The NoSleep Podcast - Nosleep Podcast S2E11

Episode Date: September 23, 2012

Episode 11 of Season 2 has arrived. This episode of The Nosleep Podcast features four stories about disturbing technology, deranged romantic responses, and strange childhood memories. This episode features these stories: The Machine written by Johnny Nava (Redditor nihilistic_novelist) and read by Chris Eddleman (Redditor TalksAtYou). I’m No Angel written by Daniel Smith (Redditor Mmmslash) and read by C.H. Williamson (Redditor pomochu). Don’t Turn Off the Webcam written by an anonymous author and read by David Cummings (Redditor MikeRowPhone). This story won the Nosleep Writing Contest for June 2012. The Scarecrow Game written by Rachel Martin (Redditor scarecrowgirl) and read by Stephanie Dohrs (Redditor Akaadji). 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. Brace yourself for the No Sleep podcast. It's episode 11 of Season 2. Welcome to the show. I'm your host, David Cummings. We have four tales for you this time, about, disturbing technology, deranged romances, and strange childhood memories.

I'm happy to announce that in an effort to expand our listening audience, I'm going to start doing some advertising for the podcast. I certainly appreciate the word-of-mouth advertising all of you have been doing, but I feel it's time to spread the word even farther. I've started some strategic ads targeted at fans of the horror genre. and I've partnered with a popular website called hellhorror.com. Hellhorror specializes in horror movies, bringing you news and reviews on popular movies and classics.

Hell Horror is your number one horror source for news, movies, trailers, and upcoming movies. If you enjoy the horror genre in all its many forms, I would encourage you to check out hellhorror.com. Now, let's stir up a little hell horror of our own and start the show. At times, doesn't it seem like in this day and age, there is very little left to be invented? But no matter how far technology advances, it's nice to know there are still visionaries out there trying to create new and never-before-seen inventions. However, as author Johnny Nava describes, sometimes,

Sometimes a new invention, even one that works perfectly, can have some unexpected consequences. Narrator Chris Edelman explains what happens when you use the machine. My grandfather was an inventor and a skilled one at that. Over his lifetime, he accumulated over 40 patents that allowed him to live quite comfortably after his retirement. After he retired, he was able to focus on inventing stuff he enjoyed and found interesting rather than stuff that would earn him a paycheck. Naturally, his wife and our family supported the viewings of his latest invention, even though nobody really found them very interesting.

But we loved being around him and took every opportunity to drive the short distance to his house to see him. My grandfather wasn't just brilliant. He was also gifted with exceptional social skills as well as an intimidating IQ. He was the kind of guy who put a smile on everybody's face. The kind of guy who everyone seemed to like? The kind of guy everyone wanted to be around and be like. And I was no exception. One day we get a phone call from my grandpa inviting us to the viewing of his new invention.

Is life's work, he calls it. The invention he's been working on for the past 20 years. years is nearly complete. He says it should be done in a few more weeks, but he just wanted to inform us on how close he was. My grandfather hangs up the phone. We would have dinner at my grandpa's house once a week, every week, and in the weeks leading up to the viewing, he was ecstatic. He pranced around the house with a smile from ear to ear seemingly stuck on his face. His laugh was louder, his food tasted better. Everything about him echoed happiness.

And then, it stopped. A few days before the viewing was supposed to take place, we get a call. It's my grandfather. He tells us the viewing is canceled, and so is dinner for the week. My grandfather hangs up the phone. After the phone call, my grandpa is a ghost. He doesn't pick up any calls, doesn't visit our family, and won't allow us to visit him. My grandmother is worried.

She doesn't know what's wrong either. My grandfather, the man who used to be the life of the party, was now a reclusive old man who never left his room. The inventions in which he took so much joy into creating now gathered dust in his workshop. The phone rings. I pick up the phone to hear my grandmother's side. bobbing on the other line. It's my grandfather. He's hung himself.

He didn't even leave a note. My family goes over to the house to help my grandmother clean and get rid of a few items that my grandmother doesn't want around anymore. My father assigns my siblings and I all rooms to clean. I get the workshop. I walk in the workshop and the place is shrouded in a haze of dust. The relics of my grandfather's creativity are scattered everywhere, each of them adorned with their own layer of dust.

I grab a few items and throw them in the cardboard box I'm holding, tucked between my forearm and my hip. I have no idea what I am supposed to be cleaning, so I look for the most dusty items first and I throw them in the box. Each item that lands produces its own cloud of dust. In the corner of the room, I see an object concealed under a sheet, like the way you see those cars before they're unveiling in the movies. And out of all the things in the room, it's the least dusty of all.

