out of honest fear and out of fear of ridicule. He was silent for a few moments, and then he continued. He told me he panned the flashlight back up very slowly, and that's when he saw it. There was a droplet hanging in the middle of the air. It slowly curved inward, in a j-like shape, pooled, and then fell into the puddle.

Jean-François swears it was though it was following the curve of someone's cheek all the way down to their chin. He stood in stunned silence as another droplet emerged out of thin air, somewhere between five and six feet from the floor. He ran out of there so fast he almost lost one of his boots. He ran back to the dormitory and shook one of his colleagues awake. Exhausted, confused, and more than a little grumpy, he reluctantly followed him back down not even ten minutes later. The puddle was gone, but in its place were wet, bare footprints walking all around the room, up the walls on the ceiling,

and finally leaving out the door and disappearing halfway down the hall. Jean-François said he refused to go back to that section of the past. powerhouse after that night, but he heard others also found puddles leaking out from under that door. They ultimately built the security office in another location and converted the space into a storage room, but even that wasn't enough. The room was later sealed off with concrete. Under the guise, there was some sort of flaw in the foundation. But they say, even today, they sometimes find puddles under the now sealed wall. Experiening something like that

would definitely put some pepper on my putteen. Chilling. So let's travel from Quebec into a town further south, across the border, into New England. It's an area rife with history and traditions which stretch back generations. And when a woman travels to a town for a conference,

she witnesses a rural, folksy procession, with a desire to love. Learn more, she delves into forbidden areas to understand what the townsfolk are doing and why they have so many scarecrow's. This tale is written by author P.L. McMill. McMill. Now, it's time for us to learn all about the Rathwick ritual on Sentinel Hill. I was leaning against the windowsill, blowing smoke into the night air when I saw the first of the townsfolk. The woman looked as a the shadow would, gliding down the road in all black. She had a scarf bound about her head, and her hands were clasped in front of her, holding a fat candle. It was very late,

and the moon was mainly swathed in clouds, laying a heavy blanket of darkness over the rooftops of this old city. I'd only been here a few days for my conference at the dingy hotel, but I had learned that the city of Rathwick slept early. Room service ended at seven here, restaurants closed at eight, and as far as I understood, it was unheard of for someone to be out on the streets past midnight. The woman's candle flickered meekly in the glow of the streetlights. As she passed under me, I saw more movement down the street. Gripping the window sill, I leaned out.

There was a long line of people stepping so carefully over the street. the cobblestones that they were silent. Each held a candle, each walked alone, and single file down the road. I wondered at the eccentricities of small towns, thickly entangled with inbred superstitions and beliefs. I finished my cigarette, counting the silent figures. I had counted to 22 when the parade ended. At the very tail were four bare-chested, hooded men. They stood in a rough diamond shape, carrying a board, and on that board was the last participant of this eerie procession. It was a scarecrow. I had seen many of these before I first came into town via taxi from the nearby city. No planes or trains went into Rathwick, but it got enough tourism for its preserved

architecture and historic sites that taxis gave flat rates for the Rathwick commute. The road leading into Rathwick went past a hill, which my taxi driver, overly talkative the whole hour drive here, told me was called Sentinel Hill and was the site for the ruins of an old English trading post. I couldn't see the ruins from the taxi, but I could see the scarecrows. They stood in neat rows, from the base of the hill and ascending all the way to the top. Each spindly creation was dressed in all black, simple trousers, a long-sleeved shirt, gloves. Their heads were just bundles of black rags,

fluttering in the breeze. Most notably, each and every one of the scarecrow's faced east. When I asked my chatterbox driver about them, he had shrugged. I think they called them the sentinels. Before the English came, there was this big indigenous tribe living at the top of that their hill. They were friendly to the newcomers and shared their food or whatever feel good shit you want to believe.

Most of all, they shared their stories. They believed that the field to the east of the hill was dangerous. You know, the one we passed? Ain't anything more than miles of grass and weeds. Nothing will grow in it besides the stuff that's all. already there. Anyway, the tribe always posted someone to watch over that field every night. They thought that whatever it was they were so afraid of wouldn't come for them if there was someone watching, or something like that. They're not around anymore, though. What happened? Did

the English kill them? Yes and no, ma'am. It was the smallpox and such that the English brought over that wiped them out. We were away from the hill at that point. having entered Rathwick proper, and were driving past quaint buildings and homes over the bumpy streets of cobblestone. So the scarecrows are kind of a way to honor that tradition? He shrugged again. The people of Rathwick, they put one up every once in a while. Don't know why. It's the only place you can't visit.

It's a protected area. The scarecrow being carried on the board below was the exact sibling to the dozens standing on Sentinel Hill. The train of people passed below my window and away, down the street. I looked after them, cigarette nothing but a pile of ash on the window sill. I was bored, itching for something interesting. This conference hadn't even had an open bar at the reception, and the other attendees were complete boars. I had brought some black slacks and a dark gray sweater, not to mention my lucky black scarf. I pulled everything on, carefully wrapping my head and face.

I felt ridiculous, but mainly excited at the idea of this silly adventure. The one problem was that I had only brought heels, which would clatter terribly on the cobblestone. I wavered in front of my suitcase before slipping out into the hall, down the staircase. and out the front door to the street, barefoot. The parade of solemn townsfolk was out of sight when I stepped out into the chilly night air. I wasn't worried. There was only one way to get out of town from here, along this very same main road, which would run right past Sentinel Hill.

I swore a little at the sharp bite of cold stone beneath my feet, but chased after the procession nonetheless. I felt like a little good. girl again, making up adventures for myself to bring excitement to my boring little life, to give more meaning to the great, wide, but superficial world around me. A block down, the road curved to the right, to the east. And that's when I caught sight of them again. I slowed to a walk and tucked my hands into my armpits, a dark shiver creeping over my skin. They had passed through the town's center, This area was a wide courtyard, framed by tiny boutiques and cafes, all closed, on the north, south, and west sides.

The east side was dominated by a great cathedral. It was all bleached stone, gargoyles, and oxidized copper decorations. A tower rose from the top, which housed a large bell. The townsfolk followed the road past the church. I let them lead me past dark-eyed houses that watched me through sleepy shutters and over the short bridge that spanned a small river at the edge of town. When I had arrived a few days ago, in full daylight, the water had seemed sweet and soothing. Now, in the dead of night, the river's voice sounded like accusatory whispers, demanding to know why I, an outsider, was on the hallowed street. at this hour. Outside of town, beyond its protective buildings, the wind was harsher. I wondered if the townsfolk were struggling to keep their candles lit.

There were no streetlights on this solitary road. On the right was the hulking hill and its sentinels. To the left was a large wheat field, its crop bristling at the persistent assault by the night winds. The parade left the road. Their black garments shushing through the waist-high grasses on the right-hand side of the road as they ascended the hill. I followed, praying that tick season was over and that there weren't old broken bottles hidden in the whispering grasses. As I climbed, I had to weave between the scarecrows. They were creepier up close.

The figures varied in height, and some seemed heftier than the others. Standing right at the foot of one, I looked up. This scarecrow's clothing was in tatters, and its constructed limbs were tied to its cross with thin chains. Even the bundle of rags that acted as its head was secured to the top with another chain, keeping its view up and pointed to the east. As I hiked higher, the grass grew thicker, though I found that I was following a path that had been trampled down,

by those who came before. White clover and tiny purple elephant footflowers struggled to thrive in the grass. There were several moments where I had to pinch my nose and cover my face to stifle a sneeze. The air felt thick in my throat. Underneath the chokingly thick pollen and scents of grass was something that reeked of rot.

The townies were gathering at the top of Sentinel Hill. I ducked down and began to creep up, not wanting to be seen. I forgot about how itchy my feet felt, how cold my arms felt, how ridiculous I felt, creeping up a hill to spy on some backwards-minded villagers. I got to the very crest of the hill, as close as I could to the top without risking being spotted. I knelt at the base of one of the scarecrow's, clutching its thick base post for support. and watched. All of the people in black were arranged in a loose circle inside the ruined foundation

of what I could only assume was the remains of the old trading post that the explorers had built after the original indigenous people had been wiped out. The four men holding the new scarecrow were now propping it up at the edge of the eastern side of the sentinel circle, a meter or so from a different scarecrow. From there, I could see that the scarecrow's had been organized in concise circles, each wider than the next as they descended the hill. The smallest one, the one on the top of the hill, was incomplete. From my perspective, it looked like it would take two or three more scarecrows to close it.

The four men lifted the scarecrow upright and lowered its post into a pre-dug hole, twisting it to ensure that the scarecrow. scarecrow's face would point east. The townsfolk turned and collected in three rows behind the scarecrow. They turned away from it, kneeled, and bowed their heads. I watched them blow out their candles, put them on the ground, and pressed their palms to their faces like they were hiding their eyes or crying. I counted to a minute. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi. it be for before I got bored. I turned to go back when a curiosity struck me. What would that field look like from here? I thought back to the taxi driver's ghost story of a land which must be watched to avoid some kind of evil or calamity. Still bent severely at the waist. I slipped

through the grass to the eastern side, just below where the new scarecrow was posted. The townsfolk didn't seem to hear me. They didn't move, but this close I could hear whispering. They must be praying. I looked down and across the great eastern field. The tall grasses rolled in luscious waves at the behest of the winds. I frowned. The grass was bending towards, the hill, cascading and flowing with intent. I tucked my hair behind my ears to keep it from blowing into my face, and my frown deepened. The grass was moving westward. The wind was flowing eastward. I felt colder. My lips and fingertips, toes and ears were numb, and my teeth were chattering. The grass churned, looking more liquid than plant.

The shrouded moon cast only enough light to create a calico pattern of shadows on the shifting surface, which in turn created the illusion that the entire field was a straining face struggling to get loose. Get loose from what? As I stared, the face gained more definition. I knew it wasn't real, but I couldn't stop staring. The visage was all angled jaw and sharp cheekbones, severe brow lines, and a hungry, gaping indent for a mouth. The illusion made it seem like the grass face had four eyes, two on each side of the beakish nose. At times the grasses would shiver, and the four eyes would become.

two larger, grotesque eyes. These mutant eyes, shaded with plant and shadow, maintained two oval shapes that were merely merged at a corner. Then the field would sway again, and the eyes would separate and become four. The grasses bulged up and the shadows twisted so that the face was straining. Its lips were gaping, revealing rows upon rows of large, flat teeth. teeth that gnashed at the night. The face thrashed side to side, trying to force its way through. In my head, I could hear it howling. The clouds blew past and the illusion shifted again, so that it appeared the eyes were looking at me. As I stared, I felt a heaviness settle over my brain, like ice-cold bands of steel, tightening. My vision shrunk to a

pinpoint, allowing me to see it and only it was falling. Hands were on me. It was two of the bare-chested men who had carried the scarecrow to the top of the hill. They jerked me around, turning my back to the eastern field. I heard a dusty howl of rage, suffocated by the thousands of grass roots deep in the soil. My shoulders struck the feet of the newest scarecrow. was looking down at me. The rags didn't make up ahead. They were masking one. The black fabric hid all but the eyes, the green eyes of the person who was tied to the post. They had twisted against their chains enough to be able to look down, to see me. The men pulled me past the sentinel and forced me to my knees behind the rows of townsfolk. The others didn't move.

Didn't turn around, didn't stop whispering. In a different circumstance, I think I would have screamed, told them to get their hands off me. But there on moonlit Sentinel Hill, surrounded by the bodies of those condemned to forever watch the eastern front, I obeyed. The men pulled my hands up from the dirt and pressed them to my face. Then, on either side, I felt them fall to their knees and do the same. I kept my eyes covered and listened to the howling in my head. This was what the first people found when they moved to the hill. This is what they set watches for, night after night.

