The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S16E23

Episode Date: September 12, 2021

It's Episode 23 of Season 16. Our correspondence creates creatures in the darkness. "Familiar" written by Antonio Fernandez (Story starts around 00:05:45) TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Jesse CornettCast: Narrator - Graham Rowat, Judy - Sarah Ruth Thomas, Jace - Jeff Clement, Vampire - Atticus Jackson"The Gravedigger" written by Liam Hogan (Story starts around 00:46:20)Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Narrator - Andy Cresswell, Slim Stranger - David Ault"Dear Laura - Chapter 6" written and adapted for audio by Gemma Amor (Story starts around 01:00:45)Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Narrator - Kristen DiMercurio, Laura - Mary Murphy, Bobby - Matthew Bradford, Frank - Mick Wingert, Robert - Kyle Akers, X - David Cummings"Suds & Monsters" written by Christopher Stanley (Story starts around 00:58:00) TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Narrator - David Ault, Gavin - James Cleveland, Gavin's Stepmum - Penny Scott-Andrews, Becky - Erika Sanderson"Something Pretending to be the Easter Bunny" written by Manen Lyset (Story starts around 01:09:30) TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Narrator - Dan Zappulla, Clara - Erin Lillis, David - Matthew Bradford, Becky - Nichole Goodnight"We Are All Just Space Dust" written by Oliver J.T. Cromwell (Story starts around 01:24:25)Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Narrator - Kyle Akers"The May Queen" written by Percy Morgan (Story starts around 01:40:00)Produced by: Jeff ClementCast: Narrator - Kristen DiMercurio, Harley Durant - Jesse Cornett, Man - Matt Bradford  This episode is sponsored by:Caliper CBD - Caliper CBD is a fast, easy way to use CBD. With precise 20 mg doses of dissolvable powder which mix quickly and flavorlessly into any food or drink, you'll experience all the benefits of CBD without the hassles of oils or tinctures. Get 20% off your first order when you use promo code NOSLEEP at trycaliper.com/nosleep Click here to learn more about The NoSleep Podcast team Click here to learn more about Christopher Stanley Click here to learn more about Manen Lyset  Executive Producer & Host: David CummingsMusical score composed by: Brandon Boone"Suds & Monsters" illustration courtesy of Thea ArnmanAudio program ©2021 - 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

In the dark hours, in the letters long lost and forgotten, there are tales of horror to frighten and disturb. Come, join us as we delve deep into the darkness. Into the sleepless hours, when you dare not close your eyes. for the no sleep. Welcome, sleepless listeners. I'm your host, David Cummings. We're excited to present the final chapter of Dear Laura this week. I want to extend a huge thanks to the team that worked on our production of Gemma's great story.

Phil's production, Brandon's score, Kristen and Mary doing the lion's share of the outstanding voice acting. I'm immensely proud of it. We're looking forward to doing similar serialized tales in the seasons to come. So, as always, brace yourself for those stories we can't wait to tell. But, as we learned last week, some stories shouldn't be told. That's what our corrupted files kept saying. And for a few days, they wouldn't stop. It plagued the entire team.

Even people who work on the show outside of audio. The editors, artists, writers, the phrase was appearing in their work. Written there, or in one alarming case, painted on a physical canvas used for a cover art. When I opened what I thought was a completed episode file on my PC, only to be met with the same words delivered in my own goddamn voice, I confess, I lost it. All I've been doing this whole time is what I'm told. telling stories that struck me, infected me, wouldn't leave me. How could I decide which one should or shouldn't be told? I understood the concept I had done for some time now.

Dotted throughout all the stories humanity's told over the years, fact and fiction, are warnings. Warnings placed into people's heads to share with the rest of us, to prepare us for potential horrors and concepts, to ease us into acceptance, to enable us to fight. back by having the ability to conceptualize horrors that would otherwise be beyond our imaginations. But we know all that already. We've been warned of this time and time again in stories. Over the course of human history, we've had prophets, we've had religion and faith, we've had fable and folklore, and we've had parallels between fact and fiction.

We all know by now that true warnings are hidden in our entertaining lies. That couldn't be all this was for. To make me tell those stories, I was already doing that. And now I was being accused of telling stories that shouldn't be told by telling the ones I was told to tell. Infuriating. And so I yelled all this in response to the voice. And then, as if via a call, the voice responded.

You haven't only been performing the stories I needed you to. What about the others? The infected ones. Infected ones? What? Some of your stories, they had words woven into them, designed to attack my own, designed to silence my scream.

The warning, something's coming, and they weakened it. Weakened the thing you've also been helping to create. We don't understand. Which stories? I feel a compulsion. I perform them.

Just like with yours. They're all the same. You guide me, I perform. Nothing's changed, unless there's another player. You're the only player here, and I am your guide. You're battling yourself, destroying your own work. You're claiming to be our benefactor, Boston Coleridge, yes? Yes.

Then I call bullshit, because you'd know about Joanna. I'm not the only player. She's helping you, helping Boston too, helping us tell these stories. No, I am Coleridge. Cummings, listen to me. We're all in grave danger. There is no other help. I only enlisted you.

There is no, Joanna. There is only my cry for help. Silence by the whisper in the night. I think he means me. Everything is calm for now. Next week will be the final update of what happened with Joanna. Where things go from here, I don't know. But the following story is approved by our benefactor.

I don't know how or where he was contacted by Antonio Fernandez, the person who crafted this tale. But I do know that only the excellent voice work of Graham Rowett, Sarah Thomas, Jeff Clement, And Atticus Jackson could bring it to life. And although their tales are as old as horror itself, there is much you can learn about them from this story. Yes, a vampire story.

Perhaps to you, this one seems a little familiar. Vampires don't work the way they do in movies. They aren't human. Never were. They don't resemble us in any way or want to drink our blood or turn into bats. You can't kill them. Garlic and holy symbols don't work,

and I'm not even sure where you'd put the steak. Maybe vampire's the wrong word. What my experience tells is the story of some sort of intelligent parasite. I don't think it's magic I experienced. Not in the traditional sense, anyway. To some, it may look that way. I think it's something in the world or universe that we don't know how to explain yet. Like there are beings and things out there that defy our knowledge

because we simply can't describe them with our limited primate brains. I might be a country bumpkin, but I'm educated. I even wanted to be a writer when I was little. I read a lot of horror books. Those always jumped out at me the best. There was this guy Lovecraft that had a running theme in his stories that the human mind is incapable of grasping reality as a whole. If you describe God to someone as a being that always existed, they're bound to ask you what came

before God. You might respond with, there was no before God. He always was. Then they'll just rearrange their criticism and say something like, well then, who made God? On and on until you both get tired of talking about it. Some stuff we just can't wrap our heads around. Like the concept of always was and always will be, or higher dimensions than the ones we can see, or the idea of nothing.

This letter or essay or whatever you want to call it has been a long time coming. I've done horrible things, truly terrible things. I'm writing this because it's eating me alive in more than one way, or maybe it's him. I tried to keep it in, first from guilt, then from mercy. I don't want to expose the world to this. Then my guilt and mercy changed places over the period of a few months, squeezing by each other like tiny, oily beads and a water hourglass.

Now it's slipping out, and I can't stop it. I don't want to. Kind of reminds me of those old action movies, where the hero grasps someone just by the fingers, and they want to save them by pulling them up, but they just don't have the strength. My secret's kind of like that. There's a small part of me that wants to hold on to this secret.

Another part, smaller still, wants to hold on to the possibility of eternal life. But I can feel it slipping out of my grasp. And I know when it finally falls, I'll feel that sense of relief. I'll finally be able to pull myself up and stand on my own, not having to support the weight of two people. Because that's what it is if I really think about it.

Two different versions of my own life in my hands. Like binary stars that spin with each other out in the dark. In one of my lives, I'm a sheriff's deputy. I work in Indiana, I don't mind telling you, but I probably shouldn't be more specific. swore to uphold the law. Meant every bit of it, too. I always wanted to help people.