I walk over to the object. I hesitate for a moment before I pull the sheet from the object, revealing what's underneath. Underneath the sheet is a chair, a chair that looks like it could be a futuristic version of the electric chair. It's like nothing you've ever seen before. It's made of metal, like some kind of chrome. It shines so bright that you have to squint your eyes when you're looking at it. In a way, it seems to give life to the lifeless room masked in dust. It's tall and intimidating with cords and wires reaching around from the back to plug into some sort of helmet in the front of the chair. And from the helmet, some kind of looking glass hangs, like a combination of

binoculars and some sort of retinal scanner that you see in movies from the future. I see this throne crafted by my grandfather, and instantly I know what it is. This machine is my grandfather's life work. I hesitate for a moment, take a deep breath, and take a seat and take a seat in the chair. It's cold and uncomfortable. I think twice before pulling the helmet over my head, but I do it anyways. I pull the looking glasses to align with my eyes, and I wait for something to happen. Nothing does. I turn to look around either side of the chair and see a small switch. I flick it opposite of the way it's facing and pull the helmet and glasses to my face once more. This time, there's a flash. It's more subtle than I expected, but still reasonably bright.

It's a flash about as bright and as loud as one you would see given off by those cameras in the 1930s, a single flash, and then nothing. I got out of the chair, moved around, and nothing had changed. I thought whatever machine my grandpa had been working on was broken, and that the machine being Broken is what caused him to be depressed. However, upon seeing my father enter the room, I knew it had worked, and I knew exactly what it had done. The machine that my grandfather had crafted, his life work is unlike any other machine on the planet. The machine allows you to see people, to see who they are completely, without any deceptions. It allows you to see into their soul.

The visions you get come to you in the same way a daydream does. Two separate universes bleeding into the same reality. When you see a person after you've used the machine, you'll never see them the same way again. You see the good and the evil at the same time. The disturbing part is how little good there is compared to the evil. Anywhere you go, you're surrounded by monsters instead of people. Wolves in sheep's clothing.

Each person you cross is a terrible fabrication. The man who lives next door is the man who touches his daughter every night after his wife goes to sleep. Your mailman is an alcoholic who beats his wife after he gets home from work. The man you just passed walking down the street is a safe. serial killer. Everywhere you go, you're haunted by the mythological creatures around you. But that's not what drove my grandpa Matt. It's not what caused him to take his life.

Because the scariest thing of all isn't what you see when you go outside. The thing that haunts you the most is what you see when you look in the mirror. We hear a lot about the firefighters and police officers who come to our aid when we're in danger. We call them heroes, and rightfully so. But we don't hear as much about the emergency medical technicians and the paramedics who provide life-saving treatment during medical emergencies. Author Daniel Smith writes about just such an EMS technician and narrator C.H. Williamson reads for us the tale about a humble paramedic who confesses,

I'm no angel. It's 3.17 in the morning, and I leap from the bunk as the tone rings. To an outsider, they might just sound like a series of beeps, like a more elaborate form of Morse code. But to me, and to folks like me, it sounds as clear as if it were announced over. the loudspeaker. Two short beeps, one long, too fast. This is what it sounds like, when EMS Rig 6 is brought into service. My shoes are on my feet before the tone even stops, and I am out of the door prepared in under half a minute. We don't need to inspect the rig to make sure we are ready. We do it at the beginning and end of every shift. Lord forbid.

you arrive on scene and find yourself without oxygen or airways. I'm in the passenger seat a full 15 seconds before my partner, Jonathan Torres. Man who always looks better than he is. You have to give the man credit. It's admirable how he can hide himself behind $100 sunglasses and hair gel. We're pulling out of base as dispatch comes over the radio. It's a trauma case. And it sounds severe. An early 20s woman, signs of head trauma, likely altered mental status. This was a major league deal. Most people think EMTs ride around in an ambulance all day,

like some sort of angel in a blue coat. I'm no angel, just a guy with a job. The fact is, Most of what we do is just drive the elderly between hospitals and long-term care facilities. We're a taxi for the fucking geriatric by and large. We're on the scene before ALS, and there's a black and white there to greet us. Torres must know the guys, since they give each other a friendly nod in a quick, informal greeting. The officer tells us that they work.

call to the scene of a bleeding, incoherent woman. They suspect drug use. I glance over, my hand tightening on the green bag in my palm. It weighs maybe 40 pounds and has everything in it that you could ever hope to need in case of an emergency, most of which goes unused for practically everything. We approach the woman. and I'm a little taken aback. She's beautiful, even with the dried, caked blood holding her blonde hair to her forehead.

I feel empathy. Something as an EMT I'm usually completely desensitized to. She's younger than the reports say, maybe 16, if that, and is very apparently news. beneath the fire blanket the officer must have draped around her shoulders. She clings to it, for the briefest of moments. I am jealous of a piece of flame-retardant wool. All she says is that he almost got her,

and that she is terrified and needs to go. We try to assure her that she's safe, and we'll get her going in just a moment. A focused examination of her head reveals discoloration behind the ears, often common with sudden, swift, blunt-force trauma. Her eyes are banded, like a superhero's domino mask. Not unlike a raccoon. I'm a little amazed that she doesn't have brains leaking out of her skull at this point.

It's a fucking miracle that she's not. not dead, much less walking and talking. ALS arrived shortly after, and label her as an unstable patient, due to the altered mental status more than the bashed-in head, admittedly, and decide to transport her to St. Francis, the closest trauma center with any kind of cranial specialization. And just like that, the miracle woman, the best of the best of her. Beautiful, nubile girl with a mysterious past is out of my life as soon as she stumbled in.