Perhaps each watchman served as a sacrifice, giving up their minds to the hungry thing in the field, while their gaze kept it trapped. A tradition that the Europeans kept, even as the last of the tribe died. A superstition that the Rathwick folk honored to this day. As I kneeled, trembling in the skeletal ruins, inhaling the smell of dirt from my hands, I wondered how hungry it was. How many times was Rathwick required to set a new scarecrow? And what happened when the final circle was complete?

Did they start replacing the skeletal remains at the base of the hill? Or was that the time of the final hour when whatever it was burst free? What then? Stayed there, shaking, begging to get back home safe, swearing off drinking, cigarettes, anything, anything so that I would receive mercy. And over my response, in the back of my response, in the back of the same, my head, the thing shrieked in its infinite madness. My legs went numb from the position I held. By the time dawn came, my head was so full of fiendish echoes that I didn't notice when the

Eldridge shrieking had stopped. Chilled hands wrapped around my biceps and pulled me to my feet. Still, I pressed my hands to my face. The men pulled them away so that I was blinded with the dawn's light. The screaming had stopped. The villagers were heading back the way they'd come. I looked east. The field was quiet and golden. The face was gone. It was grass. Just grass. Already, the sun was chasing away the nocturnal chill, the past nightmare. The men hadn't waited for me. They were already. halfway down the hill. I didn't want to be alone, surrounded by the skeleton of the old trading post, surrounded by the skeletons of the sentinels. So I began jogging down the hill after them.

I knew before I even reached my hotel room that I would never tell anyone what I saw. Whatever the people of Rathwick were doing, the human sacrifices, the secret rituals. It wasn't Right, not morally, but it was necessary. The person back there on the stake, their mind had to be gone after that vigil, after the thing had stripped it away. But the body lived, which meant their gaze was alive and would continue to watch the east. In time, they would die and another would rise to take its place. It wasn't right, but it was necessary.

I knew that to be true. Well, that's an historical account you likely won't read about in history books. Perhaps in some rare, obscure tomes passed down through the years. And rare books play a part in this next tale of Canadian paranormal experiences. This time, we travel to the country's capital, Ottawa. So shelve what you're doing and book yourself on an adventure of discovery as we feast our eyes upon. A Vision in the Rare Book Collection. I heard this story from a librarian

after a tour of the rare book collection at the Library of Parliament. This was conveyed to me somewhat hastily, so I trust you'll be forgiving if some of the little inconsequential details are not reported. What you should know is that in Canada's capital city, Ottawa, stands our parliament buildings, home to our government. Behind the center block of the main building stands the library, overlooking the Ottawa River. It's a lovely place to visit, should you find yourself in the city?

Perhaps this story will inspire you to take a tour of the venerable building. So what happened was my tour group were in one of the library sub-basements where they keep the rare books. We were there maybe 30 minutes in all, and every 10 minutes or so the lights would turn off, leaving only two emergency fluorescence illuminated on either side of this really long room. The librarian said it was nothing to worry about. We just had to move a little bit to trigger the motion sensor so the lights would turn back on. It was some sort of combination of energy-saving measure,

as well as to help protect photosensitive material. Decidedly not a paranormal event. But as I stood there in the dark, I remember thinking how eerie the room looked, with row upon row of old books, boxes, and displays hidden under blackout drapes. You know that thrill you get when you sit around a campfire telling scary stories? That feeling was creeping up on me. That's why I lagged behind, once the tour group moved on and helped the librarian pull the blanket back over a display she'd unveiled for us.

And then I blurted out the question. You got any ghost stories? Now I was expecting a laugh or a dismissive wave of the hand. I was not expecting the apprehension. on her face, or the way it looked like she was trying to swallow cement, as she gauged whether or not I was serious. I almost chickened out, but I forced myself to mention I was involved with a horror podcast. And before that most common of questions could be asked, what's a podcast? I spoke of how oftentimes old buildings have stories to tell. This swayed her, and got her to share something

she'd experienced a few years prior. It was after hours, and I was alone in the rare book collection, working late to bank vacation time. The library had been doing a bit of reorganizing, and I was hard at work sorting a box of books that had just been transferred in from storage. The rare books aren't actually organized in the same way a normal library would organize them. No dewey decimal system or anything like that, and most hadn't even been registered in our electronic system yet, so it was a really slow-going process. As I mentioned during the tour, it's not uncommon

for us to find books we thought lost or destroying, and come across books we didn't even know we own. Now let me help give you an idea of what this room is like. The room is organized with a long central aisle, sectioned by support beams, and large wood and glass displays for the most impressive of rare books, doors on the far ends of the room, motion sensors for the lights next to each door, and rows of compact bookshelves on either side of the central aisle. If you've never heard of compact shelving units, they're basically these big metal bookshelves on tracks. Instead of the typical shelf gap, shelf gap, and so on and so forth, these bad boys are all squeezed together with only enough room for one gap at a time. It almost doubles storage.

capacity, but the downside is if you need to consult a book in a row without a gap, you have to move all the bookshelves between it and the current gap by manually turning these three-pronged hand cranks on the side of each bookshelf like you're opening a submarine hatch. I had been working in a row on the left side of the room when the lights automatically turned off. Since motion sensors only pick up movement in the central aisle, I stretched my arm out and started waving blindly. When this didn't work, I stretched further, my torso now in the aisle. And that's when I caught movement from the corner of my eye.

It was just for a passing second, but I saw someone in old-time clothing on the right side of the aisle walk by before they disappeared behind one of the support beams. The lights flickered on. Now, normally, someone in old-timey clothing would have been extremely odd, a sure sign it was time to get the hell out. But the Library of Parliament actually has a changing room one floor up from the rare books collection, full of costumes of old prime ministers, their wives, and other historical figures from a discontinued program where they'd walk around Parliament acting out scenes for visitors. I figured a colleague had put on a costume

and was playing a prank on me, so I dashed around the support beam to try to scare them first. The aisle was empty. I walked up the aisle and peered towards the bookshelves, but they're all squeezed together, and the gap on the set of bookshelves on the right side of the room was on the very end, so there was nowhere for someone to hide. Convinced she'd imagined the person,

she went back to work. After all, she figured, if someone had truly been walking down the aisle, the lights would have turned back on immediately after turning off. I had barely placed another book, when I heard the grinding shriek of old metal coming from the right side of the room, the distinctive sound of a hand crank being turned. It was accompanied by the slow scraping sound of a heavy bookshelf moving along its track.

I slowly and nervously peered out, expecting to see my colleague turning the crank. But instead, I found the aisle empty again, and the noise silenced. I'm not afraid to admit I was thoroughly freaked out. I retreated back into my row of books and anxiously tried to get back to work. However, right after I entered the row, the noise picked up again. This time, I inched my way very slowly out of the row and peaked out from behind the bookshelf. The ham crank was moving. It was moving slowly, but it was moving.

She couldn't understand what she was seeing. Those hand cranks can't move on their own. It takes a bit of elbow grease to get them spinning. It's not something that a draft in an old library can do. I stood there in shock for a moment and then summoned up the courage to take a closer look. With great trepidation, I crossed the aisle and walked to the shelving unit just as it clicked against the other, forming a new gap. I heard a thunk and peered into the row, only to find a book on the floor leaning against the wall. She described her mental state as being kind of in a haze at that point,

like she couldn't wrap her head around what was happening. So she just did what seemed logical at the time. In hindsight, it wasn't the best idea, but I walked into the row and picked up the book with the intention of putting it back in its place. Before I could, however, I saw someone standing at the foot of the gap, blocking my exit. He was wearing old clothes, just like I had seen before, but I couldn't recognize his face. There was something about him that filled me with dread, and I only realized much later it was a fact that I couldn't see his lower body.

He stepped aside and disappeared from sight, and suddenly I heard the squeal of the hand-crime. and it was moving, fast. The bookshelf began sliding toward me rapidly. I screamed, dropped the book, and ran out just as the shelves were starting to squeeze against me. The aisle was empty. No sign of the crank turning phantom.

Suddenly, a hand crank on the left side of the room started spinning wildly, closing the gap on the row I'd been working in earlier, and crushing the box of books I'd left inside. She booked it out of there like a bat out of hell. Out the nearest exit, up the first flights of stairs. She heard footsteps behind her, but she didn't look back. Up, up, up, and finally she was on the main floor where the night janitor was mopping. She tried to explain why she looked so scared,

but he checked downstairs and said there was nothing amiss. She went on to say she's never seen anything since then and never goes down there after hours. But sometimes, when she's at the door to the rare book collection, she'll hear the sound of the hand crank turning, even though the room is empty. Here you have it. An audio horror story about rare books means you have to be careful how you deal with volumes,

or so I've heard. But if library sciences feel far less safe after that story, I'm sure there are more comfortable scientific disciplines. Take marine science, for instance. From what I understand, mostly it involves hanging out in Hawaii and studying all manner of life on or below the surface of warm ocean waves. Ah, that's the life, huh? I suppose things could get a little less fun if you have to plunge deeper and deeper

into the darkness of the ocean. Even worse if you have to descend to the ocean floor. This tale is written by author Mike Adamson. Now, are you ready to dive in? I just hope you don't have a fear of the dark. When I was very young, my father told me not to be afraid of the dark, because nothing was there that hadn't been in the light. It helped.

However, what is true for a child's bedroom does not hold well under several miles of seawater. It takes dedication to descend into the ocean. without feeling apprehension as daylight turns to greens and blues, then royal blue, and finally indigo, shading imperceptibly to the total, utter, unrelieved blackness of the abyss. Since the discovery of high-energy phosphorite in the Angola abyssal plain off West Africa, exploration has been ongoing. Deep water deposits are expensive to reach, but the ever more pressing resource crisis of the 21st century warrants the attempt. In our dozen dives, we've discovered far more than phosphate.

Routilor, diamonds, and zircon, a mineralogical cornucopia for tight, focused extraction. All that remained was the life-impact study. All submariners recognized patterns of routine. When the amphitrite departed her support ship on the wide blue of the South Atlantic at 15 degrees south by two degrees east, we were all smiles and enthusiasm, watching clouds replaced with the water sky, darkening slowly as we began our plummet. Johnny was our pilot and commander, ex-U.S. Navy. Like most sub-drivers, assured but never complacent, we trusted him with our lives. Beside him sat Francois, ex-French Navy, co-pilot and systems engineer.

Well, in the rear seats were the mission specialists. Selma was our hydrogeologist, while my forte was biology. Selma, our girl from Woods Hole, poked me in the shoulder as we passed 1,000 feet. Hey, big guy, need a nightlight yet? My good-natured scowl drew a laugh. She always called me big guy, since I was technically an inch over height for sub-crew. My selection board had fiddled the paperwork. They needed my qualifications, so I put up with the fact that ceilings were low and the hatches too tight for comfort. I tapped the tag on my jumpsuit. Dr. Conrad to you, Gurley, and I haven't needed a night light since I was five. How's your claustrophobia?

The hull groaned softly, redistributing the ever-increasing pressure across its four-inch-thick titanium-reinforced epoxy construction. Subs were not what they used to be. We were taking visibility and safety tolerances that used to be critical not far beyond daytime light all the way to the bottom. We left behind the faintest blue rays at 2,000 feet, and entered the zone of eternal night, an old but effective term, arousing uncomfortable childhood thoughts of what might exist in the dark.

There may be no boogeyman under the bed, but a truism of deep-sea exploration was, the greater access one had to the abyss, the more one learned of what dwelt there. Fortunately, the majority of the monsters were tiny. As the light left us, so did our upbeat mood. We went into internal lighting and began to concentrate on the,

instruments. Banter dried up, and we fell automatically into mission mindset, the psychological shift to the mode that understood we wagered our lives, and coming back depended on professionalism. I called it black mood, meaning something very different from the usual, a serious, careful mindset, never forgetting we trespassed in a world more alien than the surface of other planets. An hour into the descent, the crew was resting. Only Johnny and Francois spoke softly as they reported back. Cold was soaking into the craft now. We zipped our thermal suits, pulled on wool hats and gloves, better to save power reserves by not drawing current for heaters too soon. Down, down into the night, feeling as if we were being swallowed by the planet beneath us.

