The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast - S15 Holiday Hiatus 01

Episode Date: December 27, 2020

Season 15 pauses for the winter holidays. We’re presenting a story from Season Pass 14 for your enjoyment. “Caleb” written by Gemma Amor (Story starts around 00:05:05) TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Jesse CornettCast: Narrator – Erika Sanderson, Johnny – David Ault, Mildred – Penny Scott-Andrews, Doctor – Andy Cresswell, Edward – James Cleveland This episode is sponsored by:Simplisafe – SimpliSafe Home Security delivers award-winning 24/7 protection. With SimpliSafe, you donít just get an arsenal of cameras and sensors, you get the best professional monitors in the business. Right now, our listeners get a FREE home security camera and a 60 day risk-free trial when you purchase a SimpliSafe system at simplisafe.com/nosleep.Betterhelp – Betterhelp’s mission is making professional counseling accessible, affordable, convenient – so anyone who struggles with life’s challenges can get help, anytime, anywhere. Get started today and get 10% off your first month by going to betterhelp.com/nosleep  Click here to learn more about the voice actors on The NoSleep PodcastClick here to learn more about Gemma Amor Executive Producer & Host: David CummingsMusical score composed by: Brandon Boone“Caleb” illustration courtesy of Mark Pelham Audio program ©2020 – Creative Reason Media Inc. – All Rights Reserved – No reproduction or use of this content is permitted without the express written consent of Creative Reason Media Inc. The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Okay, Christmas is over, so it's time to review the security footage and find out once and for all. Security footage? Why? What happened? I told you about the great Simply Safe security system I installed, right? Sure. Like everyone, we want to keep our home and family safe, whether it's from a break-in, a fire, flooding, or even a medical emergency. Simply Safe Home Security delivers award-winning 24-7 protection. Exactly. And with Simply Safe, we don't just get an arsenal of cameras and sensors. we get the best professional monitors in the business. They've got our back day and night,

ready to send police, fire, or EMTs when we need the most straight to our door. So what is it you're looking for? I'm checking the camera footage from early Friday morning. Simplisaf's home security cameras capture such clean, clear video that I'm sure I'll see him. See who? Was someone here that night? Of course.

Look, SimpliSafe has an arsenal of sensors and cameras that protect every inch of our home. I know. I saw you set it up so easily. It took you only 30 minutes. And then the SimpliSafes professionals takeover, monitoring our home 24-7 and ready to send help the moment there's an alarm. Right. And since there was no alarm that night, obviously nothing triggered the system. So what or who is it you're looking for? Hold on. Scanning the footage now. Scanning... You're starting to worry me. I wish you'd tell me who you think was in her home. Frankly, I have more peace of mind with Simply Safe

because with their service, there's no long-term contract, no hidden fees or installation costs. Darn it! I checked the entire night, and there's nothing out of the ordinary on the footage. I know he was here. I have proof. Wait, him? Don't tell me you mean Santa Claus. Santa Claus, of course that's who I mean.

There were presents under our tree and our stockings were stuffed full. He was here, so why can't I see him? Oh, honey. We need to have a long talk. Tell you what, why don't you tell the wonderful no-sleep listeners how they can protect their homes and families with SimpleSafe? Okay, right now, no-sleep listeners get a free home security camera

when you purchase a SimplySafe system at Simplysafe.com slash no-sleep. You also get a 60-day risk-free trial, so there's nothing to lose. Visit Simplysafe.com slash no-sleep for your free security camera today. That's Simplysafe.com. slash no sleep. Good. Now, let's start the show, and I'll tell you all about Santa. Welcome to the No Sleep podcast.

I'm your host, David Cummings. We're taking our annual holiday hiatus these next two weeks. Time for a bit of rest after a tumultuous year. But we want to make sure you have some dark delights to consume, even during these rather unholy holidays. We have one story for you this week, and as you may know, we usually sneak a sponsored ad in between stories on the traditional episodes. So, since we never put ads in the middle of stories, I want to take a moment to mention the great work being done by the counselors at BetterHelp.

Therapy for our mental health is just as important as it is for our physical health. I've gone through some dark times in my life, and being able to speak to a trained professional counselor, like those at BetterHelp, made a huge difference. So if there's something interfering with your happiness or is preventing you from achieving your goals, I highly recommend the service offered by better help. They will assess your needs and match you with your own licensed professional therapist. This isn't for people in crisis, it's professional counseling done securely online, and you can sign up and start speaking with someone in less than 48 hours. It's available worldwide, and they can offer specific types of counseling,

which you might not have access to in your local area. You're always able to log in and send a message to your counselor. You'll get timely and thoughtful responses, plus you can schedule a weekly video or phone sessions, all from your home. And if you think you're alone and needing someone to talk to, trust me, you're not. So many people have been using BetterHelp

that they're recruiting additional counselors in all 50 states. BetterHelp wants to make sure you're matched with the best counselor possible for your needs, so they make it easy and free to change counselors if needed. And the best part, it's more affordable than traditional offline counseling, and financial aid is available. BetterHelp wants you to start living a happier life today. So take my word on this.

Visit betterhelp.com slash no sleep. That's Better, H-E-L-P, and join the over 1 million people taking charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced professional. And we have a special offer for No Sleep listeners. You'll get 10% off your first month at BetterHelp.com slash no sleep. Thanks for letting me share that. Now let's talk about this week's tale.

We find ourselves back in the days of World War II, a harrowing time for sure. Back then, children from the city were often sent to the country to be safe from bombing runs. Thankfully, there were often kind folk to take them in. But in this tale, shared with us by author Gemma Amour, we learn that no good deed goes unpunished when a woman and her brother-in-law take in a strange refugee boy. Performing this tale are Erica Sanderson, David Alts, Penny Scott Andrews, Andy Cresswell, and James Cleveland.

So when the chickens start dying, the milk goes sour and the farm falls to ruin. Perhaps the blame falls on. Caleb. September the 25th, 1940, Wednesday. A boy is coming on the train tomorrow from Portsmouth. He is an evacuee. His name is Caleb, and he is 12 years old. I also found a dead cat in the paddock this morning.