Even when I was a kid playing cops and robbers, I always preferred playing the cop. I've done stuff as a cop I'm not proud of, too. Don't get me wrong. But mostly I've done right by myself and my God. If there is such a thing. But if there is a God, I don't think he watches out for me anymore.

I know I wouldn't. For the last three years, I've been something's familiar. Not my word. Or some folks on the internet call it a proxy. You probably wonder what that is. It might help to give you some context, though. Please, God, don't judge me for this. I just need someone to listen.

And I can't tell it anywhere in my first life. There was a routine traffic stop back in winter of 2016. It was February, and by and large it had been pretty mild up to that point. But this one night, it was cold as hell. One of those nights that didn't snow, but it was just made up of cold and wind and dark. It hurts the skin just to step out into it. I'm just floating around on some rural highway a few minutes after 11 and spotted a speeder.

We're little pinpricks of light on the horizon. and all around. Farmsteads scattered around frost-blasted wasteland that would become cornfields in the summer. I hit his pickup with my blues, and he pulled over. I called in on my radio that I was getting a speeder. I would let them off of the warning, so long as they didn't show any warrants. I always was pretty easy with folks just trying to get around. But with icy conditions, I'd rather they'd drive away feeling paranoid about getting pulled over again, and hit a patch of black ice that erases them from their family's life forever. I'm a family man myself.

Got a wife and a then 18-month-old. I get it. I step out and it hit me. A blast full on in the face. A wall of sub-freezing air. I heard myself let out an audible groan at it. I was dressed warmly, but you can only dress so warm. My hands were freezing through my gloves on the way to their truck.

I shined my flashlight around the bed of their truck a bit. Some logs, red gas can, probably full, and a big-ass stainless steel tool chest. Before the driver's window, I stopped and tapped on the metal frame with my maglight. It was a four-door, back two seats empty-ish. The only two passengers were in the front seat. Kid in the passenger's seat was maybe ten. A blonde boy.

Looks like he could be my kid after another handful of years. Evening, folks. How fast do you think you were going? It always came out all blended together like that. We were going kind of fast. I'm sorry. Young girl, probably 16. Her hair was light and hay-colored, just like the boy.

Obviously, siblings Look familiar too Is your truck? No, it's my dad's You don't have to be nervous Your hands are shaking Just take your time No, no

It's just cold as all The cab still felt warm Then I was tempted to stick my head in And get a little of that She was avoiding eye contact She was still trying to comply so quickly It was all really endearing She let out a triumphant sound

And handed me over her license out of her purse Here The bag was pink and white tiger stripes With all kinds of flecks of rhinestones Or bedazzles or whatever the hell you call it The kid's bag I took the ID and looked it over Everything was on the level

Her name was Judy The truck was registered to her dad And went to my church We weren't buddies or nothing But I'd spoken with him a few times And he always seemed nice I remember thinking on more than one occasion That his life seemed like mine

Just ahead a step Like if I kept on It would be where he is one day Not that he left too much to be desired I'm pretty happy where I'm at But it was kind of like I had a glimpse of the future, you know Her father's proof of insurance listed her as a driver It was all good

Is this your first traffic stop, Judy? She kind of relaxed when I used her name Her shoulders dropped a little And she let out a sigh like an old train letting out pressure She'd been holding her breath She smiled in a placating way Yes, sir Oh, you don't have to go on with the sirs

I know your dad from church You're going a little fast as all I'm gonna let you off with a warning Don't worry I just gotta run your information Just a formality You understand Her features seem to melt with relief

Then something else in her face Like pride maybe Pride like this is normal adults stuff. She was in her own small way joining a new class of people, the adult class. Maybe she was just smiling to be polite, though. I pointed my flashlight at the boy and made my tone more jovial. What about you, Hefe? You smuggling anything I need to know about? Just guns and drugs? He didn't miss a beat, that one. His sister gasped and slapped him playfully across the legs a few times. Sibling stuff. She chided him in a whiny, almost childish tone. I couldn't make out what they

were saying. I left my ass off. Okay. Well, long as you got a permit. He tried to retort with something else, clever, but I had to get to it. I could feel my balls burrowing into my chest. I hiked back to the car. My boots crunched ice as I went. It was a satisfying sound. I get back to my car and open her up. I slide into the seat and close the door behind me with a thunk of finality. My intention's just to warm my hands.

I'm not going to find anything looking up this kid's record. I just want to give these kids enough of a scare to make them safer. This is the part of the story. where someone is supposed to say, then something strange happened, except it didn't feel strange at the time. It felt very natural, despite how it may sound, sort of like a dream. You might wake up or describe a dream to someone else, convinced of its vividness and its universality, but nothing can compare to the experience itself. The bulk of the experience was in the feeling. Something was there, It didn't approach or arrive or show up or pop into existence.

It was just there, like it always had been. There's a part of me even now that sort of believes maybe it's a part of me and not some sort of being. But I know better. It was there. And it was serious, stern, uncompromising. As I sat there in the warmth, I just held the girl's ID and paperwork in my hand.

I was supposed to be typing in the girl's information, or at least radioing in that it turned out to be nothing. But I didn't touch anything. Not a single muscle desired to move. Because he was here now. I remember smiling warmly, as if to myself. It was a nice feeling, having him around. It felt like meeting up with an old friend

after being nervous for a while that they've changed too much, and finding out that you click just like you used to. I loved the feeling. I didn't want it to end. It was the best night. One of those rare nights that is so good that you feel sad that you won't get to relive it or retell it and do it justice.

Because it was in the feelings. Like a dream. He greeted me fondly, as old friends do. His voice was sweet and strong And came from no direction in particular I'd never met him Not personally But I've gotten tiny fragments of him throughout my whole life

My first bite of cotton candy The smell of fresh leather Sex with the woman you love The purity of breathing in your infant son's smell He was potent, unerring, unbending, like love, or the inevitability of death. He wanted me to get the girl's cell phone. Okay.

He let me know that I was his now. And I didn't have to worry about not being his anymore. Not in words, necessarily, but certainly in a voice. His voice was bizarre, but only in retrospect, like it came from a direction I was unfamiliar with. Not up or down, left or right, or back or forward, but some other way. Thank God. He was pleased by this. I was happy because he was happy.

And we shared our happiness with each other. Not in the way any human relationship can, but in the way gravity is shared between binary, ours, interconnected and persistent. I didn't even notice the cold on the way back to the truck, nor did I remember stepping out or tapping shave and a haircut on the driver's side. The window gave a crackle and a long drone when it went down. Another pleasant burst of warmth from within. Hey, I just forgot. I'm just all kinds of turned around today. Sorry about that. I'm going to need your cell phone for a few minutes. I beamed widely at her

And your keys Her face was alarmed Her eyebrows pressed together with worry What's going on? Did your computer say something? Oh no, no, no, nothing like that Just one more thing I gotta finish up is all No point worrying her before she has to be

Oh Her face was concerned With confusion she handed over her iPhone with a frilly pink case. She didn't want to. She was afraid of me, but she complied. Okay, I just never heard of anything like that before.

She rolled the window most of the way up and turned the key. The engine flatly joined the silence around it. She pressed the key through the slit at the top of the window, and I took it. No problem. I'll have you along your way before you know it. I turn to the boy. Better safe than sorry. What about you, big deal?

You have a cell phone? He wasn't afraid or confused. Children are used to complying with all kinds of stupid adult-shaped requests. Even dangerous ones. Okay, y'all sit tight. I'll be back in a jiffy. I walked back to my car again. I actually felt excited.

Thinking back on the feelings makes me sick. He felt I was doing beautifully. He was really proud of me, the way a father is at the birth of his child. I was so happy to know how he felt. He made me an offer then. One more thing left to do. He would give me something no one ever has or would offer me again. Something impossible.

Something quite rare, he assured me. He was going to honor me with the gift of eternal life. I stammered on no words. I was speechless. You don't have to do that? No, really. It's too generous. I'll do anything for you.

