The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S4E02

Episode Date: June 15, 2014

It's episode 2 of Season 4. We have six tales for you in this episode featuring stories about menaced mothers, perilous precipitation, and villainous videos. The full episode features the following stories. The free version features only the first three tales.  "Redhouse" written by Jill Berwick and read by L. Bentley. Music by Brandon Boone. (Story starts at 00:03:30) "The Silence Experiment" written by J.P. Leupold and read by Jessica McEvoy (Story starts at 00:16:25) "The Black Rain" written by Logan Barker and read by David Cummings & Alexis Bristowe. (Story starts at 00:30:15) "Christina Took Things" written by Carlos Rivera and read by Alexis Bristowe. Music by Brandon Boone. (Story starts at 00:43:15) "I Am a Good Parent" written by Stephanie Nguyen and read by Corinne Sanders. Music by Brandon Boone. (Story starts at 01:05:15) "Moderated" written by Edwin Crowe and read by Peter Lewis. (Story starts at 01:15:40) Click here to learn more about Edwin Crowe 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

The sunlight fades to dark. The freight freight. To give him to your fear, there will be no. The no sleep pot. He was a monster, and he walked towards me and my baby with a morphing face and brassy breath. I was frozen as the din of whispers grew in volume. Words drowned each other out as the voices grew deafening. They pushed their own heads underwater until we could no longer see any inkish black bubbles

rising to the top. She reached out, grabbed Priscilla's arm and pulled. I screamed and held on, begging, please stop. Please leave us alone. Mom, Dad, I heard something in my closet. What was that? I cringed us to buy. It's episode two of season four.

Welcome to the show. I'm your host, David Cummings. We have six tales for you in this episode, featuring stories about menaced mothers. perilous precipitation, and villainous videos. Well, the No Sleep Podcast is now officially into its fourth year of production. In case you missed it, last Friday the 13th, I released our third anniversary bonus episode. It's a full-length free episode for one and all. Three full years.

At times, it feels like it's been a lot longer than that. and other times it feels like it began only yesterday. Whether you've been with us from the start or joined us recently, I appreciate everyone who listens to what we do and hope you enjoy many more episodes to come. As we move into our fourth year, it's time to welcome a new narrator. Alexis Bristow shares her talent with us on two stories in this episode.

You know, for the longest time, it was tough to find, female narrators, and that was matched by the fact that there weren't a lot of stories written from a female perspective. But these days, the number of stories with female protagonists has grown considerably, and with them comes our excellent cast of female narrators. I'm glad Alexis is joining us, and we welcome her to the show. Now, it's taken us three years to get to this point, so let's not wait any longer and start the show. In our first tale, we meet a mother taking her infant child for a stroll around the neighborhood. But one wrong turn sets in motion a disturbing series of events that leaves her and her family in peril. Author Jill Berwick shares her tale with us, and narrator Elle Bentley reads the story about what happens when you find your way to the Red House.

I took my infant daughter for a walk through our new neighbourhood a few days ago. My family and I just moved to the city and we've been on a few stroll since then, nothing too extensive, just out getting a feel for our surroundings. I'm unfamiliar with the buildings and people who live around us and after my experience here, I feel like moving a million miles away. It's funny how these things work sometimes. I can't help but feel like I've somehow exposed myself to a terrible force. almost as if I've allowed something unnatural to enter my world.

Our walk began as normal. My boyfriend was out running errands, so it was just me and the babes. I strapped my one-year-old daughter into her stroller and slipped on her pink hat after applying some sunscreen. To my dismay, the weather had rapidly changed from warm and sunny to cool and cloudy after only walking ten minutes. We get used to these sort of occurrences in Nova Scotia. I must have been distracted with the thread of rain because I ended up in a subdivision I was unfamiliar with.