These two things are not related, but I need to write about them. I have no one else to talk to around here, so this journal is the next best thing, as Disman. as that sounds. The thing about the cat is that when I found it, its underbelly had split open. Its innards had been pulled out, messily. The intestines made a long, fleshy trail in the grass. The worst thing is, I don't think another animal did this. It looks as if someone has gutted the cat deliberately with a knife and arranged its organs carefully upon the ground. For what purpose I cannot say. I buried the poor thing as quickly as I could at the bottom of the paddock.

When I did, I noticed its front left paw was missing, snipped off as with a pair of scissors, leaving a grisly, bloody stump behind. It makes no sense to me at all. Why would anyone do something like that to a cat? Perhaps it was one of the boys at the village playing a cruel game. Perhaps there is something more to it than that. Since the war started, people around here have gone a little crazy. The rules no longer seem to apply as firmly as they did before all of our men went overseas to fight.

I don't believe in superstitious nonsense or omens, but if I did, I would say that today is not shaping up to be an auspicious one. I told Johnny about the cat when I returned from the paddock, but he seemed disinterested, preoccupied. He has been very quiet lately, especially since Edward was called up. I don't think Johnny can accept that the army took in Edward but turned him down. He failed his medical because of his bad leg, and now his place is here with me on the farm, fighting on the home front, instead of doing what his brother does. Johnny wants to be a proper soldier, as he calls it, but he can't be, not the way he is. I catch him sometimes, looking at himself in the mirror, studying his bad leg.

Johnny had polio as a child, and it twisted his skeleton, did strange things to his muscles. He limps and gets very sore and tired. Sometimes he is in so much pain that I have to gently rub his leg for him to ease the ache. It doesn't seem to help much. Nothing does. And now, this indignity. The army doesn't want you if you have a twisted leg, even though men are dying by the score. I don't see how it affects Johnny's mind.

ability to kill another man, but then what do I know? I miss Edward horribly. I miss his sense of humour. Johnny can be so serious, so intense, so angry with everything. It makes me nervous. Victory at all costs, says our Prime Minister. But did he have to take my Edward? Leave me alone here, alone on the farm with Johnny. The cost is too dear, Churchill. Call me I'm patriotic, but you can keep your rallying war propaganda to yourself. In the meantime, the government are now paying families who take in evacuees, and we desperately need the money. So I'm preparing the house for the boy's arrival tomorrow afternoon.

I know nothing about Caleb, apart from his name and his age. I'm hoping he will be good company, because I don't think I can cope too much longer with being all alone as I feel right now. It's like a constant pressure on my heart. squeezing down, pressing me flat, until soon I should be a thin, worn spot in the ground, and people will pass over the top of me, and not realise I am even there at all. September 26, 1940. Thursday, Johnny has taken the tractor and gone down to the station to collect the boy.

I am preparing a warm supper to welcome him to the farm. Something tells me he'll need it. I can't imagine the things the child has seen. The Germans have been bombing cities all over the country, night after night, for weeks now. The Luftwaffe are relentless. London is getting the worst of it so far, but nowhere seems to be completely safe. Every single night, after the sun goes down, so do the bombs. For hours and hours, they say, whole city's on fire.

People dead everywhere you look. Portsmouth, where Caleb is from, was hit badly in August. In centuries destroyed schools. houses, churches, a hospital, the Guildhall. Caleb must have been right there in the middle of it all. Why his parents waited this long to evacuate him, I don't know. But eventually they did, and so he is on his way to us. Better late than never, I suppose.

He will find a very different world waiting for him. Here on the farm, things are as quiet and tranquil as they ever were before the war. Dull, you could say. Well, aside from the cat, I can't stop thinking about the cat, about how its foot was cut off at the knee joint. It seems to me like there was more to it than just maiming the animal. Like whoever did it, kneaded the foot for something. Like snipping off a bunch of herbs to use in a stew. Yes, it reminded me of someone collecting ingredients, as absurd as that sounds.

Aside from the cat, everything else here goes on as... usual. It is harvest season, and we each have our parts to play in keeping the farm going. Often I feel as if I'm merely going through the motions instead of living. Sometimes it's hard to believe there even is a war out there, except for the fact that Edward has gone, and our food is rationed and we can no longer afford shoes or petrol for the tractor. Once the tanks run dry, I don't know how we shall manage. Earlier Johnny and I built an Anderson shelter near the pig pen and made sure all of our windows were blacked out and taped to stop them from splintering if we get bombed.

Apparently splintering glass is more dangerous than the bomb blast itself, or so someone told me. Someone is always telling me something, though. War is a fertile land for gossip. Building the shelter was quite easy, really. The hardest part was digging the hole. I'm a small woman and Johnny's leggy. hurt him a great deal. The going was slow, but we got there in the end.

If the farm does get bombed, we have somewhere to go and hide, at least, although the shelter is small and cramped, and floods when it rains. Johnny says he will put some flooring down, but I don't see the point. The war could be over soon, and then it will just be a useless hole in the ground with some corrugated steel poking out of it, a relic from a time when the whole world went mad. As Johnny was digging, I noticed a fresh bandage on his right hand. I could see blood seeping through the bandage, but when I asked him about it, he brushed it off. It's nothing. I caught it on the paddock gate. I don't believe him. I don't believe him because the wound

looks fresh, and our paddock gate came off its hinges four days back, and is lying flat on the ground whilst we try and find someone to fix it for us. So Johnny is lying to me about the wound on his hand And this just makes me feel even more alone than I did already But also uneasy Suspicious Johnny went upstairs as soon as the shelter was finished And spent all evening reading and talking to himself in his room

This is a new development I've never really seen Johnny take much interest in books or literature before now But he was at it for hours mumbling to himself until I dropped off to sleep. He watches me sometimes, with an intense, direct expression, as if he's trying to see into my mind through force of will alone. It makes me feel deeply uncomfortable.

