The NoSleep Podcast - Nosleep Podcast S2E09

Episode Date: August 26, 2012

The Nosleep Podcast’s ninth episode of season two features four stories about very disturbing relationships with lovers and family. Highlighting horror stories from the Reddit.com horror writing community, these stories are designed to afflict your night with no sleep.This episode features these stories:My Ex-Girlfriend is Insane written by Ben Cross (Redditor tiresiwuaaa) and read by C.H. Williamson (Redditor pomochu).I Can’t Look My Brother in the Eyes Anymore written by R. Vera Cruz (Redditor raymondavc) and read by David Cummings (Redditor MikeRowPhone).Mason written by Melissa Rosales (Redditor melissaurus) and read by Wendy Corrigan (Redditor EchoWind).Don’t Forget Your Friends written by Kevin I. Miller (Redditor millerkevinisaiah) and read by James Cleveland (Redditor tseotet). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the sunlight fades to darkness and the frightful tales creep into your mind, it's time to give in to your fear because tonight there will be no sleep. Welcome everyone to the No Sleep podcast. I'm your host, David Cummings. For the ninth episode of Season 2, we have four stories for you, and they all revolve around the disturbing relationships that people can form with their lovers or families. We have a new narrator joining the fold this week, C.H. Williamson. He contacted me a little while ago and mentioned that his narrating experience included some volunteer work for the Libravox project. I, too, have spent some time narrating for Libravox before the podcast became.

my main outlet for narration. If you're not familiar with Libravox, it's a volunteer project with the goal of turning many public domain books into free audiobooks. Books, plays, poems, and other forms of literature that are no longer under copyright, are divided into sections, and people volunteer to record themselves narrating certain parts. The parts are then assembled into the whole work and made available for free. It's similar to Project Gutenberg, except in audiobook form. There really is a tremendous wealth of literature

freely available to everyone in audio format, thanks to the many people from around the world who contribute to Librivox. If you're considering getting an audiobook to listen to, when you're not listening to this podcast, of course, do yourself a favor and check out Libravox. Just go to Libravox.org. That's L-I-B-R-I-V-O-X.org.

It's a noble project worth supporting. I also wanted to mention something that I discovered this week. You see, I'm a guy from Canada, and every now and again, I'll check out iTunes to see if the podcast has gotten any more reviews or ratings. For quite a while, I was seeing the usual numbers. 11 ratings, thankfully all of them 5 stars, and about 7 reviews, also quite positive. I just assumed that these numbers were a typical response for a small, obscure podcast like this one.

Unbeknownst to me and my dim-witted brain, I didn't realize that I was only seeing the results from the Canadian iTunes store. I wasn't aware that if I were to look at the U.S. version of iTunes, I would see a different picture. Well, last week I stumbled across this somewhat expanded version of iTunes, and I was stunned and amazed to see that the podcast has received 164 ratings and 76 reviews. All but a handful of ratings are five stars. And the reviews, uh, what can I say? They are more positive and glowing than I could have ever dreamed. I honestly sat there confused and stunned and thinking that something was wrong and that I wasn't really seeing all these reviews for the No Sleep podcast. I was deeply moved and overwhelmed to see all that feedback at once.

So to all you fans of this show who took the time to rate and review what we do here, I send my deepest thanks. You guys are simply amazing. It makes all the hard work that goes into this podcast so worthwhile. I'll no longer feel isolated when I work away in my little basement studio because I now know how connected I am to people around the world who listen to this small and now not so obscure show. Okay, enough of my chatter. Let's begin this episode by introducing the story,

read by the aforementioned C.H. Williamson. This tale is about a guy and a girl, going through a rough breakup. As so often is the case, the jilted party turns their rejection into anger. However, as author Ben Cross describes, the recently dumped girlfriend reacts in a way that is so totally unexpected, that he is quite justified in stating,

My ex-girlfriend is insane. I am by no means a brave man. I won't lie and say I couldn't have stopped this from happening if I tried, if I had just handled everything like I knew I should have, but I didn't, and I paid for it. The TV was filling my apartment with white noise as I tried to study, but I couldn't focus. Only a few hours before, I sent my girlfriend of four years a text message, explaining my desire to break up. A fucking text message.