The Angola Basin was deep, but only half the depth the great trenches reached. Our target was to touch down at 15,800 feet and proceed with survey work. we closed on destination, Selma and I became very focused. We sat, folded in on ourselves, breathing shallowly. Something tapped on the hall. My eyes opened and I looked up and back, but of course there was nothing to see in the cabin, and it seemed no one else heard it. The ticking and groaning of a structure under stress gives rise to endless variations of sound, and the seasoned deep diver learns to ignore them. I settled again after skimming the instruments with my eyes. The digital depth display told me we were already a mile and a half down.

Foreboding is something the deep diver cannot afford to acknowledge, or he or she would never dive again. But as we sank away toward the very bed of the Atlantic, something began to crawl at the edges of my consciousness. Not fear of the dark, but a sensation of being watched. We were not alone, of course. Bioluminescent organisms drifted by the dome constantly, flaring up in pulses of blue and green as our passage disturbed them.

Sometimes a curious organism would hover out there, inspecting us, perhaps a fish, often a jellyfish or bizarre cephalopod. Johnny updated us on our descent. Two miles, mile to go. That made my stomach not up, and I fought the feeling of being stalked. I couldn't explain it, but the ocean was aware of us that day as never before, anticipating us awaiting our arrival. It was irrational, and I kept it to myself.

But the next tapping on the hall was like a mischievous prodding. No one else reacted, and I had the urge to check the O2-C-O-2 balance, as surely it wasn't quite right. Perhaps I should have spoken up, but to abort a dive for vague psychological misgivings was a sure way to never be selected for such a mission again. A little over two hours after leaving the surface, amphitrite found bottom, three miles from the surface.

Her sonar had painted the bed, echoing back ooze, mud, and sand, and our rate of descent was trimmed by releasing pelletized ballast. We felt the deceleration, and Johnny styled us carefully to approach the bottom at walking pace. He hit the vertical floods with 300 feet to go, and the brilliant shafts splashed the bed through crystal-clear water. At such moments, I often wondered how we must have to be. appear to the life down here, supposing it was able to perceive us at all. A strange craft of, to them, enormous size, coming down out of the blackness in a blaze of light, flooding their

world with radiance such as nature never had... Target depth, setting us down at negative buoyancy, 100 pounds down force. Drift sensor indicates mild current out of the north. He applied the force input grips with consummate skill to put our boughs into the drift, and we settled out, central to our lake of light with the mildest contact. Vince, Selma, over to you. The ritual of getting out of our harnesses, cracking the rear hatch and swinging through, was a study in motion under duress. Selma took the ladder upward to the physical sciences array. I went down to the biology equivalent. Soft lights came on, and reflection from the external floods washed in, giving me cool, blue gloom in which to work. I eased into the seat, turned the mounted workstation to me, and tracked the

seat out into the lower science dome. Systems came on around me, and with a pass over the touchscreen, I launched the ROVs. Two dedicated biology drones took up their programmed course, a grid search moving out half a mile from the boat and back. They filtered particulate matter to be analyzed later, and I saw their strobes recede beyond our lights. Beyond the dome, an unbroken, and unbroken and plain of pale sand stretched away, fine runnels suggesting worm burrows. Sensors soaked up data on carbon density as a rule of thumb for total biomass,

while visual and chemical analysis of the water passing through external scoops and chambers began. We were at Station 1. When we had a full slate of data, we would move on, cruising across these desolate planes. The thought was like cold breath on my neck. My heart raced as I fought to. understand. Those words had originated inside my head. I looked around with a sudden chilled

perspiration, and my hand went to my headset to call the others, but appealed to common sense, won out again. Suddenly, the craft seemed impossibly small, and I wanted badly to get out, while knowing out was three miles above. I closed my eyes, clenched my hands hard, and tried not to pant. If the others were unaware, they would hardly believe anything. I said. So I sat and monitored the ROVs. Perhaps 10 minutes later, something moved in my field of vision, and I zoomed an external camera on it. The picture on my screen showed a transparent blob of gesticulating tissue on the sand, perhaps a syphonophore. The blob extended, and I realized it ran back into the gloom. It seemed to be coming closer, attracted to the lights or to microscopic food organisms

that the heat of the lights might be drawing. I panned the camera, found other glassy members inching across the ooze toward us, and made sure we were recording. Guys, are you seeing this? External pickup, four. We have benthic organisms in the light zone. I watched the gelatinous strands approach,

slithering and stretching out of the dark toward us, and after a while the sensation of being watched made sense. I began to perceive the boat as if from outside, Her oblate yellow hull, manipulators, skids, motors, and domes, all seemed vast as a cathedral. My apprehension at the strangeness was oddly dulled. It seemed normal, right, in fact, a soothing reality in which I was able to simply relax and gradually, imperceptibly, drift toward a state of somnolence. The strand-like creatures came by the thousands in the minutes I sat in torpor, wriggling across the sand,

and mud. Their questing tips reared to scan or scent our vessel. All the while my feelings of being one with a multitude grew stronger. Was I dreaming? And there was hunger. A blind questing hunger rode along with the perception. A chorus turned at the edges of my mind and said simultaneously, we see you, and we must feed. Nothing was unnatural in this. The life of the ocean floor consumed all which fell from the alien heavens. A dead whale sinking into the abyss became an island of life for thousands. Millions of organisms, generations of them swarm to dispose of the carcass. A hundred tons of flesh would one day be utterly consumed, save perhaps the earbones, which joined at shark's teeth in the fossil record. In the delirium of my dream, I saw nothing amiss with these

swarming organisms, perceiving the submersible as legitimate prey, nor did I ask how such a thing was possible. But at no time did it occur to me. They were not interested in the amphitrite at all. Serendipity comes in many forms. While I can't say if the worms could have found a way to damage us, I was very glad the draft from the air vents was flapping a sheet of paper on a clipboard by my side. The motion, reflecting the soft light into my eyes, was just enough to break the mental strangle lock. I blinked, came back to myself with a falling thud of returning from a dream too fast. I groaned, massaged my eyes, and tried to make sense of my nightmare, until I let myself

see what was before me. The entire viewing dome was covered by a seething mass of glassy tendrils, moving, crawling, scrabbling to get in. I saw in horrific detail as mouths gaped and scraped. Teeth like spicules of pure silicon gnawed at the polycarbonate, fogging and scratching the surface. In places it seemed the organisms were ejecting digestive juices onto the surface, seeking to break it down, all in silence, and with a pervasive whisper at the back of my mind. Not on the craft, however. On me. With a cry, I sent the seat back from the dome, spilled out of it and backed against the bulkhead.

I hit my headset switch. Guys, lower science array. We've got critters all over the dome. No reply. I blinked and double-click the contact again. Guys! Another five seconds of silence, and I swarmed up the ladder to the central pressure vessel, fought through the hatch to the cockpit, and found the forward dome equally covered with the gelatinous tendrils. Johnny and Francois sat with glazed expressions, deeply entranced,

evidently hearing the same siren whisper. I shook them, and they snapped back with cries of disorientation. Then I fed myself up the ladders to the physics dome, where fewer organisms had reached, but Selma was also subject to their pernicious influence. I shook her awake, and she stifled a gasp of revulsion at the seething organisms, trying in their blind hunger to reach us. We returned to the cockpit, and Johnny looked to me as biologists to explain.

You're asking me? My best guess is they think were a meal from heaven. They won't stop grinding until they weaken the domes to get to us. It's flesh they want, not plastic. The professionals shared a long look and nodded. Strap in. As we dropped into our seats, Johnny selected surfacing mode on the diving control menu, mouse two, drop ballast, and clicked enter.

The hoppers began to empty as the electromagnets shut down. The craft rose away from the seabed, gathering momentum, and the rush of waters over her casing sloughed away the worm-like tendrils. The cones of our lights glittered with the tumbling creatures sinking back to their native world. Francois was busy with a systems check. While the craft appeared unharmed, the previously crystal-clear viewing domes were now fogged with minute scratches, and recovering to the surface was the first priority.

Johnny called the ship to report the abort, and I was very glad to be leaving the abyss. A long climb awaited us, but every moment reduced stress on the weakened transparencies. We traded expressions of consternation, and I pulled up the visuals from camera four showing the slithering army moving on us. No one wanted to speak of the whispers at the back of our minds, but we saw in our expressions that we shared a secret. My dad was right. Darkness is nothing to be afraid of.

But oh, what calls the dark home. My respect for it grew as I saw, just beginning in the area of greatest fogging of the forward dome, the spider web of a crack in the polycarb. And it was growing. Hi, I'm Atticus Jackson, voice actor for the No Sleep podcast. And today, I want to talk to you about erectile dysfunction. It's a touchy subject for some, but there's no shame in it. A lot of people suffer from it, and it's nothing to be embarrassed about. It's a medical condition like any other.

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for a free online visit and free two-day shipping. That's get Roman.com slash no sleep for a free online visit and free two-day shipping. I sense I'm out of my depth to describe how that story made me feel. Like I need a drink, and maybe some food, but not seafood, that's for certain. No, no, something much more grounded, like some chicken wings. And if you happen to be hanging around Ottawa after your visit to the Library of Parliament, I know a few places which serve some very tasty wings. The only question is, what route are you going to take to get to them?

You see, there are some streets you do well to avoid, especially if you don't want to encounter the specters of Sparks Street. It was during that same visit to Ottawa when I was out to lunch with some friends from the city. After sharing the tale from the library with them, I asked if they'd ever experienced anything paranormal. After the requisite teasing and being accused of trying to get some free stories for the podcast, the lunch came to an end. Lighthearted accusations of one of us trying to get out of there without paying his bill meant my question was soon forgotten.

As we were walking down the street after lunch, my friend, I'll call him Dan for this story, gestured for me to hang back from the others. In a whisper, he proceeded to tell me he had a story to share with me. It's a creepy one, but you can't tell a soul. Uh-huh. That kind of defeats the purpose. He laughed and said I could share it as long as I didn't use his real name. But no one's going to believe you anyways. We told our other friends we'd meet up with him later, as Dan and I sat on a bench near the fountain in Confederation Park.

Dan looked serious enough to make me think his story wasn't one he told lightly. Dan had been out with friends one evening in Ottawa about a month ago. He was, admittedly, a little tipsy when this happened. but nowhere near blackout drunk. He was a couple beers in when one guy suggested they migrate to a pub a couple streets down where they made better wings. Being a wing connoisseur himself, he enthusiastically approved of the change in venue. The group paid their bill and staggered out the door.

We were at the intersection of Sparks and Metcalfe, headed down Sparks towards Bank Street. I personally walked that stretch road a million times, and I can tell you from experience it's only a five-minute walk. Eight, if you're a little drunk. Ten, if you're really drunk and have a limb. Between points A and B, there's just one other intersection, and that's Sparks on O'Connor. Point being, it's a very short, very easy distance to traverse, sober or otherwise. Plus, since Sparks is a shopping street, close to anything but foot traffic, it's also pretty safe. I was lagging behind as the group arrived at the intersection of Sparks and O'Connor.

