The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S3E20

Episode Date: March 2, 2014

It's episode 20 of Season 3. We have seven tales for you in this episode featuring stories about the strange things we see and hear which make us question reality and our own sanity. The full episode��features the following stories. The free version features only the first three tales.  "Security Cameras" written by DJ Crisman and read by David Wolfe. (Story starts at 00:03:35) "Hide and Go Seek" written by Al Apanamo and read by Michael Edward Miller. (Story starts at 00:09:50) "Burnout" written by Dave Taylor and read by Kyle Akers. (Story starts at 00:17:25) "Crisis" written by Maggie Louise and read by Gary Etchingham. Music by Brandon Boone. (Story starts at 00:42:55) "Playful Giants" written by Andy Pham and read by Kyle Akers & Peter Lewis. (Story starts at 00:52:50) "Victoria" written by Maggie Louise and read by Peter Lewis. Music by Brandon Boone.(Story starts at 01:05:25) "Unknown Cargo" written by Jon Patrick and read by David Cummings. (Story starts at 01:17:00) Click here to learn more about Peter Lewis Podcast produced by: David Cummings Music & Sound Design by: David Cummings, unless otherwise noted The NoSleep Podcast uses the PSE Hybrid Library exclusively for its sound design. This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons License 2014. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As the sunlight fades to darkness, the frightful tales creep into your mind. There will be no sleep. And now I was listening to the truth. There's little boys who died. In the window. Brace yourself for the no sleep podcast. It's episode 20 of season three. Welcome to the show.

I'm your host, David Cummings. We have seven tales for you in this episode, featuring stories about the strange things we see and hear, which make us question reality and our own sanity. Speaking of reality and sanity, it's hard for me to believe we're now 80% of the way through season three. Time flies, doesn't it? And in response to some questions,

I've been asked lately, it's never too late to sign up for a season pass. If you sign up now, you'll get access to all the currently released full-length episodes, including the bonus episodes. In fact, very shortly I'll be releasing another bonus episode for season pass members, and one more after that before season three comes to a close. And you can even purchase a season pass after the end of season three for immediate full access all the shows. It'll be over 50 hours of horror audio fiction for a mere 1999. That's 40 cents for each hour of chills and thrills. And we wouldn't have those stories if it weren't for our

great writers and narrators. We have two new narrators joining us for this show. David Wolfe and Michael Edward Miller will read the first two tales for us. We also have an author with two stories featured on this episode. Maggie Louise makes her podcast debut with us, with some stories that have devilishly dark themes. So as we welcome our new contributors, let's jump right in and start the show. We're going to begin with a couple of shorter stories.

Our first tale is about the convenience and safety of wireless, surveillance devices. Being able to remotely monitor your home or work can give people real peace of mind. However, as author DJ Chrisman writes, when one man starts to review the footage of his day alone in the office, peace of mind is definitely not what he gets. Narrator David Wolfe reads the story for us about what this man saw on the security. Security cameras. I currently work for a small family-run wholesaling business. Our office has a main area that opens up into four other rooms.

Two doors on the left about 30 feet apart, separated by a large table. A large door straight back, and a door to the right for the bathroom. It's a good job, and most of the time I work alone in the office getting orders ready, which is always nice since I can just play my music and get my work done at my own pace. Fairly recently my boss decided to install several security cameras since he was planning on bringing extra employees in and he's a bit worried about theft. This didn't bother me at all

since he was letting me set everything up and monitored the footage. Everything was going fine for the first couple of days until this morning. While I was working, I would hear strange scratching noises like an animal running across the carpet. I didn't pay it any mind since I have a small rodent problem with my house and the noise reminded me of a mouse or a rat. I decided I'd just bring some traps from home the next day to try and get rid of it. My day dragged down with little occurrence until I began closing up.

