The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S5E07

Episode Date: March 29, 2015

It's episode 7 of Season 5. We have five tales this week from the rivers, lakes, and forests of nature to the unnatural confines of a cement cell. The full episode features the following stories. The free version features only the first two tales.  "What I Found" written by Keith McDuffee and read by Channe Nolen & David Cummings. (Story starts at 00:04:20) "She Was Such a Sweetie Pie" written by Keith McDuffee and read by David Cummings & Channe Nolen & Jessica McEvoy. (Story starts at 00:21:20) "I Spent Two Years in Hell" written by Seamus Coffey and read by Jeff Clement. (Story starts at 00:45:35) "Salt in the Dark River" written by Brian Martinez and read by David Ault & Peter Lewis & Channe Nolen & David Cummings. (Story starts at 01:05:30) "The Tree House" written by The Claverhouse Email Series and read by Jessica McEvoy & David Cummings. (Story starts at 01:38:20) Click here to learn more about The Faculty of Horror podcast Click here to learn more about Keith McDuffee Click here to learn more about Seamus Coffey Click here to learn more about Brian Martinez Click here to learn more about The Claverhouse Email Series Click here to learn more about Channe Nolen Click here to learn more about Jeff Clement Podcast produced by: David Cummings Music & Sound Design by: Brandon Boone & David Cummings "The Tree House" 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. Episode 7. Welcome to the No Sleep Podcast. I'm your host, David Cummings. We have five tales this week, from the rivers, lakes, and forests of nature, to the unnatural confines of a cement cell. It's always great when we can welcome some new and returning faces, or perhaps I should say, voices to the show.

I'll start with our newest narrative. joining us this week. Shane Nolan is a trained stage, television, and film actress, whose voice work has been heard on a variety of projects, including audiobooks, video games, and animated TV shows. She brings a wealth of experience to the show, and I'm thrilled she's with us. So welcome, Shane. I recently became familiar with an author named Keith McDuffie,

who is creating some really engaging horror fiction these days. We welcome Keith and his stories to the podcast, and in fact, this episode kicks off with a double feature of his writing. Both stories feature the theme of the nasty side of nature. It wasn't too long ago when I discovered a great horror film podcast, which not only offers insightful and entertaining viewpoints on horror films, but it's produced in my hometown of Toronto. The Faculty of Horror is hosted by Alexandra West and Andrea Subasadhi,

both active in the world of academia and horror writing. Their discussions are more than just the usual horror film talk, so I would encourage everyone to check out the Faculty ofhorror.com and hear the great work they're doing. And if things work out, we may be welcoming Andrea to the show as a guest narrator in the future. And speaking of folks close to my home, it's great to welcome back to the show Ontario native Jeff Clement. Jeff is joining us as a narrator this week, but that's not all. I'm so glad to welcome Jeff to the No Sleep Podcasts production team.

Jeff has been doing amazing work over at chilling. Tales for Dark Nights, and I've brought him aboard to share his gifted production work with us. So welcome, Jeff. We're looking forward to hearing more from you in the future, both in front of and behind the mic. So we've got new voices, new writers, new podcasts, and new producers. I guess we better start this new episode. In our first tale, we find ourselves sitting at a beautiful cottage by the lake. Well, not quite the most beautiful cottage. You see, as author Keith McDuffey explains, a man misses out on buying his dream cottage and has to settle for a much less desirable spot. But a strange turn of events makes the man realize that it's not all misfortune for him.

Shane Nolan joins me in narrating this tale as the man realizes just how lucky he is. and he explains it to us by sharing what I found. December 28th. Tom couldn't take it anymore. Between the horrible noises at night, both of us being sick and the cistern turning foul, we were just put over the edge. He's gone out to see if he can get the water working again.

That was last night. Tom hasn't come. bat and without him or hunter here i'm afraid writing in this journal seemed to comfort me in the past but it's not doing such a good job at the moment i'm going looking for him that was the final entry in the journal i'm sure you could use a little background okay here goes i was at my little waterside home in the lake region of new hampshire last week and I made a pretty disturbing discovery. I thought this might be a good place to tell my story

and maybe serve as a lesson or warning of sorts. I know it terrified the shit out of me. It's a damn lucky thing I'm still around to be able to tell you about it in the first place. For maybe the past six years, I've really had my eye out for a second home, a place on a lake. I've been lucky enough to have a decent paying job in tech, as much as I may not really dig it so much.

Hell, the commute alone had me wanting to open a vein on more than a few occasions. Through remaining frugal and entering the real estate market at the right time with my primary home, I worked the numbers out to see that the time had come when I could actually make a second mortgage work. Ideally, I'd find a place I could rent out to vacationers once in a while to help pay for it while still having a place to call mine. I skim the usual online real estate sites almost daily. I checked a few places out. Most of them were either way too rustic, complete with barely usable shit-stained outhouses, or their spot on the water was so tangled with boat-choking weeds that they'd,

They may as well have been called Swamp Front. Finally, about two years ago, I found it. Number six, East Cottage Road on Lake Bowman. The location was ideal, and the price and size were just right. It had the added bonus of being a year-round place, not some shanty you had to board up in the winter for mice to feel at home in, dropping shit everywhere. No, this place had 200 feet of water frontage, a dock, two fireplaces, a full septic system,

and, most difficult to find, a private cistern for water. There was one problem. I missed the boat, figuratively speaking. The day before I was scheduled to take a tour of the place, someone else wiped it up. God, I was pissed. The realtor told me the buyer was an elderly couple who planned to make it their year-round residence. Motherfuckers! At the same time, the realtor pointed out a place for sale, just a few doors down from that.