I never actually saw the street sign, but there was really no other intersection it could have been. Like I said, there's just one street between Metcalf and Bank, and that's O'Connor. My buddies crossed the street just as the pedestrian light flashed red, and I got stuck on the other side. I wanted to run across, but there was a car roaring its engine impatiently, so I pulled out my phone while I waited for the light. I was distracted by my phone while I noticed the white flash of the crosswalk signal activating and sprinted across the street. When I put my phone away, I finally looked up. Now on the other side of the intersection, I was surprised to find my friend. friends weren't there waiting for me. Thinking they'd gone ahead, I peered further down the street

to find them, and instantly felt my stomach drop. That whole stretch of Spark Street was completely empty, not just a void of my friends, but also of any other passerby one would normally find meandering around at that hour. I'm guessing his stomach's second bottom, a secret trap-door bottom only he knew about gave out as he realized he couldn't recognize any of the buildings either. Some buildings were larger, some shorter, some wider, some narrower. Where there had been a patio with chairs earlier that very same day, there was now a large man-made hole and digging equipment. Instead of the Tim Hortons, where I got my coffee in the morning, there was an abandoned-looking store taking up the space of two Tim Hortons.

The gym was no longer a gym. It was an empty space. obscured by scaffolding. None of the street lights were on. All of the businesses looked vacant. Less closed for the night, vacant. More abandoned for 20 years vacant. At first, he thought it was construction rearing its ugly head again. They're building a light rail transit system in the area.

So it's not uncommon to come to work one morning to find your street blocked off for construction. Then go home that evening and finding a big hole at another intersection. Construction could have explained the change in scenery, but not his missing friends. He looked around for any sign of them, listened for any drunken laugh, but got nothing. He pulled out his phone to text them, but he'd somehow lost his signal in the middle of downtown Ottawa. What else could he do but keep walking and hope to rejoin them on Bank Street? It was one block, just one block away. I quicken my pace.

But as I did, more buildings came into view, replacing the ones I'd passed. There were far too many buildings for the small stretch of road I was on. Long past where Bank Street should have been, there were bistros, gift shops, restaurants, none of which I recognized, and all of which were empty and abandoned. Some of the signs had fallen off. Some of the awnings were torn in two, and some of the doors were wide open and hanging off their hinges. I glanced behind me. and could only see more buildings stretching out into an infinite void.

Confused, he stopped and asked himself the questions you'd expect someone in his situation to ask. How much did I have to drink? Is this a dream? Did someone spike my drink? I couldn't understand it. I noticed something in the window of the nearest storefront. From the look of the empty and cracked displays, it seemed that it once been a jewelry store, but there wasn't even the smallest trinket left. Square in the middle of its large storefront window was a figure standing in the darkness, black eyes shining like a cat's in the night.

Not going to lie. I felt the cold grip of fear wrapping around my throat as I tried to avert my gaze, but couldn't break his stare. The hairs at the back of my neck started to prickle. The only reason I was able to break his gaze was because I suddenly had the overwhelming fear that something was standing behind me.

I managed to turn away, but when I saw the dozens of silhouettes staring back at me from the storefronts on the other side of the street, I wish I hadn't turned at all. They were everywhere. Behind every window, standing at every door, sitting on every rooftop,

indistinct in uniform, melting into one another's shadows, except for those big black eyes, locked on me, and me alone. Dan sprinted down Spark Street, trying to get away from the specters, but with every step they seemed to get closer. Not content with just standing behind the windows, they began appearing on terraces, benches, next to statues. They'd move without movement, like animations in a flipbook with batches of missing pages between the actions.

The street went on and on, the figures coming closer and closer, until I could feel a breath right at the back of my neck. I was panting breathlessly. I could only close my eyes, swallow hard, and run blindly down the street. The honk of a car horn made my eyes shoot open. I stopped so abruptly I nearly gave myself whiplash. A car drove by, momentarily illuminating the street signs, Bank Street and Spark Street. I turned around, and there was the Tim Hortons, the gym, the usual stores with their normal wears in the windows, and more importantly, my friends. His friends questioned where he'd been. They thought he was right behind them.

They all looked pretty confused. He tried to explain what happened, but they were a little too drunk and way too loud to listen. So he just followed them to the pub and ate his wings in a sort of shell-shocked silence. Here's the thing. I couldn't tell if Dan was being serious or not. He had this big old grin on his face the whole time, like he always does. But I admit, it was a little more strained than usual. I don't know if what he said is even possible.

But I thought about that every time I needed to walk down that part of Spark Street. And I usually ended up going one block further down to avoid it. Just in case. Isn't it strange how one person can experience something and have a memory of it which varies wildly from others? Dan and his friends shared very different experiences of that night. Now imagine what it's like if you and your sibling have strangely differing experiences from your childhood. One would think the memories would be similar, especially if you're visited by two very strange visitors. This tale is written by author Olivia White.

Now, try to remember where memory and reality diverged as you listen to the tale of Puffin and Peacock. When I was a little girl, my parents, my older sister, and I used to live in an apartment complex in California. It was one of those two-story complexes with external stairs leading up to the top level, a central courtyard with a pool in which the residents could congregate, and front doors which opened onto the outdoor balcony.

We lived on the second floor, apartment 2C. There were four apartments on each tier. I loved it there. My sister and I would go exploring in the surrounding gardens, playing hide-and-seek amongst the palm trees, sneaking into the equipment shed and pulling through the lost and found, examining decades-old detritus from past residence. In my childhood memories, I see it as an idealic paradise.

a luxury apartment complex filled with rich, quirky characters, the central courtyard a glorious oasis among clean, whitewashed walls, and surrounded by smiling faces. I said this to my sister once when I was in my teens. She laughed at me and showed me some old family photos from that time. It shocked me to discover we were poor back then. Everyone who lived there was poor. The walls were cracked and dirty.

The pool looked discolored and grimy. In one photo, I stood there in a princess dress. In my mind, I'd been adorned in the finest silks, rich pink fabric swishing over the concrete, a diamond tiara on my head. In reality, I wore a dime store Halloween costume with a flaky, silver plastic crown perched on my skull and a broken wand clutched in one hand. The dress was ratty and torn. My pink slippers, my Cinderella slippers, I called them, were filthy. I had the widest smile on my face. There were photos of the other residents, too.

My memory of them being quirky was right, at least. The grand professor, Mr. Levinsky, was really an old man in a dirty suit, wild white hair sticking up at all angles from his scalp. Mr. and Mrs. Santiano, the perfect family, looked haunted and thin as they played ball with their wayward kids. Chuck Braun, who I remembered as a former world-class athlete, was tattooed and wiry, telltale track marks running down his arms. Sorry for the wake-up call, says. My sister Bella ruffled my hair like I was a child.

She leaned down and kissed my forehead and we collapsed onto her bed, staring up at the ceiling. I sighed. It made me wonder whether I misjudged our life now. Mom and dad were comfortably off, successful even, I thought. We lived in a nice house in the suburbs. I thought we were rich. I thought we'd always been rich. I shared my concerns with Bella.

Mari, mom and dad do well enough. Bella was back from college visiting home after her first year. She liked college, she told us. She had good grades. She'd even met a boy. College seemed so far away from me. I still had two years of high school left. So we're okay?

We're okay. She kissed my temple. Do you remember Puffin and Peacock? Bella sat up, her face unreadable in the lake. amp light. She shuffled through the photos and finally settled on one, handing it to me. There they were. Those two old ladies. I held the crinkled Polaroid in my trembling hands. The memories came flooding back. Puffin and Peacock. That was what Bella and I called them. They lived together in apartment 1D, and they were the oddest pair you ever did meet.

Two sisters, both spinsters, always together wherever they went. Puffin was the younger of the two. She was short and round with a large nose, red with burst blood vessels, and pitch black hair slicked back thinly over her scalp. She waddled as she walked, her large head bobbing back and forth as she trailed after her sister, Peacock. Peacock, the older of the two, was a tall, thin woman with gray hair tied up in a formal bun. Whereas Puffin always wore black, peacock was forever seen sporting blue, usually a two-piece blue suit, jacket, and slacks in dazzling ultramarine. Around her shoulders she wore a Pasamina shawl in a variety of bright, vibrant colors. I don't think I ever saw her wear the same scarf twice.

Bella and I would watch Puffin and Peacock from her balcony. Peacock would be striding forth her head nodding as she walked as Puffin capered after her, forever tailing behind, struggling to keep up. Every day at 11 a.m., on the dot, they'd head out into the wide world, returning at exactly 6.15 in the evening. They never returned with grocery. A boy would deliver them every Saturday. But often, most days, in fact,

Peacock could be seen leading the way while Puffin struggled with an oversized, battered cardboard box, each day a different brand. Clearly, not sealed crates of anything. Bella and I used to speculatively giggle about what was in those boxes. Kittens. Puppies.

Pony's. Ponys? Come on, Mari. Giraffes. What the ladies did while they were out and what they brought home became a thrilling mystery for myself and Bella. They were old.

Very old. Peacock was in her mid-80s and Puffin was seven years her junior. Too old to be going off to work, we figured, and yet the purpose with which they strode out each day seven days a week left us sure that their errands were of the gravest importance. During the times they were around the apartment complex,

they'd often patrol the grounds. They were never still. They never sat by the pool like the rest of us, never stood around gossiping or chatting. We saw them all the time, and yet they kept to themselves. Peacock never referred to any of us by name, a curt hello and she'd be on her way.

Puffin, forever catching up, would follow up with Good Day, Mariana, or whoever she was talking to, and then she too would scurry past. They had perfect sibling synergy, I heard mom say one day. I had no idea what it meant, but it felt right. Sisters in sync, Bella explained to me later.

Like she and I, sisters and best friends forever. I liked that. The first and only time I heard Puffin and Peacock argue, I was six years old. It was after nine. I was out by the pool trying to catch fireflies. Bella, who was supposed to watch me around the courtyard, had gone off with Junie Santiano to play with dolls.

Around me, the apartment lights glowed warm through lace curtains. I skipped around the edge of the pool, taking care not to fall in, chasing after the glowing bugs as they danced just out of my reach. Crickets chirped in the undergrowth. An owl hooded, long and mournful. The night felt magical. A firefly buzzed past my head. I hopped after it, closing in on the section of the courtyard between the lower block of the apartments in the pool.

Through the Santiano's front door tilted a jar, I heard the clattering of pots and pans and smelled a delicious scent. My stomach rumbled. Bella and I hadn't eaten that night yet. Our parents were working late. Secretly, I was hoping they'd bring home pizza. That was always a rare treat. I continued on following the fireflies, enthralled by their glow. Music drifted from Chuck Braun's apartment, screaming guitars and energetic lyrics.

his workout music. Chuck Braun was always working out. I saw the shadow of his body through the lace curtains, framed by the glow of his living room light. He was shortless, pumping his arm up and down as he gripped a small exercise weight. Smiling at Chuck Braun, wondering if he could see me, I skipped onwards. The firefly was hovering in place just outside of Puffin and Peacock's apartment. Their living room window was open a crack and I could hear loud, sharp voices drift from somewhere beyond. The firefly flitted off. It didn't matter. My attention was already elsewhere. I knew I shouldn't, but I crept forward, childhood curiosity overruling the knowledge that eavesdropping was rude. The voices were clearly Puffin and Peacock, although at first, I was sure they were

speaking in a different language to anything I recognized. I was six-year-old fluent in Spanish and English and even then, for a moment, I didn't understand a word they were saying. Frowning, I listened harder, soon realizing they were in fact speaking English after all. How hadn't I understood their words? My six-year-old brain couldn't comprehend the mystery and so I dismissed it, settling instead for listening in, hoping I wouldn't get caught with my ear to the dark window. I was sure this was Puffin. Hearing Puffin speak out at her sister like that surprised me. She'd always been the one scurrying behind. I'd just taken it as a given that the older peacock was the boss of the two, like Bella was to me. The sound of the sister's arguing

caused a nod of tension in my chest. I thought back to the one time Bella and I had a serious row. I'd been upset for weeks. Don't fight! Inside the apartment, Puffin, who was still cursing her sister, suddenly fell silent mid-sentence. I clapped my hand over my mouth. Had she somehow heard me? I was frozen. I knew Puffin could sense me. I stood there trembling. A hand touched my shoulder. Marie? Bella jumped back and freight herself, then she began to grin. Did I scare you? What are you doing creeping around? I was waiting for you. I'm willing to have it back yet. No, they're late. Again. Well, they.