You know that, right? I hope you don't think you have to buy my love for you, man. It's you and me. Seriously, I got you. But he wouldn't take no for an answer. He was always so kind that way. He always was. Uncompromising.

I threw the girl's cell phone and keys into the woods somewhere on the right side of the road. In my enthusiasm, I pulled my shoulder. It wrenched sharply and painfully. The girl's stuff made a thin, high sound as it landed in the darkness, clattering across the ice-hard ground. I could see her eyeing me in the rearview mirror. She seemed confused. Not offended or scared.

So she probably didn't really know what I was doing. I approached the truck again. I reached out my offhand for the handle of the truck while my right fetched my handcuffs from my patrol belt. The latch lifted limply as I pumped it a couple of times. It was locked from the end. inside. Go on and unlock that door for me, please. My tone was calm and authoritative. A policeman's tone before trouble begins. I followed her eyes down to where my hands were now removing the cuffs

from their leather casing. She made a sort of nonverbal gasp with her hands, throwing them up, fingers spread out dumbly. Surprised for sure. My dad should be here, I think. I need to call my dad. I think. I'm a minor. Her chin was now wrinkled and quivering. There was a layer of fresh tears forming around the fringes of her eyes. I looked over to the boy. He was only just arriving at the conclusion that something was wrong. He looked confused, but little else. He was exhaling vapors as the temperature and the cab continued to drop. We'll get your daddy out here. Don't worry. You just got to open door. My voice was less soothing now, more authoritative, but not yelling. I don't really tend to yell. Then the strangest thing happened. She leaned over and unlocked the door, even though she was scared

and already seemed to know this wasn't going to be a normal speeding ticket. I was a cop. The rules of society dictated that little white kids with everything to lose and their whole lives ahead of them listened to what cops tell them. Hell, in Indiana, most decent folks tell their kids. You only have to listen to three types of people. Your parents, the doctor, and the police. I wielded that trust against them. Once I heard the muted pop of the lock disengaging, I tried the handle again. The token resistance of an unlocked door, then the satisfying release.

I smoothly swung it open, and the cabin lights came on. The rhythmic dinging of the door chime yelled warnings. I moved quickly and assertively. I took her left arm and clapped one end of the cuffs around her wrist. She didn't even resist as I looped the other end of the cuffs through a gap in the steering wheel and asked for her right hand. With her hands like that, she wouldn't be able to leave the truck. Give me your other hand.

Paradoxically, she volunteered her right wrist. She was crying now. Sin strands of tears made little glossy impressions in her cheeks. Her breathing had become ragged with crying. I'd seen it all before. It was about now that the boy got more than a little scared. I crossed around the front of the truck. Something I never do, really.

It was making my way around to the passenger's side. The ice was hard and slippery and popping underfoot, so I moved slowly. The boy's door popped open, and he started taking off running back towards my squad car. Clear line of sight. She tried to convince her brother to comply, but he was a young boy and prone to bouts of unpredictability. But I was fast. I drew from my belt. I looked down the yellow and black stripes.

I painted a red light on his back and pulled the trigger. He didn't have a chance. Twin wasps sprung from my taser with a pop and found the flesh even through his thin hoodie. There was a loud snap, snap, snap, snap, snap, snap, as I held the trigger down, sending vicious pulses of debilitating amperage into him. It pumped through him like venom.

making him shake and convulse as I approached. I ejected the cartridge and loaded another force of habit. But he was still there. He enjoyed that. Needed it. Wanted more and asked me as such. I asked him what he thought I should do. And he told me.

From nowhere I was familiar with. I approached the boy who was now on the ground. We were, weeping face down with his hands covering his mouth and nose. Narrow rivulets of blood ran over his knuckles and onto the ice. He was actively crying as I put my knee in the center of his back and forced his arms behind him. I had a secondary set of cuffs in the same pouch, but I tightened as far as they would go around his wrists. Then I helped him to his feet.

Come on, fella, get up. He was limping and crying all the way back. to the truck. I was only then aware of the shouting and honking. The sister, Judy, was going absolutely nuclear. She was struggling and screaming at me. She begged me. She begged me. Let me stop here. I just want to say something. I'm not telling you all this detail because I think it's cool, too, because I'm proud of it. I'm not. I'm well aware of how absolutely horrifying it is. The thing I did can't be undone. I don't tell you this for your benefit.

I tell you for mine. I don't want it anymore. None of the details. I'm passing over every grain of sand in my blood-soaked hourglass so you can see exactly how I spent my time. I'm a fucking monster. I need you to know all the details so you don't make the mistake of trying to relate to me

or feel sorry for me. He didn't force me. to do anything. No force was involved, or not at least in the way I understand it. He barely asked me, and much of it I did without even being asked. I did it gladly, for the pleasure of serving him and for the eternal life he promised. If I hadn't wanted it before, I wanted it now, to live forever. It was a cleverly constructed safety net below a fail-proof plan. If I ever somehow stopped wanting to serve him, and I couldn't see how that could ever be at this point. He would always have eternal life to dangle before me.

But eternal life, he said, costs life. More importantly, eternal life costs pain. My brain seemed to coast. Thought was barely required to move my legs. As my brain instructed my hand to open the tailgate, of the truck or my arms to lift the red gas can. My body received it a millisecond earlier than it should have. The synapses in my brain were being helped along,

and their roots were plotted for them. Whatever juices reside in the meat in my skull were damned and redirected in just the right way to facilitate my choices. But they were mine. Gas can in hand, I walked around the rear of the truck and circled back to the driver's side window, which still lay open.

a crack. The window itself was steamed opaque by the body heat within. He was thirsty. His mouth, if he had such a thing, watered. He wanted me to do it. But I knew he savored every moment of the build-up. I just knew. There was a small black plastic cap in the lid of the long nozzle. I hoisted it up and remembered painfully that I pulled my shoulder. Not even in the actual confrontation. I felt dumb. I'd have to have that checked out Friday, my off day. I slid the long plastic nozzle through the slit in the window,

and upended the canister into the cab of the truck. She'd been screaming and loudly sobbing before. But when the high, sharp stench of gasoline came pouring out of the narrow gap, Her fervor doubled. The boy lay there. He seemed horrified, but he didn't run. Dear Jesus, why didn't he try to run again? He might have made it this time.

He just laid there. The can got lighter and lighter until it weighed hardly anything, and I set it on the roof of the truck. He was ready. I felt warm, like a hug. I felt the seed of doubt well up. What the hell was I doing? But he helped me through it.

He plucked the sprout out of the soil and crushed it between his fingers. He wanted me to leave the doubt to him. I don't have to burden myself with choices like that. It's already been decided. Like the socks you were going to wear today. After you plucked him out of the sock drawer, you don't pay any mind to whether it's the right pair. It's just socks. It's decided.

I moved on. My hands patted my vest, briefly grazed my belt, and plunged into my pockets. He reminded me what I needed. I wished I smoked. But he provided me an image of my trunk. It was a good idea,

especially since it was already decided. I turned around and started off my cruiser, my feet and hands starting to experience the numb of the evening air. He kindly reminded me that I would be warm enough in a moment. I got to my trunk and double-tap the button on my key fog to open it. It popped up a half inch to let me know it was disengaged. I hoisted it up and looked inside. The trunk was illuminated by the thin yellow of a single ancient bulb.

I saw them. I grabbed two or three of them. vaguely wondering why they shaped them like tall candles, then closed the trunk. A car passed by, and the girl in the driver's seat laid on the horn. I couldn't hear her cry anymore over the wind, not until I got back to the truck window. He told me not to worry about the car.

They had somewhere important to be. He was right. The car drove on. The girl's alarms went unanswered. Now that I was back at the window, I could hear her again. She'd been screaming so loud and hard that she'd torn her voice box to shred. Long gasps of polluted air were punctuated by hoarse barks.

Tears screamed down her face. The boy still didn't move. Catatonic. Her wrists were in bloody struggle against the cuffs. Little ribbons of skin and chunks of meat hung down. He was there. there then. Focused on the wrists. Not looking, per se, but focused on them. He was focused on her throat, and the boy's nose and foot. He urged me on. I was a duckling, and he was the father duck.

