The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S15E04

Episode Date: September 20, 2020

It’s Episode 04 of Season 15. Our lost highway journey takes us into the dark and foreboding woods. “The Stickmen” written by Meagan Hotz (Story starts around 00:05:40) Produced by: Phil Michalski Cast: Narrator – Mike DelGaudio “A Better Sibling” written by B. A. Ries (Story starts around 00:30:50) TRIGGER WARNING! Produced by: Phil Michalski Cast: Laura – Nichole Goodnight, Sean – Elie Hirschman, Dad – Jeff Clement, Other Laura – Nichole Goodnight “The Forest through Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, I'm Penny Scott Andrews, voice actor for the No Sleep podcast. Right now, things are still pretty tough around the world. While it might seem like it's easing up with lockdown protocols changing and people starting to emerge from their homes, it's important to remember that social distancing and protection like masks and hand sanitizer are still highly important. It's more pressing than ever that we don't get complacent right now and trick ourselves in terms of. believing the worst is over. We've got to look after ourselves. And yeah, I know, it feels like this has been going on forever. Who knew that looking after yourself and your loved ones could be so draining? And there's no shame in feeling exhausted or worn down by this stuff. It's hard on

everyone and you have every right to be affected by it and every right to want to talk about it. That's where services like Better Help come in. If you need someone to talk, to or just to listen, they're a great option. Better Help will assess your needs and match you with your own licensed professional therapist. You can start communicating in under 24 hours. It's not a crisis line. It's not self-help. It is professional counseling done securely online. There is a broad range of expertise in Better Helps counselor network, which may not be locally available in many areas. Better Help service is available for clients worldwide. It doesn't matter when you need help, day or night.

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So don't forget that mental health is just as important as physical health. Reach out for a helping hand. Better help can offer that helping hand. So visit betterhelp.com slash no sleep to get 10% off your first month. whenever you need it. Tales of horror. Grace yourself for the no-sleep podcast. And now, I teased you recently about the two new podcasts we launched this past week.

We hope you have or will check them out. But I've returned to tease you again. Friend of the show, author Michael Whitehouse, is soon to launch a new project. It's a podcast called Fear Noir. It's a horror fiction podcast fusing hard-boiled detective stories with a slug of whiskey and a belt of nightmare fuel. Written by Michael and starring a young lad named Peter Joseph Lewis. Hmm, name sounds awfully familiar. Check the show notes for a link to their teaser trailer on YouTube.

The launch date for the podcast itself remains a mystery, but we'll do the detective work and let you know as soon as it drops. or gets beaten up and shot in a dark city alleyway. Either way, get ready to be immersed in fear noir. And since we know a thing or two about the darkness of fear, I think we should begin our tales. So now, let's begin our journey down this lost highway. In our first tale, we join a man as he heads off camping.

Like all the best adventures, he doesn't have a destination in mind. What better thrill than to throw yourself upon the mercy of the land and the locals. But in this tale, shared with us by author Megan Hots, we discover that the locals have a few strange warnings about the nearby area. Performing this tale is Mike Delgado. So pack up your tent and make sure you have provisions. Don't worry if you don't know where you're going. Someone will direct you to the right place,

as long as you can handle the stickmen. Stuck in a long stretch between cities in the BC interior, I ended up stopping for emergency gas at some podunk non-town that was hardly more than a post office and parking lot. Isolation made it a beautiful little area. And through some small talk with the attendant, I offhandedly asked about camping spots. He chuckled and said,

Only if you want the stick men to get you. That was the first time I heard about the legend. My travel-addled, caffeine-deprived consciousness didn't really register that as a kind of a weird thing to say until I was well on my way. I didn't even really think about it again. Until one night I binge read one of those seemingly endless Reddit threads about weird experiences and someone mentioned these apparent stickmen again. A kid who worked a summer logging job and was told by his coworkers to avoid a certain patch of forest where the stickmen lived. This started a chain reaction of posts from different users with similar local locations. legends, and at that point I knew I had to give this one a deeper look.

Here are three stories that I managed to find through interviewing locals. Now, I trust the character of each person mentioned, and that they're being entirely truthful about what they saw, or at least what they think they saw. I've changed the names and significant identifiers in the following accounts to preserve the anonymity of those involved, but the events have not been altered in any way from the way they were originally described. July 1972.

It was the Lowry family's first summer vacation at a small cabin resort in a fairly popular national park. The Lowry family comprised of Judith Lowry 35, George Lowry 38, Meredith Lowry 10, and a dog named Beans pulled up to the cabin where they intended on staying for the week. The first thing they noticed was the amount of forest debris around the site, logs leaning up against the cabins,

sticks strewn in strange little piles, like the work of a particularly pretentious beaver. The family thawed it a little odd, but they were city slickers and this was forest charm. The next morning they discovered that all the fell wood had been cleared. And they figured that the campsite staff must have been in the process of clearing some dead brush and finished up during the night. They were amazed that the cleanup racket didn't wake them

and assumed they must have been sleeping very deeply after their day of travel. A few days passed without incident. hikes, cookouts, and canoe excursions all went off with the picturesque charm of a postcard. In the middle of the week, the family took a day just to relax around the cabin, low effort, low-risk antics. Meredith, an adventurous child as she was, set out on her own to go bird watching. She was a good girl and knew not to stray too far, ensuring she not only watched the birds, but the cabin too, and of course kept faithful beams by her side. She was stunned by the size and diversity of the forest.