When I began my closing routine of going room to room and turning off all the lights and closing the doors, I heard a couple loud popping noises behind. I wasn't sure what this could have been, but I simply attributed it to a bulb going out as I turned the lights off. I then headed to the bathroom before locking up and leaving for the night. When I got home from work, I remembered I hadn't tried out the software I set up with my laptop, which allowed me to view the camera's footage,

and I thought I might be able to catch a glimpse of the mouse in the office. I got my laptop ready and went to sit down, but before I could, I heard that damn skittering noise coming from my living room. I walked into the living room trying to find this source, and made a mental note of setting up more mouse trap sooner than intended. I sighed, and went back into my kitchen. I sat down at the table with my laptop, ready to watch the days for my first. footage. The first few hours weren't too exciting, although it's strange watching yourself go

about your day when you're alone. I fast forwarded the video and finally got a glimpse of something about three hours into my day. When I watched the footage, I noticed that in one of the back rooms, a large object appeared to skitter past the doorway. I kept trying to re-watch it, but I couldn't be sure. It looked much bigger than a mouse, but I just continued the footage. And then I saw it. A face was staring out of the room. The face was low to the ground. It was barely visible from the bottom right corner of the doorway.

I could barely move as I watched. Whoever it was had to be crawling on all fours to be that low to the ground. It was hard to make out many features, but I could see a large grin stretching from ear to ear as it watched me from the room. I never even saw it while I was working. I even walked into that room to grab a product. It seemed to stay still until I began closing. up for the day. When I went into the room and turned the light off, it began to follow me.

I couldn't even pause the video because I just couldn't handle staring at that thing much longer. Her limbs jutted out at unnatural angles. It began to move forward in a jerky fashion. It stood up and its limbs started snapping back into place. I watched in horror as I realized that this creature was the source of the popping noise I had heard. The thing appeared to be a small woman, wearing a filthy, tattered dress. Her hands were abnormally long and ended in small, slender fingers tipped with sharp claws.

Her face was sunken in. The eyes were just two empty pits caked with dried blood. But the worst part was her mouth. It was way too large to have ever been human. When she grinned, I could see hundreds of tiny, needle-shaped teeth. Couldn't stop staring at that awful grin.

I watched myself walk into the bathroom and close the door. As I closed the door, the thing approached. It shot from the room to the bathroom door so quickly, the camera was barely able to keep up. It stood in front of the door and just stared, waiting for me to come out. It stood there for a couple minutes, before it slowly turned towards the camera,

and within a blink of an eye, its face took up the entire screen. I screamed! Slam my laptop shut, got the courage to open it back up. the screen was completely black. My laptop had gone into sleep mode and all I could see was my reflection in the computer screen. As I started to breathe a sigh of relief,

my breath was caught in my throat as I heard the scittering noise come to a stop behind my chair. I sat, frozen in horror, watching through the reflection of the computer. As the popping noises began and another face became visible over my shoulder, grinning.

from fear. Most of us can fondly recall the games of our youth. In a time before electronic distractions running around outside with friends could be a day-long activity. Author Al-Apanamo recollects the disturbing reason why one of these games went on far too long. Narrator Michael Edward Miller reads for us the tale about a particularly unsettling game, of hide and go seek. When I was a kid, my parents would sometimes bring me down to my aunt and uncle's place to stay for the weekend. Mainly I'd spend the time playing with my two cousins who were around the same age as me.

They lived on a small farm with plenty of open space and we could run around doing pretty much whatever we wanted. If we thought we could get away with it, the three of us would sometimes cross over to the neighboring farm about half a mile away. It had been abandoned for decades, with a same. scattering of derelict buildings and other structures, still standing on the property, just begging to be explored. This was, of course, a gold mine for three adventurous young boys, such as ourselves,

especially after my cousins told me stories about how the place was haunted. It was pretty classic fare, man goes crazy, axe murders his entire family, hangs himself, returns every night as an angry spirit looking for new victims, good grisly stuff. Even at that age I knew they were probably making it up, or at least embellishing rumors, but seeing as how the setting lent itself so well to such tales, I allowed myself to buy into it. One afternoon, we decided to play Hide and Go Seek. When it was my turn to hide, I ran off for a flimsy brown barn that had living quarters on top and climbed the stairs looking for a good spot.