I'd like to tell you that I let sleeping dogs lie, but I couldn't. This girl stayed in my brain, infecting me, affecting me. I lay down my head and I dream of her. I answer calls and I hope they're her. I let this go on for a week and a half until I can't keep up anymore. As I go to load a patient, I drop my end of the stretcher. Torres yells at me. I don't hear a thing.

That night, I drive to St. Francis. It's 5.30 in the morning when I arrive, entering through the emergency admittance entrance. The code for the door is 911, as unimaginative as that is. I work my way past nurses and doctors I know well, citing a need to pick up a billing form I had forgotten. They all nod and give me a knowing smile. These things happen.

Accidents happen. I find her room easily at. enough. Somehow I'm drawn to it. She's not in the ICU anymore, just resting in a bed. She looks so bored, so tired of this hospital. Can relate, I tell her. Sometimes I wish I could just get away. I ask her if she wants to leave, and of course she does, but she's afraid her her parents, will be upset with her. I tell her they never have to know. She smiles.

Today, I am a hero. I wheel her out in a stretcher. I make sure to time it as soon as the morning charge nurse is away from her station. Dahlia, as I learned her name, pretends to be asleep and motionless. She's so smart too Once we're in the elevator We're in the clear

People just assume I'm transferring her It's funny how easily you trust a man In a convincing uniform Briefly I'm terrified To think of what I could get away with If I had a fake badge We're at my house before long And Dahlia sleeps the entire way in the car

I understand. It gets so exhausting in the hospital. How is a person supposed to rest with all of those people, constantly shuffling in and out all of the pills they give you for your own good? What a joke. I carry her across my doorstep, like my bride. She's awake now, and she thinks it's adorable. She's practically screaming with happiness at this point, and I'm once again glad I live in such a remote area. It's a half mile of forest and interstate between myself and the city itself, so the privacy is always abundant. Faintly we can hear voices below us and the basement. I sigh softly reminding myself to make sure I turn off the television before I leave my rec room. I take Dahlia to bed, as any man does with his new bride.

patiently. She's hesitant at first, but some reassurance is all it takes before she bends to my will. She's so appreciative of how slow we take it, how I respect her virginity, and take it with the most delicate. She cries with joy now, and I smile. Carry her to the family room below, and the voices greet us more urgently this time. I remind Dahlia not to be so forgetful as me and that she should always remember to turn off the television before leaving the house. I apologize for not setting a better impression,

and I tell her I'll show her to her room again before I take care of it, walk down a long hallway, lined with doors on each side, until we come to the end with a more ornate door than the others. There's a small circular window in it, similar to a portal. You can see her beautiful room. There is a shelf with beautiful dolls for her, and a ward. I'm a wardrobe full of clothes. I tell her that it's all for her

and that I'll never let anyone hurt her again. I lay her in my bed and she rolls over, crying with happiness once more. It must feel good to be this loved. I leave her room, quietly locking it behind me, so as I may not disturb her, she'll be safe here. As I walk back to the family room, the screaming finally comes to me from behind the doors. Faces of other brides, stare back at me.

faces twisted with jealousy and envy. They know how much I loved Dahlia, and they're ungrateful. For all I've given them, I shake my head slowly. I have to be punished for such impudent. A better man might be more understanding. Sometimes, in an effort to facilitate emotional healing,

It helps to write out the experiences that left you damaged. I'll read for you a tale from an anonymous author who shares his story of heartache and regret over the end of a long-distance romantic relationship. It's a tale that he has chosen to entitle, Don't Turn Off the Web Cam. Lynn and I met in 2008. She was from a very small town in Washington, with a population of less than 500. I was working my way through college as an event bartender in Portland. Lynn's cousin was getting married in Portland, and as fate would have it,

the wedding reception was held at an upscale hotel on the Columbia River, where I frequently tended to small wine and beer bars. I noticed her immediately, as I often notice women that I quickly convince myself are too beautiful to ever date someone like me. Eventually, as the night went on, she made her way over to my bar and ordered a white wine. We talked for a while about Portland. I sweated profusely as I tend to do around girls like her. She would be spending the next two days in the city, and I took a few moments telling her about the most interesting sights to see and things to do in town. Wow, you should just be my personal tour guide, she said, grabbing my arm and smiling.

This happened to me so infrequently that I really had no idea how to react. So I just mumbled, sure, what time, and laughed nervously to hedge in the event that she was just joking. How about 10.30 tomorrow morning? She replied, and so started my relationship with Lynn. She was infectious with a personality that was so innocent and warm. I immediately fell in love with her. There were a few issues that we would have to work through.