There were enormous conifers wider than a horse was long, their plush-green canopies dappling the undergrowth with light and shadow. Spindly birch trees brushed between them, swaying in the occasional breeze, their black knots staring out like dozens of eyes. Meredith went from tree to tree, inspecting the markings, knots, and striations in the bark on each one. They were so incredibly unique, as if they were the prints on the forests, many fingers. One tree in particular stood out to her. It was thinner than most of the others, gray and smooth like the driftwood in the lake. Knots churned its surface, tracing out the shapes

of three black holes that almost resembled a crude human face, if only by their placement. Two pitted eyes and a long, gaping mouth. Meredith stood before it for a minute, staring into those holes. She'd heard that woodpeckers made their nests in holes like this. If she looked inside, would she find a baby bird, or perhaps an angry squirrel protecting its cache of nuts, or even the worst possible scenario, angry wasps. Around the time she pondered this, Beans, who had been occupied with a profoundly interesting bush, caught up to Meredith. Immediately his ears swiveled towards the tree, and he adopted that disconcertingly statuesque manner of a dog on edge.

He tiptoed forward, grumbling that tell-tale unsettled. And Meredith only giggled at him, thinking at first that he was spooked by what was just a tree. Then she became genuinely concerned as she remember that bears and cougars did indeed live around here, and beans had a nose much better than hers. That was enough to put her in the mind to leave, but she couldn't do it before she took one last look at the tree she had found to see if she could glimpse even the smallest hint of an animal hidden within. That's when the tree moved to look at beans.

The movement was smooth, a gentle sway like the reaction to a bird on a branch, but there was no bird at all, and the movement was not meant to be made. Meredith shrieked and the long figure jolted. She ran back to her family's cabin followed by the din of furious barking. Judith, who had been reading by the shore, immediately ran to her daughter. Meredith could not properly put into words what she had seen, but with Bean's distant alarm, she knew Meredith had certainly seen something. Beans continued to bark until he suddenly stopped.

Meredith and Judith locked themselves in the cabin and fearfully peered through the window waiting with bated breath. They had barely the time to even begin to process tragedy befalling the beloved Beans, or that the same fate may befall them. All they knew now was instinct and horrified curiosity. After endless moments, of thunderous silence, a noise rattled in the woods. Something was moving towards them.

First with just a rustle, and then with the snaps and crunches of bulldozed undergrowth. From behind the cabin curtain, Judith failed to avert her eyes and readied herself to witness the bloodied maw of a bear in person. The cacophony made its crescendo, and out of the woods came beans, proudly carrying a long stick in his mouth. When nothing followed him,

and the pup just stood in slight confusion with his tail wagging, the relieved Lowrys led him into the cabin. He dropped the stick at their feet, pleased to show off this newfound prize. It was a good stick as far as sticks go, hefty and tope with that same driftwood texture. But when Judith knelt to clear it from the floor, she noticed something ghastly, something coating the edge of the stick that looked a little too much like blood. She carefully pushed back Bean's lips, initially worried that he'd cut his gums. The pooch hardly reacted to the touch, continuing to pant as only a happy dog does,

giving full view of a mouth no worse for wear. No. On second look, the deep red ooze was coming from inside the stick. It was like a bone oozing marrow. As the adrenaline began to ebb, Judith realized it was sap. Thicker and more brilliant in color. her than any sap she'd ever seen, and the smell was alien, somewhere between pine and sulfur with a dash of apple mint. Perhaps the tree had came from was diseased, and that was more than enough

reason to toss it back from where it came. It took some time for her to get the full story from Meredith. When the frightened girl had originally told her she saw a face in the woods, She thought she'd meant a man beneath the trees, and not that the man and the tree had been one and the same. September 1998 A park ranger named Abigail Williams was out with a team of researchers attempting to retrieve a radio collar that had fallen off a bear. This was a remote area, further complicated by recent storms that had washed out the formerly most reliable trail to the collar's last transmitted position. The detour easily doubled their time on the ground, and they quickly reached. realized they would have to camp overnight. It was late afternoon when they resigned to stop and set up

camp, and as Abigail gathered firewood, she discovered a grisly grotto. Several sticks loosely covered a small pit that was filled completely with bones and scraps of hide. Nothing bigger than a beaver from what she saw, but after the strains of the expedition, it was quite the thing to see. There was no scad or other markings to indicate that a predator was still nearby, and the bones were were long since picked clean. Still, the night was slept uneasily. Abigail was the first to awaken the next morning when the sky was still silent and stonewashed. While the others slowly joined her, Abigail began dismantling the camp, ensuring the fire was adequately snuffed and no trash remained. She was just finishing up when she heard a snap from the woods. Everyone awake heard it,