The boy cannot arrive soon enough in that respect. He can act as a chaperone, put some distance between myself and Johnny, put an end to any gossip as well. It's difficult for an unmarried man and a woman to live alone, together without raising a few eyebrows, and I know people in the village will speculate about us now that Edward has gone. While the cats away, the mice will play, as the saying goes. But what am I supposed to do? Johnny has nowhere else to go. He's worked on this farm all of his

life, him and Edward. He's like a brother to me. And the brutal truth is that I could never manage things here by myself. I hope the boy is well behaved. I'm I'm not very good with children. I find them noisy and messy and chaotic. I like my house be tidy, everything in its proper place. The boy might not be house trained. City folk have different ways. The masses over on Primrose Farm have three evacuees. One of them didn't even know how to use a knife and fork properly, and the other keeps wetting the bed at night. The very thought of that makes my skin crawl. I have to stop writing. now and cook's supper. There's a ball of nerves in my stomach and a feeling of dread as if things

are about to change irreparably. If Edward were here, he would say, cheer up, old girl, might never happen. But Edward is not here. Edward is away, and so I shall do what everyone else who has been left behind by this war does. Carry on, regardless. Chin up on all that, just like Churchill wants. I feel very tired, though. September the 27th, 1940, Friday. The boy is very strange. When Johnny brought him back from the station, I thought a ghost had walked into my kitchen.

He was so pale and thin, and looked as if he hadn't eaten properly in weeks. Within seconds of him coming into the room, I could smell an unpleasant odour, sour and unwashed. He had dirt on his neck. and his fingernails were atrocious, black and ragged. I swallowed back my disgust and surprise and pushed him towards the table.

City folk, I thought, but kept it to myself. I noticed something dangling from his blazer then. He had a brown paper label attached to him, if you can believe that. A label? As if you were a parcel. What's this? I took hold of it. Caleb stood as still as a statue while I did so.

The label read, Government evacuation scheme, city of Portsmouth. Underneath was the name of Caleb's school, his full name, and his home address. I looked into the boy's eyes and felt pity for him. He'd been parceled and sent away to the countryside like a package instead of a boy. I know it's for his own good.

I understand that he's sakes. for here. Seeing that label hanging from him felt like an insult. I ripped the tag off and threw it into the stone, angry and surprised at how upset I was. Then I steered him to his chair at the dinner table, and Caleb sat obediently, still clutching his suitcase. Eat first, and just this once, we'll skip the washing and go right to the food. But in this house, we wash before dinner, understand? This is a clean house. We are clean people. If you understand that, you and I will get along just fine. Caleb stared at the tabletop, unresponsive.

I was being too stern. I cleared my throat. My nerves were getting the better of me. Now, I made ham and eggs for your supper. They haven't rationed eggs yet, thank heavens, and we have hens. and fried potatoes which are rationed, but we manage. You'll eat well here. We grow everything ourselves, with plenty left over for the village nearby.

Johnny can take you into the village tomorrow, if you like. Your new school is there, and I'm sure you'll see lots of your friends from Portsmouth. The boy said nothing. Then I caught sight of something small crawling around in Caleb's hair and flinched. Lice, on top of everything else. The boy had headlight. I forced a smile onto my face, shuddering inwardly. It wasn't his fault he was so dirty.

His parents were to blame. What sort of people send a child out into the world like this? I realised with some alarm that I was on the verge of tears and turned away just as Johnny came into the kitchen. Do I get to eat without washing too? He pulled off his boots in the doorway and limped over to the table. No, no. No special treatment for you.

Now get, and don't come back until your face is red with scrubbing. Johnny glared at me sullenly as he passed me on his way to wash. I noticed something then, something that Johnny tried to hide, but wasn't quick enough to. A second bandage on his other hand, fresh blood seeping through, staining the white fabric. Johnny put both hands in his pockets then and vanished upstairs while I watched him go. Then I poured Caleb a glass of milk. When I set the glass in front of him, he stared at it, as if he didn't know what it was. What's the matter?

Don't you have milk for supper at home? Caleb shook his head, slowly. I sat down next to him at the table. He kept watching me, his cheeks hollow, and I thought again how like a ghost he was. He seemed so insubstantial as if he might melt away at any given moment. Not very talkative, are we? Perhaps the boy was having trouble adapting to things. He shook his head again, silent.

I patted him on the hand, trying to ignore how filthy it was. Never mind. Plenty of time for talk later. Now drink your milk. He took hold of the glass and lifted it to his lips. He took a tiny sip and then another. A look of wonder fell upon his face, and my heart. heart lurched with sadness for him. He drained the whole glass in a fast minute, wiping his

mouth with the back of his hand. He set it down, and I saw his eyelids droop. The boy was exhausted. A moment later, his head nodded down to his chest. I sighed and called for Johnny. Together, we carried the now sleeping boy to his room and laid him to bed, filthy and unfed. His head sank into the pillow. Johnny and I looked at him for a moment as he slept. He was a handsome boy underneath all that muck, thin but rather beautiful, with dark hair and high cheekbones. And he was our responsibility now, until things were safer for him back home. We watched him, and Johnny leaned into me, pressing his leg close to mine.

I pulled away, trying not to show how uncomfortable he made me. It's all about pride and dignity with Johnny. He has never handled rejection well, as I discovered when I chose Edward over him. When we announced our engagement, Johnny got so blind drunk that he wouldn't come into the house for a whole week if Edward was there. Instead, he slept on the floor of the cow shed, in the middle of the bitter cold of January. A week later, my fiancé had gone to war, and I was left alone, with Johnny, as if the universe were playing some cruel trick on me. I am being unkind, I know. I can't seem to help it.