There was still furniture inside, musty and rotting and personal belongings. lay scattered across the floor. I maneuvered over broken dishes, tattered clothes and crumbling books, eventually coming to a small bedroom with a closet. Jackpot! There were even long black dresses still hanging on the rod that I could hide behind.

I stepped inside and managed to force-shut the folding door. My only illumination was a slit of sunlight that shone through the crack in the door from a nearby window. I crouched down with a little bit of the door. knees tucked into chest and waited. Some time passed, and there was still no sign of my seekers. I waited some more, debating if and when I should give myself up. After nearly an hour, this was starting to get boring. My head drooped. I woke with a jerk. It was pitch black. Drowsy and confused, I forgot for a minute where I was or what I'd been doing. As it slowly

came back to me, the realization that it was now night and that I had been abandoned here filled me with a sinking dread in the pit of my stomach. I tried to get up, but a sudden cramp in my calf kept me grounded. I squirmed about, waiting for it to pass, when I heard a door slamming shut down stairs and instantly froze. One of my cousins? There was a brief period of silence, then footsteps at the bottom of the stairs, but not just footsteps. A thud, too, after every other step. These weren't the footfalls of a child. They were slow, heavy, deliberate. I held my breath, praying they would go away. They did not. The noises continued to ascend. They reached the top of the staircase. After another moment of silence, the walking resumed.

This time, along with a steady scraping sound, like something heavy being dragged across the floorboards. The footsteps made their way through the debris and wandered aimlessly through various rooms. I thought I could smell something faintly putrid. The constant scrape sent cold shivers coursing down my arms and back. My worst fears were realized when the steps reached the bottom doorway. They got closer and closer and finally stopped directly in front of the closet door. I couldn't see a thing. After an agonizing pause, they continued on over to the other side of the room and out the doorway again.

They faded away down into the hallway. I waited for what seemed like in eternity. There were no more sounds now and I was trying to build up enough courage to open the door and flee. Three things happened simultaneously just then. I was bombarded with a smell I can only describe as fresh roadkill. I heard raspy breathing behind me in the dark closet, and I felt hot breath against the nape of my neck. That was enough for me to hurtle myself out of the confines of that nightmare space,

relying on memory and scant moonlight to navigate through the darkened house. All the while, I heard footsteps chasing behind me, in with terrifying speed. It was a clumsy, torturous escape full of trips and bumps and blind stumbling. I never looked back, at least not until I'd burst out of the front door and into the country night, and when I did turn around, I saw absolutely nothing. There were no more footsteps, and nobody was chasing me. That didn't stop me from running, though, all the way back to my aunt and uncle's house. There was a police car in the driveway when I got back. My parents were there too worried sick. Everybody demanded to know where I'd been. Apparently, when my cousins still

hadn't found me by the evening, they'd returned home to tell their parents, eventually the police were called in, and informed me that they had already scoured every building on the farm. The insinuation that I was lying about my whereabouts did not go unnoticed. None of it made any since. It wasn't until years later that one of my cousins filled in a final piece of the story. He and his brother had spent hours searching for me, like they said, but the part they didn't tell anyone was that they thought they spotted me in the window of the bedroom I was hiding in. When they got closer, they saw it wasn't me. A young boy neither of them recognized was smiling and waving down at them and gesturing for them to come upstairs. That's when they

ran back home. All this while I slept in the closet. When employment opportunities are scarce, sometimes we have to settle for jobs that are less than ideal. As author Dave Taylor describes, when one man finds employment as a security guard, he's lucky enough to find enjoyment at an otherwise mundane job. But as narrator Kyle Akers reads for us, the job, the job, job isn't quite what it appears to be, and with it there is a very real danger of burnout. The world had never been what most would call a responsible or reliable man. He meant well. He just made bad decisions. Between whiskey and poor choices and women, he had burned the first 30 years of his life away. But it all probably seemed like a good idea at the time. After his 30th