and like deer they froze and looked to the sound. Abigail, who was closest to the tree line, was implicitly voted to investigate. She nested herself in the roots of a massive tree, using it as a barricade as she dared to peek around it. Into the dark, she could indeed detect movement in the distance. A squirrel, foraging in the coming autumn's first leaf carpet. She sighed in both relief and exasperation. It never hurt to be careful in such wild isolation, but working yourself in the coming yourself into a tizzy over a squirrel wasn't a moment to be proud of either. However, as she watched,

she realized the sound of rustling continued, even as the squirrel did not. It too appeared to be listening. It too had no idea where to look. The cold water sensation of being stalked trickled over Abigail as she re-entered the realm of fight or flight, and at last she saw it. She later figured that part of the reason she missed the creature was that she was not looking for it, as it is difficult to look for something that you've never seen in your life before. Barely visible in the morning light, it might have been overlooked entirely if Abigail had laid her glance elsewhere. At first she thought she was only witnessing the trees swaying in the breeze. It was humanoid in stance, but that's where the similarities ended,

as it was much too long and thin to be anything resembling human. primate or beyond. It was hunched over on all its stilt-like limbs, its four limbs the longest of them. Even in that position, it was huge, well over seven feet tall. There were no other distinct features visible in the morning light, and it didn't help that the thing moved almost imperceptibly slow. Just looking at the thing was an arduous task. It was so well camouflaged in the trees that a moment's focus in a different place

would cause it to blend into the backdrop in a confusing mess, like before a star becomes fully visible in the falling night. Abigail had forgotten the squirrel as she tried to make sense of the thing before her, but it quickly came back into play as she realized that the squirrel was being stalked by the thing. Every so often the squirrel stopped to listen to the crack of a twig, but it never ran. Evidently, it had difficulty distinguishing the creature as well. Despite the pursuer's slow movements, it came up on the squirrel as it nonchalantly concerned itself with a pine cone. She almost wanted to yell out to scare the squirrel off, but she didn't.

Firstly, she knew that nature does as nature will, and it does nature no good to interfere. She also didn't want to become part of that cycle herself by drawing that thing's attention. There was also a darker little voice influencing her silence, one that desperately wanted to know what would happen next. One moment the figure was behind the squirrel, standing as still as the trees it resembled. The next, the squirrel twitched, skewered on its forelim. The figure had no toes or claws, just the sharp ends of its walking stick arms, now streaked with blood.

Abigail watched as it calmly lifted its catch to what must have been its face, just a woody plane identical to the rest of its body, except for, as she now saw, the perfect black hole of its mouth into which it fed the squirrel. It didn't chew or make any noise, just tilted its head back, and Abigail thought about that squirrel

sliding down its hollow throat. Maybe she was too big for the creature to hunt. She didn't care, and the researchers didn't need any more convincing to pack their things and run as swiftly and silently as they could. Abigail remained with the parks for another decade and never saw anything quite like it again.

August 2006. The wildfires had spread faster and closer than initially predicted and a state of emergency was well underway in the evacuated communities. Jake Gimble was on the front line as an experienced firefighter, having lent a hose to many just like it over his long career. It didn't mean the situation was less dire or dangerous. dangerous, but he had an idea of what to expect by now. It was a harsh few days with little time to spare. The air was soot and the sky was absent, and the fire seemed to move with such determined

hatred that it was more like fighting a monster than a blaze. The heat seemed to congeal the world into one solid, heavy mass, but they couldn't let that burden them now. Finally, after grueling days of uncertainty and mounting fear, the winds changed, and a thunderhead burst above them, helping to corral the furial inferno and giving some relief to the ground beneath the ashes. Taking the edge they were offered, the fire crew gave a last united push, and the fire became officially contained. The rain took back the earth with a healing vengeance, and the men were so desperate to feel it that they dropped their gear where they stood. Enormous drops ran inky trails of soot from their skin and washed tears back into their eyes.

Jake climbed to the crest of a hill that overlooked the wasted forest and just stood, taking as many long breaths of cool air as he needed to soothe his lungs. Those sweet breaths caught in his throat when he began to hear the sound. At first he didn't really know what he was listening to. Winds and gases could always interact in strange ways in the wake of destruction, but this was loud and persistent. and strangely organic. Yet it was unlike any animal Jake had ever encountered,

even the poor souls that had been trapped in their dens and nests as they burned. Sometimes he fought himself on whether it was really an animal at all, as the sound would swell and bellow like a stormy gale. But the other voices would come, different pitches and patterns, different instruments made of what may be flesh, resonating with an alien timbre yet carrying a primal agony, recognizable in the hind brains of every earth and being. The others heard it too, all rooted to their spot in the hill,

some mid-motion, faces upturned. No one had the strength to ask what it was. They all knew that no one had the strength to answer. There were so many voices, and they sounded like voices that weren't meant to be used, voices straining on what were barely vocal cords. They screeched for the better part of an hour, and when one voice died out, three more would chime in.