I couldn't be sure, but it seemed like we were only a few streets over from where I lived, so I carried on down towards the direction that seemed right. It was not. But instead of turning around, I was intrigued with what lay at the end of the short road. A massive, red house. I had never seen this building before, even though it was extremely large and sat on a vast. field that stretched out in every direction. This house must have been seven, eight stories tall and looked residential. I couldn't see any signs indicating it was a business, and there

was only one rusted pickup truck parked at the side entrance. Not to mention the building seemed to be in a serious state of disrepair. My daughter seemed content enough with our adventure and the weather hadn't degraded, so I decided to take a closer look. There were birds everywhere, crows, lining every branch of a dead tree that stood near the end of the dirt driveway. There were so many of them. I should have taken that as a sign, but I didn't. I wish I had. And then he appeared from the back of the house.

He walked slowly and strangely. He nodded his head in short, quick bursts. I stood frozen with my knuckles white around the handles of the handles of the house. the stroller. The crows were so loud, the cawing and hacking was almost deafening. That's the best way to describe it. It was like they were screeching directly at me. And this man, the twitching, nodding, hunched up man that limped in from out of nowhere. His hair was scraggly, with several bald spots. His limbs were long and thin, and his right foot dragged behind him. His clothes were old and tattered, caked in dirt and made crunching sounds as he staggered about.

He weezed. The crows screamed, and I looked up at them again on the tree. I could see that they were furiously eating each other. I went to scream, but nothing came out, although I could hear my daughter shriek and cry like never before. The man was now standing, lopsided, roughly ten feet away from us. I couldn't see his face. Maybe I turned away too fast, or maybe I had tears in my eyes.

This is what I told myself at first, but deep down, I knew the truth. He had no face. It was only a blur of shadows and distorted features, and... Oh my God, I can't stop crying and shaking as I write this, but I have to keep going for my child's sake. He was a monster, and he walked towards me and my baby with a morphing face and raspy breath. I have never ran so fast in my life. I still couldn't scream.

It was like my vocal cords were frozen and my throat was closed. Everything went blurry, but I just kept going. I had to get my daughter out of that hellish nightmare I dragged her into. This is not where the story ends. Oh God, I'm sorry. I wish it were, but it's not. I explained what happened to my boyfriend when he got home later that evening. He was understandably upset.

Our daughter was now peacefully sleeping and didn't seem to be bothered by the day's events once I got her home. I, however, was a complete wreck. My boyfriend wanted to take me to see a doctor and get something to calm me down. I almost agreed, but I couldn't stand the thought of leaving the house. It didn't feel safe out there. I slept for only two hours that night and had the most disturbing nightmares. My partner left for work at around 6 a.m. and the baby was still sound asleep. I kissed my man goodbye at the door and leaned against the doorway in exhaustion as I watched our beat-up car go down the road and out of sight.

I felt dreadfully exposed. And then something caught my eye. A small object in a bush near my front door had caught. the glint of the rising sun, so I bent down to pick it up. It was a toy truck. There's many families living around us, so I didn't find it odd. I was sure some child just dropped it while cutting through our yard on their way home. But as I examined it, it seemed far too old to belong to any child around here. It was one of those heavy cast iron toys that you never see anymore. It must have been 50 years old and looked like an antique more than a child's plaything.

Nobody would let their kid play with this now. It was dangerous and sharp and had small pieces. I remember being annoyed that I was now responsible for disposing of this piece of crap. Then I thought about posting it on eBay and seeing if it really was worth anything. I left it on my kitchen table and got ready for the day. When 9 a.m. rolled around, I started to get a bit worried. Sometimes my little girl likes to sleep in, like her mama, but never this late. I went up and checked on her and there she was, sleeping soundly, her little tummy rising and falling,

and her cute lips puckered up in her usual adorable manner. I felt relieved and headed back downstairs. I figured she must have been extra tired today. Then 10 a.m. came, and passed. 11 a.m. Still, she hadn't woken up. I was about ready to call my mother, my boyfriend, and probably 9-1-1 when I finally heard her soft cries echo down the hall.

I remember feeling silly for being so worried. I almost danced into her room and pushed open her door, but what I found sucked the air out of my lungs. My baby, my little girl, was

covered in blood. She seemed perfectly fine and unharmed, actually quite content as she played with one of her toys, but the blood was everywhere. I could barely make out where her hands were. There was so much blood.

