The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S5E02

Episode Date: February 15, 2015

It's episode 2 of Season 5. We have five tales this week featuring stories about menacing monsters, mental madness, and freezing frights. The full episode features the following stories. The free version features only the first three tales.  Trigger Warnings "I Thanked the Man Who Murdered My Only Friend" written by Manen Lyset and read by David Cummings. (Story starts at 00:03:05) "The Studio Audience" written by Manen Lyset and read by Jessica McEvoy. (Story starts at 00:18:05) "The Jack Monster" written by William Dalphin and read by Peter Lewis, Otis Jiry, Sophia Alesdair, & David Cummings. (Story starts at 00:28:45) "Every Computer Makes Mistakes" written by Aaron Ware and read by David Cummings. (Story starts at 00:57:05) "I Regret Ever Working In The South Pole" written by Sam Marduk and read by Mike DelGaudio, Jessica McEvoy, Corinne Sanders, Peter Lewis, and David Cummings. (Story starts at 01:27:55) Click here to learn more about Manen Lyset Click here to learn more about William Dalphin Click here to learn more about Sam Marduk Click here to learn more about Mike DelGaudio Click here to learn more about Otis Jiry Podcast produced by: David Cummings Music & Sound Design by: Brandon Boone & David Cummings "The Jack Monster" illustration courtesy of Lukasz Godlewski This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons License 2015. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Warning. This is a horror fiction podcast. Beware. It's intended for mature adults, not the faint of heart. Aware. Join us at your own risk. But close your eyes, tales of horror to frighten and disturb as the sleepless hours take past. Brace yourself for the no-sleep podcast.

Season 5. Welcome to the No Sleep Podcast. I'm your host, David Cummings. We have Five Tales this week, featuring stories about menacing monsters, mental madness, and freezing frights. I hope everyone enjoyed a fun February 14th, Valentine's Day. There's nothing like sinking your teeth into a warm, sticky heart, is there?

I mean those cream-filled chocolate hearts, of course. Not a real heart. That would be, well, unpleasant. I want to take a second and follow up on an announcement I made, well, it seems like almost a year ago now, regarding the sale of No Sleep Podcast merchandise, stuff like a soundtrack album of the music from the show, T-shirt, stickers, coffee mugs, all that fun stuff.

We're still working hard to make all that stuff available. Frankly, there's just one big bottleneck holding things up. And I don't want to name names, but I'm pretty sure the problem lies with someone named David K. Oh, yeah, that's right. It's me. I'm the problem. But rest assured, we'll keep at it, and hopefully in the near future we'll update you on our progress. I certainly appreciate your patience.

So now grab a big box of chocolates and curl up with someone or something you love, and let's get the show started. In our first tale, we meet a man who spends a lot of his time in a bar. You see, his dear friend is the bartender there, and they enjoy many night swapping tails lubricated by their libations. But in this tale from author Manon Lyset, we learn of one fateful night when a mysterious stranger shows up at the bar, a stranger whose motives aren't quite as they first appear. The events in question caused the man to make this startling statement. I thank the man who murdered my only friend. I'm not a social man, and I've had few friends in my mind.

life. Sal, the bartender at my favorite pub, he was one of the select few in my inner circle. I know what you're thinking. He's a bartender. He has to be friendly to get a good tip. Nah, you're wrong. It goes beyond that. I'd known Sal for over 25 years and sat across from him at the bar almost every day since we met. When I got married, Sal was my best man. When my wife threw me out, it was at Sal's home that I stayed. When she took full custody of my daughter, it was Sal who consoled me. He was a good friend, always willing to listen to me and give me advice, like any bartender would. Unlike the other tenter, However, Sal actually cared.

Now, Sal was a very private man with a rather quiet demeanor. That said, on the few occasions where he chose to let loose, he talked a lot. Sal had a way of capturing the attention of everyone in the room. This might sound a bit cliched, but he'd regale us with stories. of his youth. He told us about his cross-country trips, his overseas adventures, his mishaps,

and his entertaining anecdotes. When he spoke, his audience sat on the edges of their seats, hanging on his every word as he gave them the juicy details of his endless tales. He was old now and couldn't travel quite as often.