I whirled around guiltily. Puffin stood in the doorway to her apartment, dressed all in black. Her hair, normally slicked back, so perfectly, looked wild and untamed. Your girls are out very late. Not eavesdropping, are we? No, no, ma'am. I couldn't even respond. It was the most that Puffin had ever said to either of us. She stared down at us now, her eyes beady and severe above her large, round nose. Her mouth twitched and she gave a thin smile. Won't your parents be wondering where you are? Bella looked around nervously. They're still at work, ma'am. Puffin frowned. It's very

late. Have you girls eaten? As if in response, my stomach rumbled loudly. I forced down a giggle. Would you bear care for a slice of cake? My sister's quite the baker. Yes, please? No, thank you, ma'am. I gave my sister a look of betrayal and disappointment. She reached for my hand. We're not supposed to take food from strangers. We'd better go.

Good night, ma'am. We've known each other for so many years, haven't me, Bella? You know we're not strangers. My sister and I know your mother and father very well. Bella looked at me as if I have any answers. I shrugged. I just wanted cake. cake. Then Bella smiled. Thank you very much, ma'am. Cake would be lovely. The interior of Puffin and

Peacock's apartment was like nothing I'd have ever expected. Stacks and stacks of boxes and newspapers filled the hallway. Glancing into the living room as we passed, I saw even more boxes piled high, papers nearly brushing the ceiling. One sagging shelf on the back wall was crammed tight with hundreds of old, battered looking books. peeling, faded rocking horse stared at me from the corner. Beside the horse sat a plastic bucket, crammed to overflowing with dozens of balls of faded wool. The apartment smelled wrong.

I was used to the sense of spices and petulia and air freshener and cooking drifting from all the apartments. The smell of chlorine in the pool, the flowers that blossomed in the garden in spring. I'd gone to the town library with Bella a few times, and once I'd found myself way in the back amongst the oldest, mustiest tomes. Puffin and Peacock's apartment smelled like that. Older even, with an air of damp that clung to the insides of my nostrils and made my head start to ache.

And below that, the smell of a cocktail of cleaning fluids, bleach and antibacterials all merging with the musk. It smelled like how I'd imagine a morgue to smell. Of course, at six years old, I didn't even know what a morgue was. Instead, I grabbed Bella's wrist as we followed Puffin towards the back of the apartment. I mind wafting my hand in front of my nose. It stinks. Bella pinched my arm so hard, my eyes began to water. Shut up. Be polite. Sol and the eye trailed after my sister.

Puffin ushered us into the kitchen. This room was no less cluttered than the rest of the apartment. Warped, swollen cupboards lined the wall. doors crooked in a jar. A lopsided dining table sagged under the weight of hundreds more newspapers yellowed and curling with age. I looked

down at the sticky linoleum floor and almost screamed as I saw a huge cockroach dashing past me. I looked up at Puffin, my eyes wide with surprise. She was regarding us with the same pinched smile she'd given us at the door. Cake's almost done cooking. I sniffed. I couldn't smell a cake.

I couldn't even see an oven. The only thing I could smell was the damp and the musk. I urged Bella to catch my eye so I could give her some sign that I wanted to leave. Puffin went to the counter, busying herself with whatever she was doing to prepare the alleged cake. With her back to us, she began asking Bella about school. What is it, dear? Please, me, I use your bathroom. Go into the hall, last door on the left, and look out for my dear sister while you're there.

Tell her the cake's almost ready And bring her out here, will you? I picked my way through the detritus and clutter, eventually finding my way to the bathroom. Inside, I wretched. The bathroom stank even worse than the rest of the apartment. Black mold clung to the tiled walls. And as I gingerly made my way across the room,

the linoleum floor peeled and bubbled under my feet. I looked down at the toilet. It had no seat, and the rim was stained with the same black that adorned the wall. worse still, a rancid chunk of bread rested in the bowl, gray-green with mold and teeming with maggots. I jumped back. My shoe caught on the linoleum and I tripped, throwing my arms out to catch myself. My hands met the dirty rim of the bathtub and I paused there, half bent over, my breathing heavy, grateful I hadn't cracked my teeth on the porcelain. The tub was filled with seashells, filled so high the shells were spilling out over the top.

They weren't pretty decorative shells either. They were shattered, filthy shards, dark with lichen and blackened with age. And they stank. They absolutely reeked of salt and dead fish. I gagged again, pushing myself upright. I had to get out of this disgusting bathroom. I fled back into the hall, pausing to try and process what I'd seen. How did Puffin and Peacock even use the bathroom in that state?

How did they wash? How did they pee? I stood there debating these questions, staring down the hallway towards the front door. Oh, how I longed to simply bolt out of there, run back to the safety of our own apartment where it was clean and safe. But I knew if I did that, I'd catch unholy hell from Bella. Nonetheless, I had no desire to return to that filthy kitchen, and I still had to find peacock. I crept towards one of the other doors leading away from the living room. The mottled, yellowing wooden door was adjourned.

I poked my head in. This room was filled with clothes. Piles of clothes everywhere. They looked like they were climbing the walls, shirts and skirts and suits reaching for a way out. It stank of mothballs and stale sweat. In one corner, a huge pile of shoes towered taller than me. I couldn't even see the carpet.

How anyone picked outfits out of this mess? I had no idea. I beat a hasty retreat and headed towards the final unexplored door. I found myself in a bedroom of sorts. A huge, sagging mattress sat in the middle of the floor surrounded by pieces of wood that I assumed must have once been a bed. More stacks of newspapers filled this room towering up to the ceiling. Below the front window, a dresser stood covered in dozens and dozens of plastic dolls wearing a variety of gaudy-knitted outfits. A shelving unit beside that housed hundreds of glass ornaments, all coated in a thick layer of dust.

The bed itself was covered in newspapers, boxes, brick-a-brac, and even some gym weights. Some of the piles appeared to have collapsed over time spilling onto the mattress. I frowned. I'd been in every room in the apartment by now. The living-room couches had been stacked high with detritus, the other room filled with clothes, and now this, the bedroom? Unusable. There was nowhere for the ladies to sleep or even sit down comfortably. Was that what they did every day when they went off? Go to a motel or somewhere and get some rest?

It made little sense to my six-year-old brain. I stared at the bed unhappily. I covered mine with cuddly toys, and my mom was always telling me to clean it up. If I left so much as a shirt on the floor of the room I shared with Bella, I'd get scolded. How did these two old women manage to live in such such? squalor. Hadn't their mom ever taught them to tidy up? As I contemplated this, the pile on the bed moved. I jumped backwards, clapping my hand over my mouth, worried about making any noise in case

the sisters had caught me in here where I likely shouldn't be. Then I heard a noise. It sounded like a high, mournful meow. There had been a cat lurking around the apartments lately, a tiny black thing with white paws. Nobody knew who she belonged to. Could it be she was and peacock's pet? The movement on the bed happened again. A newspaper was wrestling at the end closest to me. Something was under it. I reached out gently lifting the newspaper.

The paper felt dry beneath my fingers like it could crumble at any time. I moved it gently away, eager to see the cat I was sure lurked underneath of it. What I saw was no cat. Two people were lying on the bed. I could just about see their heads and shoulders. One of them was lying on their front, cheek pressed into the mattress.

I stared at the first woman, my mouth opening and closing, unable to process what I was seeing, unable to deal. She was dead. Even at my young age, even despite having never seen a corpse before, I knew this woman was dead. The other, the woman lying on her back, looked up at me. Her neck arched backwards so her face was upside down. The whining was coming from her throat.

Her hair was very. loose, messy, strands sticking out at all angles. Her eyes were glazed, yellowing film covering her sclera. Her skin, waxy and sickly looking, appeared not unlike the newspapers that adorned the room. I was frozen in fear. A thousand thoughts ran through my six-year-old brain. I couldn't, wouldn't process what I was seeing. The woman on the bed thrashed her head from side to side, each movement of her neck causing her to let out another pained wail. Her eyes met mine. I couldn't help her.

I couldn't do anything besides turn and flee from the room. I bolted into the kitchen, skidding to a stop on the sticky floor. Bella was still standing there looking around awkwardly. Puffin sat at the rickety dining table now. The pair of them were silent. For once, despite being the youngest, I knew I had to assert myself over Bella. I grabbed her wrist and started pulling her towards the door. Mom and got her back. They want us home now.

Bella looked for me to Puffin, conflict etched in her eyes. Puffin looked up. When she spoke, her voice dripped with disappointment. Very well. I suppose I better let you go. You can have some cake another time. I didn't need to be told twice. I practically dragged Bella to the front door.

I half expected it to be locked, but it slid open with ease. As soon as we crossed the threshold, I began to run. charging up the stairs to our apartment, shoving the door open as I went. As soon as Bella was inside, I slammed it shut. The latch clicked. Bella looked around. Her apartment was dark. Mom and dad clearly weren't home.

What gives, Mari? Despite her frown, I could tell she was relieved. Relieved to be out of that place to be home in our safe, warm apartment. I shrugged. I was fighting to hold it together when all I wanted to do was break down like the young child I was. It smelled bad. Bella laughed, shrugged, and headed to the kitchen.

I collapsed against the wall and finally the tears began to flow. I didn't understand what I had seen. Didn't understand why I wouldn't tell Bella. I wondered now if things might have been different if I'd said something, if we could have saved them. What I didn't tell Bella, but what everyone would discover later, was the identity of the woman on the bed. The woman who'd called out to me for help,

that was Peacock. I'd recognized the other woman, too, of course. It was she who had terrified me so completely. Gray, lifeless, dead. The other woman had been puffin. You remember what happened? I placed the photo gently down on the bed. I nodded.

Of course I did. Mom talked to me about it when I was a little older. Nobody knew they were hoarders. Nobody had any idea. I mean, hell, did we ever see them bringing shit into that apartment? I shook my head. Crushed by their own belongings. What a way to go.

If it hadn't been for you, noticing they weren't doing their usual routine, it might have been weeks before they were found. I remembered it, of course, remembered how, for five days afterwards, I'd watched to see if Puffin and Peacock would emerge from their apartment, go off on their mystery day trips. Five days of convincing myself, I hadn't seen what I'd seen. Five days of being unable to process it as the terrified child I was. Five days until I mentioned to Mom that I was worried about them. The apartment superintendent got no reply after a day of knocking on their door,

so he let himself in. He found the bodies in their bedroom, crushed under the weight of a thousand lifetimes worth of garbage. Puffin had died instantly. A dumbbell had shattered her ribcage. Peacock had died of dehydration, pinned there for days. She'd only been dead a day when they found her.

I will never forgive myself for hiding what I saw. Never stopped blaming myself for the fact that my fear won out. And I'll never stop apologizing. to Peacock, who I left to die, and to Puffin, who reached out from beyond the grave to help her sister, who pinned all her hopes on a six-year-old girl who let her down, who was too young to know any better. Those kinds of memories are decidedly not the kinds of things I want to collect, let alone hoard. No, no, I think it's time we return to the true North's strong and free safety of Canada. Let's have some fun and visit an amusement park.

Ah, how about one built inside a mall? That's just what we need to forget about the strange and horrifying terrors of... Oh, wait. No, no, this story isn't far removed from those things. This one is quite literally a roller coaster of emotions. So let's experience the ups and downs of a tale which warns us to avoid the last ride of the night. This story comes from a friend of a friend of mine.