The sounds came on the winds from the heart of the fire, but nothing changed within its hellscape. There was only ever that sound. The crew did not resume their posts until the screeches went silent to the patter of rain. Within 48 hours, the fire had been snuffed, through the combined efforts of the firefighters and nature herself. At the end of it all, Jake strode through the fire's last fortress,

smothering everything that still glowed and smoldered. The clearing reeked horribly, thick with an undetermined smell that flipped Jake's stomach. It was like burning sewage and rubbing alcohol, and it was all around him, stewing in his respirator. He tried to ignore it as he went about his duties, but soon just yearned for the familiar smell of incinerated wood. As he doused a burning log, he noticed that it was spayed out in a way that uncannily resembled a man.

The body and limbs were too thin and too long, but the general shape was striking. Jake just chuckled at first. Nature always seemed to warp itself into familiar images. It doing so in strange and amusing ways could even help you cope with the grueling work, the human mind striving for something recognizable among the strange. Then he found another. One more crispy, long, humanoid log. And then another.

And another. All slightly variant in length and width, but still consistent in structure. They were all prostrate, blanketing the same acre of land. By then Jake was fully charged with anxiety, both in what he saw and the idea that it wasn't what he saw. That the exhaustion had cracked him and normal matrixing became hallucination. He risked nudging one of the figures with his boot just to feel something real beneath him. It crumbled away like any other charred log. But when it did, it gasped out a cloud of that awful smell.

Jake instinctively recoiled, but he could not flee. Was this thing toxic? Could it have contributed to the fire? Trying to suppress his flinches, he knelt in for a closer look. Beneath the blackened bark carapace, he noticed something strange. Not the familiar texture of wood, but shriveled gray webbing, like it had been something spongy before the ravaging heat. Jake didn't know why, but he felt in that moment that he had intruded on something private,

carelessly but deliberately looking at something he was not meant to see. The feeling overwhelmed him as much as the smell, and he left, fixing his eyes on the station and refusing to look elsewhere until he had safely arrived. The others understood that he needed to rest and some water. It had been a rough battle and he wasn't getting any younger. And there was plenty of help for the cleanup duties. A new kid was sent to finish up in the sector while Jake tried his best to think of anywhere but there. When the younger man eventually returned, Jake saw a new bit of hardness in his eye.

the beginnings of the process that turned a rookie's bright young eyes into weathered stone. He had seen what Jake had seen, and they both knew it. They never said anything about it. They knew they wouldn't get an answer, and it wasn't worth having the others thinking your brain had finally boiled away. They were lifted out of the area by helicopter. It was only from the air that Jake could truly see the scope of what the fire had left behind. Acres of forest that would remain gray and lifeless,

years, land that could not host livestock or bear crops. But that was nature, the part of nature he'd always known. Now it was marked in a new black. Limbs fallen in near runic shapes, patterns of organized nonsense that almost resembled something familiar. Jake watched that land until it was over the horizon, blinking only when he had to, the entire while silently crying out to whatever God could comfort him. There weren't just a handful of misshapen corpses, an anomaly isolated to a single acre. There were hundreds, and they twisted together, interlocking with the fallen forest, until all was just a distant blur of ash and soot. Those are the three most verifiable of many, many stories of the stickmen. What they are, where they came from, nobody knows. We also don't know

if they're friend or foe. So next time you're alone in the woods, keep a sharp eye out for mountain lions and bears, of course. But when you feel that tingle in the back of your neck and every nerve knows you're being watched, sometimes it's best to ignore the forest for a closer eye on the trees. And now, a break from the horror to listen to me,

the Atticus Jackson. I need no introduction. I'm a celebrity, a superstar, a beloved icon who can comfortably take his place in the annals of history alongside other megastars like Shakespeare, Orson Wells, or Jessica McAvoy. Unfortunately, being the huge viral sensation I am, has some downsides. Every time I go out to dinner, I'm swarmed by thousands of rabid fans, all wanting a bite of the old Atticus Pie. Boy, I can even see them right now outside my... door. So I dared to go out, but

I'm hungry. And that's why I use DoorDash. DoorDash delivers food right to your door without you having to leave the house and having to smile at babies who try to bite you. Or shake hands with fans who also try to bite

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When you're out in the woods, it's important to try making the trip a good experience for everyone. Keep calm, stay happy, remain enthusiastic. Even if things start going south, but in this tale, shared with us by author B. A. Reese, it's important to tell whether things are going south, northeast, or west when the map can't be found. Performing this tale are Nicole Goodnight, Ellie Hirschman, and Jeff Clement. So stick with your family, shake off your past, and look to the future,

at least if you want to be a better sibling. We had been searching for three hours when Sean finally figured it out. I'm not sure if it was our hushed tone or our hesitation at the trail intersections we came across that gave it away. Are we lost? I shuddered at his worried voice. This weekend was supposed to be an opportunity for me to bond with my younger brother, and he had began the overnight hike with such excitement and exuberance. Now we were deep in the woods, far into our phone's no coverage zone,

and my father and I had to break the bad news, bad news for which I was responsible. Dad crouched to Sean's height. Yes, I didn't want to get you worried, kiddo, because I've been in these woods before and I thought I could find a way out of them. But I'm afraid your sister and I don't really know where we are. Sean's eyes grew wide. He was, after all, still at an age where he viewed as infallible his father and his much older sister. The 10-year age gap had made me almost a replacement for our long-absent mother.