I hurried towards her and picked her up. I undressed her and took a warm washcloth over every inch of her body, but there was no wound. I started crying at this point, just softly sobbing so as not to upset my child. What was wrong with my baby girl? I was about to call a cab to head down to the hospital, but then I saw it. The old cast iron truck was in my baby's crib. She was playing with it, and there was blood oozing out of it. That's when I lost it.

I ran outside, screaming and clutching my naked daughter tightly to my chest, dried blood covering my clothes, face, hair, and hands. People came out of their houses, and cars slowed down on the street as they saw me. I could only imagine what they were thinking. Someone must have called the police because they showed up shortly afterwards, but my boyfriend was the only one who could get me to calm down and start making sense. They checked out my house and their forensics team took the bloody toy truck away. I told him about the man in the red house and they said that they would go investigate

and that they would keep me and my family informed on what they found. And that was it. I saw the man that night. He stumbled past my living room window at around four. am. I was sitting in the dark on my laptop. I didn't move a muscle when I heard him. I don't think I could have moved if I'd wanted to. He put something else on the lawn and I felt hot tears fall on my face. Once the sounds out front stopped, I called the cops and they came right round. They found very large footprints and a clump of hair tied in string. And that was it. They keep telling us they're

patrolling the area and will keep us abreast on what they find, but I feel so hopeless. We're still waiting to find out what the lab results say about the blood found on the toy truck and the hair clump. And by the way, the house is real. The cops checked it out and said that it was long abandoned. I wish it had just been an illusion or something, but it's still there, with all the crows, and knowing it's out there, so close to my home, it makes me never want to sleep again. I feel like it wants my daughter. I came home to a message waiting for me from my local police station. When I called them back, they informed me the results were back from the lab on the blood and the hair samples they gathered, and this is where I need your help.

They rushed through the results like they didn't even care. They said the blood came back as goat's blood. The hair came back inconclusive, which I was almost relieved to hear because I don't know how much more of this I can take in. Why would there be goat blood? Is there some significance to goats and weird shit? I've been too exhausted and stressed to search this extensively, so any info would be helpful.

And now for the really scary part. A little after 1 a.m. last night, I heard my baby crying quite loudly over the monitor. I was actually kind of happy to hear her since I knew I'd be up for a while and some cute baby company would have done me some good. I started making her bottle, but dropped everything when I heard her wildly thrashing and screaming. I tripped running up the stairs I was going so fast, I busted my lip open, but I didn't even feel it at the time. I could hear her freaking out as my head laid on the floor in front for room. I swear I could feel her movements. Then I opened the door, and I promise you,

she was sound asleep. It was like I had imagined the whole thing. I thought I was losing my mind until my boyfriend came out of the bedroom in a dazed panic and asked me what was wrong with the baby. He had heard her crying too, but she was out like a light. She barely even flinched when I burst through the door, so she must have been in a deep sleep. Please, help me. You may be familiar with the concept of sensory deprivation. When we remove any form of stimulation to our senses, the results can be unsettling and upsetting. As author J.P. Lupled explains, when a woman decides to see what happens when she immerses herself

in complete and total silence, she quickly discovers that a lack of sound can do strange things to the human mind. Narrator Jessica McAvoy reads the tale for us about what can be heard during the silence experiment. I lived in a big city for a short period of time, and it wasn't until I moved there that I realized I had lost something that I was going to miss. Silence. It's one of those things you take for granted when you live in a small town or a suburb. We instinctively crave it.

The constant noise of a bustling city wears us down, and we desire the soulless of silence to refocus our minds to allow our bodies to relax. Without silence, there's no juxtaposition for music, nothing against which to measure the chaotic score of a movie. There's often more said in moments of silence than in long, and speeches or quick interjections. We measure our lives in silence. It rules our existence. Once I moved out of the city, I relished the silence I had rediscovered,

seeking it out wherever I could. Once I realized how fascinated I had become, I started doing research about sound and silence. Surely I wasn't the only person who wondered why we crave something that simple so strongly. My research led me to accounts of scientists, and others, who had secluded themselves in soundproof rooms to experience true silence without any interruptions whatsoever. All of the experiments I found seem to yield the same results.