Yes, I know, I know. A story from a friend of a friend is usually the start of a tale which quickly reeks of bullshit. But I knew this guy from my days when I lived in Edmonton, Alberta. It starts with a friend of a friend, but there was another witness to the events, and I tracked that person down to corroborate what happened. In doing so, I got more than I bargained for. Edmonton is home to the West Edmonton Mall. It's the largest mall in all of North America.

It's large enough to have a whole goddamn amusement park in it. That amusement park is known for three things. Being awesome, being awesome for being inside a mall, and an accident in 1986 that led to a bunch of people biting the bullet after a roller coaster car derailed and smashed into a concrete post. Yeah, that got dark real quick. My friend's friend, Alex, was at the mall earlier this year when the urge to ride the rides struck. It was getting late and most stores were prepping for closing.

But since there were pretty much no lineups at the amusement park, he figured he had enough time to go on a few rides. He bought tickets and got on every single attraction without delay. There came a call on the speakers announcing it was time for the final rides of the next. night. A few of the smaller attractions were already closed up, and their operators were busy sweeping. Alex checked his tickets and saw he had just enough to get on the mindbender, a medium-sized roller coaster that took up an entire section near the back of the park. He hurried there and arrived just as one of the employees was about to chain the entrance to the waiting line. Wait, hold on. The employee looked sour. He figured it was kind of like getting to a store.

a minute before closing. Technically, she couldn't turn him away, but she was justified in feeling a bit bitter about letting him through. Alex handed her the tickets, and she closed the gate behind him before moving on to her cleaning duties. Alex ran through the line to join up with the group getting on the last ride of the night,

but as he arrived, he found he was alone. The ride operator looked at him nervously and mumbled something about the ride being closed. The ride's closed. Alex replied he'd been let through, and what the operator said in response threw him for a loop. You don't want to get on the last ride of the night. Not alone. He didn't want to be rude, but he'd already spent his tickets, and God damn it, he was getting on that roller coaster. He insisted. The operator insisted right back.

Alex was getting a little heated by that point. What was the operator trying to achieve? If he wanted to go home, it would be quicker to let him on. Finally, the operator relented and opened the metal gates to let him on. I sat at the very front. Despite the operator warning me, it was safer at the back. I just rolled my eyes and thought to myself, man, what's this guy's problem? Well, I sensed something was wrong almost as soon as the coaster began to inch its way up the steep incline. With every click of the gears, I felt my scarf tightening around my neck.

I came to the horrifying conclusion it had somehow been dragging as I got on and it must have gotten caught in the rails. Not going to lie, I saw visions of getting beheaded final destination style. But as I put my hand up to try to remove my scarf, I remembered I'd put it in my bag earlier. Despite an ever tightening pressure around it, there was nothing around my neck. The cart stopped abruptly at the top of the incline and then sped down so fast it knocked the wind out of me. I tried to catch my breath as the coaster spun around the bend, but it was like trying to suck air through a straw. My head was aching, my throat burning, and the cart was fast approaching a loop-to-loop. As it ascended, the corners of my vision started to blacken.

Alex can't remember what happened after that. The next thing I knew, I was taking in a deep intake of air like the first gasp after a dive, and could feel firm hands clasped on my shoulder. I opened my eyes and found the ride operator standing over me as I slouched in my seat like a drunken grandpa in his armchair. I was dizzy, confused, and my head felt like it was about to split open. The operator was very kind and patient with him, helping him to his feet and asking if he was all right. Words felt like cotton balls lodged in his throat. They melded together and came out in incomprehensive mumbles.

The operator escorted him towards the ride exit, passing by the booth with the ride photos. Alex looked up at the monitors, showing the photos from his ride. What the hell is that? That was all Alex could muster when he saw his photo. Any other words came out jumbled. What the hell is that? The operator leapt over the counter, shut off the monitors,

and then ushered Alex out without another word on either of their parts. Alex stood at the entrance of the dim mall as storefront after storefront pulled down their metal gates and locked up for the night. The words, what the hell is that, played out in his head as he tried to make sense of what he'd seen on those monitors. The after image of his photo felt like a blow to the head.

He was on the ride, unconscious, but not alone. Something. some sort of pale form with pure white eyes was standing in the seat behind me, hands tight around my neck. When he got home that night and looked in the mirror, he found the distinct marks of fingerprints around his throat. So that was Alex's side of the story.

And on the phone, he sounded convinced that's how it really went down. I, however, felt the need to do a bit of extra digging. It's not that I didn't believe he believed what he was saying, it's that his account came following a sudden loss of consciousness, which slightly dampens the reliability of his statements. I've passed out twice in my life, and both times it was immediately preceded and followed by this weird, dream-like state,

so while I don't discount his account, I wanted to do my due diligence and see if anyone else could back it up. Did he imagine the phantom in his photo and the tithe, tightening around his throat. I wanted to hear from the other witness, the operator who warned him not to get on the ride. He had to know something. Well, it turns out the guy's name is Tyler, and he was a lot harder to track down than I initially thought. Even though this happened only a few months ago, most of the evening employees at the amusement park are students, which means there's a pretty high turnover rate. Not to mention, the operators rotate rides. So I was looking for a

needle in a haystack that might not even be in that haystack anymore. Thankfully, one of the employees I emailed was super helpful and offered to ask around for me. It took about a week, but she finally got in touch with Tyler, and this is his side of the story. I'd been working at the amusement park for a couple of years. What Alex saw on his photo that evening was true, and it wasn't the first time something similar it happened. It was always the last ride of the night, and only when it was just one ride or on. Thankfully, those conditions were met very infrequently, but the times they were met, I was told to keep quiet, escort the customer out, and delete the evidence.

The first time it happened, I honestly thought it was a joke, you know, some sort of hazing ritual or maybe a weird mystery customer test thing. But then, I saw the very real marks on the victim's throat and immediately called the manager. After the victim had been escorted out, I was told to never mention it again. It kept happening on his watch to the point he got pretty good at handling the situation and started requesting that ride. Why Scar some 16-year-old kid working their first job when he could handle the pressure? He eventually became close with one of the managers, and one night they went out for drinks.

One thing led to another, and he found the guts to ask her about the ride. Now, from the get-go, she made it clear he was never to tell anyone else about it, and that she'd deny it if he did. Back in late 1988, some teenage punk thought it'd be a fun idea to mess with the safety harness by putting his bag under his shirt, so when they snapped the harness in, he could remove the bag and have some slack. This wasn't on the mindbender. It was one that didn't have loop-de-loops.

So while doing this was in no way a smart idea, it wasn't, you know, clearly suicidal or anything. Security cameras clearly showed him when the ride took off. The kid pulled the backpack out and stood up in his car. You know those signs that say keep your legs and arms inside the vehicle at all times? They are there for a reason. There are all manners of gears, pillars, and support beams all over roller coasters, and if you stretch out too much, you could hit them.

Now imagine someone standing on the kind of ride designed to be sat in. The teen was fine at first, but somewhere in the middle of the ride, his head struck an overhead beam and he fell unconscious in the car. This is where the incident from 1986 I mentioned at the very start comes into play. See, apparently one of the night managers saw what happened and immediately ran to the coaster's unloading platform. You'd think he would have wanted to help, that he would have called an ambulance, but instead he told the ride operator to shut the gate and keep a lookout. Another incident at the amusement park so soon after the first tragedy could have shut it down,

and they would have lost their jobs. They brought the unconscious kid out back into the break room and kind of just waited for a bit. Thankfully, the kid regained consciousness not too long after, and they sent him home with a big old bump to the noggin. We didn't think about it after that, until we saw on the news a few days later that that very same kid died of a blood clot in the brain. They knew.

If they had just called an ambulance, he would have been okay. Tyler told me his theory. The ghostly figure is that kid's vengeful. spirit, trying to get back at the manager and ride operator who let him die. So there you have it. If you're ever in the West Edmonton Mall at night and you want to go on the roller coaster, just make sure you're not alone on the last ride of the night. Very wise advice from that tale. Keep your arms, legs, and thick skulls inside the vehicle at all times. We're learning more and more that there are far too many dangerous things out there,

things which are man-made, like indoor amusement parks. I think it's time to turn to nature. Let the wildlife remind us of more peaceful and tranquil times. Like birds. Ah, birds. It's so relaxing to watch them soar through the sky, sing their sweet songs, and submerge themselves underwater.

Oh, yes, so what... Wait, what? Underwater birds. You know, you're on your own for this one. This tale is written by author Clavain Ramsden. Whether you're high up above or have your head below water, you're going to have to deal with them, the stargazers. Dear Sof, this is the story of how you either died or didn't.

Possibly even both or neither. I need to work it out. If I write it down, then maybe I can comprehend it. Maybe someone else will understand it. It's the 20th of February 2017, and I want people to know that someone made it this far. If anything that can read rises out of the water, then I want it to see this. To have a chance to understand me at least, even if I can never understand it. It's too much to process.

Maybe Rot stopped at the British Channel, Irish Sea and North Sea. Maybe it won't make it across the Atlantic, and one day when it's finally considered safe, someone will come poking around in the refuse to try and make sense of all of this. I write this for them too. I will seal it in airtight plastic once I'm finished, and put your name on the top in Sharpie. This text, my epitaph, should outlast rot even if I myself do not. Sophie, please know that I'm trying to reach you. You're too deep, and I don't. And I don't And I don't want to hurt you by displacing you, but I am trying. I love you.

I will never give up on you. One way or another will be reunited. I'm writing this so I can see the cycle, if there is one, or maybe find a cure. It sounds so stupid when I write it like that. I'm trying. I promise. I'm trying. I'm supposed to protect you.

Mom always said so. I failed, but I'm trying. I'll describe what happened. I think I can break it into phases, maybe find some logic in all of this. Someone should know what happened. I'm going to try to be objective by recording exactly what I know

and how I came to know it. I wish something around here still worked. The sun's setting, so I'm going to have to stop soon. The backup generator we always laughed that Dad for having was good while it lasted. I'm running out of food, and I haven't tried to grow anything because I won't live like this.

not knowing that I failed you, not with you all so distantly near. If nothing changes, then I'll be dead in a few months. If only I had access to the internet, then I could collaborate with others, corroborate my facts. But I don't. And that's why this is necessary for me. It's too dark to keep writing. I will start my history in the morning. Phase 1.

I was finishing up the first term of my first and last year at university when it began. We were texting regularly, I remember. I'm not sure how it started, not entirely. I'm not a historian and I hadn't started following it yet. I knew about it, of course. You'd have to live in a whole not to. There was a photo posted online and a following media shitstorm. We're not talking anything like the scale of Gangnam style.

Remember how much you hated that song? More like when a celebrity says something morally questionable and everyone pauses their lives to pass judge. Some kid, it took them two days to work out his name, posted a picture that would surely have become one of the most iconic of this century, if not for our subsequent downfall. I think that was what brought it to our attention. I remember the picture so well. It was a classic smartphone product, sharp but lacking in colour depth, and the content was worse than the amateurish composition. An anonymous murky pond, exceedingly shallow. With what appeared to be a sea of white pinpricks looking upwards and out,

like a murky reflection of the stars. That's why we called them stargazers later, and you thought the name was so pretty. If you looked closely enough, you could see the outline of a legion of swallows, uniformly lined up under the water, staring upwards, eyes glazed, illuminant white, and feathers almost smothered by fallen rotting leaves.

It was the kind of photo you've seen art galleries, all that wins awards, hauntingly beautiful and disturbing. If they'd entered it in some competitions, maybe they could have won wildlife photographer of the year and had the image hung up with all the others of its kind inside the Natural History Museum. I remember feeling envious. There was a national uproar, of course. We thought that someone had taken those swallows, killed them, done something to their eyes, and somehow bound them underwater after carefully arranging them.