Go on, little duck. I ignited the flare, and something inside that girl broke. She didn't try to scream anymore. She just breathed in sharp, uneven huffs. She was at peace. And he didn't like that. Not one bit. Just as the boy began to cry, I threw the flare through the small opening in the glass. I watched them for a long time. No other cars came. I stood back and shielded my face. I stood back and shielded my face. from the heat, even though he assured me I didn't have to do that. There, we drank together. He felt satisfied and lent me some of that satisfaction. I suddenly felt guilt and sorrow and remorse. Satisfied. We drank anyway. He was connected with them in some way at those last moments. He drank with the explosive stimuli from their nerves.

He drank from the emulation with pleasure, as one would take from a sweet nectar. Their sorrow an after-dinner treat. It wasn't filling, but it was delicious. Though I couldn't taste it myself, I could share in his connection with them and his connection with me. Like binary stars, I was tangled perpetually in his gravity, and he and mine. Just then, a flash. This wasn't sustaining to him. This particular meal wasn't even important.

His selecting me had a dual purpose, he said. This was my test. He was impressed by my susceptibility. My weakness pleased him. And in a way, I was happy for it. But the real meal wasn't that. I felt in an echo as he finished. feasting and the screaming halted.

A bright peripheral thought out of the side of his senses. The real meal was the pain that would be felt by Judy and Jace's parents. The pain he would be able to feast on for years to come. We need to take a break from that dark stuff. Back to the show in a moment. Just as soon as the pain goes away. You mean the pain from that. intense story? No, I mean the aches and pains in my back and neck. They're flaring up again.

Oh, I'll go get you what you need. Pain meds? Whiskey? Fudu dolls? No, silly. You know none of those things work for you. I'm getting you the Caliper CBD. Ah, of course. Good old Caliper CBD. It's always a good tonic for my body and soul. I'm just glad we stopped using that nasty tasting CBD oil. Caliper is easier to take and delivers 30 times more CBD in the first 30 minutes versus that oily stuff. Exactly. And when I want to de-stress and calm that nagging pain, I don't want to wait over an hour for CBD oils to work. I prefer to get all the benefits of CBD from Caliper in just 10 minutes. I love how Caliper CBD comes in convenient and easy to use packs,

precisely 20 milligrams in each packet. Always THC-free so we can feel better without the high. And I love how easily Caliper CBD. powder mixes into any food or drink. No weird taste, no oily residue. And you can't beat how it's all natural, vegan, non-GMO, free of fillers, added chemicals, and no artificial flavors. As much as I love no sleep, I don't love having trouble sleeping at night. That's why Caliper CBD is perfect for me to take around bedtime. I fall asleep easier and I find I sleep deeper and more restfully. I know. I hear the snoring. You're one to talk, chainsaw McGee.

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Okay, I'll get your caliper CBD. Why don't you get back to the show? Good idea. You're going to dig this next story. Oh, let me guess. It's a story about someone digging graves? No. Well, maybe.

Anyway, let's get back to more sleepless horror. These days, the rather morbid but all-too-necessary job of burying human remains is accomplished with heavy machinery, the casket-sized holes being carved into the ground rather easily. But as we learn in this tale, shared with us by author Liam Hogan, in the past, the task of digging a grave was done with a shovel and back-breaking labor. A task made more difficult by unexpected interruptions.

Performing this tale, are Andy Cresswell and David Alt. So if you find yourself strolling through a peaceful cemetery, even at night, please be respectful of the grave digger. There's a sharp ring of metal against... What? A gravestone? A coffin? I jerk upright, listening over the moan of the wind. Then I'm out of my cot, reaching for the grapecoat slung across the back of the wicker chair.

stooping to lift the army rifle from the bench. It's been a while since I've had to chase grave robbers from these grounds. Once it was my reputation as a marksman that stayed them from their sordid task. Now, there are other concerns, and the risks far outweigh the meager rewards. As I ease the door of the gatehouse open, cold air whistles in, ruffling the folds of my unbuttoned coat. From the depths of the dark room behind me, a sudden voice commands. Wait.

I turn and level the rifle at the slim figure that steps into the slanted rectangle of bright moonlight. So I realize that I might see him more clearly. He completely ignores the firearm aimed at his midriff. You must give them longer. It will take them some time. The ringing is louder now that the door is a door. open, a metallic beat over the familiar anguished howls. The undead? His lips purse in distaste. This is 1913, Mr. Sanger, not the dark days of primitive superstition. They are not the undead,

never were and perhaps never will be. I feel my grip tightened on the stock of the Lee Enfield and ease a finger towards the safety. What are they doing? out there. Merely digging up one of their own. You buried Elizabeth Marshall today, did you not? I did. In chains and under concrete? Yes.

Then, as I said, it will take them a while to release her from her binds. They are not, alas, as coordinated as you or I, Mr. Sanger. I stare at him, standing there, once again making free with my name. And you are? Forgive my rudeness. I should have introduced myself, but then I doubt you would be willing to shake my hand. Perhaps a lowering of that rifle will serve instead. I keep the rifle where it is. You are one of them?

He tilts his head slightly to one side. If you like, they, we are not all simple beasts. It depends on the exact progression of the virus. In some, indeed, in most cases, it causes a rapid swelling of the brain leading to coma and permanent damage to all but the most basic functions, the need to eat, the fear of pain, a desire for the company of their own kind. In others, the effects are less severe. They retain a basic level of intelligence, the ability to understand commands,

a distorted and painful memory of what they once were. In rare cases such as mine, the patient retains all the capacity for thought they ever had and gains much more besides. Gaines? What gains? Come, Mr. Sanger, you have seen enough to know the answer to that. Immortality. Or as close as we are ever likely to get.

He takes a step forward. the rifle all but forgotten, daring me to disbelieve him. Strange, is it not, something medical experts have sought with such passion down the ages, how vehement their reaction against it against us. They should be working to cure the unfortunate side effects, rather than trying to eradicate the disease, rather than trying to destroy the afflicted. I'd hardly call that standing by their sacred oath, would you?

The afflicted are classified as legally dead. And yet, unlike others of your increasingly numerous profession, who separate the head from the neck, burying it at the corpse's feet, or who rush to cremate the comatose, you choose the infinitely more laborious method of internment. Why is that, Mr. Sanger? Is this why I am still alive?

Is this the riddle that stays his hand? that stops him from killing me in my sleep. I am a grave digger. It is not my place to pass judgments on those I bury. I merely ensure that once buried, they stay buried. Hence the chains. Hence the concrete. My usual precautions in these troubled times.

He raises an eyebrow. You do not approve of what my friends are doing out there? No, I do not. not. Let no one say I do not do my solemn duty without the due care and diligence it deserves. Don't worry, they will fill in the grave once they are done. That is hardly the point. Is it not? Then perhaps we can save each other some effort in future. The people you are burying, they are not dead.

If the bodies were not interred with such indecent haste, you would have evidence of that for yourself. But the law dictates that once some ill-informed quack unable or unwilling to detect the frail pulse of someone in a coma signs the notice of decease, then the services of a grave-digger must be employed. Very well. Employ them, we shall. But if the coffin were empty... I do not think the reverend... The reverend will join our ranks by this time tomorrow. The bandage he wore on his arm this afternoon covers a nasty bite. and one he well deserved, Mr. Sanger. He is not as respectful of the dead or the living as you are. I take in this startling news.

May God rest his soul. The moonlit figure touch. You forget, he is not dead. He will not die. And though God has nothing to do with it, I, a mere mortal may yet influence his fate. Decide if he should. would retain his faculties or join those unfortunates he lacked the compassion to pray for

and who are incapable of praying for themselves. And how would you go about that? How do you play at being God? He ignores my jib. I was a medical man before. I would be again given the chance. Prompt action is required. Ice, cooling the body reduces the swelling of the brain, prevents the injury at causes before the virus puts a stop.

to apoptosis. I look at him blankly. I don't. There's a pause, a moment of silence, from both within the gatehouse and without. Then the ringing begins again. Erratic now. Apoptosis, the Greek for falling away.