I'm a sleazeball asshole, I know. But she had begun to scare me over the past few months. It wasn't major things at first, just a strange unsettling turn in conversation. I could laugh it off then. I convinced myself she just had a strange sense of humor. But after a while, it escalated to weirder and weirder things. She would command me to slap her and pretend to rape her during sex,

calling me a bad lover if I refused. Occasionally she would make me late to work by hiding my car keys until I role-played, violently, with her. When I talked to her about it, she just told me that, real men were dominant with their women, and that I should be grateful to have such a willing girlfriend. I felt justified in breaking up with her, although my methods were misguided. In any case, I received a call as I expected, and it was Vicky. She spoke before I could even say Hello. It was a demand more than a question. It sounded as though she had been crying.

It's a long story that you won't like, I said, hoping to discourage her from pursuing the issue. I secretly wished she would just hate me and ignore me forever. How long have you known? The sadness in her voice vanished instantly, leaving a cold, close. clinical tone behind. What? I asked earnestly. That we weren't meant for each other? Don't play fucking dumb with me, David, she hissed. Who did you see? Greg?

I was sloppy with him. You had sex with Greg? I asked feebly, feeling the blood throbbing in my ears. He was a mutual friend of ours. Oh my God, you actually don't know. She seemed on the verge of laughter. I knew you were a dunce of a boy, but come on. Nobody can keep a secret like that forever.

I had never heard her voice sound like this. Confident, slick, world of mice. I should have ended this long ago. I tried to find some memory to disprove the suspicions of you, David. She must have thought she sounded sweet, but her voice was positively overflowing with crazy. Please don't leave me.

I could turn you into the police, you know, I threatened. Sexual harassment charges. Do it, and I fucking kill you. Any doubt I had of her guilt vanished. I felt my insides turned to ice at her waist. words. Do you understand what I am fucking telling you, David? I will fucking kill you, along with everyone you love. Answer me. I yelled out loud and hung up the phone hastily. I checked all the windows and doors to make sure they were sealed and locked. Then I remembered

that Vicky was back in my hometown, three states away. Better safe than sorry, I suppose. Of course, being the jackass I was, I didn't think to contact any of my loved ones to warn them. Later that night, as I was getting ready for bed, I got another call. To my relief, it was my mother. Hello? I answered. David, whatever is happening between you and Vicky, you can work it out together. She sounded strained, like she was flexing her abs the whole time she was speaking. Mom, how do you know about me and Vicky?

Right now, she's a, a sweet girl, and you deserve each other. I still couldn't quite place what was wrong with my mom's voice, but something was definitely wrong. What's going on? Did she contact you? I asked. She would... She would even do anal if you got back together. My mom started weeping openly. Suddenly I understood.

She was reading from cue cards. If you're there, don't you dare touch my mother? I shouted. There was the sound of a phone change. hands. Listen to your mother, she screamed. I love you, David,

on speaker and tiptoed over to my junk drawer where there were a few old brick phones. I kept testing each of them to see if they had any battery power left. Even without a service contract, they should still be able to dial 911. David, please speak to me. She cooed.

insanity lacing her every word. Don't make me do it, David. She then hung up. I don't know what to do now. I've tried calling the police a few times, but for some reason none of my phones are working. I'm terrified to leave my apartment, even though I know Vicky is hundreds of miles away.

I'm considering driving home tonight. She has my mom follow-up. So I finally found my bitch of an ex-girlfriend. At least that's what David would say if he still had fingers to type with. Next tale examines the often difficult relationships faced by brothers. When a younger brother grows up under the tormenting thumb of an older brother, life can become unbearable. Author R. Veracruz describes how when the passage of time does nothing to diminish the cruelty, one starts to wonder about the source of the