Now, I feared that my mistake had shattered this image. But it's okay, son. We packed for an overnight trip, and we'll be fine. If we still can't find any of the main trails, I have an idea that I'm sure will bring us to safety. We'll be back at home tomorrow night, just like we planned. But what about the map? Sean looked up at me.

I felt the color drained from my face. I... I... Your sister seems to have lost our map. Dad shot me a stern glance. But it's okay, it's okay. You don't need to worry, okay? We'll figure this out together as a family.

I don't know how it happened. Dad had put me in charge of the map when he had parked at the edge of the Rich Mountain Hiking Trail that morning. Everything had gone so smoothly at first. I let us down a half-mile dirt path that, Like the rest of the Appalachian woods that stretched through southwest Virginia, was lined on both sides with the vibrant colors of early fall leaves that decorated oak, maple, and birch trees.

We arrived at the swimming hole at the base of a long cascade, a common stop for families looking for an easy outing, and proceeded to spend time playing in the water and then picnicking with food we had packed. After we had dried off and changed back into our hiking clothes, we began the much longer truck to a prominent Deep Woods campsite, where we planned to spend a night before returning home the next day. day. The coolness of the morning air faded into a strong midday sun. Dad and I sweated under the weight of the two tents and camping equipment we lugged on our backs, but the

trail was mostly flat and we quickly got used to the burden. Dad directed us at first. We split from the prominent trail onto a smaller, less well-maintained dirt path and then onto another, even narrower one filled with rugged small rocks. It was barely a path as is from any distance, it was hard to distinguish from the surrounding woods. After a few hours of this, Dad commented that the territory we were going through looked unfamiliar to him, so we'd better take a look at the map. We took a rest in a clearing. While Sean was climbing up a large stump for climbing at a throne upon which he sat as

king of the woods, I fished through my items I was carrying to find the map. My dad stood over me, patiently, then noted the worried expression on my face. You all right there? It's not here. I made sure to whisper, not wanting to worry my brother unnecessarily. Surely it would turn up before long, but it didn't. My dad and I looked through our respective backpacks and even Sean's small knapsack. The map was nowhere to be found.

When was the last time you saw it? I responded that it had been at the swimming hole right as we were packing up our belongings again. We exchanged a concerned glance. Don't worry. We'll figure this out. That was six hours. ago. We tried, of course, going back the way we came. My father had always had a good sense of direction, so we followed his lead through several windy paths. Occasionally, I would feel like I recognized our surroundings, only to second guess myself. Was that the same set of spruce trees we had

passed before, or a different one? It got dark only a few hours after Sean caught on. Dad, I'm so sorry. I felt the pain of all the times I had disappointed him run through me. Even worse was realizing that I was letting down my kid brother. I asked him about his other idea. He took out his compass and explained that we had generally been heading southeast all morning and early afternoon. All we needed to do was go the opposite direction, northwest, and before long, we'd be close to where we started. At the very least, we'd come across a few peaks from which we'd be able to see the surrounding valleys and figure out our location. We trudged along this way for another hour before evening started to fall.

The only sounds were those of the woods. insects buzzing around and gentle breezes swaying branches. Realizing we only had a little natural light left, we kept our eyes out for a place to camp for the night, eventually identifying a patch of dirt largely unobstructed by trees or roots. Dad and I set up the two tents, one for Sean and me and one for him, and lined a space with rocks where we started a small fire with wood we had gathered nearby. Dad exchanged pleasant words with us,

telling we would be back at home this time tomorrow night as we cooked and ate the food we had packed for dinner. Eventually, Sean and I retired to our tent. Sean was worried, but also exhausted from the day of intense hiking, and before long, I heard the rhythmic breathing of him in deep sleep. I, on the other hand, tossed and turned with discontent. Today's events triggered other painful memories. I remembered sifting through mom's wallet, back when she and my dad's marriage had descended to the point of regular, violent physical confrontations, and using what I stole to procure the pills I craved, pills that brought me a much-needed sense of contentment. The look of disappointment dad had given me earlier today had been the same as when he caught me taking more money,

this time from my own brother's funds for a field trip to feed my addiction. Now I wanted so badly to be a better sister, but here I was again letting him down. Unable to sleep, I emerged from the tent and returned to the fire. It was dying out with only a few embers emitting light, and in this half-darkness I could see my father sitting there, leaning against his heavy backpack, and whittling a stick with his hunting knife. Can't sleep. I shook my head. I understand.

Don't be too hard on yourself. I'm proud of you, honey. I must have continued looking downcast because he continued trying to cheer me up and even apologized for his many work-related weekend absences from home. We sat together quietly, staring into the fire, for a few moments before he said. he got to his feet. I'm going to see if I can get some rest for tomorrow. You should do the same when you're ready. Just make sure to put out the fire when you go.