I have such dark thoughts these days. I heard Johnny in his room again later, reciting something. I couldn't make it out through the walls, but thought it might be poetry. It had rhythm and cadence. It was ritualistic almost. He droned on and on, and I fell asleep eventually, and dreamed of Edward, dead on his back. Flies clustered around his mouth and nose,

staring into the sky, hot sand under his head. September the 30th, 1940, Monday. The boy has a hunched back. I didn't see it when he came into the kitchen that first day because his clothes are so big and baggy on him, but it is definitely there. I discovered it when I ran him a bath this morning and made him strip. He peeled off his shirt and there it was,

a pronounced hump around his shoulders at the base of his neck. Oh my goodness, you poor. Poor thing. Here, let me... He is clearly very self-conscious about it. He flinched when I tried to run a flannel over his back, scrub away some of the dirt. I remembered then that I'm not his mother, and a 12-year-old lad doesn't need help washing from a 30-year-old woman. But there is something so vulnerable and lost about Caleb. He seems much younger than his 12 years.

I left him to bathe alone, but the hump has shocked me. Am I to be completely surrounded by deformity and sickness? Am I the only normal one left? After his bath, Caleb and I sat together in the kitchen, and I combed his hair thoroughly with a fine-toothed comb, picking lice from the roots and rubbing lithium oil into the scalp to kill the eggs. Then I trimmed his hair with the kitchen scissors. When I'd finished, we studied one another, the boy and I.

He looked like a completely different child, still thin and undernourished, but more awake somehow, more alert. It was while I was buttering the toast for breakfast that Johnny burst into the kitchen, wild-eyed. Milk's gone sour. What? The milk. This morning's milk, it's gone sour. Come, look.

Confused, I wiped my hands on a dishcloth and followed him out to the milking shed. Caleb followed silently behind, trailing me like a willow the wisp. Johnny milks every morning. at five sharp, and then puts the milk into churns to take to the village on the back of the tractor, and then onto town to sell the rest. We've been doing things this way for years and years. Until today, Johnny waited for me next to one of the ten-gallon milk cherns and leave it off the lid.

I smelt it before I saw it, and gagged. The milk was off. Not just off, not just on the turn, but coagulated, cheesy, stinking, as if it had been left out in the sun. As if it had been left out in the sun. for days instead of collected only a few hours ago. But worse than that, much, much worse was the colour of the milk was all wrong. Milk is creamy when fresh, yellowish when curdled. This was a dark, rotten brown, like someone had taken the milk out of the churns and then replaced it with molasses. I don't understand. Are they all the churns like this? Johnny nodded and popped the lid off the next churn to illustrate.

And the one after that. The lids clattered to the ground with a metallic ring that set my teeth on edge, and within moments flies amassed around us, a huge cloud of them, buzzing and swarming around the sour milk. I checked them all, all gone off, every last one. But what are we going to do, Johnny? You're supposed to deliver this in the next hour. We'll have to pour it away. There's no other choice.

But the money, Johnny. We'll lose so much money if we do that. He snapped at me angrily. very well deliver off milk, can we? What are they going to do with it in the village? Make cottage cheese? That's soft. It'll have to go.

There was something so odd about him in that moment. Something on edge. Something strung tight. He looked... Did he look guilty somehow? Yes. Yes, he did. Like he'd had something to do with the milk going south.

But how could that be? For some reason, the dead cat came to mind. cat came to mind. I swallowed. What was happening to Johnny lately? Should I be worried? Was I, was I safe, alone here with him like this? I continued to stare at him, and then I realized Caleb was doing the same, watching Johnny with an owlish, wide-eyed and solemn expression to his face. Johnny spat then, turning his back on us rudely. As he did so, I saw another bright red patch of blood on his upper arm, hurting himself. Why?

He dragged the open milk churn over to a large drain at the end of the shed. I watched as he poured thick, congealed lumps of brown effluent into the drain, and sluiced it down with buckets of water afterwards. A whole day's supply of milk curdled suddenly in the space of a few hours. A dozen ten-gallon milk churns all emptied down the drain. I almost cried, but managed not to. We lost good money today. Everyone in the village went without milk, not to mention the townsfolk.

And I can't figure out how it happened. I've never seen anything like it before. And there is simply no explanation for it. The milk just went sour. Later, I dreamed of Edward again. This time he was lying half in and half out of a ditch. One side of his face was missing. Blown away.

And I could see bone underneath. A rat chewed on the soft flesh of his earlo. I screamed and woke sweating and heard Johnny mumbling to himself in his room. The mumbling is louder this time, but I still can't make out any distinct words. It just sounds like...

Like nonsense. Like jumbled nonsense. And so here I lie. Wide awake at three o'clock in the morning, muffled words in my ears and a stifling fear in my heart. I'm beginning to find it difficult to tell what is a dream and what is real life. September the 31st, 1940, Tuesday.

I awoke in a fighting mood today. Determined not to let the melancholy get the better of me, I got up earlier than usual and helped Johnny with the milking before Caleb got out of bed. Johnny seemed in a better mood, although tired. Some of the tension between us had died down for a little while. At least it had until I asked him a question. and spoiled everything. I heard you last night.

I casually took hold of our best milkers udder and stripped the teak quickly and gently as my mother had shown me how to do. The cow load softly and hot, warm milk squirted into the bucket between my legs, hitting it with a tinny ringing sound that always reminded me of childhood when I wore pig tails in a pinny

and would watch my ma do the very same thing I was doing now. Johnny, who was seated awkwardly at the cow behind me, was silent. Then he said, Oh, heard me do what? Reading to yourself in your room? What are you reading? Johnny was silent for a long time before he answered. Thinking. I knew then that what he was about to say would be a lie.

Poetry. Johnny has always been a terrible liar. Oh, lovely. I like poetry. Anyone I know? No. I could feel his eyes on the back of my neck as I milked. The milk did not turn sour this time, and Johnny decided to run it into the village early to be on the safe side.

My spirit's lifted despite everything. We would make money today, money we desperately needed. The milk going sour had been just a freak occurrence, I hoped, a one-time anomaly. I wish I could have been. explain it, but couldn't with any rationality. I was just glad not to have to deal with it again. While Johnny was gone, Caleb woke up, and we ate a good breakfast of toast and blackberry jam in silence, as was becoming the norm. Then, because we had not yet had time, I helped the boy to unpack.