disturbing behavior. I'll read for you his tale about why he says, I can't look my brother in the guys anymore. We've never been the closest of brothers. Growing up, he was the kind of big brother that fucked with you whenever he'd babysit. He's a good 10 years older than me. So imagine a 16-year-old locking a 5-year-old in a closet and making spooky noises, or yelling at the top of his lungs from the kitchen with a knife under his arm and ketchup spread everywhere around him, pretending to bleed to death. Imagine him wrestling you to the ground, throwing small punches to your ribs that make you breathless for minutes at a time. My personal favorite? Imagine being six, and your brother is calling you into the living room to help him with something. When you get there, he's behind the small

coffee table near the back door reading a heavy black book, and he tells you to stand at the far end of the room. That's about 30 to 40 feet. Not leaving his seat. Imagine he says, turn around, pull up your shirt, and tell me if you feel anything. Imagine your anxiety, your trepidation in knowing that anything involving your brother involves pain and fear. Imagine then, faced away from him, your shirt hiked up just under your shoulders, you be Begin feeling fingertips trace gently up and down your spine. Then the sudden shock of nerve endings, shouting from pinched skin that make you jump and turn around,

only to see that he's still at the table, an impossible distance away, just smiling a gruesome smile that speaks innocence to all but you. That's what it was like growing up with him. until he finally got his GED and shipped off to the military. You can't imagine how blissful my years were then. At 10 years old, after all the torment, all the bullying, to finally be able to live comfortably in your own home.

I started doing better in school. I started making friends. I started laughing more than hiding, lounging, more than tensing. I was finally allowed to be at peace, and in peace found how the normal live their lives. A year after he went to boot camp and A-school, we found out that he was being stationed in Turkey, which to me meant 2,500 miles of relief. I didn't even have to see him when he came to visit before deploying because of my week-long 6th-grade camping trip.

It was six and a half years from him signing up for service until I had to see him again. Returning from Turkey, he'd been stationed this time in Las Vegas, and my parents caught in a frenzied fever of protective instinct, and the fact that it's fucking Las Vegas, decide we should take a trip to see how he's holding up. At 17, I was dragged along to the world's biggest tease under a rage Vegas visits. Even worse, I had to see my brother. I'd like to say I was pleasantly surprised, that seven years of military training had made him a better person, had forged a man out

of him, that absence from each other's lives had somehow made us hungry and happy for our brotherhood. Wrong. He was still an asshole. It was like the seven years melted away, and I'm just this terrified shell of a boy waiting for an evil I know is coming. Only now, it was with trained precision that he could take me down, pull my wrist almost to the breaking point, push his kneecap between my chin and chest, laugh as he bleeds the consciousness from me in small panicked heaves of barely breathing. Yeah, I stayed in our hotel almost the whole trip. Three years later, his contract ended along with his marriage, which blossomed from a two-month fling, half a year after our first visit, when who should show up at our doorstep but a military-grade sadist,

claiming to want real family time, promising to be the best of roommates and sons, the fucker moved back in. Despite all my apprehension, we made do for a while. We were able to talk civilly. I wasn't pinned to the ground with an asp behind my neck. I thought maybe we could live peacefully until I found the black book. Now, his fingers touching me from ten yards away stays vivid in memory. I can still feel them if I concentrate hard enough, and it still nagged my mind how he did it.

So when getting a letter for him in his room and reading it to him over the phone, I see peeking from his luggage a dusty, dull black book spine with a darker but shinier set font. My curiosity engages, and I pull out the thing. It's not as big as I remember, but, you know, Then I was a kid when I last saw it. There's no writing on the front, just the black font on black background on the spine, which was in, I think, Latin. It said something like, Arcasier Tembre.

Flipping through the pages, I knew it wasn't normal. They were yellow and curved from aging, and the print looked almost as if it were handwritten. It was also in English, which threw me off, but not modern English. The meter, the syntax, the wording was all derivative of old English. I'm talking old with an E. Only a few sentences I could make sense of, like, Takeest sage and burn by new moon's light on May's third day.

and even that is me cleaning it up to make sense. And the drawings. These were most certainly hand-drawn, with both expert skill and macabre imagination. A severed head, a plucked eyeball, horned children, an upside-down pentagram. I know these things to be satanic, but I also know Satanism to be either the gross misrepresentation. of paganism, or its anarchic, true devil-worshipping form.