He didn't seem to mind. He always had a smile on his face and a cheerful attitude that brightened the mood of everyone he came across. One evening, as I was enjoying a drink, I noticed a man in a booth staring at Sal from across the room. At my angle, I could barely make out his short and spiky raven hair. I pointed him out to Sal, and he told me he'd been coming in every night that week, never ordering anything. Sal, being the big softy that he was, couldn't bring himself to kick the guy out. Considering I went to the pub every night, I was surprised I hadn't seen the stranger until that evening. I was probably too drunk to notice.

Later that night, after drinking one too many drinks, as I tended to do all too often, according to my ex-wife, I passed out across a row of chairs. Sal trusted me enough to leave me there, even after closing time. I woke up long before dawn and made my way through the dimly lit bar to the back door, which could only be opened from the inside. This wasn't my first time taking a snooze alone in the bar, so I knew my way around well enough not to run into any of the tables on my way out. As I opened the door to the back alley, I heard what sounded like applause, but it turned out to be the sound of three dozen crows taken flight.

They hovered above the cold alleyway for a few moments, and then landed on and around the leaky dumpster in the front. I jumped when I saw the damned birds. I'm not afraid of crows, mind you. I even feed the ones at work during lunch. They startled me as all. A hunter's moon peeked through the clouds and illuminated the scene. There was someone standing on the other side of the dumpster

in the forest of crows. It was the man I had seen earlier that night. He had his back turned to me, wearing a black trench coat and boots laced with multiple buckles. There was a large crow perched on his shoulder. Something was odd about his back, a bulky mass moved under his coat, causing it to shift around like curtains in the breeze.

The dumpster smelled particularly putrid tonight, I thought. I glanced at the stranger who stood between me and the street. I moved towards him and saw that his crow was chewing on something. At first I thought it was a gummy worm, but as I approached, I realized it was much darker and oozed crimson blood onto the cold, wet pavement. Then I saw Sal. He lay on the ground, his body ripped open, serving as a buffet for the hungry crows to feast on. They pecked at his innards, taking turns chewing on his softer organs.

I could hear the crunching sounds as they broke apart his bones with their abnormally strong beaks. Bringing a hand to my mouth, I emitted an audible gasp. The sound caught the stranger's attention, and he slowly turned to face me. His golden serpentine eyes reminded me of headlights. Something in his left hand gleamed in the moonlight. It was a short silver dagger, the edge covered in liquid that belonged in my friend's veins. I should have been terrified, angry, sad, but I felt strangely calm. My eyes were transfixed on the surreal sense.

scene and the man at the center of it all. Though he held a weapon and though he had used that weapon to murder my friend, I didn't feel as though I was in any danger. The man gave me the quiet smile of a Grecian statue, projecting calmness despite the feeding frenzy at his feet. His footsteps echoed down the narrow alleyway as he made his way towards me. My heart thumped hard in my chest. Paralyzed with fear or disbelief, I watched him outstretch a hand to my face

with a gentle elegance seldom attributed to the male gender. The crow on his shoulder tilted in. head as its master scraped his long black nails against my cheek. I felt a faint stinging sensation, no worse than that of a paper cut. The man gave me an amused hum as he brought his fingers to his mouth and tasted a few drops of my blood. I'm not sure how long it took me to snap to my mouth. took me to snap out of the shock. But when I finally did, I looked towards Sal's final resting place and saw that there was nothing left of my old friend, not even a drop of blood. The stranger

turned his back to me, and a sudden flood of adrenaline compelled me to grab a wooden plank from the ground. I threw myself towards the man. but stopped all of a sudden when his trench coat slid off. Two massive black wings clutched to his back like climbing vines. Black veins led to and from the appendages, which flared out with a sound similar to that of an unfurling sail. The man gave me one final look and spoke to me in a, deep booming voice.

You will thank me one day. With that, the crows took flight, and the man disappeared. I was left alone in the alleyway as the sun rose. No evidence of the man, his crows, or my dead friend. I tried going to the cops, but what? could I tell them? I sat in front of the police station, going over the facts in my mind. They'd never believe that some sort of crow demon and his army of minions ate Sal. I ultimately chose inaction, hoping I'd merely suffered a booze-induced nightmare. Ah, it was no nightmare.

Sal was reported missing by the pub's owner a few days later. An investigation began, and what the police uncovered, shocked even me, who had seen a guy get eaten by a flock of crows. They found evidence linking Sal to no less than 15 cases of missing children. He had kept trophies of their remains hidden in a safe under his bed. Then it hit me the reason for Sal's frequent trips in his youth. He'd been doing the wretched deed far from home so he wouldn't get caught. This may sound weird, but I'm still grateful for Sal's friendship.