It didn't take long. We opened his suitcase together, and Caleb slowly laid each item he owned out onto the bed. Gas mask. identity card. One vest. One pair of trousers. Two worn but clean pairs of underwear. One knitted pullover with ragged sleeves that someone had attempted to darn but made a poor job of it so that the yarn was unraveling. One pair of socks. One grey ragged facecloth. One toothbrush. One tiny sliver of soap. One tiny sliver of soap. A pair of shoes that were scuffed and tied with string instead of shoelaces. I stared at the sad collection of possessions and felt a slow, burning anger inside of me. It is not right that a person should grow up so poor, so desperate, so wanting for basic things.

There was not a single item there that wasn't a hand-me-down, or borrowed, or broken or repaired. There were none of the usual things I'd seen boys in the village. play with, catapults, comics, not even a book or a pencil or note paper. I pursed my lips and kept my feelings to myself, but made up my mind to use my ration book points and get him some chocolate that week, if I could. If not chocolate, which was notoriously hard to get hold of in the village, then Sherbert, something sweet, to have as a treat. After we put his things away, I gave him a chore list and sent him off to feed the chickens. He still hasn't said a single word to me. He still hasn't said a single word to me, and if it continues I shall take him to the doctor. It's not right for a boy

to be completely mute like this. While he was gone, I tidied away the breakfast dishes, started writing another letter to Edward. I told him about the farm, about Caleb, and about how late our prize heifer is to calf this year. Usually our cows give birth in the spring when all the other animals do, but Marigold fell pregnant much later for some reason. I'm worried that they're something wrong with the pregnancy, that the calf will not come to term. I hope it does because we've promised to sell the calf to the masses on Primrose Farm for a decent sum of money. Before I could finish writing the letter, Caleb came back to find me. He wordlessly held out his hand, which was cut, the palm forming a little well into which he'd poured some chicken feed.

He pointed at it, and I peered closely at his hand and then recoiled. The feed was black. and rotten. It had gone bad. Feeling a horrible sense of panic, in a sticky sense of deja vu, we hurried back to the shed where the chicken feed is stored. There, I found that all the bags had split open, as if the feed had got wet and swollen up, bursting through the sackcloth. The grain was everywhere, spilled across the entire breadth of the shed floor.

No, no, no, no, no, just look at it. I gazed in mute disbelief, and as I bent down to examine it, I realised with horror that the feed hadn't just spoiled, but was riddled with weevils and maggots. Oh, how can this be happening? I crouched there in the shed, staring at it all. The split bags, the writhing things in the feed, the black rotting kernels, and felt nausea swimming up my throat. Then Caleb took me to the chicken coop. And there, I found twelve dead birds lying on their backs, legs stiff and clawed.

Legs stiff and claws pointed to the sky, except for our rooster. Our rooster, our beautiful, proud boy, had been decapitated. We had to burn the feed in the end, all of it. We tried to salvage the chicken meat, and found the flies had already been at them, so we burned them too. Johnny said nothing as he watched the flames go up. He stood with his arms folded and his back to me. There was another bleeding patch.

on his left shoulder. And a thought wriggled its way in my doubtful mind and took root there like a dropped seed. Is there a curse on my farm? First the cat, then the milk, and now the chickens. Because you see, two things

concern me greatly in relation to that. A boy who came on the train, a boy who never talks, not ever, not a single word at all. This all started happening around the time he arrived. And a man who stays up all night reading poetry. A man who can't stop talking.

I will lock my bedroom door tonight. October 1st, 1940, Wednesday. Today I found our cabbage crop had blight. It was only a small crop, but all ruined, nevertheless. Oh, and our pig, Daisy, has developed mysterious festering sores on her back out of the blue. The vet has given me anointment for it, but cannot tell me what you. what it is or what has caused it. He has worries of his own.

His son's boat was torpedoed three days since, and there is no word of whether or not he has survived. That is not all. Our prize heifer marigold still hasn't gone into labour. I am sick with worry. I haven't eaten properly for a good while. Or slept without nightmares, or hearing Johnny chanting away to himself late at night. If he does it again tonight, I will go away. in there and shout at him until he stops. He still stares at me, and I swear I could see hate in his

eyes. I am not superstitious. I'm trying to not give in to the nonsense thoughts I've been having about a curse on the farm, but nothing else seems to make sense to me right now. What if Johnny is responsible for our bad luck? Or the boy? What then? I don't know, but it is making me ill. I'm so angry at Edward for leaving me here, abandoning me to this life. To distract myself from the farm, I took Caleb down the road to see the doctor. The boy still hasn't said a word to me, not a single one since he arrived, and I am very worried about his state of mind. He drifts about so quietly I sometimes fancy he will disappear into thin air,

like smoke drifting away on a breeze. The doctor was very nice and very gentle, and shook Caleb's hand when we went in. as if they were equals. Then he noticed the hump on Caleb's back and asked him to remove his shirt. When the boy did so obediently, I gasped. The hunched back was drastically more pronounced

than it had been on the day that I'd given him a bath. He'd been hiding it somehow under his pullover. But now, seeing him shirtless, it was undeniable. The hump was bigger, had maybe doubled in size and had also moved. It had moved lower down his back. instead of just sitting at the base of his neck. And the skin.

It looked as if something were underneath the surface, pushing up and out against the skin. I could see small dimples where there hadn't been any before. Like goose flesh once the goose had been plucked, only more pronounced. The doctor poked and prodded at the boy's back and sighed, telling Caleb to put his shirt back on, and emotioning for him to wait outside while he spoke to me alone.

What's wrong with him? Why won't he speak? The doctor looked at me kindly. I think that his speaking, or lack of, is the least of your worries right now. The boy is horribly malnourished. And that lump on his back, I think it is an abscess of some sort. Although without a proper examination in hospital, I can't be sure. The boy will need an operation to deal with it.