I dropped the book to the bed after I skimmed a page and realized it was what my brother had been doing to me. The illustration, opposite a page depicting two identical men, only one with darkness instead of eyes, showed a man with limbs that stretched further than humanly possible. I dropped the book when I saw the man grinning much in the same way my brother had all those years ago. Freaked, I left the house to hang with a couple of friends. We had a long day since the fair was in town, and we caught a movie afterwards. So it wasn't until about 12 or 1 a.m. when I came home.

My front door opens to a small second living room that, to the right, leads to the kitchen. the stairs, and then the larger main living room, and to the left leads to a small hall and the only room downstairs, my brothers. With his door cracked open, I can faintly hear him talking to someone. Creeping past the hall and making for the stairs, I catch a couple of words that don't sit right with me, though it takes me a while to figure out. And then I realize, It's not English he's speaking. There's a certain quality about danger that is at once disagreeable, yet mesmerizing. You shy away from it, but not before it draws your gaze to the magnificent suffering it can impart.

I chalk that up to why, instead of finding my way to my bed and the solace of its sheets. I tiptoed, Pink Panther turned ninja, towards his slightly opened door. As I reached the doorway, I remember too late that I didn't put the book back where I had found it, that I had merely cast it away from me in my frightened haste. I wondered what he thought of that, but I never got to ask him. The conversation is weird, as if Latin did he. not already categorize it as such, but it's like he's speaking to himself. I hear the string of foreign syllables, followed by the normal inquisitive pause or intonations of finality. But then it's

him answering back, sometimes slower, more relaxed, or else higher-pitched, almost meek. It was after a sentence that sounded more like a chant, monotonous and kind of lyric, like a Catholic priest chanting, that I hear him slam the book and whisper, or maybe it was a hiss, something between the two, saying, no, and then more urgent, more frequent. No, no, no. I look in the doorway and find him turned around, facing the left side wall. It's almost perfect the way he mirrors me at six, when he touched my back with his stretched arms and digits. There's trepidation in his face, anxiety. His shirt isn't pulled up, but he's standing there like someone instructed him to.

And just as he turns around, from the opposite wall that lay in a blanket of shadow, something... No! No! From the shadow emerges the impossible. The illogical. The another brother. A third son for my mother, a second older brother for me. wearing the exact same outfit as his frightened counterpart, wearing the exact same face,

holding the exact same frame, the exact same smile from when I was a frightened child touched by stretched fingers. It was my brother, but not my brother. I knew from the way it plucked the strings of my fear and sanity that this was a different player altogether. The only difference I saw was that either by nature of the shadowed light or its own anatomy, the thing's eyes did not match my brothers. They were a dull black, from Iris to Sclera.

My brother, the frightened one, whispering no, and for once sharing my fear of him, stood frozen. The thing, the other, whatever it was, walked to him with odd, jerking rhythm, the ungodly smile never fading from its copycat face. It stretched a single stolen finger, stretched three inches longer than it should be,

and touched my brother right between the brow. Several things happened in the same. that instant. The first, my brother's eyes, wide from shock, turned cataract and gray. The second, my own gasp, ringing in the quiet darkening. The third, the thing snapping its attention from my falling brother, who crumpled instantly, to me. It locked eyes with me in a way more menacing than I could have dreamed of my brother. or at least anything that looked like him. Its eyes were no longer black,

and in a horrible instant, I knew it stole his eyes. As if reading my mind, its smile grew wider, physically grew spreading the insanity of his mouth, not from cheek to cheek, but from ear to ear. It walked towards me.

Maybe I had gone insane. Maybe that day marked my descent into the delirium. Looking back, that's the only way to explain it. Maybe the thing making its way to me, deadly and devilish and infinitely strange, wearing the mask of my brother's face. Maybe that was a physical representation of my farewell to reality. The thing reached me and raised a normal hand. It turned it backwards and stroked my chest from collarbone to just above my heart.

I swear I felt fingertips along my spine. Then it brought its hand back up in front of its stolen face and raised one normal finger to its unnaturally large lips and gave a shuddering and just walked away, leaving me in the doorway of its new room. I haven't told anyone yet. I can barely bring myself to consciously think of that day. I don't talk to it.