What your cells are programmed to do, Mr. Sanger, when damaged, when attacked. It is not the lack of oxygen, the invasion by a virus or the cold grip of winter that kill. It is the cells themselves choosing to die. An imperfect and outdated process surpassed by modern science and one which this virus arrests. If you shoot me, you will do physical damage.

You will destroy a small number of cells directly in the path of the bullet. A few thousands at most, maybe a million. But why should the death of so few cells lead to the death of the whole? Even if for a while there is no blood reaching my lungs, my brain, why should these organs not spring back to life the moment oxygen-rich blood does reach them? That is the blessing of this virus, one no doubt it employs for purely selfish reasons, protecting its host to guarantee its survival, its spread. God's will?

Is tuberculosis God's will? Is cholera? If so, then this virus is also his will, and it is the duty of all who have the capacity of thought to treat the infected with respect. And yet the country convulses with fear with hate. There is little I can do about that, Mr. Sanger. The number of us who, like me, can discourse rationally, who might argue our case is few. So I ask for your help,

and knowing that those you bury are not dead, how can you carry on as before? How can you still claim to be a reputable man? I bristle at that. This stranger in the night passing judgment on me, on my profession. If I were to let fly the bullets in my rifle, no court would convict me. To them, I would be shooting a dead man. I think for a moment.

His intent is obvious. He aims to hold me here by talking while the foul creatures in the graveyard go about their mindless business. He aims to allay my fears by allowing. me to train my rifle on him. I wonder if it is even still loaded. How silently he must have crept into my room. If he wanted to dispatch me, he has already had plenty of opportunity. You understand, I cannot be seen to... Do not worry. We will be discreet. And when the time comes, if your time comes, we will move heaven and earth to make sure that you yourself are treated with the utmost care. I shudder, a reaction that amuses him.

Come, lower your weapon, go back to sleep if you can. We will be well gone before sunrise and you may consider this night a bad dream. In the morning, when the Reverend falls ill, you will offer to take over the duties of laying him and other unfortunates to rest. you will order in supplies of ice money will be provided, and you will leave me a set of keys to the chapel of rest. He takes a step forward, his eyes trained on me, and another step, until the barrel of the rifle is a hand's width from his waistcoat.

I lower the weapon, though I keep my hands firmly on it. What will you and your companions do? You will never be accepted here. He smiles. Even when we outnumber the uninfected? But you are right. We will leave these lands. There is turmoil in Europe, the death throes of imperialistic empires.

There will be war, Mr. Sanger, a war unlike any seen before. A war that cries out for a race of men less prone to injury, less fearful of death. Our war. We will prove our worth on the battlefields. I look on him in renewed horror. I saw action in the Second Boer War, learnt my trade there. And though this doctor claims to be a rational man, I find his posturing more frightening than even the thought of his lumbering friends out in the graveyard.

Do you really think you are so indestructible? Have you no weaknesses at all? A cloud darkens his countenance. Whether cast by my scornful tone Or I perhaps had chanced upon a sore spot I could not tell Medicine will catch up There is already a cure for syphilis

And more will surely follow Science will conquer all of the ills Mr. Sanger even influenza Even perhaps the virus That gifts us immortality But then Why would we want to do that? There's a peal of staccato thunder

as five metal shells drop to the floor and his feet, and my finger convulses on the trigger of the empty rifle. When I look up again, he is at the door, staring at me with those eyes, those very distinctive eyes. Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to attend to poor Lizzie. The woman you buried alive today is my sister. Did I mention that?

He steps backwards into the night. I do hope she's not in too bad a state, Mr. Sanger. I really do, for your sake. Every year, on her birthday, Laura gets a letter from a stranger. That stranger claims to know the whereabouts of her missing friend, Bobby. I love you, Laura. But there's a catch. He'll only tell her what he knows in exchange for something personal.

So begins Laura's sordid relationship with her new pen pal. Built on a foundation, a quid pro quo. Something for something. Her quest for closure will push her to bizarre acts of humiliation and harm. Yet no matter how hard she tries, she cannot escape her correspondence demands. The letters keep coming. And as time passes, they have a profound effect on Laura. For she knows, deep down, that she can't trust her single word, he says.

The No Sleep Podcast presents Dear Laura by Gemma Amor. The final chapter. You are 44 years old. I remember that age. I was near that age when I first met Bobby and first saw you. Now I'm an old man and time has not been good to me. I am sorry.

didn't write before. I was put away for something I did. Locked up like an animal by people who don't understand what real feelings are. People don't know love, not the way I do. Society judges me instead. I couldn't write from jail. I couldn't risk them finding out about Bobby. He is our secret, isn't he? So I stopped writing for his sake. It was agony for me. But I thought about you every day, Laura. Every single day. They let me out for good behavior in the end.

Although sometimes I wish they had kept me inside, where at least I had a bed and hot food. I don't have those things now. My health is not so good. Time is running out for me. Will you mourn for me when I'm finally gone? I hope so, Laura. I mourn for Bobby.

We still never finished with Bobby, did we? That's why I'm sending a piece of his sweater. I am sorry there's so much blood on it. I tried to clean him up, but it was difficult, and I got frustrated. I'm worried you've forgotten about him, and me. I have missed you. I feel like maybe I love you, although it is such a shame you had to grow up so much. I am sad that you got married, Laura.

I thought our connection was the... special one. But now you have someone else. I'm not sure I can allow it. Perhaps if you come and see me, we can talk about it. I'm old, as I said. I feel that it's finally time. I would like to meet at the place I buried Bobby, join the dots, and come soon. Come by 7.30 in the morning. in three days' time. If you don't, I will come after your boy, and I will take him like I took Bobby. And then, I think it is quite likely that I shall die.

I'm sick, you see. Don't be angry with me, Laura. I feel good knowing that despite losing Bobby, I have been able to write to you, and you know I exist. That must mean something to you, too. I think ours was always the real love story, Laura, not me and Bobby. Yours with respect and love X. After the X, Laura saw a list of digits and symbols marching

down the paper, a bewildering string of them. And once again, as they had when she was young, they danced and leapt across her vision. Coordinate. Laura? Laura? What is it? Frank looked at Laura over his newspaper as she sat dumbly holding the letter, falling, falling, the only way being down. Nothing. Laura lied brightly to her husband, folded the letter, and pulled the letter, and put it into her shirt pocket. Her secret had grown old and burrowed themselves deep, like a tick under the skin, and they were proving harder to dig out than she could fathom. Frank sighed-eyed her, but didn't push the matter. It was Laura's birthday, after all, and he wanted her to have a nice day. Frank was like that. He put others before himself as a matter

of principle. Doing so gave him a great and lasting satisfaction. She had thought several times that Frank would have made a good priest or vicar. Laura felt now, after years of marriage, as she had felt then when she'd first met him, that Frank was on a mission. He used the accident he'd had as a child as a springboard, diving into a pool of vocation, striking out confidently across the choppy waters of life towards anyone he found drowning. Frank was the sort of person who would die to keep you afloat. She had tried to do the same, over the years for others, only it was a much less convincing display than Frank's, but she tried.

Later, when Frank went out to run some errands, she read the letter again. Join the dots, X had said, and she analyzed and re-analyzed this several times before it clicked, and then she smacked her hand to her forehead hard in an act of realization. Of course! She dug around under her comfortable king-sized bed for the storage box she kept there,

a storage box full of memories, clippings, and correspondence. The letters from X were buried at the bottom of the box, along with her old maps, scraps, and a compass. She had kept it all. Maybe because deep down, her subconscious mind had known this day was coming. She spread the map fragments out across her bed, and then spread the corresponding topographical maps across the floor of her bedroom. She'd never noticed before, but the maps joined together.

each edge slightly overlapping to form one huge map of the local area. She had only ever viewed them as separate individual regions, these maps, and never as pieces in a larger puzzle. Feeling as if something were finally slotting into place after many, many years of frustration, she unfolded each letter she'd ever received from X, rereading them and reminding herself of the contents, shaking her head and muttering to herself the whole time.