With that, he entered his tent and left me alone. I sat for a minute, observing how the woods seemed ominous and foreboding at night. Glancing at the opening of Dad's backpack, I glimpsed the lid of a prescription box and a flicker of light from the dying fire. In other circumstances, I would have left it alone as my youth rehab program had taught me. but I was so distraught at the dire situation in which I had placed my family that I guiltily reached for it, hoping to find something that could improve my mood. I didn't imagine that the box would contain the painkillers I craved for, but maybe it would have something that could help me relax. I held the label in front of my eyes.

Allergy pills. I sighed, disappointed in the contents and in myself, and reached into Dad's backpack to return the container. My hand felt a thick folded piece of paper. My heart sank as I realized what it was. I quickly pulled it out of the backpack. It was the map. The same one I had used to guide us to the swimming hole this morning. The guide to the entire region of woods in which we had found ourselves lost.

My mind ran in circles. Sean and I had spent the last ten hours distressed at our situation and Dad had had the map on him all along. I felt dizzy thinking of all the inside. implications. Had Dad taken the map out of my backpack when I wasn't paying attention and then pretended not to find it when I realized it was missing? I recalled a point where I had been in the water with Sean while Dad prepared our picnic. He would have had a perfect opportunity to remove it then, but why would he do that? Dad had also been the one to assure us we didn't need to check the map

for the first several miles, stopping me from noting its absence until we were already deep into the forest. What was going on? Where was dad? leading us and why was he tricking us into thinking we were lost? I thought about using the map to run away. With a compass, which I also found in Dad's pack, I could surely return to the main trail and call for help, but could I leave Sean? Would he come with me voluntarily without waking up Dad? I grew angry, too, at all the blame Dad had allowed me to assign to myself. That bastard! He had watched me descend into guilt-ridden sadness while all long he was the one leading Sean and I astray. Was my dad secretly some kind of crazed killer? Was he going to sacrifice us to a

forest monster or try to start a new life with us as survivalists in the woods? What was happening? I turned on my cell phone, which predictably had no signal and used its flashlight feature to find and pick up Dad's knife and also to find our location on the map. I noticed a ranger's station listed a bit north of us and decided to set off there and get help. Hopefully I would find someone tonight who would return here and help figure out what was going on. And hopefully, we would get back before Dad realized I was gone. I sat silently for a bit, trying to discern if Dad was asleep. I had a nightmarish image of him rushing out of his tent to find me in possession of the

map, and I could only imagine what would happen next. For now, Dad didn't realize that I was on to him, and that gave me some advantage in trying to thwart whatever he was trying to accomplish. Moving as quietly as I could, I sat out into the woods. The initially flat route developed gradually into a steep ascent. I quickened my pace as I got further away from our makeshift campsite. Beyond every crooked set of branches, I saw a visage of my dad in the shadows, a man I had thought I could trust.

In the distance, I heard the faint sound of running water mixed with hoots from owls and mating calls from insects. My legs began to ache as I continued up the hill, but adrenaline pushed me forward. Finally, as the perfect darkness of midnight settled around me, I reached the peak of the mountain and saw the outline of a dilapidated shack before me. I walked slowly up to the entrance, my mind somehow more nervous than before. I was a young woman alone in the woods, after all. What if I found inside was worse than my crazed father?

Hesidently I knocked quietly at the rested door than louder when I heard no response. Finally, I pushed at the door. It creaked open, apparently unlocked. At first I saw nothing inside but darkness. The floors were wooden, the ceiling was low, and the room before me appeared barren. Using my phone's flashlight once more, I made out a long, oval-shaped mirror at the other end. Stepping closer, I gazed into the reflection of my own distraught form. My thin frame shook with worry.

My long, disheveled chestnut hair at least somewhat obscured my panicked and sweaty face. In the reflection, I began to notice something floating over my left shoulder. I froze, too afraid to turn around and see it directly. A translucent, wispy shape appeared behind me. For a moment, I saw its murky texture swirl together to form a barren face that consisted only of eyes in a nose. Then an impossibly large mouth grew into it, and the entity let out an inhuman moan. I panicked at this, stumbling into the corner of the room and tripping over an old piece of carpet. I felt myself fall to the ground and then threw the floor onto the dirt below.

I drew Dad's knife and held it out towards the gap above me, prepared to swipe at anything I saw, but nothing came. So I looked around and examined my surroundings. What I found there shocked me even more than the shape that had appeared a moment earlier. I found myself surrounded on all sides by bones. Human bones. Hundreds of them. I felt like I was about to pass out from the stench and from the horror coursing through my body, but even what I had seen so far did nothing to prepare me for what I was about to.

witness. There was one body that consisted of more than bones. It was still lined with decomposing flesh and it smelled the worst of all. I dropped the knife and vomited immediately after my phone's light gave me a better look at it. It was my dad. His head and torso lay a few feet away from me, and I saw a leg about a yard away. The dirt underneath was stained Auburn red. I at last heard footsteps creeping close to the hole in the floor where I had dropped down. frantically I shined my phone's light around the room noticing a small gap in the wall crawling as fast as I could over the remains that littered the area underneath the floor of the shack I slid through the hole and found myself back outside.