Soon, too, before it becomes infected. blood poisoning is a dangerous thing and he is weak enough as it is. I swallowed. He came to me from Portsmouth covered in filth, doctor. I've never seen anything like it. I thought it was a deformity, a hump. I didn't realize. The doctor patted my hand.

It's not your fault. I know you were doing your best to look after him. No one will think any differently. I will call the hospital and see if we can arrange a time to take a look at him. In the meantime, don't worry about him being quiet. Some of these evacuees, they've seen dreadful things. Whole families buried under rubble, that sort of thing. Things a child shouldn't see.

We're lucky, really, being way out here in the countryside. We don't appreciate how different their world has been. I left, feeling heartily sick of every. everything and everyone. This war is greater than the sum of my parts, and I feel I will drown in its waters before too long. October 2nd, 1940, Thursday, I cannot bear it much longer. We found Daisy the pig dead this morning in her pen. The festering sores had spread across her body, exposing large raw patches on her belly and back. When I found her, she was so swollen and bloated I was afraid to go near her in case she burst open, covering me in rotting pig inards.

Johnny scooped her up with the tractor and took her down to the bottom of the paddock to bury her. The paddock is where I found the cat, with its innards all over the place. The paddock is where we burned the chickens and our rooster. Johnny spends a fair bit of time in the paddock these days. And I have not received a letter from Edward for five weeks now. I am trying to remain calm about it. I listen to the wireless in the evenings, try to keep up with reports of British retreats or defeats.

Edward is somewhere in North Africa, but more than that, I am not allowed to know. I comfort myself that we have not had a telegram yet, so he must be alive. Around here, people only get telegrams when someone is killed in action or missing. That is how the government chooses to inform us that our loved ones aren't coming back.

A telegram. Everyone round here dreads the arrival of the telegram boy on their doorstep. In the village, they've started calling them the angels of death. I've seen women cross the road to avoid them, terrified of what news they might carry. No angels have darkened my door so far. I wake up each morning and thank God for that at least. But I am still walking around in a living, dreary nightmare.

A nightmare that wears on day by day, never ending, and this is my life now. Death, hardship, pestilence, and a constant fear of getting a telegram. And of Johnny. Oh, and Caleb still hasn't said anything. Not even my name. Not once. I am completely alone. October 6th, 1940, Sunday.

I took Caleb into the village today to buy some pencils. I have discovered that he seems to like drawing, and I can just about afford it if we are prudent with things for a week or two. It was so liberating to get away from the farm, and I cheered up a little as we passed the church, saw people bustling around going about their business. It's a peaceful village, and pretty. The trees are turning at the moment,

the copper beaches and oaks showing their brilliant colours, and I felt a little weight lifting off my shoulders as the farm retreated behind me. While we were in the village store, I bumped into my friend Mildred. Mildred's husband Toby is serving overseas in Africa too, although she does not know where either. It's all top secret, hush-hush, as usual. I wonder if Toby and Edward have crossed paths at all. I rather like the idea that Edward might see a familiar face amongst all the death and chaos of war. Mildred invited us over for tea, and I gladly accepted, desperate for some company and conversation.

Some tea and a good gossip were exactly what I needed. And so I sent Caleb off for a walk up the lane whilst Mildred poured the tea. He went obediently, kicking his now polished and patched shoes through drifts of leaves gathering on the street. So... So? Have you heard from Edward at all? I shook my head. No.

Mildred sighed and sipped her own tea. I haven't heard from Toby either. Not for some time. Every day I think I might get a letter and nothing ever arrives. I just try and keep myself busy. Try not to think about it too much. But it's the night times that are the worst. All the things you've ignored throughout the day just come down on you there.

when it's dark? I nodded, understanding exactly what she meant. Mildred fiddled with the handle of her teacup, choosing her next question carefully. What about Johnny? I avoided her gaze. What about him? Well, you know, how is he? How are things between you two?

I sighed. Tense. strained. Most of the work of the farm falls on his shoulders now. The truth is he isn't really up to it. His leg hurts a lot and he seems very tired. He is bitter about not being able to join up, fight like his brother.

He thinks it makes him less of a man than Edward. Those two always were rivals, weren't they? Especially when it came to you. I said nothing but blushed. Mildred patted my knee. Poor lamb. They sent the wrong brother after war, didn't they? What a pickle.

I smacked her smartly on the wrist. Mildred, that's a terrible thing to say. And then I started giggling, unable to help myself. And that's when a small girl in pigtails burst into the kitchen and announced that the angel of death was coming. Then she ran out again, a message delivered. Mildred and I froze, staring after her. The sound of a motorcycle puttering down the lane

came in through the open door then. Oh, no. My heart sank. Telegraph boy. Angel of death. He met us at the front door. I knew as soon as I saw his face that it was not good news. He removed his cat.

and handed Mildred a telegram. She looked at it, her hands trembling, then at me. The telegraph boy left and wheeled rather than rode his bike away, a sign of respect. Mildred held the telegram out away from herself, as if it were a firecracker about to go off. She had this queer, sick expression on her face, and my heart sank further.

Stay with me. Of course I did. I put my arm around her and, watched as she opened the telegram. Over her shoulder, I saw the words deeply regret to inform you and lost his life. And then Mildredge dropped the telegram and sat down heavily on her front doorstep. I soothed her as she wept, devastated for her loss. Selfishly, all I could think was, when is it my turn?

When will the telegraph boy come and tell me that my Edward is dead? Later, I caught Johnny in my bedroom. He stood over my dressing table, holding my hairbrush. In his right hand, he was holding a clump of my hair, pulled from the brush. I stared at him, too afraid to ask what he was doing. He pocketed the hair as if it were the most normal thing in the world, and left, going into his own room and closing the door smartly behind him. The chanting went on until dawn.

I did not have the courage to stop him. October 7th, 1940, Monday. Johnny woke me in the night. Marigold had finally gone into labour, and it was not going well. The calf was stuck, a breach berth, and we had no way of reaching the vet. I hurried into a dressing gown and shoes. The scene when I got to the cow shed was pitiful.