She was still in Washington, and I was finishing school in Oregon. Lynn was Vietnamese with a very traditional father who would never approve of her having a white boyfriend. She lived alone in a house with her father, as her mother had passed away several years earlier. So going to Yarrow Point to visit her was out of the quoth. question. She would come to see me every three weeks under the guise of a prestigious internship program. Being in a long-distance relationship, we spoke on the phone and texted constantly. When high-speed internet finally came to her small town in Washington, I surprised her with a webcam for her computer, so we could have an even better means of long-distance communication.

In the back of my mind, I was always looking for ways to be with her. As even after two years of dating, I was paranoid, a girl as beautiful as her, would eventually find someone better to share her life with. In 2010, Lynn's father passed away suddenly in his sleep from a heart attack. He was everything to her, and she was heartbroken. When she returned from Florida, where the funeral was held and her father buried, she was all alone in the house where she had lost both of her parents. With Lynn's father deceased, she was open to finally allowing me to come to Washington to see her, which we planned on doing in a few weeks after my college finals.

One night during our usual bedtime conversation, Lynn mentioned to me that her father had been acting strangely in the days leading up to his death. She explained that he had taken to checking up on her multiple times throughout the day and night and scattering religious artifacts throughout the house. This behavior, she said, was highly uncharacteristic of him. Vietnamese culture and religion was something foreign to me, and at various points, Lynn had mentioned things like this that I normally wrote off as just being a little silly. She explained to me that being in the house alone without her dad was emotional and maybe playing tricks on her. She hated the feeling of being so alone. She told me that being able to see me on her webcam was the closest thing she had to family and asked that I promised to never turn off the webcam.

She meant the world to me, so I was happy to oblige. A few days passed, and it was now the Tuesday before the weekend when I would finally come to see her in Washington. We spent our bedtime webcam session, excitedly talking about our plans, and I dozed off with my head on the kitchen table in mid-conversation. It had been a long day. When I woke up, I saw Lynn sleeping on my screen and stumbled off to bed. At 3 a.m., my cell phone began to ring. Disoriented, I rolled over, took a look at the clock and knew it could only be her. She took great pleasure in waking me up in the middle of the night

to let me know that she had just gotten a drink of water or had an amusing dream. Anyone else would have gotten an earful from me, but her flirtatious giggle made me feel lucky to have my much-needed sleep interrupted. I had a nightmare. Lynn gasped. You danced in front of my friends. She burst into laughter.

What are you doing up so late, honey? You've got to work in the morning, I said. I was thirsty and went downstairs to get a drink of water. Great. Well, we really should get back to sleep. Tomorrow was a big day. She conceded. Hey, by the way, don't forget.

After a few crackles and a brief burst of static, the call disconnected. I hated Lynn's phone. She had an old flip phone that dropped calls with no rhyme or reason at least three times a day. I held down the number one on my phone, my speed dial for Lynn. No ring, straight to voicemail. I tried to call several more times, and each time it again went straight to voicemail. I was exhausted, and though I loved Lynn to death, to be honest, I just wanted to go back to sleep. My eyelids hung heavy.

A little annoyed, I decided to walk out to my kitchen for a quick drink of water. The two glasses of wine that I drank before bed had left me with a little bit of dry mouth. As I rinsed the glass and went to place it in the dishwasher, out of the corner of my eye I saw movement on the glow of the laptop perched on my dining room table. It was the webcam. Two fluffy brown paws were making a swimming motion directly in front of her camera. As I got closer, I saw a close-up of two grinning faces. One of that silly dog of hers, and the other of my giggling girlfriend,

who knew that eventually, after being unable to make phone contact, I would wander out to the webcam to say goodnight. I wouldn't put it past her to turn the phone off on purpose to elaborately stage this scene. me standing in my underwear at 3 a.m. on a worknight, half asleep, staring at a girl and a puppy on a webcam. I waved good night and she kissed the lens of the webcam and pulled away. I froze. I wiped my eyes and looked again. There, it's, it's standing.

In the corner of the room, it's staring at her, wrinkled, angry, twisted mouth, hateful eyes. What the fuck? Hateful eyes. It's watching her. Two hours later, I woke on the dining room floor. I had a ringing in my ears and a nod on the back of my head. I immediately knew what had happened. It wasn't the first time. Sudden, extreme stress has given me panic attacks and blackouts a few times before.

I had never felt such fear when what had happened came rushing back, and I nearly had a second panic attack, when my thoughts turned to Lynn. I loved her more than anything in the world. It took me several moments to summon the courage to look in the direction of my laptop. When I finally did, the screensaver had long since turned on. I looked away from the screen as I flicked the touchpad with my shaking finger. It took me another two minutes to open my eyes. Lynn laid sleeping in her bed. She looked so peaceful, sleeping.

on her side, facing towards the webcam. As frightened and confused as I was, relief at her safety gave me a sense of comfort, as I desperately tried to process what had happened. Maybe the wine had hit me harder than I thought. Maybe I slipped and fell on the slick tile floor, and it all had been a nightmare. I stared at her. her. I loved her, maybe more than even I realized. So peaceful and beautiful as she slept. The light of her television danced across her room and illuminated the bed. As I watched on, her hand began to move. Slowly. Unnaturally. She was sleeping, but her thinking. Her fingers. She was sleeping, but her fingers crawled across the bed slowly until they reached something.