I took a brief moment to get my bearings and then I sprinted down the hill as fast as I could heading in the direction of the campsite and never looking back. When I was close to the bottom of the hill long out of sight of the building, I finally stopped. I hadn't realized how out of breath the journey up and down that hill had made me. Panting, I sat down against the back of a tree and noticed the first glimmers of morning light appearing on the horizon. I went through it all in my mind, the mirror, the shape that formed behind me, the area between the floor and the dirt, not really a basement and more like a crawl space, littered with human bones in my dad's decomposing body. Of course, if that was my dad, then who was leading Sean and I into the woods?

This person who had shown such love and affection towards us, this couldn't be our real. dad. Our real father was dead and had been for some time judging by the body I'd seen and this imposter had taken his place. Our real dad would never pretend to be lost like this, much less falsely placed the blame on me for it, but how was any of this possible? I didn't have any time to grieve. I knew at that moment that I had to stop the man in the campsite from achieving his goal. I don't know what that goal was, but I knew it involved Sean and me. I crept slowly back to where we had set up our tents. It was still early in the morning, and hopefully both my dad and Sean had not noticed my absence. Dad's tent was shut and looked no different from when I had left it.

I returned the map and compass to Dad's backpack and threw water on the last few embers of the fire, which I had forgetfully left burning in my earlier panic. I carefully unzipped the door to my tent and crawled inside of it. Thankfully, Sean was still asleep. Quietly, I pulled a towel from my backpack and wiped off sweat from all over my body. If the thing pretending to be dad came along, I wanted it to think I had been asleep in the tent, not running through the woods at night. I lay down on my pillow and tried to think of a plan of

some way to lead my brother and me out of this nightmare. Quickly, I decided the best thing to do was to wake up Sean, tell him some story to convince him to follow me, and take him to the woods with me as far away from dad's impostor as we could get. I could use the compass and map to find our way back to civilization. From there, I could convince the authorities to check out the abandoned ranger station in the woods. Upon finding the bodies, they'd know I was telling the truth.

It wasn't a great plan, but it was all I could come up with. No sooner had I resolved on this course of action than I heard footsteps approaching the tent. I braced myself, not sure what was outside. A moment later, the thing that was pretending to be my father shouted, Good morning, kids. Rise and shine. Sorry to wake you so soon, but we need to get an early start if we're going to find our way out of here. Sean stirred as I realized that I had missed my chance. Within a half hour, we had eaten a light breakfast and packed up our belongings.

Sean and It both noticed my unease and both assured me that I didn't need to beat myself up for losing the map. We'll figure this out soon. Dad patted me on the back. He was being so unusually kind and sincere that, I nearly bought into the act. After a couple of miles, hiking in the direction of the road, I guarantee we'll find our way back to the main trail. The forest looks so much more welcoming in the daylight,

and my father was being supportive. He optimistically insisted that we'd find our way back in no time and that our trip would end up being the same overnight camping experience it would have been had nothing gone wrong. Sean even returned to his more typical jovial mood. that's when I started second-guessing myself. I was a recovering addict, after all. What if I had elucinated the events from the night before

as some kind of withdrawal syndrome? I'd never heard of that happening to a pill-popper like me. But then I thought about how I was lying in the tent, right where I had tried to go to sleep only a few hours earlier when Dad had called for us to get up. Had I simply awoken from a vivid dream? As we began hiking up a steeper incline, and Sean and I both struggling to keep up with Dad,

a terrible image ran through my mind of me running off with Sean when, in fact, nothing was wrong. I mean, pointlessly putting him in more danger in the process. You okay, Laura? You don't seem yourself. I'm fine, Dad. I looked over him carefully, trying to find some discrepancy that could validate my imposter theory,

but he perfectly resembled the same dad I had known and depended on for 17 years. He shrugged and moved on. We climbed higher and higher. Sean, unburdened by any heavy camping gear, was just able to keep up, but I felt so tired. Tired enough to feel like I had been out moving all of last night, not sleeping soundly as I was beginning to hope. Then we reached the summit. All around us on either side were green valleys surrounded by thick forest.

Then ahead and by a steep cliffside was a building. Was this man an imposter taking us to that horrible place so that our body, would be added to the many underneath it? Or was this a different place entirely? The building before us now had a second floor, which I hadn't seen in the structure I visited last night, but it also conveyed a sense of familiarity that sent a deep chill down my spine. Maybe there's someone inside.

I walked to the rocky cliff side. There was water running down it. Laura, come on. We need to check this place out. It looks like a ranger station. If anyone is here, they can help us. He was at the building's entrance, Sean at his side. I didn't budge.

Wait here, Sean. The stream below formed a waterfall, a cascade. At the bottom of the steep decline, I saw the shallow swimming pool where we had started the previous day. We were less than a mile from where we had parked, and if this man was really my father, he would have noticed and said that. It was entirely possible that I had been this close to the road last night and just didn't realize it. I had, after all, had plenty of. to distract me from carefully examining the map. Laura, you need to come over to us.