I don't walk near it. I hear it in rooms of the house, speaking to my family as if it's really him. I hear sincerity that was never present before. I hear kindness and goodness from my family about it, and I know dread. I wake up at night sometimes, and I know in the shrine of shadow in the corner of my room

that it's there just watching me. Smile pulled from ear to ear, waiting to stretch its demon fingers and throttle me into nothingness. I can't look my brother in the eyes anymore, because it's not my brother. Our third tale features a romantic, loving relationship. When a young man and a young woman are introduced in the midst of mutual medical traumas, Their bond of love forms deeply and makes them inseparable. Author Melissa Rosales weaves a tale that makes us understand how abiding true love can be.

Narrator Wendy Corrigan shares with us the tale of Mason. It was a dark and rainy day in February when I was hit by a small red pickup. February 15th. I was told I flew 15 feet before landing smack on my head. Apparently, the driver was drunk and didn't see me crossing. I don't remember that day at all.

Four weeks I slept in a coma that many feared I would never come out of. I was placed in a ward of children and teens with major bodily harm or disease. My roommate was a boy named Mason. I never did find out his last name. For the time in which I slept, he found out bits and pieces of me from my various visitors,

my favorite color, what music I liked, and other random things. The day I woke up, I was showered with love and attention from my family, and it took me almost an hour to realize the presence of the boy laying in the bed next to me. He flashed me a lopsided grin and quietly went back to the book he was reading. Eventually, I was left in peace and after about 20 minutes of mental debate,

I spoke up and asked him his name. His voice was smooth and low and never failed to make me shudder. We spent the rest of the evening playing 20 questions and becoming familiar with each other. Eventually, my doctor would break our quality time and give me the lowdown on my injuries and what the healing process would be like. He told me that when I was hit, not only did I give myself a nasty concussion, but my legs were also broken in my oh so graceful landing. They said I had a 60% chance of ever walking again.

We became close instantaneously. The nurses would laugh and say we already looked like an old married couple, bundled up in bed watching whatever soap opera happened to be on television. Mason would just flash me his trademark grin while I blushed and buried my face in his chest. We both had our good days and bad ones, Mason and I. On a particularly tough day of treatment for him, we both lay together with him trembling in my arms. I'll never forget the feeling of his soft hiccups

or the knot at the pit of my stomach. I finally got up my courage and asked him the million-dollar question. He had Hodgkin's disease. I don't think either of us slept that night. While my legs were transitioned from cast to braces, Mason's chemotherapy began. However, without fail, when I'd come back frustrated or in tears over a difficult session of therapy,

he'd be there to comfort me with soothing words and reruns of I Love Lucy. Over the weeks, the chemo began to take its toll. His brown curls, thin to almost nothing. Dark circles took permanent residence under his eyes, and his skin. turned as pale as snow. As my legs grew stronger, the day I was released no longer seemed like something to look forward to. The day we decided to shave his hair

was the day I broke down. I told him I would do anything, give blood, bone marrow, anything to make him get better faster. But he just shot me his smile that instantly made me melt and wiped my tears away. 60%.

Mason had a 60% chance of beating his demons. Same as me. On May 12th, I was officially released from room 104. I would walk with a limp, most likely for the rest of my life. Every other day, I would visit Mason. Each time I would leave, we would take a picture together. Over the months, I would compare our first picture and our most recent one and see how much he was deteriorating.

It was heartbreaking. August 17th was the first time I lost him. Overnight, a high fever had broken out, and his heart stopped for four and a half minutes. Those were the worst minutes of my life. I sat outside his room in an unconsciously. comfortable plastic chair, watching the nurses I knew all too well, scrambling back and forth, attempting to save his fragile life. I didn't leave his side until he squeezed my hand,

winked, and told me to go home and take a shower. After that, I vowed I would never let him leave me alone again. I guess the odds weren't in Mason's favor, for by the time, thanks a Thanksgiving came around, he was almost a skeleton. But I didn't care. He confided in me that night, accepting the fact that his time was almost up and promising to wait for me on the other side. I begged him not to go,

but he just lately shook his head and rubbed soft circles into my back. He wasn't going to survive to see Christmas. That was two months ago. No longer being able to bear to see him hooked up to all sorts of machines, we decided to steal away in the night together. I bundled him up and we drove away in my mother's car until we arrived at an old cabin.