She'd never taken a step back from it like this and looked at the letters as a complete entity. She'd only ever treated each one as an incremental step towards downfall. But now, now here on her bed, on her floor, was a finished jigsaw. A portrait of a man. What kind of man? A criminal, she knew that now.

A repeat offender. Most likely a pedophile, too, which is something she had never openly admitted. to herself until now. What a shame you had to grow up, he'd said. She shuddered as she remembered wrapping a pair of her knickers for him, and the tooth, the hammer, the blood. What had he done with it all?

Did he have a memory box too full of all of the pieces of her she'd sent him? She realized, as she looked at it all, laid out across her patchwork bedspread, that over the years, all she'd done was exacerbate his obsession with her by alternately rejecting him, trying to run from him, and then giving in to his demands. She understood now, with the advent of maturity and the wisdom that parenthood had afforded her, that X had manipulated her from a young age. He had prayed upon her guilt and confusion, and twisted her fear around in his strange declarations of love for herself, and for Bobby.

And Laura had bought into this fantasy narrative, bought maps, gone on bus journeys, smashed a hammer into her own mouth and pulled a tooth for him, even written back. All grist for his sordid mill. Laura had been the object of X's desire for all these years. Not Bobby. Laura. Laura. And here he was again, still trying to write their story.

Still no tears. Laura shook all over. And still, no tears fell. Why can't I cry? Why? Had there been others? She thought it likely. X was obsessive by nature.

His letters also had a curious air of being practiced about them, like maybe he had honed his skills on someone before her. Had he sent letters to Bobby in the years before he disappeared? She thought that likely too, although no mention of it had ever been made by the Evely's. The police. This all needed to go to the police. X was an old man now.

He would not be waiting to knock her down, this time if she strode into town with a handbag full of evidence. She should take this letter and all the others to the police and tell them what she knew. They would not dismiss her now. She was a respectable age, a mother, a well-liked person in the community. She came with added gravitas. And yet, and yet, she was in her 40s, a parent, a wife, an administrator of a local victim support charity alongside Frank, an advocate for mental health and a child safety awareness

campaigner. All of the pain and loss and confusion had been scooped up and poured into better, worthier pastimes than trying to piece together the demented clues that X had left, uninvited on her doormat as a young girl. Laura was beyond all of that now. Wasn't she? Yes. This was a matter at last for the authorities. X was sick. He said it himself. What reprisals would there be if she handed everything in? And yet. I will come after your boy, and I will take him like I took Bobby. The threat dangled in the air before her, and try as she might she couldn't ignore it. The dissonant cords of long repressed memory jangled in her mind,

and scenes flashed in front of her eyes. A van, idling on the curb. A boy, blonde hair hanging in soft curtains around his face, climbing in through the open door. A shadow lurking behind the front. frosted glass of her parents' front door. A fist, slamming into her face. A tooth lying in a puddle of gore in the palm of her hand.

Envelops on the doormat. A photo filled with red. He might be old, but he was practiced, motivated. And he'd been in prison, so he might know people. People who could help him hurt her. Help him take her little boy. He was dangerous. And she believed him.

She believed he could do it. He had done it before, and he wanted to do it again. How could she ignore that? Worse, trust the police with this information. And besides all this, despite coming to terms with not wanting to know Bobby's fate, the question of where his remains had been all these years still gaped open like a wound. Imagine if she could find him after all.

Imagine if she could bring him back to his family for a proper goodbye. Because the knife still twisted. in rare, quiet moments where she found herself without a task all these years later, it twisted, and she felt the ghost of Bobby's hand upon hers. Her lips tingled beneath his kiss, breathy and hesitant. So young. They had both been so young. I love you, Laura.

I love you too, Bobby. Laura looked at her worn, dog-eared maps. She saw deliberate red splotches across convent. contour lines, the coordinates from all the other letters, marked that she had made in permanent ink. Her fingers twitched with the memory of scribbling forcefully on that detailed and intricate surface. Carefully, her heart climbing slowly back up into her throat like it used to when she was younger. She studied his last letter and a list of numbers he'd provided at the end. Then, with a marker pen she found on Frank's writing desk, she tentatively marked the final coordinates.

and the last vital piece fell into place. Join the dots, he'd said. With trembling hands, she did as she was told, because she always did what X told her to. She began to connect the dots by drawing thick red lines joining each marked position, and gradually his design became apparent. She saw concentric rings form beneath her hands,

not circles exactly, but rings like those of a tree closing in gradually, in stages, around a single point, a small area in the vast expanse of the old forest, the size of the tip of her thumb against the map. In the middle of this space, a clearing was marked, with a thin stream bisecting it. The area was no more than 20 feet wide, she guessed, from the scale on the map, although distance was hard to accurately judge by her eye alone. And this, she realized suddenly, was it? Somewhere in that area, she would find the man who wrote the letters.

Somewhere in that area, she knew she would also find Bobby. She made one final, damning mark on the map with jerky, uncooperative fingers. And when she saw what she'd written, she laughed out loud. Because all she could do now was resort to humor, every other emotion in her repertoire having long since been used up.

X, it said. X marks the spot. The trees sang to Laura as she, she walked. Tiny whispering songs that skittered past her ears and rose and fell with the thin morning breeze. A rabbit froze in the path ahead of her, head rigid, eyes dark and wide. And then it ran, white tail flashing as it bounded away into the undergrowth. Somewhere, a J called out, harsh, mocking. The compass thump, thump, thumped against her chest. Her hair no longer fell into her eyes, but frizzed out into a cloud around her head, humidity, grease, and a night's rough sleep taking its toll.

She walked, and with every step she took, she felt taller and colder and more rigid, as if she were one of the very trees themselves, uprooted, marching to war. And then she found it, the place she'd been searching for, 30 years of her life spent looking. And she knew as soon as she saw it, this, after all was the land in her heart. The promised land, the place she had been flying towards even when she had thought she was not. It had lived inside her for so long

that she was afraid she wouldn't recognize it when she arrived. But here she was, at seven in the morning, earlier than requested, bloodied, bruised, and cold. A little brown bird, exhausted, migrating north to that one fixed target. She had come, suddenly, to the clearing in the forest, stumbled upon it before sensing a change in the density of the trees and light overhead. Passing from shade to bright, she looked up and saw a window of pale blue sky. High up there, way up in the air, a tiny white plane flew, arrow straight, trails of white chasing behind. Laura took a deep breath and stepped further into the clearing.

It was filled with clutter and camping equipment. and bags of stinking rotting garbage around which flies and mosquitoes buzzed incessantly. Sunlight dappled the top of an old blue tarpaulin, mildewed from being long exposed to the elements. It was stretched out from one tree to another by ropes to form a makeshift roof. Underneath this, there stood a sagging fortress of bedding. Mattresses piled up against each other to form doughy walls, bedsprings erupting from their stuffing in mad, vicious coils. A random assortment of carpet scraps were littered across the ground, and a few sheets of rusty corrugated iron leaned haphazardly against nearby tree trunks to act as weatherproofing.

A tattered ground sheet, rubber tires, and large, wind-felled branches completed the structure. This is it. And this was it. She knew it. She knew it in her bones. This was where X was living. Maybe this was where he had been living all of his life. when not in prison. The shelter was not a new structure. Mature saplings thrust themselves up

between gaps in the tarpaulin, and honeysuckle vines, wild rose brambles, and ferns entangled themselves protectively around the entire mess in a well-established thorny embrace. Discarded propane cylinders lay all around, years' worth, and a makeshift laundry line hung across one side of the clearing, over which a worn pair of boxer shorts, some black threadbare socks, and a shawl. sheet of torn plastic were hung. They steamed faintly as the morning sun gathered in strength and burned away the nighttime dew. She imagined him, hunched over, meaty fists wrapped around a cheap pen, writing letters to her from his mattress cocoon and folding them into dirty yellow envelopes while the trees shook

their leaves overhead in judgment. This was his home, his turf, his front door, and this was where she would find Bobby. She gently lowered her backpack to the ground, seeing no sign of anyone who could be X. The place was eerily peaceful. But if she had her way, the peace wouldn't last. She slid a hand inside her backpack and brought out the towel-wrapped gun. It was Frank's gun, a family heirloom that had belonged to his grandfather. She knew little about such things, but she did know it had seen some action in the Second World War.