It was her cell phone. Her hand moved like a spider, fingers popping in several directions across the keys. What the hell? My phone was vibrating. New message. Don't. New message. Turn.

New message. Off New message The New message Web New message Cam

Terror set in as the messages came across the screen of my cell phone New message Don't New message Turn New message Off

New message The New message Web Cam, as I glanced back to my laptop, horror overcame me as slowly a shadow crept across the floor. Something was crossing in front of the television, moving closer to Lynn. I told myself it was just her dog, right? The color drained out of my face when I noticed the puppy sleeping in the far corner of the room.

I picked up my phone and dialed Lynn. I didn't know what I would tell her, but I knew she needed to get out of there immediately and never go back. Straight to voicemail. That stupid old phone of hers. The full shadow now hung completely over Lynn. Her hand jerked, flipping open her cell phone. My phone was ringing.

I answered, Lynn, Lynn, can you hear me? You need to get... A burst of loud static forced my phone reflexively away from my ear. On the webcam I saw Lynn's lips begin to move. Her eyes were shut, but she was speaking. I heard her voice come across the phone, but something wasn't right. She was speaking, but a... Second, deeper voice echoed hers in perfect unison. Graman would like to see you.

Don't turn off the webcam. Agramon is ready for you now. What? What does he want? I yelled in desperation. He wants to eat your skin. The line disconnected. The shadow across Lynn's bed,

changed directions. It started moving away from the bed and towards her laptop, towards the webcam. As the shadow moved closer, small streams of gray liquid rolled towards the lands. The images coming across my monitor began to shake violently. It was almost here. I could now see the top of it, head. It was crawling towards me. Wet strings of silver and black hair hanging over its face. I remembered those hateful eyes as I lost control of my bladder and it slowly began to tilt its head up. And then I did it. In panic, I slammed my laptop shut. and threw it against the hard tile floor before collapsing to the ground. I wished for a panic attack to take my consciousness and end this nightmare, but it didn't come.

I crawled to the panel of switches a few feet up on the wall and turned on every light that I could. I noticed the bottle of wine still open on the kitchen counter and drank most of it down in a single swallow. I reached up and pulled open my apartment door and stumbled across the threshold, extending half of my body into the common hallway so I wouldn't feel so alone. A pathetic coward sprawled out on the concrete. My phone began to ring. I crawled to it. Lynn's name was flashing on the caller ID.

I held it in my hand, paralyzed by fear, and then the ringing stopped. I took another mouthful of wine and mustered the courage to call back. It went straight to voicemail, and then again and again as I tried to call. Eventually the shock and drowsiness from the wine got the better of me. And I passed out on the floor after making a few more attempts. When I awoke several hours later, despite the broken laptop and empty bottle, I wanted to believe that it was all some sort of horrible nightmare. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the blue flashing light on my cell phone.

You have one new voicemail. My hand trembled as I dialed my voicemail and entered my passcode. The message was time stamped and was from the missed call I had from Lynn before passing out. Her voice. She was in tears and frightened as though I had never heard her before. You promised? The crackle, the message ended. Two years have passed since the last.

that night. I never tried to contact Lynn again. I never called her work to see if she came in the following morning. I never made it to Yarrow Point in Washington where she lived. She was my soulmate, and I let this happen. I was probably right on the night we met when I told myself I wasn't man enough for her. The only reason I am telling this story today, under the cowardly veil of anonymity, is because my drug and alcohol counselor thinks it would be good for me. So, here it is. I made the decision to let the love of my life face an unimaginable nightmare to spare myself.

And the worst part is that I may not even regret it. Now, if you will excuse me, I think I need another drink. In our final tale, we hear the childhood recollections of author Rachel Martin. She shares with us a story from her days in kindergarten. when friendships and playing games with classmates can be the most important part of life. Our newest narrator, Stephanie Doors, reads for us the story of a special friend, and the times she spent playing the Scarecrow game. When I was young, my family lived in a small rural town in Virginia.

It was the kind of town where no one locked their doors. It was bordered by patches of old farmland and forest, and the yards were huge and sprawling, many with food orchards at the back. The street I was on didn't have any other children on it, unfortunately, but I had a few friends at school. We went on hayrides, picked pumpkins, and visited each other often. At home, I probably would have been lonely, except, like many children, I had imaginary friends to keep me company. What maybe made me different from other kids was the sheer number of imaginary friends I had and the very specific circumstances in which they showed up.

There was a little boy that played with me in my room at night. I remember I used to make fun of him for wearing a dress, this weird, lacy blue thing, and he would scowl and throw blocks at my head and sulk, and sometimes disappear entirely for days on end, so I learned to stop teasing him about it. Years later, I realized it was an old-fashioned nightgown, the kind both little boys and little girls used to wear. Maybe I'd seen it in a book or on TV and incorporated it into my daydreams.