My family would stay in during the holidays. Mason and I couldn't be any happier. I don't care that I'm on the news every night or that every cop in the country is looking for me. All I care about is being with Mason forever. Even if his flesh is crawling with maggots and beginning to peel off his bones. Even if the smell off his rotting cadaver

never fades from my skin, his lips are still warm at night and he often whispers sweet secrets into my ear before we sleep. No one, not the police, doctors, or anyone else can ever separate us. I'm ready for them whenever they come. I made sure to bring the sharpest scalpel I could find when we left the hospital. But until then, I'll lay in Mason's arms, or at least what I think were once his strong appendages. and we'll talk all night until he takes me away.

We'll be together forever. Our final tale is about a young man whose disturbing childhood experiences seem to be following him into adulthood. When author Kevin Miller attempts to rid himself of the dark presence, he discovers far more than he could have imagined. James Cleveland reads for us the tale entitled Don't Forget Your Friends

My parents told me the house we were moving into was new construction They swore by it telling me I didn't have to worry about monsters under the bed Or bogey men in my closet Because it was all fresh and unsullied There would be no horror hiding in a brand new home I accepted this readily As it made perfect sense to my 12-year-old mind

I had yet to hit that story sticky spot in puberty where I questioned everything my parents said. The first two years flew by. I went from having nightmares almost every night at the old house to only having pleasant dreams. By the time I was ready to start high school, I finally felt normal. I had made new friends in this city. I had finally gotten comfortable letting people come to my house to hang out, and I was no longer afraid to sleep alone in my own room. It seemed like things were looking up for me, after a lifetime of paranoia. The first house was something of a family heirloom.

My great-grandfather had inherited it from his wife's family after she died from a severe case of pneumonia, and it had been passed on from family member to family member ever since. My parents stayed there after my dad returned to school to get his MD, mostly to save money, and they got so comfortable that they chose to stay. Eventually they had me, etc., etc., and things were great. I had friends, albeit imaginary, as I was a timid and precocious,

child. Eventually, though, I was unable to outgrow feeling my imaginary friends. At about eight, I could no longer see my friends, or could I hear them? Damn it, could I feel them? Their weight on my bed at night, their breath on my neck. On the warm summer nights, I could feel them, sometimes stroking my arm, sometimes trying to slide their hands under the covers and strike other parts of me. I had no idea where any of this was at eight, which I figured it fast. Sometimes I would wake up with scratches or bruises and my parents once pulled me out of school because they found a hickie on my inner thigh. I told them repeatedly, it's my friends, the ones that live with us, but they just got mad at me and said I needed to grow up and tell them what happened.

Eventually I got sent to special ed because of my vivid imagination that kept worming its way into my schoolwork, and finally my parents agreed the only way to shut me up was to move. They for a few months, but they didn't want to buy a house that would allow the problems to continue, and they had trouble finding good quality new homes, so they gave up the search. It wasn't until just before my 12th birthday that my dad got a job offer at a cardiovascular hospital out of state, and aware that the pay would be better in the housing market was prime for buyers, he packed us up and moved us out. But I digress.

This isn't a story about the old house. This is a story about the new house. I came home from school about two weeks into my freshman year and stopped to grab the mail on my way into the house. It was all normal at first. Bills, companies trying to get my dad to display advertisement for their products in his office, etc. One thing was odd though. A smaller manila envelope at the bottom of the pile had our old address

sloppily scrawled as the return address. I shrugged it off, knowing that my parents were renting that house out and just assumed the current tenants mailed some forms over. Still, after two years of having nothing to do with that house, I did not like the surprise reminder that my family is connected to it. But then my parents handed me the envelope at dinner, already opened, and said that it was for me. I took it reluctantly and pulled the contents out. A drawing I made in elementary school. It was a forest green stick figure eating ice cream with a black stick figure in front of what I assume was my elementary school.