Our prize heifer, head lowered in pain, bellowing as she strained and pushed and tried to get her baby out. I could see the calf struggling in her belly, and knew we were in a bad way. By now, you should have been able to see the calf's feet protruding from the vulva. There was nothing, just a sticky, bloody mucus that dripped to the floor. You'll have to get your hand up there. I rushed to Marigold's side, taking a hold of her head and trying to soothe her. You'll need to turn the calf.

Johnny gave me a strange look then, a flat, level stare, and wordlessly stripped off his shirt, which was stained with the car. dark yellow semicircles of sweat. I gasped. His chest, arms and back were covered in fresh red scars. It was writing of some sort. Jagged, arcane-looking symbols and shapes I've never seen before, scratched into his pale skin with a knife or needle of some sort.

I felt faint, leaning against the cow for support. Johnny stared at me with his chin held high, defiant. His eyes huge. and blacker than black. He limped over to the rear of the heifer, leaned against her rump, and pushed his hand inside her. His arm followed

until he was up to his shoulder and cow, and I could see him moving his arm around, trying to find the calf's head. I had seen Edward do this once before, and the vet, but never Johnny. Turning a calf while it was inside the cow's stomach is hard, back-breaking work,

and a man needs great strength to do it. Johnny grunted, and I could see his face turn a frightening shade of red. He was in pain, his arm trapped in the pelvis of the cow, but he didn't give up. He kept feeling until he found what he was looking for. I got the feet. Get a rope. Terrified, I went across the shed and found a thin, long rope looped around a peg. I made a quick slip, knock noose and came back to Johnny's side. The scars on his skin looked deep and raw.

I tried to ignore them just for a moment. There was a greater issue at hand. If this labour continued much longer, we would lose marigold. She was our prize cow, and losing her would mean losing a huge amount of money. Not to mention, I was incredibly fond of her. Try to focus, I told myself. But Johnny's horribly mutilated skin was all I could seem to look at. Suddenly, Johnny pulled his arm back, making a horrible, drawn-out, sticky noise.

and a pair of tiny cloven hooves followed after him. Lightning quick, I looped the rope around the calf's feet and the noose tightened. Then Johnny and I pulled. We pulled and the cow bellowed, and we pulled some more, until I thought the poor thing would split in two. And then suddenly, finally, the calf slopped out of the heifer and slid to the floor messily. I collapsed forward and leaned against the cow, exhausted,

stroking her side and making soothing noises. Johnny stood silent, unmoving, staring at the newborn calf. And when I got my first look at the glistening new animal lying in the straw, I screamed. The calf had two heads. I covered my mouth in horror and looked up to see Caleb standing in the doorway of the cow shed dressed in pajamas. He was staring at the two-headed calf, but not like I was. I was shrieking like a banshee, unable to fully comprehend what it was that I was looking at. He was calm, accepting, as if seeing this sort of thing were an everyday normal occurrence for him.

And was it me? Or was the lump on Caleb's back larger still? October 8th, 1940, Tuesday. The calf died a few hours later. It was in terrible pain and made awful, piteous, double-voiced scream. long into the night. In the end, Johnny shot it in both heads. Two quick reports, one after the other, with his shotgun. It made a terrible mess on the cow shed floor, and he is out there now clearing it up. Then he will no doubt take the calf down to the paddock, where he will dig a trench and bury

it next to the pig, and the cat, and the chicken bones. I decided I could not bear the secrecy anymore, or the chanting. While he was occupied in the couch air, I used the opportunity to break into Johnny's room. His door was locked, but I picked it with a bobby pin. I wanted to know what he was doing behind closed doors night after night, in my house. I wanted to know what he was reading, where the chanting came from.

I wanted to know what he was doing with my hair. And so I broke in, quietly, quickly, quickly. Like a thief. And I found it. All of it. Writing on the walls. Symbols and shapes. Allegible nonsense mostly.

Written in Johnny's blood. A triangular symbol scratched into the floorboards next to his bed. A cat's paw, bloody and stiff, lying in the middle of it. Strange herbs and flowers that I didn't recognize, tied with black string, placed at strategic points about the triangle. The head of our rooster hanging from a leather thong from the bedstead. A black book with a thick leather cover, riddled with more of the same symbols. The markings match those on the wall and on Johnny's skin.

Candle-stubs, burned down low, littered across the room. And my hair, a bundle of it, tied around the cat's paw. There is a photograph of me too. I'm holding hands with Edward in it. It was taken in the paddock just before we announced our engagement. He is wearing his uniform and I am wearing a smile.

Our eyes have been cut out of the photo. Johnny has gone mad. Completely mad. Tomorrow, first thing, while he is out milking, I'm leaving the farm and taking Caleb with me. We are not safe here, not anymore. I will go to Mildred's. I will tell her about the cat and the chickens

and the pig and the two-headed calf and all the things in his room. Then I will telephone the doctor and tell him too. Johnny needs help. He needs a doctor. But that is a concern for tomorrow. Tonight I'm sleeping in the same room as Caleb. I've spread a mattress on the floor near his bed and pushed the chest of drawers in front of the bedroom door so that Johnny cannot get in.

I do not expect to sleep. I keep thinking of the calf with two heads, screaming with two tongues. I keep thinking of the blood on Johnny's walls. I keep thinking of Edward's face, with his beautiful eyes cut out. Caleb still hasn't spoken to me. Despite all of this, not a single solitary word. The lump on his back is huge now, and getting bigger by the hour.

I think actually it might have split into two separate distinct lumps, one above each shoulder blade. but I am almost certain that this is not humanely possible and I must be imagining things because I'm exhausted and terrified and can no longer tell what is real and what is not. Perhaps I am going mad too. For now, I hold the door against the dark and wait for the morning to find us.

Alive, I hope. October 9th, 1940, Wednesday. I must have dozed off because I woke in the dead of the night. Caleb stood before me. taller than I remembered him being. He shook me gently on the shoulder. I stood up, leery-eyed, and Caleb pointed to the door. And then I heard Johnny on the other side of it.