It wasn't loaded, according to Frank. and she wasn't even sure it worked properly anymore. But it was enough, enough to threaten the man, and drive her point home. All Laura wanted to do was scare X the way he had scared her. All she wanted to do was see fear in his eyes and fight back. Let him see he no longer controlled her, scare him away from her life and her family.

She didn't want to hurt him, because it wasn't in her to harm another, and besides, that would make her no better than he was. But she was owed fear, and much, much more besides. Quit pro quo. You suffer, I suffer. She slid the gun into a pocket, eyes constantly scanning the clearing, looking for X. Where was he?

Was he hiding? Then she changed her mind and took the weapon out again, deciding she would hold it loosely by her side, a more obvious deterrent there. She found the solid weight of it comforting in her hand. Then suddenly, she heard coughing. Heavy, phleg-soaked coughing, coming from a discarded sofa she'd not noticed until that point. Her eyes whipped across the clearing and took a few seconds to make it out.

But there it sat, rotting and almost completely camouflaged, a large, lopsided, brown faux leather couch, the outer layer of skin peeling off in large strips as if flayed, bright green mildew filling in the patches exposed beneath. And also there, lying back in the torn and slim upholstery, belly out, arms behind his head, watching, waiting. There, after all these years, was her pen pal, X. Laura moved slowly across the clearing, gun cold and heavy in her unpracticed hand. She approached the sofa, upon which lay the bulbous form of X, and tasted sour bile in her mouth.

Here he was. the man who had taken Bobby away. Here he was, the man who wanted her used knickers and sanitary towels. Here he was. The man who had made her pull her own tooth out. Reposed, he looked bucolic, like a fallen tree trunk, a part of the forest. He was dressed in a camouflaged, military-style jacket, splattered with patches of brown, green, and gray. Underneath, he wore a dark blue t-shirt that was too small for him.

It rode up above his stomach, which was pale and hairy, the belly button lost in a soft crease. Laura felt like she recognized the blue shirt from the day he had attacked her, but she couldn't be sure. Underneath, he had squeezed into poorly fitting camouflage pants, and under those sat two dirty, worn Nike sneakers, with the souls flapping freely from both feet like gaping mouths. She studied him with a distant curiosity as she approached. He had a beard and a swollen nose. He was dirty and smelled of urine and mud and sweat, even from several feet away. Mosquitoes gathered around his exposed hands and ankles, but he seemed unconcerned by them,

letting them land, bite, and drink without slapping a single one away. Laura took a step closer, then another, then another. The doll throb in her ankle a constant reminder of how far she'd come to be here. She held the gun out before her, rigid, in a warning gesture. X's deep-set eyes glittered in his face. She came to a stop before him, just out of arm's reach. Well, I'm here. X laughed, lazily craning his neck and checking an ancient wind-up watch on his filthy wrist.

You're early. I've waited a long time to meet you. I don't care. X looked at Laura, and she looked at X. Overhead, the plane disappeared from view, its twin streams breaking up into foamy clouds, then dissipating. The quiet, thickened. It seemed, after being so talkative in his letters,

that X was not as forthcoming in person, content to let the silence between them stretch out further and further. Laura knew this to be a power play, knew that by withholding conversation, X could better control the situation. She also knew that whoever broke the standoff first would lose somehow. But she was beyond caring, beyond playing games. Where is he? Where is Bobby? Do you want to see my scars?

X propped himself up slowly on one arm, and then painfully, awkwardly, heaved himself upright on the couch. He lifted his shirt up and showed off his pigeon chest. His gut protruded out from beneath it, distended like a tumor. Laura saw pale, shiny marks criss-crossing the skin between his nipples, and then realized the scars were arranged in the form of letters, a crude inscription that someone had carved onto his body. Pedophile, it read. They don't like people like me in prison.

Where is Bobby? X lapped back into silence, breathing hard through his mouth, his face and eyes red and raw. Laura's nerve was beginning to fail. The impetus she'd felt when she'd received his final letter had petered out, and now that the journey was complete, the constant act of moving forward no longer the thing keeping her sane, the fear and doubt surrounding her bizarre situation began crashing in like water through a burst dam. Your hair is going gray, Laura. And Laura found she couldn't contain it anymore.

X didn't know where Bobby was. He never had. He was still playing the game, and the game wouldn't be done until she was broken, because that was what he had decided to make his life about. There was no Bobby. There was no end, only him and her, until he died and let her be.

And even then she would dream of this moment. She knew it. She would wake in the night, breath stuck in her throat, and see only one thing, X, reclining in his throne, scrutinizing her, criticizing her temerity for letting herself age. And she realized, in that moment, how angry X was with her for not being a 13-year-old girl anymore. How angry he had always been for letting herself age. Having never once cried in her entire adult life, the tears that had solidified like resin around her, her heart, suddenly liquefied, and ran free. Laura burst into tears, her gun wavering as her whole body shook with the force of her

distress. And X sat on his couch, hands resting loosely by his sides, and watched, with a small, triumphant smile upon his lips. Then he reached into the collar of his shirt and brought something out, something small and white, the color of bone. Her tooth. The tears kept coming, and Laura feared they might never stop. She cried so hard she nearly vomited, mouth open, retching with the force, eyes swelling in tight, face wet with the morning sun.

She'd been right. He wore her tooth on a thin wire necklace around his neck. It swung back and forth, and she gazed at it, aghast, remembering the day she'd taken a hammer to herself. The tears kept coming, and then something else made its presence known. a pressurized feeling, as if a great bubble of air were rising up from somewhere deep inside. Thank you for this, Laura. The bubble shot into her mouth and burst out of her, only it wasn't a bubble, it wasn't air.

It was a scream. It was a scream that had been brewing for 30 odd years, and it propelled her forward as it ricocheted a row. around the clearing, and the gun might not have been loaded, but it was still heavy and solid. She brought the gun down on X's face as hard as she could and kept bringing it down, until he was no longer smiling, until his own rotten teeth had smashed and splintered, until she felt his nose crunch under the butt of the gun, and all she could think was quid pro quo, over and over, until she was spent.

Afterwards, Laura sat on the forest floor, gathered herself as best she could, the gun she kept a tight hold of, slick as it was with blood and gore. Eventually, she looked over at X, and at the damage she'd wrought. She could see the light flutter of his chest, laboring for air. X was alive but unconscious, and for that she was intensely, unspeakably grateful. If he was alive, then she wasn't a murderer. If he was alive, then she had a chance at a future, and her son would still have a mother. She realized the wetness on her face was no longer from her own tears, and ran the back of her hand down one cheek. It came away red and slippery, and a little swell of cold victory bloomed.

She should leave now. She knew. She should leave X here in the woods to live his life in filth, to drink cold-tinned soup through a broken mouth and snore through a broken nose. She had taught him a lesson, given back some of the pain he'd left in her lap. She wasn't proud of it, was she? Either way, it was done. So she should leave. But she didn't. Something held her back.

One final hesitancy. Bobby. I love you, Laura. And then, as if nature itself had decided to make a friend of her rather than an enemy, she heard something fall from a tree behind her, and land on the ground with a hard and distinct thump. Her head whipped around, and the gun came up, but there was nothing there except for a squirrel

who had dropped a nut from his place high up in the canopy, and was now scooting back down the thick oak trunk to retrieve it. And something else. Sticking out amongst the roots of the tree, lopsided, crude, and weathered, a wooden cross. Upon it, a name painted in faded blue. Bobby.