There's a short period of adjustment while the brain becomes accustomed to the new environment, followed by the subjects reporting hearing a rushing sound. This was explained as the subjects hearing their own blood as it rushed through their ears. After the mind adjusts to this, the subjects would report hearing the workings of their internal organs as they perform their routine tasks. Each of these phases would fade as the mind adjusted and hearing became more sensitive. Eventually, subjects would report hearing a high-pitched wine. This was actually the electrical signals and impulses of their own nervous systems. Most official reports ended at that point.

Fueled by my own curiosity and bolstered by my research, I decided to do the experiment myself. Using some connections I'd made throughout the years and getting some strings pulled, I was able to arrange for a period of a few hours one afternoon in a soundproof lab space to experience true silence myself. The day came and I was ecstatic. I couldn't wait for my chance to explore something I was so fascinated by. When I arrived, they explained the procedure. Once in the room, I would be given a headset if I needed anything. I was to pick it up and place it in my ear.

It would be switched off until I did this. Only then would it be activated so there was no chance of unwanted external noise. Once the headset was in, I could communicate with the observing expert. I received the information in headset willingly, although I was resolute that I would not use them. I wanted no pollution in my pristine world of silence. After the briefing, it was time. I was led to a heavy door with a sizable locking mechanism. As it was opened, I observed a room covered with jagged foam angles and strange materials with thick walls.

This was the room. I took a deep breath and walked in. I heard the door shut behind me, the muffled thump of the heavy lock sliding into place. My time in silence had begun. I don't know if I can accurately describe what it was like for those first moments. I've heard the term oppressive silence, and while that may be a good start, it cannot truly make you understand the depth of the silence I experienced. What I did not realize until that door closed was just how much ambient and arbitrary sound exists in every moment. Take a moment and listen to the world around you.

You may hear the air of an AC unit. Perhaps there is a road nearby. It could be the war of your computer fan, or even just random bumps and creaks of a house adjusting to the air around it. To have all of that noise suddenly whisked away startling, and incredible. My experience began the same as the scientific accounts I had read. First was the rushing sound of my own blood. Then came the sounds of my organs keeping my body functioning. eventually came the high-pitched wine of my nervous system. I can understand why the experiments ended at this point.

I was becoming uneasy. My mind was unaccustomed to these sounds, and the passage of time is near impossible to track in the secluded room. However, I vowed to push through to experience a new level of silence. I waited as my ears started to adjust to the electrical. I wasn't sure what to expect next. I had experienced so many new things already that I couldn't predict what I might hear. Strangely, the last thing I expected was the thing I came to explore.

The wine went away, leaving only silence. I was stunned. This was something completely new. Even the sound of my breathing had vanished. I had to place my hand. on my chest to make sure my lungs were still functioning. The familiar rise and fall put me at momentary ease, so I tried to relax and experience the silence. That's when the whispers began. They started soft and sporadically, unintelligible. I thought it was my ears catching the occasional

sound of the breath, but soon they became louder. I was able to pick out individual voices, though I still could not understand them. I wanted to stop the experiment to pick up the headset, but I was paralyzed, be it with fear or something else. I was frozen as the din of whispers grew in volume. Words drawn each other out as the voices grew deafening. The lights disappeared. I was covered in darkness. The whispers abruptly ceased. I heard one clear voice. Light returned. I was on my back being examined by a paramedic,

the observing expert at my side. When I asked what had happened, they told me I had fainted. One moment I was fine, the next day had collapsed. When he came into check on me, he found me mid-seizure and called 911. I decided not to tell them what I experienced. I was given a full checkup and a clean bill of health.

but they recommended I go to the hospital anyway. I refused, telling them I would make an appointment with my primary doctor, then got my car and left. I was shaken, but I was convinced there was a logical explanation. Still, for the first time in my life, I was thankful for the roar of the tires on pavement. I arrived home and immediately opened my computer to find what could have caused the whispering. I returned to the original account of the silence. experiment to see if I had perhaps missed something.