At the time, I just knew he was dressed funny. We played with his toy trains, which he could sense spinning through the air. Something I never got the knack of myself, but that was a lot of fun. he would bring them out while I was eating dinner with my family, and I'd point them out to my parents, the trains, dancing around the ceiling. They laughed and told me they couldn't see them, which annoyed me at first, but I eventually got used to it. The one time I remember my parents being concerned about any of my imaginary companions was

when I said I had made friends with a man named Michael, a young man in old-fashioned clothes, a funny cap and he always carried a stick over his left shoulder. I told them that I met him in the orchard and that now we were boyfriend and girlfriend, that we were going to get married. This naturally concerned them a bit, which I found baffling at the time, but once I chatted away at Michael in front of them, they calmed down. Obviously, this was yet another of my cadre of imaginary friends, not a strange man praying on their daughter. Then there was Judy, the only one of my friends that did occasionally frighten me. Even I couldn't see her.

She was just a voice in an invisible presence. But we played all the time in my room, always during the day. Wild games that usually resulted in enormous messes that I, not Judy, got yelled at for, which I always thought was completely unfair. What frightened me was that she had a temper. When we fought, she'd throw things at me until I burst into tears, and then she'd apologize over and over until I forgave her. We fought and made up constantly.

My parents thought it was cute, I think. And the list of imaginary friends and comrades goes on and on, probably more than anyone here would be interested in hearing about. I had them everywhere. There was the girl on the wall by the playground. She only came out sometimes during cloudy days. I don't know if she came on at night. I never went to the playground after dark, of course.

And there were the eyes in the Magnolia tree. I called them my school friends, and they freaked my babysitter out, even though she couldn't see them. None of these figures seemed malevolent to me, though, like I said, sometimes Judy's temper scared me. But considering that I was a bit of a scared cat as a kid, terrified of skeletons, and prone to hiding my face and shrieking in terror whenever the Wizard of Oz or sea witch from the Little Mermaid came on TV. It's no wonder that my imaginary friends never worried my parents. They must have seemed both funny and harmless, maybe even healthy for a kid with no one to play with during the day. Besides, they had other things to worry about, though all I knew at the time was that my mom was sick a lot.

I now know she was having miscarriage after miscarriage, almost always of twins, which probably made it worse. They wanted me to have a sibling, a little brother or sister to play with, but something kept going wrong. I didn't wind up getting my little brother until later, when we'd moved to South Carolina. On top of that, my dad was always away for work,

sometimes for weeks at a time. My mom was very quiet and distracted back then, with the end result that she seldom noticed when I disappeared for hours on end. I don't think this made her a bad parent. As I recall, a lot of my friend's parents were the same way. I certainly ran amok mostly unsupervised at my friend Marcus's house too, throughout the cornfields and forests near his house. It was a safe, sleepy town. There was no reason to worry. Years later, I came to the same conclusion as my parents.

Wow, I had a crazy imagination. All those things must have been a combination of dreams and play acting and wishful thinking. I was a weird kid who didn't have a lot of friends outside of school. My parents didn't have a lot of time for me, and clearly I was making up for the lack in my own head. but recently something happened that made me start thinking back. And there's one thing, just one that really makes me wonder if more was going on than just the overactive imagination of a lonely kid. You see, the year I turned six, something happened to Marcus.

I didn't understand what happened then. I was a kid, and at that time it wasn't something that especially frightened me. It did upset me, but I was a kid. Kids get over strange events easily, especially when distracted by other, even stranger events. We moved pretty soon after it happened, and my mind was occupied with worry over that. Over the friends I was leaving,

over whether I would make new friends in my new home, over whether my mom really would let me. me get a puppy. Over the new little brother I was being promised and whether my parents would love him more than me. Normal worries, but all-encompassing ones for a six-year-old. I didn't have a lot of friends at school back in Virginia, maybe because I talked to myself so often back then. But I did have one really good friend, my best friend, Marcus. He was a bit of an oddball himself, a goofy-looking kid covered in freckles, with red curly hair like Ronald McDonald and a giant mouth that was always laughing or smiling wider than seemed humanly possible. I liked him a lot, and he loved hearing

my stories about my invisible companions. Judy hated him, so we usually played outside when he visited. He would trip around with Michael and me, listening to me paddle on. I'd convey Michael's occasional comments, and we all had fun exploring, climbing trees, finding the best hiding places, and secret fortresses. I visited him, too. His house was an old farmhouse from an earlier century, probably the 1700s or 1800s, I'm not sure. It had a barn, and a silo that was out of use and resting away, which we were forbidden to go near, but we occasionally snuck in through the side door anyway. We used it as a clubhouse, but his parents always yelled if they figured out that we'd been in there. And they said it was old and dangerous and kept threatening that

eventually they were going to tear it down. We kept sneaking in, though, sneaking in flashlights and blankets and stuffed animals that his parents repeatedly cleared back out. Eventually, they boarded up the door so that we couldn't get in anymore. I remember the day we discovered the boards, how we prided them for ages and then soaked back to the house full of splinters. Anyway, like I said earlier, his house was surrounded by cornfields. Many of them had scarecrows, which somehow spooked an idea in our heads. Somehow, who knows how the minds of kids work, but at some point we came up with the scarecrow game. This was the game we played the most.

at school at his home or mine, wherever. The object of the game was this. One of us would play the scarecrow, standing perfectly still, hands outstretched and head down, not moving, totally silent. And the other would do their damnedest to make the scarecrow move or jump or make a noise. This could be done by trying to either scare the scarecrow or make them laugh. You could pretend to be an elephant or make funny faces, or sneak up behind them and shout as loud as you could.