As I explained earlier, I'm not a very social man. When you get to be over 20, it becomes a lot harder to meet people outside of work, and the friends you do have tend to drift away. Sal helped me through tough times, and I'll always be thankful for his friendship. I still mourn him. No, not the bad parts. I mourn the loss of the man I thought he was. It may seem strange to you, but that's how I feel.

These days, I've stopped drinking. I haven't set foot in that pub since the day Sal died. My ex and I even got back together. I get to see my kids. every day and that is the greatest gift of all. I guess in a way, Luz and Sal was one of the best things that ever happened to me. On my way home from work yesterday, I saw a crow with familiar snake eyes gleaming like headlights. He gave me a knowing nod and I knew we understood one another. the horrific things found in Sal's home they had retrieved a fully packed duffel bag a single

one-way ticket to Mexico for the day after he was killed and hundreds of photos of my wife and daughter the crow man saved them and that my friends is why I smiled to that crow and uttered two simple words. Thank you. It's not uncommon to watch TV shows which are filmed in front of a live audience. The reactions of the crowd can be annoying, but now imagine hearing those reactions everywhere you go, spurred on by the events of your own life. In this our second tale from author Manon Lyset, we meet a woman who suffers some strange side effects of a concussion. These side effects seem amusing at first,

but soon she realizes they may be revealing a deeper truth about her own personality. Narrator Jessica McAvoy reads the tale for us about what it's like to live your life when your head is filled with The Studio Audience This is going to sound like a farce. But ever since I suffered a concussion last summer, I've been hearing a live studio audience around me 24-7. The doctors reassured me they were merely auditory hallucinations

brought on by the bump to my noggin and that they'd eventually go away on their own once my brain healed. It was actually kind of funny at first. I mean, once I got over the initial shock and fear of hearing unsolicited reactions of a bunch of strangers. They started off more entertaining than disturbing, but that balance eventually shifted, and I'm afraid of them now. The very first time it happened was the day I was discharged from the hospital. It was a beautiful August day, and I was psyched to finally go out in the warm sun. Eric, my boyfriend, picked me up from the hospital to take me back to our apartment.

I was in high spirits, despite a persistent headache, which had followed me since the bike accident. Eric made a joke, and suddenly, a flurry of hysterical laughter came flooding in from every corner of the car. Screamed at Eric to turn off his surround sound system, covering my ears to drown out the noise. but the laughter only got louder. I could tell by the freaked out look in Eric's eyes that he hadn't been playing a practical joke on me. Once the chuckle subsided, I explained what happened. Eric turned the car around and drove me straight back to the medical facility. A brain scan, a few blood tests, and countless hours later,

the doctors assured me it was a harmless side effect of the concussion, and not a case of sudden onset schizophrenia as I had feared. It was perfectly normal. Well, as perfectly normal as hearing a room full of easily entertained spectators could be. They told me to go home and rest. It took me a few days to adjust to the auditory hallucinations, but I eventually started to see the humor in my predicament. Meetings at work were a lot more entertaining.

What with the peanut gallery projected, annoyed groans whenever my boss slipped into a boring tangent. I didn't even have to secretly roll my eyes. The voices in my head were the perfect vessel through which I could express my innermost feelings without getting in trouble. At home, my captive audience laughed at each of my jokes, even when Eric failed to react to the punchline.

When I went to bed, they'd awe as I wrapped my arms around Eric. And again, when my arms around Eric, And again, when my cat curled up between us for warmth, the voices even became a sort of early detection system, warning me of unseen dangers through a series of suspenseful gasps. It started going downhill about two months ago when I was taking a shower alone in my apartment.

Eric was out of town that night, and I had this lingering fear that I'd forgotten to lock the front door. As I was pouring conditioner into the palm of my hand, I heard the studio audience gasp in fear. It startled me enough that I spilled the coconut-scented beauty product near my feet. My spectators continued to breathe in a stressed manner that suggested I was about to get attacked by a psycho-murtering home invader. I could feel myself tensing up as I stood there naked and unprotected.