There was a note attached in a different messy script than the address and its message was short. Found this in Attic. Thought you would like it back. Kiss kiss. I laughed. Certain that this was the last thing I expected to receive. My parents seemed relieved by my reaction and I was relieved that it was nothing terrifying. It wasn't until I was lying in bed that night that I stopped to wonder who the black stick figure was.

Perhaps a friend, long forgotten, or just a classmate. mate that sat at my table for group. I tried to shock it off, but something didn't seem right. It wasn't until I was too far in sleep's embrace to shake it that the memory of this friend crept into my mind vivid and fresh. That night I had tumultuous dreams, my first nightmare in two years. I was a green stick figure happily licking my ice cream outside of school during lunch hour. That black stick figure, mischievous and jealous that he could not have my ice cream, snuck up behind me and pushed me down. I cried and cried and cried, watching as my ice cream melted into the ground and the black stick figure started laughing, a warped laugh that sounded

like a vinyl record that had been damaged. But the laughing wouldn't stop, and even when I woke up that morning I could still hear it ringing in my ears. The next morning I was exhausted, but still not as frightened as I would have been had I still lived in the other house. I told myself the nightmares were a result of having seen something I wasn't expecting, and I was satisfied by my own answer, until I saw the bruises on my leg. Five small, round ones spaced as though someone had grabbed so tightly with their fingertips that it left marks. I had no explanation for that. Things continued seeming normal after that night.

No more nightmares, no more bruises, nothing out of the ordinary, and then a second envelope arrived. This was in closet. Don't forget your friends. Kiss kiss. I looked at the photograph behind the note and saw a picture of me at what had to be my sixth birthday party. The table was set and I was blowing out the candles. There were two empty chairs on either side of me that had plates in front of them, as though someone was meant to be eating there. This time I was able to remember the moment immediately and I knew the chairs were for my imaginary friends.

Spooked, I decided not to mention it to my... parent so I could spare myself the lecture. I stuffed that envelope into my drawer with the other one, and I fell into a fitful sleep that night. At one point, I thought I could feel someone sitting on my bed, maybe a warm and wet tongue on my neck. I woke up the next morning in so much physical pain every step I took making me ache. When I saw myself in the mirror before I showered, I realized that I was covered in hickies, and when I took my underwear off, I realized that there was blood in them. Now, when I was a kid, I didn't know what these things meant, but now that I was in high school, I had a bit of grip on sex and the stuff that people get up to. Seeing the blood made me

flash back to being a kid, finding blood in my underwear and having my parents get really upset. I shuddered when I realized what it meant, and a wave of shame crept over me. I sat under the steady stream of the water from the showerhead crying for at least three hours that morning. Things only got worse so. It went from being infrequent, the occasional envelope and nightmare, to me having these problems even when the envelopes were nowhere near the forefront of my mind. One day I woke up midway through a nightmare and I couldn't move a single muscle. I was paralysed, but I could feel everything. I could feel the weight resting on my bed, the hand sliding across my chest down the waistband of my pajamas, and then I could feel whatever it was forcing its way inside of me.

It hurt so badly that I nearly passed out, and I spent every waking moment after wishing I had. I could faintly feel something wet dripping down, and I realized that once again, I'd been torn open. As soon as I was capable of movement, I ran to my bathroom and vomited, crying and trying to hold back my screams. Again, I was too afraid to tell my parents. who would believe someone saying a spirit or something was raping them. And even if they did, how weak would that look? A guy that was not just getting raped but getting raped by a ghost.

I resolved to start by a store on my way home from school that specialized in holistic medicines and stuff like that. I knew that the woman who owned the store, Christine, was at least informed about the paranormal. There were rumors about it at my school. and at this point she was the only person I could think of that might believe me. The store was small, crammed between a coffee shop and a Mexican restaurant and dimly lit. The windows were tinted to near a blackout levels and the sign in the front said natural remedies written in big letters on a chalkboard.