As I was a giant, frady cat, and also rather excitable to boot, it quickly became apparent that I was a horrible scarecrow. My turns never lasted long, especially because Marcus could pull some truly spectacular faces. Even now, nearly two decades later, I still remember his impression. of a giraffe being born and can't help laughing. He had a gift for comedy even at six years of age. Even adults cracked up constantly around him. I was less adept. Or maybe Marcus just had nerves of steel on the patience of a much older kid

because he could stand there for what seemed like ours. Probably no more than ten minutes, but time passes differently when you're a kid. And often the game would finally end when his arms just got. got too tired for him to hold them up any longer. This never happened to me, mind. Like I said, I was a horrible scarecrow. In kindergarten, Marcus and I were paired up as partners. The way our class worked, each pair had a task to complete.

Ours was to clean up and stack the blocks back in their treasure chest after morning and afternoon play periods. So when Marcus didn't come in, I always noticed and fumed. He was leaving me with all the work. Never mind that I did the same to him the week I had the flu, or the time Mom was too sick to walk me to school. One morning, I think in October or maybe November, it was just before it had gotten cold enough to bundle up during the day.

Still warm enough during recess to run around without a jacket. Anyway, one day, Marcus didn't show up. I was already mad at him because for some reason he hadn't been there to play all weekend. His parents not answering the phone when mine called. So I was extra mad that morning as I stacked the blocks alone, growing them around haphazardly. When we broke for recess though, Marcus was waiting outside, waiting for me. It was a sunny day, sky bright blue, and I remember there was a strong, breeze blowing. Leaves were falling everywhere, skittering around in the breeze in a swirl of

crackly color, and a bunch of my classmates were already racing around, making piles and throwing them at each other, shrieking and making the normal sounds of a playground filled with kids. But Marcus just stood there in a bubble of silence, arms outstretched and head down. He was wearing a red shirt that clashed with his orange hair. He was playing Scarecrow. I was still a little myth that he skipped out on his block duties, but I was glad to see him. They were always the other girls in my class that I could have played with,

Peggy and Meredith and Ashley, but I never got along as well with them as I did with Marcus. Marcus was my best friend. It was always more fun when he was there. That day, though, Marcus played the Scarecrow. hair crow better than he ever had before. There was a cut on one of his hands, but he just stood there and let it bleed, the blood dripping off his fingers and falling on the leaves.

His hair looked weird, too, matted down on one side and wet. That scared me a little, but Marcus had never-minded cuts and bruises as much as I did, and was good at hiding them from his parents later so we wouldn't get in trouble. So it wasn't that strange. What was strange was how well he played that day. Nothing could make him move. Not even when I got frustrated and broke the rules and shoved him. He just stood there, head down, arms out, mouth, unsmiling.

He didn't get tired, didn't put his arms down, didn't obey the unspoken rule that after a while the game had to end. That was the rule, and he wasn't playing fair, and he hadn't even helped me with the blocks that morning. Fine, I yelled, frustrated enough that I was practically crying, and stumped off to go play tag with the other kids. He was still standing there when Mesa ended. I didn't say anything because I was still mad, but I was even more aggravated one that afternoon before. I could go home, I had to put up all the blocks by myself. Again. I complained to our teacher, who was a young pretty woman, more a girl, really, not very experienced. I remember she seemed upset and then she gently suggested I maybe should get a new partner, which really infuriated me.

I shouted no and that I wanted Marcus, and he should just come inside and help me. When he still didn't, I pitched a tantrum and my mom had to come and get me. I don't remember what my mom told me. I just remember that I was mad and didn't want to listen. I went to bed early after refusing to eat dinner. The next day, Marcus still wasn't in class. The teacher didn't make me put up the blocks that morning. Instead, she had Peggy and Meredith do it.

When we had recess, though, Marcus was still there. standing in the same place, in the same red shirt, playing scarecrow. At first, I had decided to ignore him, running and playing with the other kids, slipping in the leaves, climbing the slide, and playing king of the play for it. But I kept peeking at Marcus out of the corner of my eye. Was he mad at me? I finally shuffled up next to him through the fallen leaves and wood chips and stood next to him. and this time I played scarecrow too. Two scarecrows, but I kept losing.