Thinking I heard footsteps, I took a step back and slipped on the small puddle of conditioner. I remember feeling my feet. flying towards the air while my upper body swung towards the floor. With a sharp pain to the side of my head, everything went black. By the time I came to, the water was running cold. I called my dad and he brought me to the hospital. I was rewarded with nine stitches to the temple. It's amazing what peer pressure can make you do, even when your peers don't actually exist. In a matter of weeks, my captive audience managed to completely disrupt my life. After the shower incident, it was as though they were no longer on my side.

One morning, I was crossing the street when I heard them gasp. I stopped thinking a car was heading my way. Fortunately, the street was empty. Unfortunately, my rapid stop caused me to slip on the ice and break my wrist. Several days later, I had an important marketing presentation at work. The studio audience kept making disapproving noises, sometimes even booing me mid-presentation. It got me so tongue-tied that I messed up the whole sales pitch.

The worst was what they did to my relationship with Eric. Whenever we fought, they conveyed to me through, and that Eric was a complete scumbag. I'm not even sure what our last fight was about. I think it started with asking him to close the laundry room door. It was such an insignificant little fight, but made worse by the advice and reactions of a bunch of imaginary strangers. They made me doubt my feelings for him until I finally cut him loose, much to their delight.

My relationships with my parents and friends devolved in a similar manner. It was shocking for me to hear what my subconscious mind actually thought about the people that had surrounded me all my life. After a few more incidents at work, my boss fired me. I was left without loved ones, friends, or a job. I felt so isolated, despite being accompanied at all times by the voices in my head. Alone in my living room, I drunk-diled my ex. and he came over to cheer me up. We got back together that night, and it was wonderful.

Everything went back to normal after Eric and I rekindled our flame. I still heard the constant and distracting laugh track, but I tried my hardest to ignore them. I was happy again, and slowly but surely, I mended every bond I'd broken. I even got my old job back. Apparently my boss couldn't handle the work, workload without me, or so I've been told.

For a while, all was right with the world. Until one dreadful night, I was half asleep when I heard a knock at the door. I peeked through the window, only to find a squad car in my driveway. My heart stopped. I opened the door, but of all the things those cops told me, all I remember hearing was this. I'm sorry, ma'am. there's been an accident. The studio audience roared with laughter and applause.

Eric had died. Fert broke, but my spectators continued chuckling wildly. When Eric's casket was lowered into his grave, they laughed even harder. Tears streamed down the sides of my face, but they did not stop giggling and snickering the whole time. I must be some kind of sick monster because I can't keep them from laughing whenever I think of him. I just can't get them to stop. Many a young child has been warned by their parents to stay away from a certain part of their house. Usually a workroom, the attic, or the basement.

In this tale from author William Delphin, we learn about a father and his son, and how the father insisted that his son never, ever go down in the basement. His reason, well, simple, there's a monster down there. Narrators Peter Lewis, Otis Jiry, and Sophia Alistair, read the story for us as we find out what exactly lurks in the dank, dark basement. So come down the dark stairs with us and meet the dark stairs. The Jack Monster has always been somewhat eccentric, prone to tell tales of his childhood, keeping collections of old knick-knacks and assorted antiquities he'd find at auction,

and strict adherence to bizarre house rules. Growing up in his home, the same home he grew up in, that was passed down from generation to generation, took a lot of willpower. He would say it built a lot of character. My mom would always say he was a character. So it came as no surprise to me when a friend in the area called to let me know my dad had caught a case of pneumonia

after they'd found him wandering around during the season's heaviest snowfall in just a pair of old jeans and a wifebeater. Since my mother had passed away, his bizarre behavior had grown increasing, seemingly erratic. Some good Samaritans offered to drop in once or twice a day, but I didn't want them to have to deal with his idiosyncrasies, so I drove up to the old homestead to nurse him back to health myself. I hadn't been back to that house since I'd finished school back in 1998. It had always been a

point of contention between us, but I just never felt comfortable there. When I arrived, my father was curled up on the couch in the living room, wrapped in blankets, and watching old episodes of the Woodwright shop on the same TV he'd had for 30 years. I gave him a hug, which he mostly ignored, in favor of sipping at a cup of tea. It's good to see you, Dad. You know, it shouldn't take me catching pneumonia to get you to come visit. How did you end up with no shoes in the middle of a snowstorm? He stared at the television, trying to ignore me. What were you doing out there? You're going to stay. Make sure you follow the rules.