birthday came and went with the realization that he was going nowhere, Harold decided to take a fourth or fifth stab at getting his life together and applied for an open position as a security guard. Security was something he had been doing off and on, interspersed with a smattering of menial temp jobs ever since he had failed to graduate from the local technical college. Harold was always a large man, with a torso the general size and shape of an oil drum. He also took order as well, had a high school. diploma, was not visibly on drugs, and the company had uniforms that fit him in the back room. Secura Qual Guard Services, therefore, immediately recognized him as exceeding all of their

wildest dreams, and hired him on the spot. Details on what exactly Harold would be guarding were scant, which was par for the course in the private security world. His manager shook his hand, wrote down the street address, and told him to be there to receive his mandatory eight hours of finding the job site was tricky. The address was downtown, which was always a strange and confusing place for Harold, so he left 20 minutes ahead of how long it should have taken him to get there. Despite that, he was still almost five minutes late, because he forgot how difficult it is to find a parking spot downtown. Street spots all required quarters, of which he had none, and parking decks, to a sheltered suburbanite such as himself, seemed to be sprawling labyrinths

full of wrong paths and two narrow tunnels, where the slightest misstep meant potential death by SUV. In the end, he chose the least cyclopean horror of a parking deck he could find, and started walking towards what he believed to be roughly the direction of the building address. At 9.04 a.m., not quite five minutes late for his first day, he found the right place. There was a seven-foot-tall chain-link fence framing the building's perimeter with a sliding iron gate, serving as its only point of entry or egress. The gates stood open, revealing two unremarkable wooden doors, set into the center of a ruddy, one-story brick building.

The building seemed perhaps as old as he, neither antiquated nor modern, but nestled neatly between the two. The doors led him into a lobby roughly the size of a doctor's waiting area, and adorned similarly. There was a room with a few computers and video monitors, jutting awkwardly out from the wall to his left, almost as if the room had been built as an afterthought. There were some tacky red and orange couches in the center of the lobby that looked like they could have been from the disco era, and a receptionist desk sitting just off to the side of a steel door.

Other than four rather impressive brick columns which rose up to the ceiling at the compass points of the lobby, there was little else. Except, of course, for the receptionist. When Harold saw the woman sitting behind the receptionist desk, he felt that strange lurching feeling in his chest, which people usually refer to as their heart skipping a beat. He thought she was perhaps a few years his junior were it possible to estimate the age of a goddess. Her auburn hair was tied back into a ponytail which had come forward to drape over the front of a shapely shoulder. He remembered a painting that he had to write an essay on for his art appreciation class back in community college. The painting was of a beautiful woman, demurely censoring herself for the audience, standing in a giant clamshell surrounded by some floaty, cherub-looking things. He didn't mind writing the paper because he thought the woman in that painting was absolutely gorgeous.

The form and curvature of her body just seemed somehow so perfect, so undeniably right. Femininity personified. He had never seen any woman who resembled the one in that painting until today. Bata Shelley's Aphrodite was real, and she was filling out paperwork at a downtown lobby desk ten feet in front of him. Harold had moved past silent awe and progressed towards awkward, fumbling for a conversation starter when she raised her almond-brown eyes up to his bewildered blue ones and cheerfully greeted him. Good morning.

You must be Harold. They told me he'd be coming. I'm Rebecca, but you can call me Becky. She smiled brightly and jerked a thumb at the steel door beside her. The night shift guy is inside doing his rounds. He should be back soon. Take a load off, hmm? She gestured at the hideous but seemingly comfortable furniture

and then returned her attention to the papers on her desk. Harold was extremely pleased about the suave grace with which he navigated that conversation. Smiling pleasantly and keeping your damn fool mouth shut, he reasoned, was an ingenious approach to wooing the ladies. He sat and waited for the arrival of the guard who would be training him and occupied himself by trying not to stare too overtly at the angel in the powder-blue Angora sweater. Harold stood upon hearing footsteps in the hallway beyond the steel door.