The RSPCA issued a statement. Damien Hurst asked to meet whoever was responsible and expressed admiration. Even Banksy got involved. I don't think we talked about it together. It took them a few days to find the pond in question, but when they did, it was in the same state. The author of the photograph stepped forward, claiming to be a mere observer who had no role in the murder itself.

No one believed him. The media sent someone from Sky News to interview the inhabitants of the village. I thought it was an art piece. Well, it's disgusting, isn't it? Et cetera, et cetera. The Guardian published a think piece on swallows and death and art that Mum shared on Facebook. Then they approached the pond. This video, too, I am incapable of forgetting.

It looked sacred. A still graveyard for all those swallows that had almost migrated their way to free. freedom. Someone got a long pole and poked at their stationary eyes. They shifted, swayed, and returned to position. Experts were called in on what this would mean, what kind of mechanism this would require to make them unable to shift, what types of adhesive are water resistant. And then someone upgraded their pole to a net. A bird was pulled, wriggling from the murk. It pecked the person who raised it. They were surprised, having expected something thrown and dead. They dropped it. The swallow burrowed its way back under the mud on live TV. The cameraman, shocked, zoomed in on the

pond surface. The mud settled, and the bird returned to its motionless position. Eyes affixed on the sky. It was like nothing we'd ever seen before. No one knew what to say. Everyone on campus became obsessed with what people began calling the hoax of the century. Several testimonials later, all but the most obsessive skeptics relented. Whatever it was, it was beyond our understanding. We called it rot. And then the journalists got at it. They called in anyone and everyone, geologists, zoologists, crackpots. We were given pertinent reminders that birds are dinosaurs. theories ranged from mass extinction to divine smite to highly advanced animatronics. Some called it the next stage of evolution.

A statement so blatantly absurd, it circulated all major news networks until it perished as a headline in the sun. We talked about that over the phone, laughed over how silly it was. Before long, testimonials were pouring in from all across the country. In every village pond there seemed to be migratory birds held underwater as if in stasis. The news did the rounds, and surely enough they were there. Swallows and geese and all manner of birds which should never have even been in the UK at this time of year were clustered underwater like barnacles. Patterns started to emerge. Only birds which shouldn't even have been in the UK were affected.

There was increased uproar when a pair of osprey were found near the bottom of a reservoir. At first it was only in shallow and clear water, but that was because those were the easiest to see. diving expeditions in freshwater lakes located more. Running water didn't have any, nor did the sea. But up north in Scotland, they eyed the deep locks with trepidation. When displaced, they always returned to the exact same spot. If you disturbed two birds at once and put them closest to each other's empty spots, they would still return to their own.

They were rooted there. If you removed one persistently enough, then it would mutilate itself, trying to return until it couldn't wriggle anymore. And then it would lie there, biologically very dead, but still twitching. Draining the water caused instant death for those affected. These are the rules, as I remember them. The next big uproar came through a few weeks later. The birds were all dead.

It took so long to confirm one of my lecturers said it was because no one would believe it. They had to test it, to be sure. And even then, people faltered the instruments used for measuring rather than the birds. themselves. They had no pulse and measured at the exact same temperature as the surrounding water. Uprooted specimens revealed that their entire bodies were filled with water. It spilled from their beaks, eye sockets and cloaca. It kept flowing for an uncannily long time. Measements confirmed that it was beyond the volume of their intestines, although they weren't visibly bloated. Somehow, they were so saturated with water that more flowed from every orifice than

their body mass. It was just another impossibility for us. They weren't decomposing, although the first signs of nature accepting these strange new additions were present. The edges of their feathers tinged green. After that, the nation tried to ignore the next stage revealing itself. A common house sparrow emulated in a local pond alongside all those swallows. From then on it increased, spread, until people woke up to the sound of their budgies, breaking their beaks against the bars of their cages. Rot was spreading. The domesticated joined the stargazers. I'm glad we never had a pet bird. Why didn't we ever talk about rot together? Maybe we did and I've just forgotten. It was so surreal in those days, like a bad dream we thought we'd wake up from. Phase two, we forgot to consider

chickens. That could not go unnoticed. I don't remember the details on how each day the water swallowed more and more of our biodiversity. I remember when pigeons sank and everyone joked that they didn't mind, even though they left behind empty cities and purposeless spikes. It was still easy enough to ignore. We thought it disturbing but ultimately irrelevant to our lives. Chickens changed all that. It was overnight that it took hold of them.

Every single chicken on the island was rendered useless, for human consumption. A few hundred, maybe even up to a thousand, made it out and into ponds where they germinated. The rest died. Over a hundred million tore themselves apart and whatever barriers closed them in, trying to submerge themselves with the others. We talked about that. No eggs meant no cakes, no omelette, no chicken meant no McNuggets. And that was something to complain about. After the chickens, we watched the ducks and held our breath. The waterfowl were the last to take the plunge. By the end of December, there were no more birds above water in the entire country.

I remember hearing on the radio that donations to the RSPB, which had initially increased out of fear, ceased. There was nothing to protect or find. I think that conservation efforts were reduced to hunting pipes to protect endangered birds. We waited for something to change. No other country reported anything similar. We heard about increases in malaria without the swallows predation. There was a diplomatic tiff over giving back their birds, but it never amounted to much. Mostly the rest of the world left mainland Britain to mourn alone.

If there was AIDS, then I missed it. Ireland held their birds close to their chest. Their poultry industry did very well over there, although we, like most people, gave up poultry and eggs altogether out of financial necessity. I won't lie, though. There was a lot of superstition in it too. Didn't seem right to eat them after that. I remember how we carefully cultivated excitement that Christmas,

despite the harbingers all around us. Winter was unusually cold. We didn't get a turkey or chicken or goose. And Dad just wouldn't shut up about it, remember? He folded his arms and huffed all day, even as we berated him for ruining the mood. Cards had no robins on them that year. Shops cleared out their stocks of bird-related items altogether.

No one would buy them. We tried to forget they'd ever existed. The word itself began to be treated like a bad smell. Collectively, we did our best to forget it. Although, I don't think you did, looking back. I remember seeing that swan painting on your bedroom wall opposite your bed, where you'd stare at it all night and thinking about how it was in poor taste. You didn't want to forget, did you?

I wish I'd talked to you about it at the time. We didn't think about the birds and snow, how they'd cope under the ice. But we didn't really need to imagine it. Britain was hit by an explicably cold weather. The coldest December in a century, they called it, overnight. And the birds? Unchanging. Multitudes of beady pearls staring out from under the ice. Stargazers.

A beautiful name for a beautiful name for a beautiful. for sight, you said. It unsettled me. I went back to university. Again, I never should have left you. I'm so sorry. My ornithology lecturers wrote notes on the board, which were obviously wrong. We were hearing about how nature is this great uninterrupted cycle, how biology works and how they were undead birds looking up at us from under the ice, waiting. How are we supposed to buy into the course materials, to read into them in enough detail to recall it fully in exams? They wrote exams to test understanding, but all I understood was that I didn't. It left the mainstream.

People moved on. But it was still there. A conspicuous absence. Phase three. When the first bird started crawling out of the water, they didn't make the headlines straight away. In my zoology course we noticed, though. Some had scuttled out through holes in the ice and died. A few extra had survived and were twitching on the ground.

Some had their pulses back. People were happy. Thank goodness they'd say. I'm so glad that the birds will be all right after all. Meanwhile, the majority stayed underneath, watching. You didn't say anything about it. We'd stopped texting so frequently at that point. In March, the rest of the birds joined the stragglers.

They all simultaneously burst up through the ice. The images, some people have managed to capture some people. truly stunning photographs, are forever burned into my memory. That was almost the end for media coverage. After a week, the story was relegated to the science columns. It was like it had been sold. Everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief and moved on.

They brought in new chickens and started farming them again. Egg prices were predicted to go down, although our family still wouldn't eat any. The two of us knew it was all wrong. So did anyone who knew anything at all about the resurgence. A third of the birds under the ice died. The rest? Well, they weren't restored to their previous condition.

Disorientation had been expected. No one who knew anything about biology expected normal behaviour to resume. They did not eat, and I think that their beaks gaped open. The worst was the silence. I went home for Easter to see you. and tried to forget all about it. I'd had to observe them as part of my course and badly needed a break. Anyway, mum wouldn't have any talk of them in the house.

I might have missed something important during those weeks. I have no way to tell. I remember being angry at a few things which had been ruined. Cream eggs seemed morbid, and any song with bird-related lyrics became creepy. Those iconic yellow fluffy Easter chicks were out, of course. It all seems so petty now. Phase four, I finally cottoned on at this point that something apocalyptic was happening

and filed to suspend my studies at university. A lot of people did that. We didn't talk about it, but we all knew what was really happening. In those days, I'd watch TV with you in the evenings and help out with your biology homework. We were so close together back then. I wish you were here now. If not you, then one of our people. parents, someone to help me get you out. Everyone always said that we smelled the hypenists

before we saw them, but we know that's wrong. In reality, we all saw them on the news long before we considered the smell abnormally strong or tentatively ventured out to local copses in groups to watch the reborn birds at work. It was summer. The smell of manure and the light was typical. Their behaviour was so erratic. I remember seeing them lay eggs mid-flight. the potential offspring shattering on the ground. They watched them at this point, out in the field the two of us, stumbled across them on a walk by semi-accident. They fluttered around without direction or coordination hopelessly.

I wish I had observed them closely, made physical notes. Then they began some kind of metaphysical group thing, and things became so much worse. Eagles and sparrows, falcons, and pigeons, swallows and swans, united to create nests. Birds which didn't even build nests, like the cooker, they joined in too. The united front of avians carrying apart foliage until nothing remained but what they built. It was bizarre. Spirling out of trees, their irregular structures daggered the sky, bisecting clouds, and somehow replacing the shapes we'd seen overhead before.

birds in flight. In cities they used rubble, but those were exceptions. Generally they used twigs. They were beautiful. We were scared. You cried when you saw one fully made and I hugged you. They cut one open on sky news and bird corpses fell out. Eyes white and feathers molted.

These were mausoleons. They were honouring their dead. entombing them in these massive structures they died trying to create. It was horrific. I had to learn about it on my laptop because mum wouldn't turn on the news. They weren't eating. They weren't behaving normally. No one was really surprised, least of all us, when they all died.

It took some longer than others. We tried half-heartedly to save some by leaving out food. I think everyone did. Some people fed them intravenously. It didn't work. They were still gone. We all knew deep down that the stargazers had died the moment they submerged themselves. Phase 5.

There are 275,000 missing person cases in the United Kingdom per annum. I had to memorize that for economics. I think it took us so long to notice because they were in rural Scotland. Things are more disparate up there. farmers and the light. Then Mary Ubright went missing, and people suddenly cared. She was a US citizen on a four-day holiday with her family, and the embassy wouldn't let her absence slip out of the headlines. A few days after her disappearance was announced, it was put forward that she drowned in Loch Ness. Why she'd swim in these temperatures,

no one had any idea, but we glanced at each other knowingly. Tourists, Americans and the Loch Ness monster, a perfect triptych. The rescue was live streamed. We watched it together in your room. They weren't wrong when they said she drowned. They found her on a sweep of the shallower areas of the lock, the police searching for her body. The net snagged on something so they sent down the divers who came up pale-faced,

shaking their heads in time with their trembling bodies. They couldn't pull them up. not even later when they had cranes. They fought to stay submerged, partially fused with the mud. She wasn't alone down there. We found that much out when they took a camera down. There were more of the recently missing, mostly immigrant workers,

kind cruelly thrust into the spotlight by an increasingly xenophobic atmosphere, an other dispossessed. Most had been down far longer than Mary Eubrite. Their relatives' pleas had gone unheard. Their missing posters ignored, ignored alongside adverts for concerts. Their police reports filed away

behind the detention forms for protesters arrested under Section 14. We saw the fuzzy footage again and again on YouTube, or on the news with a few censor bars to obscure nudity. It was incomprehensible. They didn't hide the jaws. We saw the divers shaking hands

pan the camera over Mary Eubrite, skeletal, white, head horizontally split open, exposing countless teeth. It was one of the things we didn't really understand. Why would it, whatever this was, break their jaws? It makes me think that perhaps the bird's beaks were forced open too. But I can't remember.