You remember the rules, don't you? I sighed. Yes, sir. So let's hear them. Don't touch the thermostat. Don't leave lights on in rooms you aren't occupying. Replace any food you take from the fridge. And stay out of the...

The basement. The basement. Because of the jack monster. My father nodded and sipped his tea. Step back about 30 years. We had moved into the house when I was five after my grandfather passed away, leaving it to us in his will. Dad took a job teaching history at the local university, as his father had done before him.

He called it our legacy. I wanted no part in it. House was grand. A pine-green Victorian with a black roof built at the top of a long hill beside approximately 25 acres of forest. It had a porch that extended all the way across the front, three bedrooms, two baths, an attic, and a basement. The first couple of years living there were peaceful.

I went to school, my father walked to work, and my mother volunteered at an animal shelter. Dad would come home at the same hour every evening, sit in the living room and watch the news, then join my mother and me in the kitchen where we ate dinner and shared our days. Everything seemed normal. It wasn't until I was older that I became aware that my father spent an inordinate amount of time in the basement with the door locked. Stranger still, when he wasn't in the basement, he had even more locks on the outside of the door. My mother said he was tinkering in his workshop. He'd come up with metal shavings in his clothes and beard or covered with sawdust.

Regularly, brown parcels with no return address would arrive in the mail, and he'd disappear into the cellar with them. We had weekly runs to Obishone hardware to buy what. whatever tools he needed. When a teacher prompted us to write an essay about what we wanted to be when we grew up, I wrote, I want to be a tinkerer like my dad. During the next parent-teacher conference, I showed it off proudly to my parents. When we got home, my father was clearly agitated. It's not tinkering.

He grumbled as we hung our coats up in the entryway opposite the door to the basement. My mother sighed and walked inside, leaving us alone. Help you with your work, Daddy? Grading papers? No, in the basement. He knelt beside me and put his strong hand on my shoulder, gripping it firmly but gently. If I'm successful, someday you can come down. But for now, you've got to promise me you will never go in the basement.

But I want to be... Promise me. I sniffled and struggled to fight back the tears of rejection welling up. But why? Because there's a monster down there. As a child, the terrible mix of curiosity and fear it generated in me drove me mad with frustration. Now, as an adult with my father,

sick and seemingly confined to the couch or bed, I had the chance to once and for all see what he had been working on all those years. I needed to see what was in the basement. A jack monster be damned in the guest room listening to him downstairs as he watched back-to-back cop dramas on the television. It was going on midnight, and I was starting to wonder if he ever slept anymore when the sound from the TV went quiet and the house fell silent. I waited just to be sure he was sound asleep before I started sneaking around. Stealth was of the utmost importance, but fortunately I grew up in that house and knew every creaky board or squeaky hinge. I slid out of bed and crept down the hall to the master bedroom, moving quieter than the mouse when the cat's on the prowl.

The light from my phone illuminated the room with an eerie bright glow. His bed was neatly tucked in and appeared to not have been slept in for days. I moved silently to his bedside table where he had always kept a chain of keys for every lock in the house. The sound they made as I lifted them rang like church bells in my head, and I gripped them tightly to keep them from rattling from rattling. further. Successfully pocketing the keys, I crept downstairs, avoiding the noisy steps, and moved like a shadow past my father's sleeping form on the couch, down the hall, through the kitchen, to the entryway. Telling your kid that there's a monster in the basement naturally leads to all

sorts of questions. How did it get there? What does it look like? Why doesn't it eat you? At first, I was too scared to ask questions. There was a monster in the basement. My father said so. Case closed. Stay out of the basement. Gotcha. But after the initial revelation did not result in the monster storming upstairs to eat me,

I decided I wanted to know more. What kind of monster is it? I asked my father, as he did the Sunday crossword at the breakfast table, just out of the blue. You know, come on, Dad, let's talk about the basement monster over eggs and toast. It's called the Jack Monster. Eat your cereal. Why does it live in the basement?

My father sighed and set down the newspaper. Because it's dark down there. Lights? There are lights, but there aren't any windows, and it's dank and dingy. Perfect monster habitat. Why aren't you scared of it? He looked at me. I was.

When you were a kid? Yeah. Why aren't you afraid of it now? Look, it's a long story, and hopefully you never have to worry about it, so finish eating, get ready for school. But why is it called the Jack Monster? That's its name. I spent a somber moment staring at the door. fiddling with the keys in my pocket.