There was bone, barely concealed under a thin layer of soil. It was a shallower grave than she had imagined it would be. It stuck out from the broken ground, white against dark, jagged broken edges pointing skyward. Laura kept digging with the travel she had packed especially for this purpose, not content with one single bone. I need all of you, every single piece. I want it all back. All of it. each part of you

the animals of the woodland watched her from afar as she dug frantic arcs of flung earth spraying all around her her breath coming thick and fast her eyes bright with exertion darkening blood still splattered across her face they watched and listened

to the desperate urgent sounds that fell from her lips as she dug every now and then Laura would stop and extract a fragment of bone and lay it out on a tarpaulin spread out next to her She felt like an archaeologist, felt as if she should be labeling each sliver and splinter

so that Bobby could be reassembled later, like a jigsaw. And in doing so, she could finally hold him and say what she had never had a chance to say when she was 13. Goodbye. It was all she had wanted. That one word. A chance to say it. The trowel cut through the dank earth

and brought up lumps of root and stone and moss and bone. So much bone. And she marveled at how many bones there were in a 15-year-old boy's body. Behind her, she heard X rousing from his unconscious state, wheezing and coughing and gagging as if he were choking on a mouthful of fluid, which he probably was. Let him choke. Let him choke and I will not have murdered him.

And when he is dead, I will bury him under this tree. And the forest can have him. Or no, better. I'll just leave him on the floor for the birds to peck at and the boxes to eat. And they can scatter his bones so no one will remember him. He'll become dust, fragments, like I have. Let him rot into pieces while I have my bobby back together again. There is justice in that.

Her travel hits something solid, resistant, something larger than bone fragments, but still jarringly white against the black earth. She threw the trowel to one side and used her fingers to clean the surface of it. The object looked smooth and round. She began to scrabble at it like a dog digging a hole, ripping great clots of soil away with her bare fingers, fingernails catching and tearing, skin snagging on tree roots and small sharp pieces of flint.

She excavated what felt like a ton of dirt in this way. And then she managed to dig her finger, tips beneath the thing. Feel the size and shape of it. Get a purchase on it and pull. The soil gave up its final, gruesome secret with reluctance. Laura pulled so hard that she wasn't prepared for the sudden release and toppled over backwards. Behind her, X groaned, but she had no mind for him, only for what came out of the earth, which, after regaining her balance, she seized in her hands and held up reverently before her, like a priest with a chalice. Only this was not the body of Christ, not the blood of the Redeemer. Only her friend, her Bobby, the place where his mind and

smile had once lived, where lips had been that had once kissed her, where she froze, staring at the thing in her hands, eyes wide with incomprehension. What is this? Laura saw an elongated jawbone, pointed snout, eye sockets that were in the wrong place, thick, flat, grinding teeth that jutted out from a profound underbite. And Laura saw horns. No, not horns. Short, stubby antlers, broken off at the roots. And then it dawned upon her. This was not Bobby. This was another cruel trick. And behind her, with a slow and rising glee, came a sound. That is something even now. Afterwards, Laura would tell the police that she didn't know the gun was loaded,

which was the truth. She would also tell them that the man she killed had attacked her first, which wasn't. Her statement was long and given in several stages. Her leg had become infected in the forest, and she had a prolonged hospital stay, first while they treated her body, and then while they treated her mind,

which did the best it could, to stay strong, but eventually collapsed in on itself. Morris spent many days in an induced fog, painkillers and tranquilizers and mood stabilizers gradually erasing the details of her crime. But later, she would find out that she had become the thing she feared the most, a murderer, for X was dead and by her hand. She was, after all that had happened, no better than he.

His real name was Stanley. Stanley Aston. He was a known sex offender, and his name featured on an awful lot of lists. It soon featured on an awful lot of television screens and newspapers, too, alongside a dated mugshot of him as a much younger man. Stanley, it seemed, had kept a lot of secrets with him out in the woods. And now, those secrets were unearthed, thanks to Laura.

The police found Stanley's camp, and there they discovered his body right where she had left it, splayed out on a discarded couch, a single bullet hole in his head, brain matter baked into the faux leather beneath his skull, teeth and nose broken from her earlier violent assault. They found the animal remains that had been buried at the base of the tree, and forensic examination later confirmed what Laura already knew,

that the bones belonged to a small deer. Then the police searched Stanley's tent and found Bobby, or what was left of him, at least. His skull. Sitting on an old tapestry cushion balanced on top of a folding camp table, garlanded with a crown of ferns and moss. A large worn laminated photo of him was propped up behind. Candle stubs had congealed around its base in a large molten mess.

Subsequent digging efforts around the campsite unearthed the remains of seven other adolescents. three girls and four boys. Anthropologists worked at the recovery site for months, cataloging each bone and fragment of clothing and tiny shard of debris scattered across the site. Although Laura knew little of this, swathed up as she was in her bubble wrap world.

Seven bodies, one deer, and one young boy's head. That was the bounty of the forest. As summer turned its face to the wall, and autumn came softly in its wake. is much older now and aware that time is passing at a rate that she cannot control. She finds herself longing to undertake a pilgrimage, and so she walks through the old forest. Her son Robert, who is now a tall, handsome replica of Frank, keeps step alongside her. The hair that had only been speckled with gray when she'd last made this journey is now

white, cropped short against her skull for the sake of ease and practicality. Her steps through the copper carpet of leaves underfoot are unsteady, but no less focused on the goal. She is headed north to Stanley's camp, to pay her respects to Bobby, because she's had a lot of time to think over the years, about one thing in particular. Bobby's head might now rest in a small, silk-lined cedar box in the town cemetery, but the rest of him has never been recovered. Laura knows that he is here in this forest. The parts of him that touched and held and ran and walked in step with her now subsumed. What remained of him after Stanley separated his sweet head from his body has long since rotted, composted, fed the soil, and brought new life into the world.

Laura feels a small comfort at this and hopes it will not be long before she too becomes part of the complex tapestry of greens and browns, of pine. and larches, oaks and birches, rhododendrons and eucalyptus that reach high and thick over her head and drag their fingers through the sky. For when she dies, she wants to be burned and scattered in this place. So she can join her friend, and they can mingle down there in the cool earth and catch up on all that has happened since they last saw each other.

Mom, look. Robert pats her on the arm to get her attention, pointing to a patch of undergrowth framed with skinny young silver birch trees. There, a deer grazes, a white mark on its face. Beside it, a fawn, paler, emblazoned with the same white patch between its eyes. Mother and son. Laura smiles and closes her eyes,

and absurdly, the memories that eluded her as a young girl come back in that moment, clear and unblemished. And she sees Bobby as he had been on the same. the day he'd first kissed her, nervous, serious and pale, white blonde hair lifting in a faint breeze. She feels the touch of his hand on hers, as if he is standing right there next to her instead of Robert, and she recalls his smile. The remembrance is fleeting, but crystal clear, and she is glad for it. And then, like a little brown bird flying north, she continues, walking on in a straight, true line through the forest.

Always on and never back. Because that is not how we survive. Was written and adapted for audio by Gemma Amour. Produced for the No Sleep Podcast by Phil Mikulski. Musical score composed by Brandon Boone. Starring Kristen D. MacGurio as the narrator, Mary Murphy as Laura. Matthew Bradford as Bobby, Mick Wingert as Frank,

Kyle Akers as Robert, and David Cummings as X. This concludes the No Sleep podcast production of Dear Laura by Gemma Amour. We place the letters back in their envelopes. It's time to take our leave. The musical score was composed by Brandon Boone. Our production team is Phil My. Mikulski, Jeff Clement, and Jesse Cornett. Our creative content manager is Olivia White.

Our editor-in-chief is Jessica McAvoy. 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. program, 25 episodes, each over two hours long and three exclusive bonus episodes, all for only $25. On behalf of everyone at the No Sleep Podcast, we thank you for listening and for being ever curious. This audio production is Copyright 2021 by Creative Reason Media, Inc. All rights reserved.

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