A balding man, who appeared to be in his late 50s or early 60s, wearing the same uniform Harold now wore, entered and hastily extended his hand with a pleasant grin. The two shook hands and exchanged. changed introductions. Name's Matt Gordon, and it's damn good to meet you. Me and James, the afternoon guy, we've been splitting 12s ever since that last fellow quit. You get to be our age, 60-plus hour weeks, and this stinkhole makes a body count the days

till he can draw social security. Let's go on now and show you the ropes, since they damn sure ain't going to pay for a nickel more than eight hours of training. Harold let his new co-worker lead him into the long hallway through the steel door, giving Rebecca, no, Becky, the most charming smile he could muster. Before she disappeared from sight, he caught her smiling back, but averting her eyes and biting her lower lip coquettishly while doing so. Damn, he thought happily. She's good. The hallway ended at another steel door approximately 50 feet down. This is what they call the fire corridor, Matt explained. It's where us and anyone else in the lobby would go if there's a tornado.

and what would keep the lobby safe in case of a fire in the warehouse. Matt shrugged. Of course these days there's hardly any need for it, as you can see. Matt pushed open the door at the end of the hallway, revealing an open area warehouse that stretched about 50 yards in all directions away from the door. The only sounds were some banal chatter and the faint hum of equipment running. The place was immaculate, and it quickly became apparent why. He looks around to see there were merely a handful of employees through the entire

facility. None of them paid Harold or Matt any attention, merely went about their various tasks at hand. Matt gestured around him and chuckled. Hardly worth 24-hour guards on duty, but they pay us for it. Don't look at Trojan horse in the mouth or whatever, you know? Harold considered correcting him. Instead decided it didn't matter and let the old man ramble. Basically, they want us to walk every inch of this place twice per shift and log anything unusual on our reports. We'll keep you an eye out for anyone trying to take any of this metal junk that they got laying around. Junk metal's worth a few bucks and the junkers don't mind hopping the fence and sneaking back out without anyone noticing.

But folks like that, the highest kites more often than not, and they'll scatter if they see anyone with a tin badge coming. We're more concerned about scrappers who come to cut copper wire. That shit's worth more than you might imagine, and the ones who come for that are usually sober enough to tell rental cops from the genuine article, and the scrappers come armed. if you see something like that, call the cops. Don't be a hero. The people who own this heap are trying to sell it and everything left within,

but that don't mean we get paid extra to bleed for him. Harold nodded assent and let Matt continue in front of him, the world's most cynical tour guide at the most boring tourist attraction in the history of mankind. Harold noticed that the few workers occupying the building were all women sitting at sewing machines, quietly going about their work. None of them appeared to be younger than 60.

He interrupted Matt while he was talking about what Harold thought was some most stupid diatribe about a guy getting fired for stampeding cattle. He sounded mad, whatever it was. Honestly, Harold had completely tuned out long ago. Thoughts of the receptionist were distracting him, and they were far from unwelcome intruders. So what goes on here anyway? Matt chuckled, didn't mind being interrupted. He seemed like the kind of guy who enjoyed talking regardless of the subject. These days, not much of anything goes on, as you can see, but it used to be one of the largest textile manufacturing centers on the East Coast.

200 or so workers, mostly women, would sew all sorts of things, pillowcases, sheets, blankets, curtains. This place got a lot of women into the workforce, which back then wasn't such a popular idea. These were good American jobs. Matt snorted after that last part. Guess you can figure for yourself what happened to that. Harold was afraid that Matt would break into some long-winded patriotic chest-thumping speech. He seemed the type, but surprisingly he let the subject drop. They were back at the steel door now, and Matt led him through it once more.