I walked through the aisles, uncertain I had to go about talking to a woman I never met about my problems when suddenly she was behind me. May I help you? she asked. Her voice ragged and aged As though she'd been smoking for years She was short but extremely slim Outfitted in hemp sandals, black jeans And a white t-shirt that set natural remedies across the chest

I couldn't tell how old she was But she was definitely younger than her voice made her sound I Yeah What can you tell me about Uh I trailed off taking a deep breath This was more difficult than I thought

Please don't think I'm crazy. I am just really need help, I said in a rush. I need to know about hauntings. She raised an eyebrow at me and beckoned me to the front of the store where the cash register was and pulled a book out from under it. It was large, bigger than my textbooks, and she opened it before I could clearly see the cover. Please describe the things happening in this haunting

and I'll look it up for you and suggest a remedy to ward the spirit away. Since this was already going much better than I expected, I decided to lay everything out and tell her about what was happening to me. She stayed silent the whole time, only raising her eyebrow once or twice, and then didn't even bother to leaf through the book. Get a sage stick, some of my blessed salt,

and this herbal powder. She gestured to a pestle and water behind the glass case, with some sort of powder that looked more like what comes out of a nasty zit than anything else. and I want you to burn the envelopes containing the pieces of your childhood. If this doesn't work, please come back and see me. There are only a few things that could be doing this to you, each more dangerous than the last, and this is the best way to start.

These are the more harmless remedies less likely to anger the entities. She made me agree to come back and see her in a week if things went well, immediately if they did not, and told me that she did not want to discuss what was doing this to me until she knew whether or not what she suggested worked. My fear would only fuel their power, and if I knew their true name, then it would make them stronger.

I agreed that doing it this way was better, and I got to my house as quickly as I could. I followed her advice, burning the sage in my room and then lining the place with the salt. I burned the envelope, sprinkling the pus yellow concoction on them as they crackled in my trash can. The room smelled terrible afterwards,

but it felt good to burn it. exhausted I fell asleep almost immediately and had pleasant dreams I saw her the next week happy to report that nothing had happened since and she seemed both wary and relieved I assured her that the semi-visible hicky on my neck was a remnant hicky at least I thought it was still fading away because I bruise easily and she gave me a card with her cell phone number on it in case of emergencies

my life was normal again at last the next time I got to letter in the mail there was no return address. I was afraid to open it, but the handwriting was much nicer on this one, and I decided that should anything happen, I'd just call Christine and ask for help. Inside it was a letter, typed, and nothing else.

Hope you are well. Hope there's no hell. You will burn, if you should tell. Kiss kiss. I was freaked out. I had no idea what to do or what it meant, so I called Christine and asked to. She cautioned me to stay calm and told me to go to her store and pick up a herbal remedy that I could mix with water and drink that would help keep me safe.

She said it would allow me to protect my spirit out of my body, which meant that I could make contact with whatever was doing this to me. She also suggested that I might be able to drive it off, because on the spirit plane I could harness powers that my physical body could not. I did as she asked and went to sleep, praying that this remedy would work. When I woke up I saw my door open slowly and quietly. A man dressed in all black walked in on his tiptoes as silently as possible. I tried to move but I realised that I wasn't in my body. I was outside of myself. Once again I was at a loss for what to do and I just watched as it happened.

The man pulled a syringe from a case in his pocket and gently pressed it into my skin, injecting me with God knows what. He then began caressing me, touching me, sucking on my neck and chest. I tried to push him off me, but nothing happened. That's when I realized that I wasn't dealing with a spirit at all. I just thought I was. I was horrified. I had to watch the whole thing happen.

I couldn't stop it. I couldn't hide my eyes. This was the worst dream I could ever have, but I knew it was real. I had to watch as this man dressed all in black. who had haunted me for years, forced his way into me, and used my body as his own sex toy. I had to watch as the man I had known all my life, the one I had looked up to the most, abused his position of power. I had to watch as my father used stolen drugs to sedate and rape me, as I now know he has been doing almost my whole life.

There is drawing to a close. Thanks for listening to this episode. Join us again next time when we unleash more disturbing tales designed to afflict your night with