As I reread the article, I noticed, it was quiet. No sooner had I realized the silence of my home than I heard it. A whisper, I froze. Fear gripped me as I strained my ears. Surely it was just a trick of my imagination. I stayed motionless, praying the quiet. Remain undisturbed. A whisper.

I couldn't turn on my music fast enough. I raised the volume so could be heard throughout the house. I went from room to room, searching. Empty. I went back to my research, leaving the music on. The first article I read gave me no insight to the frightening sounds I was now hearing. I poured over everything all the scientific records I could find, but discovered nothing.

My eyes were beginning to droop as exhaustion took hold. I considered going to sleep, but the thought of hours of uninterrupted silence pushed the thought from my mind. I brewed a pot of coffee, then continued with my research. Still, I was able to find nothing. In my desperation, I turned to alternative sources of information, previously disregarded for their lack of scientific values or confirmable data. I discovered a slew of urban legend-type stories concerning silence torture. Unwilling subjects would be locked in sound-proof rooms until the silence supposedly drove them mad.

It was there that I started to find stories of what I was experiencing. Subjects were reported screaming about hearing voices in this silence, even hours after being removed from the chambers. These voices persisted until the subjects could hear them even through constant noise, growing. in intensity until a whisper. My heart froze. The whisper had broken through the music. I shook my head telling myself it was a paranoid reaction to what I was reading. I turned back to my computer.

A whisper. I forced myself to ignore it. A whisper. Sleep. A whisper. No. I forced myself awake and pressed on. It has been five days since this all began.

I have not slept in that time. I still have no real data. No scientific report has given me insight. Less reputable sources have helped me. Some suggest the long silence allowed my brain to tap into the electrical frequencies through which spirits operate. Others suggest that my mind being deprived. of sound, convinced itself it had died. This allowed a willing malicious spirit to take hold

and attempt possession. My own theory is that the silence was too much stimulation for a human mind. It caused a psychotic episode that has yet to cease. The only thing I know for certain is that what I once sought so fervently is now gone. Silence I used to crave. I now fear. I now fear. I long for that comforting silence I used to know. But it is no matter. Silence is lost to me. The voices have persisted. They are no longer whispering.

They are speaking. Screaming. One voice drowns out all others. It tells me to sleep. Sully. The voices are... quieting. A whisper is so... While hunting through an old and abandoned house one day, some strange items are found in an old safe.

Upon further examination, a note is discovered that tells the disturbing story about an odd type of water. Author Logan Barker writes the tale about the effects of this water and what it means to all who encounter it. Narrator Alexis Bristow and I read the tale about what happens after the skies open up and release the black rain.

I found this note in one of the older houses in town. I wouldn't really call it trespassing so much as adventurous urban exploring. The note was in a rusted safe, wrapped in plastic baggies over and over again until the ball was roughly the size of my head.

In between each layer of plastic baggie, Hundreds of silica gel packs were stuffed. I brought home the huge ball and the bottle of liquid next to it. The outer baggies sort of crumbled, like they were brittle. But the inner ones were normal. After I read the note, I immediately knew I had to share it with someone. I remember when the rains first fell. Thankfully, I was inside at the time when the skies cried.

From a clear blue sky, rain fell. That wasn't too odd in Kansas, where the winds could blow rain from storm systems miles away, but the sheer amount was the first surprising aspect. I guess we should have realized something was wrong immediately. For one, the rain didn't stop. Two, it was icy cold. It felt like sleet falling on your bare skin, but this was the middle of July. Third, and this is what really got meteorologists involved. And later, the rest of the scientific community, the rain was black. Not pitch black or oily black, but like lake water on a dark night.

Just that deep. deep, still, watery darkness. Even single drops held the color, no matter what light you shone through it, no matter how much you diluted it. Oh, man, we were stupid then. Stupid and crazy. We'd take drops of the water, put them in jugs of tap water, and just watch as the rest of the water faded to match the black. inky texture of the black raindrop. But what were we supposed to do?