My arms got tired. I had to put them down. I didn't understand how he was doing it, and he didn't turn and look at me or try to scare me or make me laugh or do anything. He just stood there, stiller than anything. When the teacher called us to line up to go, back inside when recess ended, I ran up to her and took her skirt and asked her to make Marcus come inside too. And she stared at me and covered her mouth with her hand and then turned

without saying anything to walk the class inside like we always did. I lost it. I didn't understand and it wasn't fair and I wanted Marcus to come inside. I screamed and yelled. and when the principal himself came out to talk to me and bring me in, I threw myself on the ground and kicked and bit. I don't remember a lot after that. I remember my mom came and got me, and that my dad came home from his work trip soon after that, and that they told me Marcus wasn't coming to school anymore.

But he was there, I sobbed into my mom's neck. I'm pretty much worn out, but still determined because he had. been. He'd been right there, playing scarecrow. My mom said in a funny voice that I shouldn't play that game anymore, which just infuriated me all over again. Why not? It didn't make sense. We weren't supposed to move until the new year, but somehow the schedule changed and we left for our new home in South Carolina soon after that. Judy pitched a fit like I'd never seen before. and then stopped talking to me altogether. My parents didn't make me clean up the mess.

I never got to say goodbye to my classmates or the girl on the wall because I never went back to the school again. When I asked Michael to marry me and moved to South Carolina with us, he just looked at me, not smiling, and ruffled my hair. And I, already over-emotional and exhausted and upset, yelled and kicked his shin and ran back home. I never saw him again. For years, I assumed the timing of our move was just coincidence.

It turned out my mom was pregnant again, and this time it seemed to be sticking. I was going to get a new brother, and my dad had just gotten off with a new promotion. They hurried to find a house available, found one, and bought it immediately. It was a good time to move. As a kid growing up, I never questioned it. I was happy in South Carolina. I made new friends quickly, and I had a baby brother and a puppy to play with. Virginia was just a memory, and the horrible last days there faded quickly in my mind.

I'd had a fight with my best friend. I moved. I grew up. But now I wonder. You see, I never really thought about that time of my life with any. real seriousness. I was a kid. It was a long time ago. I had a wild imagination. Whatever. Lots of kids do.

As I grew up, I stopped making as many imaginary friends, stopping entirely once I hit middle school. But recently, one of my classmates from Virginia fended me on Facebook, and I thought for the first time in a long time about that funny-looking kid. my best friend from kindergarten. The Scarecrow. I remembered that game. I never really played it once I'd moved. No one else played it right,

and over the years I'd almost forgotten about it. I tried to look Marcus up online, but couldn't remember his last name, and I couldn't turn up anything in Meredith or Peggy's friends lists either. For some reason, I felt weird asking him about him, so I waited until I was visiting my parents over a holiday break. I brought it up nonchalantly over dinner. Hey, mum, I said in between bites of casserole.

Remember that kid, back in Virginia? Marcus, right? I don't remember his last name, do you? Oh, honey, my mom said and reached across the table and patted my hand. You worry so much about you. after that happened. I took a deep breath and made myself keep eating, and with my mouth, Stofore, mumbled in agreement,

both hoping and fearing that she'd say more. It's so hard to lose a friend when you're that young, she continued. And it was so sad, too. He was so believed that the move seemed to help you deal with losing him. But right, I said, and tried not to look. how I felt, which was like I was about to pass out face down in my plate. The rest of the conversation passed in a haze, like I was hearing my family talk from far away, underwater. My brother was asking, curious. My parents were telling him about little Marcus Brown,

how he contracted what his parents thought was a bad cold over the weekend, a cold that had turned out to be tetanus. By the time they'd take him. him to the doctor? The case of Lockjaw was so bad he could barely breathe, could barely move at all. He'd found a new way into the silo, something we'd always plotted to do. You must have done it without me, and cut himself on the metal as he did. Not badly, but when metal is rusty, it doesn't have to be bad. He died there in the hospital. That's why he hadn't come to school that morning. or any morning after that. He died and I'd gone into hysterics.

That's what my parents remember. It fits with what I remember too, mostly. I keep telling myself now that he must have died after I left school. He must have. That cut on his hand and on his head. That must have been what killed him. Killed him after that last time I'd seen him. That's what happened.

Even if not, it's not like I could trust my own memories. I'd made things up before. I'd made things up all the time. Entire people, whole conversations and friendships. The boy in my room and the girl in the wall and Judy and Michael. All of them. I had just had a vibrant imagination. and I was an upset little girl who didn't know how to deal with the death of my best friend.

That's all. What makes me shiver, even now, though, is that Marcus wasn't one of my imaginary friends, except for those last two days when no one saw him but me. It seems like a strange coincidence, and I can't help but wonder. Not just about Marcus, but about all of them. about why I saw them, and who they were, what they were. I wonder if I go back to Virginia, if I'd find Michael waiting in the old orchard, if the girl on the wall is still there,

I wonder if I go back to my old school, to that playground, if I'd still see Marcus standing there, arms outstretched, head down, waiting for me. I wonder what it would take to make him look up. Our sleepless tales have come to an end. Thanks for sharing the darkness of the night with us. Join us again in two weeks' time

when we unleash more disturbing tales designed to afflict your night with no sleep. To continue your sleepless experience, visit the no sleeppodcast.com.