That was over a year ago, and we were more concerned with other details. So much has changed since then. Her hair obscured her face like a fat, black, green jellyfish. And the eyes, once it had been sweating, swept aside, well, of course they were that same milky, opaque white looking upwards. People had begun to rot. There was a national uproar, as you'll remember. Talk of firebombing that area of Scotland, talk of quarantines. The general consensus reached was that it was some form of psychological imitation brought on by watching the birds submerge. Nothing physical, they assured

us, clenching of normally normal blood samples tightly in rubber gloves. The families mourned louder, insisted their loved ones would never submerge themselves, pointing out that they moved when displaced, which indicated life. They were ignored. We went to our separate beds trembling. I wish I'd held you. I wish I'd hugged you and told you that everything would be okay. Even if it would have been a lie.

A week later, none of that lock-nest stuff was relevant anyway. They found the cameraman drowned at the bottom of his swimming pool. Again, they insisted it was psychological, a trauma response. Then his wife joined him, and their children. And it's so much easier to investigate bodies when they're on a tiled floor instead of miles deep in a lot. There was no mistaking it now. Who'd ever had contact with the infected had begun to rot. The government blew a lot of smoke about a cure or a vaccine to subdue riots in the major cities, but few were convinced.

I knew how little they knew. I might not have been studying medicine, but I had a firm enough grasp on infectious pathogens to know that these were beyond atypical, and had been following the bird research well enough to know that they still had no idea what might have possibly caused it. I didn't tell you that. We barely spoke to each other at this point. We tried quarantines, but it reared its head in our midst, picking off people who had touched infected birds seemingly at random. It spread, and we tried, of course we tried. But we'd been drinking that bird reservoir water and whatever they'd done to purify it hadn't worked.

University was cancelled, even for those who weren't on a leave of absence. Everything was cancelled. We went inside our houses and hid, or joined the candlelight vigils at the ponds where the rotting lay. In the dim light you could see all their eyes looking up, like stars, and their rows of pearly teeth glimmering. Did you still think it was beautiful then? I suppose it was in a way. The world turned its back on us. No trade in or out.

Resources became scarce, but enough people rotted that there was never any issue implementing rationing. Leader after leader stepped up as the one before them cocooned themselves under the Thames. It all started to break down, and I broke with it. It's a blur. I barely remember it. Just a feeling of dread and an irrepressible desire to hide. Phase 6. The third wave was when you stepped outside with mum and dad and everyone else,

and plunged under the water together, like the birds had. Dad was the worst because he climbed out the window, breaking both his legs. and crawled to the reservoir without making a sound. I followed you there until you were submerged, vainly trying to persuade you or rot. After that, there were so few of us left that many things stopped. Maybe I'm the only one left. I don't know.

I didn't try to research anything until the infrastructure failed. I was in shock, and maybe I didn't want to see how hopeless everything had become. None of it seemed to matter anyway. I'd lost my family, and that was all the grief I could carry. Electricity, gas, water, news, all halted. I have to drink your bath water. I don't know what else I'm supposed to say. I've been describing reports because they're more qualified than me,

but at this point, all of that became inaccessible. I mean, did everyone even step under? Maybe it was just this town. I haven't been outside of it since everyone sank. I've no way of knowing, not since the internet went out. Not unless I left you behind. All I know is that I miss you. And I'm scared.

I ask myself why I am writing this. Others will record rot. No one else will write about you. No one will remember you. But there's so many. dead that I struggle to maintain perspective. I'm doing what I was taught to do, observing something just to try to understand it, to understand how something like this could sneak up on us.

I want to stop feeling relief when I see that our cat hasn't submerged itself yet, to know that it's just birds and humans, that something's safe. But my reconstruction's full of holes, and even complete it would be useless. At the end of the day, this has just been a way to pass the time. I don't understand anything better than I did before. There has been no sudden revelation. I know that rot has rules. The positioning of each infected organism is precise and immovable.

In general, the infected are affected similarly, if not identically. So far, it has been an annual cycle in tune with the seasons. No matter how I phrase things, they remain opaque. It's late February now. The pattern is different with humans to birds. I can't predict it. I still don't know how long I'll have if you come back. I haven't gone under yet.

I repeat this to myself every day. I don't know if it's good or bad. It just is. I just am. It's almost spring now. By this point last year, all the birds had immersed themselves deep underwater, and some were beginning to resurface. I know I'm an outlier, but am I immune or merely late?

There's no point thinking about it. I can't control it. Three times a day, I walk to your reservoir and look at it. It's too much for me to dive and find you. Maybe I'm selfish. Maybe I don't want to see you that way. But I know you're down there. And I remember what happened to the birds. When spring comes, I will stand there waiting.

maybe camp in the old tent to save myself the walk. I've been waiting since you went under, but there is still longer to go, probably longer than I realize. But one of two things will happen. I'll join you, or you'll join me. I need to go sit and watch the water. See you soon. A lesser person would make a bad pun and say that story is for the birds. But I won't say that.

because I have my eyes on the prize as we come to the conclusion of our season finale. And keeping your eyes on things is the theme of this tale. But for the man in this story, his eyes seem to be seeing things others can't, and that is a very disturbing thing to behold. So even if your mind is failing and you can't always trust what you see, you should be very concerned should you ever get sight of the man with the hat. This is the last story I have for you.

Well, for now, anyway. I've got to say, this story really shook me, which is kind of odd given I was twice removed from the events. What I mean by that is that I didn't hear about it from the source. No, I heard about it from his widow. There's a man with a hat staring at me from the sidewalk. Ashley, Jonathan's widow, remembered him speaking those exact words.

It's not that they were so striking or so outside the norm that she committed them to memory, but he spoke them every time she saw him over the course of an entire week. That's just the streetlight. Ashley always replied patiently as she fluffed his pillows and gave him his meds. Streetlights don't wear hats. It was a game, she figured. She didn't know what he expected from the exchange, but it had to have been some sort of game.

He had been diagnosed with dementia, not even a year prior, after she started noticing little things, like him trying to eat using the wrong side of his fork. His condition had degenerated rapidly. She caught him cussing out a coat hanger once and cowering in fear at the sight of their eldest son. She could usually, if not shake him from his delusions, at least calm him down. When it came to the man with the hats, there was no emotion, no wild look in his eyes,

just a flat statement of fact, as though he were testing her, or maybe himself. Mistaking an object for something else was one thing, but no amount of books and research could have prepared her for the day Jonathan changed his tune. The man with the hat is on the grass now. She tried not to let her apprehension show on her face. There was nothing in the yard that could have been mistaken for a man in a hat. No streetlight, no bus, no fountain, nothing. She wasn't afraid of the idea of the man in the hat,

but of the fact that it was a sign his condition was deteriorating even further. At her age, it was tough to take care of herself, and him. So when he said that, it reinforced her fear she was going to have to place him into a care facility, and that meant she'd be left in that big house all alone. I couldn't bring myself to do it. You understand. I suppose I was hoping to delay the inevitable for as long as I could. So I calmly told him there was no man with a hat in the yard, and I kept telling him that over and over and over again. Then a few days later,

The man with the hat is by the garden now. She told him there was no man with a hat. When the imaginary man moved from the garden to the foot of their backport, porch, Ashley stopped correcting Jonathan and simply pulled down the blinds. Surely he can't mistake anything for a man with a hat if he can't see outside. Ashley checked on Jonathan a few hours later, and his usually monotone comment about the man in the hat suddenly became laced with fear. The man with the hat is on the bottom step.

He couldn't see outside. The blinds were still pulled, which was proof enough that he was making it up. As the day progressed, Jonathan became more and more distraught. A man with the hat is on the second step. The man with the hat is on the third step. When she wasn't in the room to hear him say it, he'd scream it at the top of his lungs

until she came and acknowledged she'd heard him. One night, he woke up screaming that the man with the hat was at the window, I was so shaken, not sure how to handle my husband. He kept repeating it over and over and over again, like a broken record. The man with the hat is at the window, at the window, at the window, at the window. The man with the hat is at the window, at the window, at the window. The fear in his cataracted eyes was real, but the man in the hat couldn't be.

She opened the blinds and showed him the empty window, but he insisted he could see him and that he was staring back in anger. She sat at his side, trying to soothe him until he fell asleep. And come morning, she made an appointment with a nursing facility. The next morning, she was trying to spoon-feed him breakfast. And with the head is in the room. He hadn't been eating much, not since the imagination. man had reached the back porch. I didn't like to leave him alone, not in his condition.

But we needed groceries, and none of the kids could come over and watch Jonathan. I checked on him before I stepped out. He was trembling, eyes locked on the wall in front of him. The man was... She promised she'd be back soon and put the phone on his bedside table. Her son had rigged it so that if she called, it would pick up automatically and go to speaker. Like a long-distance baby monitor. Ashley hadn't been gone for even a half an hour when she got this terrible feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Like something was wrong. She fumbled through her purse trying to find her phone and then called home. The call connected. But before she could even say anything, she heard her husband screaming. His words were followed by a guttural, almost animalistic scream. The line cut abruptly, and when she tried to call back, she got a busy signal. She abandoned her shopping cart and drove back home, speeding the whole way there. Jonathan was already cold by the time she arrived.

The paramedics soon whisked him away, and the hospital pronounced him dead of a massive coronary heart attack. unrelated to the dementia. Ashley doesn't believe the man with the hat was real, per se. She was quick to dismiss the idea of him being a ghost or a demon or anything of that sort. When I pressed her and asked what she thought he was, she looked out the window and went quiet for a bit. You know how animals know when they're about to die? My cats all found a warm little space to die when their time came.

Maybe they can see death coming. Their bodies know it's time and it makes them see something so they know to get ready. Maybe every living thing has their own version of a man in a hat. But most of us can't see it. Maybe that's what the Reaper is. Not a monster. Not an entity come to take you away, but a vision. A sign we see a,

on the highway of life, letting us know it's time to get off at the next exit. And so, dear friends, I wish you well on your journey down the highway of life. I hope your final exit is many, many years away. On behalf of the entire No Sleep podcast team,

we thank you for joining us. We look forward to being with you again as you brace yourself. for the start of season 15. You have been listening to the season 14 finale of the No Sleep podcast. The five tales of Canadian paranormal experiences were written by author Manon Lyset and were adapted for the podcast and produced by David Cummings. The Rathwick ritual on Sentinel Hill was produced by Jesse Cornett

and featured a performance by Jessica McAvoy. Vision in the Rare Book Collection featured a performance by Mary Murphy. Fear of the Dark was produced by Phil Mikulski and featured performances by Graham Rowett, Jessica McAvoy, Mike Delgado, and Nicole Doolin. The Spectors of Spark Street, featured a performance by Graham Rowett. Puffin and Peacock was produced by Jeff Clement

and featured performances by Y'clock. Nicole Goodnight, Addison Peacock, Aaron Lillis, and Nicole Doolin. The Last Ride of the Night, featured performances by Matthew Bradford, Atticus Jackson, and Sarah Thomas. Stargazers was produced by Jesse Cornett and featured a performance by Erica Sanderson. The Man with the Hat featured performances by Nicole Doolin and Mick Wingert. The musical score was composed by Brandon Boone. Please visit the no-sleeppodcast.com to learn more about our talented team of collaborators who make this show possible, and to indulge in hundreds of hours of audio horror storytelling from our archives.

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.