It had been raining for weeks at that point, and no one was willing to go outside. Shit, for all we knew, the rain could have been fallout or some new biological warfare tool. So we just stayed inside, our pitifully prepared supplies dwindling. The reports we got on the news were unhelpful at best and confusing or misleading at worst.

Scientists had done everything to this water. They'd examined it under electron microscopes, broken it down, analyzed for any virus, bacteria, protozoan, or parasite, and just could not find anything. The only two ways this water was different from any other water was the diluting aspect and its freezing temperature. The water seemed to have no known freezing point. Scientists said they expected its freezing point to be absolute zero, but had no way to test that theory. I'm rambling a bit,

but that's because it's hard to explain. what happened next. People began going outside into the now waist-high black waters. They were reassured by the government and the broadcasts that this water was essentially the same as any water. That, I can tell you, was a crock of shit. People began dying by the hundreds. As soon as As soon as they walked outside into that black tsunami that had been raging almost two months, they pushed their own heads underwater until we could no longer see any inkish black bubbles rising to the top. I watched my neighbors kill themselves, quite literally trying to go and get food. So I did the only thing I could.

I reinforced the sandbags and the water sealant. around every entrance and every exit of my home. The real hell happened about half a week later. You see, that water did not dilute, and in fact managed to turn any surrounding regular water into the exact same thing that fell from the skies day and night. From day one, pools had turned black, rivers too. Since we lived in a landlock state, we never thought about the oceans.

Could they have turned black as well? I received a picture from one of my friends that lived on the coast. For miles, all you could see was black, dark, deep, horrific black water. I ended the call and curled up with my pillow. People began talking about the end of days, of the reckoning, and how this must be heaven's ashes leaking through the clouds. Lucifer must have won, the churches proclaimed. Bedlam lived in my small town. Suicide seemed the only option.

Police could do nothing. Paramedics killed themselves the moment. they tried to leave to help anyone. Wherever you were, you were stuck there. I thought that this was the end, that my house would just crack under the growing water pressure. But no, the black rain did not force itself upon people. It would wait for you to come to it. I had begun to think of it as a an entity instead of an anomaly. It had to have some sentience, right? To make people just kill themselves like that.

To override someone's survival instincts and push their heads under water, fighting not only their need to breathe, but their own buoyancy. Would not give in. I swore that. I would never give in. give in. The black rain found a way to make us crack.

Somehow, through all the torrential downpour, some of that hellish water had made it into a water reservoir. And that water went through the treatment facilities, and those treatment facilities sent it through the plumbing

to my city's houses. I jumped back the first time I turned on the faucet and saw black water running down my train. It had found a way to break us. Now, for all we knew, all the water in the world was now this stuff. I don't know how many people killed themselves or went outside after that. I had lost internet connection weeks prior, and cable and phones had been out since the third month. I survived as long as I could until it started playing dirty

I looked out my window where the water was almost up to the glass outside I had been looking out every day seeing how much the never-ending skyburst would let down it had become a morbid ritual a daily reminder that my time was at an end. This day, I looked up and someone looked back. Standing outside my window was a woman.

She was soaked and her clothes were muddy, but she was human and alive. I almost wrenched my window open, but then I saw who it was. It was my neighbor, the same one who drowned herself almost six months ago. Her skin was pale, not seven months indoors like the rest of us pale, but a ghastly spectral white. And under that morbid marble, I could see each and every one of her veins and arteries.

all which were etched in obsidian blackness. I stepped back, drawing the curtains for the first time in seven months. I am leaving this note here, protected by every desiccant I could find in the house. I've also left a bottle of that damned water, sealed and capped. If you read this, story. it for the future. Maybe we can figure out what killed us. Maybe it won't have to happen again. I can feel them all staring at me behind the blinds. I don't know how many there are out there, but they're patiently awaiting me. I won't leave the fuckers anything to take control of. I'll win this,

in my own way. Excuse me, I have a date with a shotgun. I pray that the water can't take me if I blow the top of my head off. The note was signed

allegedly, but I could only make out bits of the date. The 15th of some month 2018. Our episode has come to an end. Thank you. for spending time with us at the No 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 nosleeppodcast.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. 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 Podcast.