Their footfalls echoed down the corridor, and Harold felt his heart race and his breath get short at the thought of seeing Rebecca again. When they came through the door leading to the hallway, she was turned away, filing her nails. At the sound of the door opening, she slowly spun her chair around. Matt had already passed her and continued on toward the room, set into the wall. Harold, however, had to stop. He couldn't think of anything to say, so he just smiled and waved. She grinned and flicked her newly manicured hand at him in a playful shoe gesture.

Matt turned inside theatrically. Come on, kid, quit wool gathering and let me show you the brains of this whole operation. Harold complied reluctantly. As it turned out, the brains of the operation was exactly what Harold imagined it would be. A drab, filthy room, the one jutting out from the lobby wall, about the size of a walk-in closet. There were black and white television monitors mounted to the tops of the walls around the room, showing the various cameras throughout the building. The monitors were angled downward for easy viewing, while reclining in one hideous, orange-upholstered chair.

There was just enough room for one small man to sit and one small man to stand, or one large man to sit and one large man to stick his head in from outside the doorway. The latter, unfortunately for Harold, was their current situation. With the exception of one more building round, he spent the next seven and a half hours leaning into the control room from its doorframe. That is, of course, when he wasn't finding reasons to smile at Rebecca. His feet hurt. The pay was a quarter above minimum wage. The drive was a pain in the ass. His uniform was itchy and too tight around the shoulders, and his co-workers were talkative idiots.

This was the worst job he could ever imagine. He would spend most of his day sitting 10 feet away from the most beautiful woman in the world. This was the best job he could ever imagine. The rest of the week was undeniably the happiest time of Harold's life. Mostly it was just him and Rebecca in the lobby, and he would always hurry through his building rounds to get back to her. They talked about their lives, their hopes, mostly hers, their regrets, mostly his, anything

and everything to get to know each other better. By the third day, she was joining Harold on his building rounds, so they could keep their conversations going even then. The handful of warehouse workers minded their own business. If they disapproved in the guard and the receptionist patrolling together, no one complained. Harold was aware that it was unprofessional, but could not in his wildest dreams imagine a world in which he cared less about anything than that. On their fourth day together, when they had made it approximately halfway through Harold's

first building round, Rebecca stopped and gently reached up to squeeze his left arm. It was the first intimate physical contact between them, and it sent an unexpected tingle shooting up from where her hand had gripped him. He felt his heart race and his breath catch. He turned toward her with what he prayed was a casual smile, trying to pretend he was a young Bert Reynolds and all of this pleasant arm-grossed. was just a regular Thursday for him. When Harold saw her face, he had to struggle even harder to maintain his composure.

No woman had ever looked at him the way she was at this moment. It was a curious mixture of worry and longing, and for him, perhaps, but he tried not to get his hopes up. Rebecca leaned in and tilted her head towards his, not quite whispering, but taking on a low, conspiratorial tone. Harold, would you like to go out with me? Pritting like an idiot, he whispered, Are you really asking me on a date? She smiled melodiously, warming Harold to his very core. Her hand left his arm and punched him playfully on the chest.

You know darn well what I mean, Harold. Us, we, go out. Can we get out of here together sometime? Harold loved his father. and tried his best to make him proud. His father was a man of many sayings, most of them clever guidelines by which to live along, what he called the straight and narrow.

Harold was never very good at following the straight and narrow, but there was one saying with which he'd always stuck. Don't shit where you eat. Sorry, Dad, he thought, but I'm pretty sure this is fate. Harold reached out and took Rebecca's hands in his, nodding eagerly. I would like that more than anything in the world. he said.

So maybe we can go out later today. She stepped closer, and he caught an intoxicating whiff of her perfume. He was hardly an expert on the subject, but it smelled like Jasmine and vanilla. Absolutely. Getting out of this place with you sounds lovely. She squealed eagerly at his reply, and hopped up and down, her sensible heels clacking on the warehouse floor when she returned to the ground. Harold, you, sir, are the cat's pajamas.