He was right behind me now. I felt his hand grabbed me and nudge me in the direction of the building. We need to see if there's anyone here who can help us. We can admire the view later. I resisted and continued to stare at the water below. He stepped in front of me, smiling and waving his hand around. You okay, honey? He seemed like you're in some kind of trance.

Do you have your knife? I said suddenly, remembering that I had dropped it in the building the night before. If my dad didn't have it, then what I experienced had to be real. What? If you have it, show it to me? Well, I don't remember where it is. I know where you keep it. My dad shot me a concerned look, something that seemed of a different character than before.

And where is that? In your backpack. With the map you said I lost. Dad's expression shifted. Honey, I don't know what you're talking about. I don't have any map. You had the only one. You said we were far away from where we started.

My dad's eyes now cast in insidious glare. You look down there. Don't you recognize it? Dad turned and looked down at the precipice. Oh, it's nothing. There are all sorts of waterfalls in these woods. It's not the same one at all. He never finished the sentence.

Seeing my chance, I slammed all my body weight into his back. Before he knew what was happening, he was flying off the edge and through the air. Adrenaline again pumped through my whole body as I realized what I had done. I watched as he skidded off the side of the cliff before landing on a rocky alcove hundreds of feet below. Goes without saying that his body didn't move again. I stepped back slowly. What have I done? What if I was wrong?

Every thought in my mind now turned to Sean. I looked to see him backing away from me, understandably horrified. There were tears in his eyes. I tried to approach him. Sean, it's okay. It's not what it looks like. It wasn't really, Dad, you have to believe me. Sean now backed into the door of the building, which nudged open behind him.

A form stood inside and cased in a layer of shadow. Was it a park ranger? Is I crazy? Did I just kill my father and traumatize my brother for life over nothing? The figure stepped forward, reaching out for my brother. Emerging from the darkness, I recognized the figure. It was me. The other me grabbed Sean's shoulder and pulled. I ran to the door as fast as I could.

The amorphous face from last night, that had been me, a new me, forming just like Dad's replacement must have months ago. And it had come into existence immediately. after I looked into that mirror. Sean bit into the hand of the other me, causing her to loosen her grip and stumble backwards into the building. Wait out here!

I sprinted by him, unsure if he would listen. I darted forward and dove at the other me knocking us both to the ground. The other me had my same circular face and green eyes, but she lacked the fright, stress, and horror that I remember seeing in the mirror the previous night. I tried to grab her hands to restrain her, but she slammed her head into mine

and knocked me on to the brittle floor where I lay, stunned near the hole I had formed last night. Remembering the knife I had left, I rolled close to the hole and reached down to find it. Looking for this? Turning, I saw her charge at me, knife in hand. Incredible pain rang through my body as she jabbed the knife into the left side of my stomach. I looked down and saw blood gushing out and spilling down my shirt. I collapsed, dizzy.

The other me bent down and positioned her face directly in front of mine. This could have been so much easier. All you had to do was let your dad lead you here, like one of us led him. And we would have had you both erased and replaced in no time. The process takes very little effort to work on subjects weakened by a long journey. Screw you! I struggled to get loose but was thwarted by the pain shaking through me. I reached out with my right arm into the hole in the floor.

Why resist? The other may withdrew the knife to my immense agony and prepared to stab me again. I know who you are, and I'm better. Doesn't your brother deserve a better, sister? My right hand felt a strong circular object. Just as the other me began her neck strike with the knife, I slammed a human skull from below into her face with all the strength left in me. The other me collapsed backwards, blood gushing down her forehead.

You bitch! The long oval-shaped mirror stood to her side. It's a better work. With the remaining might I could muster, I threw the skull at the mirror, which shattered into small fragments of glass on contact. In the blink of an eye, the other me was gone. She didn't burn up, explode, or disintegrate.

She just wasn't there anymore. A calm filled the air, and I felt a moment of relief before I remembered the sharp pain coursing through me. I started to walk to the door, but the dizziness overtook me, and I collapsed once again. I inched my way forward, leaving a trail of blood behind me until I made it outside. Sean, I felt him embraced me a moment later,

somehow surmising that I was not a murderer. I whispered into his ear to take a path down to the waterhole below, to follow the trail there to the road, and to get help. I remember waiting and pushing my hand onto the wound as I felt more and more life drain out of me. I remember wondering what it was that came through the mirror, and how many more mirrors like this one were out there, providing the ability for beings from somewhere else to enter our world. When the mirror broke, did other people, other replacements suddenly vanish like my doppelganger?

And was the spirit inhabiting the other me waiting on the other side for another chance? As I lie now on the ground, my eyes steadily drifting shut, I hear the distant sound of a helicopter and realize that I have a better brother than I deserve. Thank you for joining us on our journey down the Lost Highway. The musical score was composed by Brandon Boone. Our production team is Phil Mikulski, Jeff Clement, and Jesse Cornette. 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 nosleeppodcast.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 fades. It feels like you're going. Audio production is copyright 2020 by Creative Reason Media, Inc. All rights reserved. The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors.

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