He scraped his fingernails down the wood of the door, cooing at us. Oh, darling. It's your Edward. I've come back for you. I pressed a hand to my mouth to stop myself from crying out. Johnny was so far gone into his own world that he no longer hated Edward. He thought he was Edward, and he was coming for me, because I was his fiancé, and I finally belonged to him. Caleb and I locked eyes, then looked to the bedroom window. His voice was light, happy, and it sounded very, very similar to Edwards.

My skin prickled. Pretty, darling, won't you come on a house? long time. Won't you kiss me? I ran to the window and opened it. Outside a fierce wind was gathering. An unnatural wind, unseasonably cold and bitter. It howled around the house and as it did so, Johnny's voice rose in volume. He didn't sound happy anymore. He sounded peaved, his voice verging on shrill. Darling, why would you come on out and meet me? I can't wait for so long for you. Can you climb? Caleb nodded mutely, and I helped him climb through the window.

He put his foot out, felt around, found the old cast-iron drain pipe that ran from the roof to the garden, and started to shimmy down it. The lumps on his back were enormous now, but they didn't seem to hinder him at all. He seemed strong, supple, and slid down the drainpipe easily. I watched him go, and then I heard Johnny bang on the door just once, smartly. I jumped and hoisted a leg out of the window. Darling. Come on out, darling. I swung the other leg out, twisted my body and lowered myself out of the window.

As I did so, I heard Johnny bang on the door again, hard. It didn't sound human anymore. Something else was in Johnny, and it spoke through him. Something malevolent and strong and hungry. I heard a string of unintelligible gibberish, words I couldn't form or pronounce with my own tongue. The same phrases repeated over and over again, a voice roaring with power. And then, I realized I didn't have time to climb down the drainpipe. I jumped.

I landed on my ankle, which rolled painfully under me and lay there, winded. The heavens opened up, and cold rain began to fall on my upturned face. A hand came out of the rain and pulled up. me upright. Caleb. He pushed his head under my shoulder, and I draped my arm around his neck, and I could feel the lumps on his back, and they were moving, rippling, because of something alive in him, and I heard flesh tearing, and the protrusions burst through skin, soft and smooth, and impossibly light to the touch. Two giant, shuddering, gossamer-spun, living things, and they opened out behind me as we limped through the rain.

And then I heard it. The air raid sirens began to wail. A terrible, whining in human noise ripped out of the sky, and I could hear the distant sound of an engine, stuttering high up behind the rain clouds and the wind. It was a bomb. It landed with a huge cloud into the earth before us. I could barely see it in the dark,

but the outline was just visible, black and cylindrical, half submerged in the mud of our farmyard. The tapered fin sticking out above the ground, and it was huge, bigger than I'd ever imagined, bigger than a man, and it creaked ominously. I had a moment to look up into Caleb's face, because suddenly he was taller than I, and his eyes glowed blue, and he was beautiful. I heard Johnny, screaming gibberish from inside the house. The bomb creaked again, as if the metal were expanding, and Caleb opened his arms wide. as if to embrace me. As he did so, two enormous, glossy black wings unfurled, curving around me protectively. And then, with a roar, the bomb exploded. I survived. Caleb saved me. He turned

his back to the bomb and covered me with his wings, and I survived. Huddled in his embrace as if I were the child, not he. I understood then that Caleb had been sent to me for a purpose. All that joking we made about the telegraph boys being angels of death, and here I have my very own angel, living under my roof, sent to protect me, from Johnny, from whatever the darkness was that he'd let in. The bomb was a stray bomb, dumped by a German pilot on his flight path home to base. A thousand pounder, the bomb squad told me later. It didn't leave much standing. The farmhouse is gone. So is half of the cow shed, the pig pen, and ironically the Anderson shelter for all the good it did me. They found Johnny this morning, amidst the debris.

He was buried under a wall that had collapsed on top of him. His head crushed flat as a trodden egg. I keep thinking about that, about whether it was quick and painless. I loved Johnny once, not the way he wanted me to, but I loved him. But that's just how it is these days. One loss amongst so many. One drop in a huge ocean. This war has taken so much from so many. Edward, Johnny, my farm.

Men go away to fight and die. Those that are left behind still burn in the fire that rains down on us from above. Or they burn in a fire of their own making. A fire of lust and grief and jealousy and impotence and rejection. Either way the end is the same. Be it quick or long, painless or otherwise. After that, it's just dust. Caleb left me the morning after.

Mildred took me in, and Caleb left me, standing on her doorstep, watching him as he walked up the road and away from me. Tall, and no longer a child, but a thin, beautiful man. with a pair of giant black wings hanging down the full length of his back. No one else seems to be able to see him now he has changed. And I wonder about that, about why no one asks me where Caleb is. Almost as if he never existed at all. And now I'm trying to...

Wait. Caleb passes someone in the street. A man walking in the opposite direction. He is limping. using a crutch to walk, slowly, painfully along and he has a patch over one eye and scars across his face. He wears a uniform and there is an army duffel bag thrown over his shoulder. They pass each other, Caleb and the man, and they see each other, pause, smile. Then the man is almost upon me and I see with a fierce and rising joy that it is Edward.

Edward? My Edward, come home for real. Hello, old girl. Edward! I throw my arms about him. In the distance, I can see a tall, thin shape made of darkness drifting along the road. But now is not the time for the dead. Edward is home.

Now is the time for the living. You for joining us on our journey down the lost highway. The musical score was composed by Brandon Boone. Our production team is Phil Mike Halski, Jeff Clement, and Jesse Cornett. Our creative content manager is Olivia White. I'm your host and executive producer, David Cummings. If you would like to find out how you can hear the extended editions of our audio program, please visit the no-sleeppodcast.com to learn about our season pass program.

25 episodes, each over two hours long, and three exclusive bonus episodes, all for only 2499. On behalf of everyone at the No Sleep podcast, we thank you for listening. It's the Darkness Faye. 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.