I have to go tell all my girlfriends. They told me you would say yes. Rebecca reached up, gave him another playful punch to the chest, and issued that same laugh once again. Something of the melody in her laughter made his heart flutter. She darted off toward the lobby area, giggling and whispering to the old seamstresses as she passed. Harold was left flushed and bewildered, but far from complaining. He suddenly became self-aware and jerked his head around to see if anyone had been watching their little exchange, but there is no one. Breathing a sigh of relief and tingling all over, he hurriedly set about finishing his round. He very much wanted to be back in that lobby,

making small talk and making plans. Rounding the corner of the building which marked his near return to the entrance, something flashed at the periphery of his vision, a yellowish-orange burst of light. Harold spun toward it and saw one of the sewing machine operators about 20 feet from him. She was a heavy scent lady of perhaps 80 years, wearing a white pantsuit. An outlet between her feet had been overloaded, and it was sparking wildly in all directions. Around her ankles, the sparks were causing the hem of her pants to sizz and curl inward and upward with steadily accelerating rapidity. Harold breathed in obscenity as he watched the woman bend forward as far as she could and start flailing stupidly at her thighs, nowhere near low enough to beat at the flames, though he saw with mounting horror that this wouldn't be the case.

for very long. He ran toward her and slid down to try to stop the fire from spreading any further upward, but could tell almost immediately this had progressed to the point where he would need an extinguisher. Worst of all was that the old lady seemed to be going into shock. Either that or she had some kind of dementia. She had ceased even the most feeble efforts to help him put out the fire, instead just stood there staring down at him. Harold scrambled to his feet and grabbed the nearest fire extinguisher.

He pulled the pin. aimed and squeezed the handle. A puff of carbon dioxide roughly the size of Harold's head emerged and promptly fizzled out after having traveled no more than a foot toward the elderly woman whose waistband was now being licked by orange and red flames. It was then he noticed that they had gathered no onlookers. At first he assumed everyone was just paralyzed by the rapidly devolving situation, but after the fire extinguisher failed,

he desperately looked around and realized that everyone was merely going on about their day. A surreal sense of his impotence in the face of doom sank in on him, like a storm cloud, as he watched their apathetic meandering about the warehouse. Hey, someone help us! Christ's sake, she's burning alive! Harold yelled at the top of his lungs and far more shrilly than he intended, now running full tilt to the next nearest extinguisher. The ladies nearby continued to sow, some making casual conversation with each other. He only then realized that something had begun to go horribly wrong.

and that this was a trend likely to continue for the foreseeable future. This time, he checked the pressure gauge before running back to the burning woman. The needle informed him that the extinguisher was, of course, completely empty. The noise he made at this discovery was a species of scream grunt hybrid, earned the dull clang of the extinguisher as he dropped it to the ground. Harold spun back toward the woman. He was increasingly sure would escape this incident with no less than third-degree burns and stood there slack-jawed and frozen at what had transpired in the ten seconds it took him to locate and inspect the second fire extinguisher.

The woman was nowhere to be seen. Not that she had vanished, just that locating her now seemed moot. She was doubtless trapped somewhere within the conflagration which had spread with such horrendous rapidity that had now enveloped the entire southern end of the warehouse. Harold felt his eyebrows and the tips of every exposed hair on his body begin to blacken and curl. His eyes, wide with disbelief, stung from the sudden and unexpected heat as he watched the dreadful scene unfold. The fire was voracious in its hunger, mercilessly efficient in its task, and swept through the warehouse with a sort of chaotic precision. Its tendrils would whip and whirl in response to no discernible stimuli, only to unerringly land upon and subsequently consume its next target.

Those workers who had not already become its kindling continued about their day, oblivious. Harold, having done what he felt was his duty and then some, turned and ran for the fire corridor. Harold flung the door open, the flames now closing in near enough for the steel handle to burn his hands as he bolted through the threshold and down the hall. He barreled through the second steel door, slammed it shut behind him, and sucked in deep drafts of fresh air. His lungs felt like they had been cooked to at least a medium rare. He had done his best. Now it was time to get Rebecca to call the fire department. and for them to get the hell out of that inferno before the flames could consume them. Hands on his knees and still gasping, he turned toward the receptionist's desk.