Three padlocks stood between me in the basement. It took several attempts to find the right one on the chain, but eventually I inserted the correct one into the first lock. It didn't turn easily. Rust and corrosion fought with cold enthusiasm. It took a bit of strength to work the key, but after half a minute, I felt the housing give a satisfying click,

and the shackle popped out. Pocketing the lock, I repeated the steps for the second and third, then the deadbolt. Finally, I turned the knob and opened the door to the basement, slowly in case the hinges needed oiling. Stale air wafted up from the darkness. It reminded me of the stories I'd read about the unearthing of King Tut's tomb, of how the air had been centuries old and full of ancient germs. When was the last time my father was down there? I descended the stairs carefully, holding the railing in case any of the boards were rotted and gave under my weight.

There were no windows in the basement, just as my father had said. Not even moonlight penetrated the room. There was, however, a light bulb with a chain by the bottom of the stairs, so I turned that on. The room was washed. in dim yellow light. The floor of the basement was hard-packed dirt, uneven in places. The ceiling was high enough that I couldn't touch it standing up straight and covered with some sort of thick insulation. Several thick support columns prevented the far side of the room from being illuminated, but I could see a number of work benches. Tools lined the walls, hammers,

screwdrivers, wrenches, and five different types of wood saws. Proped against one of the work benches was a shotgun. On the nearest work area was a contraption that sent the skin on my arms crawling. It consisted of two halves of a bear trap screwed to a wood block

with a sharp metal spike protruding from the base. Several small fan of, fan blades were soldered to the spike in a helical pattern. On the back of the block was a lawnmower engine. The entire thing was attached to a long metal pole with a rip cord running from the engine to the grip. That is not a toy, I muttered to myself. As if in response I heard the rattling of a heavy chain

from the shadows in the far corner of the room. Something was dragging across the dirt floor behind one of the support columns. I jumped, feeling like my heart leapt higher than the rest of me. My stomach twisted and prepared to launch itself up my throat. My phone, with its tiny little light, became my shield, held out at arm's length to ward off whatever horror shambled forth. Only one thought ran through my head. The jack-mong was a man. A middle-aged man dressed in a torn shirt and boxers,

he limped from the shadows clutching his leg, which was bound with a wrought iron shackle attached to a chain that trailed off into the darkness. His face was bruised and swollen. Dirt and blood covered his arms. I noticed a makeshift bandage concealing where two of the fingers on his left hand were missing. Linned as he limped toward me. I could muster. The man collapsed at my feet, clutching my pant leg with his good hand.

As he hunched over, I saw the back of his shirt, shredded with lashes that exposed the meat beneath his skin. He was sobbing, fumbling. in the dust just trying to stay on his knees. He's a monster. He choked through ragged breath. His jaw was so swollen, he sounded like he was talking through a mouthful of cotton balls. Who are you? I asked, dumbfounded, eyes filled with panic and desperation.

Foley. Jack Foley. Please. Please get me out of here. I tried to step back, but the man held my pant leg, and it sent him sprawling to the floor. Did my father do this to you? Yes. Look at what he did.

Look at my fucking fingers. He tore at his hair and waved his bandaged hand up at me. His eyes were pinwheeling in the... their sockets. Hold still and be quiet. He's asleep. Please right upstairs. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Here's streaming down his filth-covered face. I knelt down beside him and studied the manacle clasped onto his calf. They looked about a hundred years old, but my father had used some solder to write strings of symbols all over. them. The chain was equally old and rusty. Setting down my phone, I wondered which of the keys belonged to this lock. The light shone on a pile of blood-soaked clothes. I'm not talking about the

clothes off the man who was weeping in front of me. I'm talking about three dozen pairs of pants at least and shirts to go with them, and socks and shoes, and a pile of wallets close to to me. I got up and left the frangible shell of a man huddling on the floor by my phone. What are you doing? Hang on a second.

Oh, please. My wake up! I knelt down and picked a wallet off the top of the pile. Cracked leather and bloated with business cards. Inside were credit cards, a gift card to a gas

Station. Photos. Photos. Photos of children, of a family smiling together. A photo of a young man on a driver's license that read Jack T. Pulaski. The other Jack looked over at me. That's not me! I dropped the wallet at my feet and picked another one off the pile. Jack Grace. I went through four more. before I felt sure I didn't need to look any further. They were all named Jack. Every single man my father had dragged down there to torture and kill in our basement. Dozens.