Harold panicked for a moment and realized she had probably either seen the fire or heard him screaming about the fire and done what any sensible person would have done, call the authorities, and then run outside. He turned and ran toward the doors, grabbing hold of both handles and fleeing him open simultaneously. Harold screamed and screamed, and when he screamed, he backed away. And when he backed away, she stepped forward. By whatever infernal mechanism this nightmare made manifest was powered, she stepped forward. And when she stepped forward, he felt backwards against the doorframe.

She raised her visceral visage over and passed Herald toward the fire corridor, and she spoke. This affront to sanity summoned Rebecca's voice and gleefully issued a guttural imperative. Mind he heard the steel lobby door flung open against its frame. In the gibbering cacophony of a dozen shambling horrors, he could smell the sickly sour stench of charred, rotting flesh, inexorably approaching from that direction. He did not turn to witness their approach or attempt to rise to his feet. He merely stared straight ahead,

cocking hopelessly at the putrid, charnel creature he could not allow himself to accept as his beloved Rebecca. She descended upon him, placing her cadaverous hands upon his chest and arm. She whispered her thanks And pressed what the grave Had preserved of her lips against his His mouth was sealed by hers

So with his last breath He inhaled deeply through his nose And died with a smile on his lips For her scent was Jasmine Lieutenant Haynes sat down On the charred remains of what had once been a hideous Orange couch scribbling notes while a few of his officers poked around

Some blackened brick columns And attempted to look busy while the county coroner bagged up the body behind them across from the lieutenants had a security guard the first of several interviews he would have to conduct today so mr gordon please elaborate on what you told the dispatcher when you phone this end matt shrugged nothing more to tell really walked in saw him sitting right there leaning against the front door i thought he might have fallen asleep but part of me knew better the kid had been doing a good job by all accounts my boss had me check the footage after his first day by himself, you know, to make sure he was

doing the rounds of whatnot, not boozing it up or getting stoned or nothing like that. And was he? Booze of drugs, nah, no sleeping either. Doing the rounds? Ah, hell, like clockwork. Like I said, kid was doing a good job. Seemed to walk around talking to himself an awful lot, but hey, this job gets lonely, I get it. Lieutenant Haynes sighed and flipped his field journal shut.

Much as he wanted to live up to the pomp and circumstance expected of him, this seemed like a fairly open and shut case. The county coroner suspected it had been a cardiac event, and there was no reason to believe otherwise. He stood. Just one more question, Mr. Gordon. Why the hell do they have you guys guarding the bones of an abandoned warehouse that burnt down two years ago? Matt Gordon explained to Lieutenant Haynes about the junk metal and the copper wire,

the junkers and the scrappers, and the way things used to be before the fire. He went on to explain that while the fire that tore through the warehouse was blamed for killing a dozen of the women who worked there, including the most gorgeous secretary that Matt had ever laid eyes on, it wasn't really the fire that was to blame. He had been there and seen the whole sad sight. 200 workers, stampeding like cattle, pushing down the defenseless old women in their way and trampling them on their way out the front door.

Just like with Harold, Matt never did get to finish the story. Lieutenant Haynes had to cut him off. Dispatch was frantically calling out all available units to the third fatal house fire in the past two hours. Three down and many more to go before the slate will be clean. And the smoke that fills their scorched lungs will smell of Jasmine and vanilla. For episode has come to an end. Thank you for spending time with us at the No-Noccurts. sleep podcast. If you would like to learn how you can hear the full-length version of this episode

featuring many more stories, please visit the no-sleeppodcast.com and click on the season pass link. Purchasing a season pass will help support everyone who contributes to the podcast, and in return, you'll get 25 full-length episodes and three exclusive bonus episodes, all for only. 1999. This is David Cummings. Thank you for listening and join us again for the next episode of the No Sleep