It made no sense. Where did he find so many people named Jack? Had this been going on all these years? Get me out of here. Please. Jack whispered loudly, clutching his leg iron and gesturing toward it with his free hand. I hurried back to his side and handed him the keys. It's one of these.

He fumbled with the key ring, dropping it for a moment, before shoving key after key frantically into the lock on his binding. The rest of the horrors of that basement had vanished from his mind, and only his inevitable freedom, Matt. I'm sorry. For all of this, use my phone. Call the police. I have to confront my father.

Be careful and wait here. Yes, yes, yes, yes. The poor man rambled. His fingers were trembling. I felt revulsion watching him scramble to undo the manacles. I want it out of there. I wished I had never come down and discovered my father's secret. I knew I was doing the right thing, but it was still my father upstairs, the real monster in that house.

Mother was tucking me into bed. I had gotten up for the fourth night in a row crying because of nightmares where a woman with long black hair terrorized me from my closet. My mom kissed me on the forehead. There's nothing in your closet. She whispered, smoothing my hair. There's no such thing as monsters. What about the jack monster? That's just your father's way of keeping you from getting heard on something in the basement.

Have you been in the basement? She looked off into the middle distance. No. There's nothing down there to see. Then why does Daddy keep it locked from the outside? She didn't answer me. She just pet my head gently and started to sing one of her songs about how much she loved me and how much I needed to go to sleep.

I knew now why he kept the basement locked from the outside, that son of a bitch. I stomped up the stairs listening as the sound of jazz. struggling to find the correct key seemed to fade away as I passed the threshold of the door. Soundproofing. That was one of the things he'd been working on down there. No wonder we never heard any screaming or other sounds coming from the cellar. An unnatural cold breeze blew past me as I entered the kitchen. It brushed past like moth wings and sent a tremor through me. I was already shaking with a mixture of rage, fear, and shame. Shame that neither my mother nor I had made even a modicum of effort to find out what my father was really up to. How many men, how many Jacks, died, begging for mercy because of our apathy?

The living room was black as pitch, but I knew where everything was. I strode across the room with disgust over to the couch where my father lay sleeping and turned on the lamp on the side table, ready with a glare aimed right at his head. The couch was unoccupied. I glanced around the room. All that rage and anger I had just built up spiral down the drain, leaving only apprehension. Where had he gone? His empty teacup sat on the table, and the blanket he'd covered himself with was crumpled in a heap on the floor.

Something was off, though. Something was wrong. I picked up the blanket. It was wet and sticky with blood. Red droplets against the green polyester, a trail of them, lead out into the hallway and up the stairs to the second floor. I followed them cautiously, every nerve in my body firing off in an escalating sense of anxiety. Dad, I called up the stairs. Had he hurt himself? Are you okay?

No answer. Without thinking, I bolted two steps at a time up to the second floor, down the hall and into the master bedroom, no longer angry, just wanting to make sure he had to. harmed himself. He needed help, and he needed to be stopped, but he was still my father. Please, Dad, don't have done something foolish. I flipped the light switch, bathing the room in fluorescence. More blood. Lots more blood. A deep crimson stain running down the foot of the bed. It all looked a sickly brown under the yellow light. The linens were a tangled mass of sheets and covers

like someone had engaged in an epic struggle on them. My stomach turned like Carybdis. In the center of the tangle of sheets, covered with street bloody fingerprints, was my phone, a set of keys. and one pair of twisted, ruined, wrought iron manacles. If I hadn't gotten a good look at them earlier, with their delicately sauntered runes,

I wouldn't have recognized the bindings that had kept the beast restrained for so many years. On the wall, above the headboard, the jack monster had left me one final message. Don't go. In the basement. How many years had my father spent down there trying to figure out if the jack monster had a weakness? Maybe it went back further than that. Had it been there with my grandfather, too?

Generations of my family living in this house trying to kill a single demon while struggling to protect everyone they loved from it. I called the police from the landline and sat in the kitchen with all the lights on. A pair of police cars arrived within minutes, four uniformed officers. I showed them the living room, my father's bedroom, and the message the Jack Monster had left. I know this sounds insane, but I don't. Why? One asked, because there's a monster down.

there. They went anyway. Guns drawn. All four of them. They've been down there for hours now. 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 No Sleep Podcast.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 next week for the next episode of the No Sleep Podcast.