Number 10. It wasn't the same, not even close. I was sick of looking, though. I knew what place I really want. but I took that one anyway. Almost every day that summer, I'd look out over the small cove that separated our houses and lust after the place I could have had

if I'd just been a day earlier. And every damn week I'd see those old fucks swimming off the dock or throwing sticks for their damned barky dog or laying on the glorious sunny deck while I sat in the fucking shade. The next year, though, things got very quiet at number six. The deck was empty, the driveway unoccupied. No more wrinkly prunes on the dock, no more barking. And that was all right by me.

Then, last fall, something happened. The house I'd been lusting after went up for sale again. Before the Realtor's sign could finish being driven into the ground, I had her on the phone ready to make an offer. She seemed taken aback by my enthusiasm to buy the place so quickly. That past winter, the private cistern feeding the house turned fetid and failed. The house was put up for sale by the previous owner's children. who received it from their parents' will and were more eager to sell the place off than to fix

anything. Holy shit was I lucky. I moved out of number 10 and into 6 with little fuss, and the same realtor helped me sell off my old place pretty quickly. That was about a month ago. In their eagerness to sell, and my eagerness to buy, the old couple's kids never clean. the place out. I spent the entire first week just getting rid of shit I didn't want and just literally cleaning house. That's when I found the journal. That's where things get terrifying.

Maybe you've rented a house before and had the owners leave out one of those cute visitors' journals for renters to write about their stay. You know, had a wonderful stu. You know, had a wonderful Say, thanks for the gift basket. Sorry about spilling wine on the rug. And shit like that. This book was like that, except it was the old lady owner who wrote in it. Who the fuck does that? Anyway, somehow it had fallen behind one of the wood-burning stoves

and not gone up in flames, and I happened to find it. You heard the final entry already, but that's not what scared me most. I'll cut through the bullshit entries and write to the ones that I was concerned about. August 28th. This summer has been one for the record books for Lake Bowman, I've been told.

I met Kathy on a walk yesterday, and she said during long hot spells like this, the lake can sometimes drop several feet. Apparently, the community cisterns can dry up as well, and that can be a problem for the other houses on the street. Luckily, we have our own water supply, so Tom went out this morning to see if he could locate it and make sure we were fine. On his way there, he spotted Hunter barking at someone messing about with the cisterns lid. The person left before Tom could ask what he was doing. It was probably a neighbor being friendly and checking in on us.

The people here are so nice. September 15. I wish I could write about the wonderful foliage here, but the weather's been miserable this week. We also had an awful sleep last night. Some critter noises from outside kept Hunter alert and barking all evening. The sound sounds like. were awful.

They sounded like a woman screaming. Tom tells me it sounded like something called a fisher cat and that they tend to sound like that. Dear Lord, I hope to never hear a thing like that again. November 2nd. I said goodbye to Kathy and Dan this afternoon. Like most of the other owners without year-round houses, they winterized and left the air.

to Florida, the lucky sons of guns. It looks like it's just Tom and I and maybe one other house, braving the upcoming New Hampshire winter. Burr. Hopefully the pesty fisher cats will hibernate her whatever they do, so Tom and I and Hunter can get some uninterrupted sleep for once. They scream like bloody murder. November 5th.

I caught sight of some of the other neighbors who've stayed behind like us, a young man and woman. I'll have to go say hello sometime or see if they've seen Hunter around. Hunter took off on Tom two nights ago and hasn't come home. Tom took him for his nighttime walk and apparently another awful fisher cat screamed from across the cove and caused Hunter to run off and hunt her suit. We called for him all night and most of today, but he hasn't shown up. I'm so worried about my poor puppy poo.

November 27th. The kids couldn't make it for Thanksgiving. An unexpected snow squall made them too nervous to make the trip. I don't really blame them, especially with kids of their own. safety first. More turkey for me and Tom. Besides, the water has started to smell funky, so no need in putting them through that, or the fisher cats. Besides, the sounds of someone splitting wood nearby, and the fisher cats, of course, it's been blissfully quiet here.

I miss my dear hunter. November 3,000. I still have not given up on seeing my puppy pool again. We put up more signs in the area, even though there aren't many people around this time of year to see them. I saw our neighbor again, though I think the woman was someone different. I called out from the road to see if they'd seen our dog, but apparently they had. December 1st. We were buried with snow this morning and so early. Tom and I tried to shovel ourselves out a bit,

but we've both been feeling rather ill. He will need to head to a store soon for food and water. We're afraid to drink from the faucet anymore, on account of it smelling so bad. Tom thinks it'll pass. Hopefully we'll get a quiet evening for once, and sleep off whatever's gotten us sick. December 5th.

Thankfully, the weather turned in our favor, and Tom was able to head out to the local country store. We're both still not feeling very well, but some fresh goodies will help. I was worried about the other homeowner in the area. I took a walk to check on them, but no one answered the door. I also discovered the source of the woodchipers.

we've been hearing as there were a couple of axes against their shed. I wonder how and why they keep them so clean. December 12th. Our water has stopped working completely at this point, which is probably a good thing since the smell will stop as well. At least Tom brought enough water last week to last us a while until we feel better to get more. We both still can't seem to shake whatever's gotten us so sick.

Earlier this afternoon, we heard another one of those blasted fisher cats from across the cold again. I must have jumped a mile. Tom said the early cold snap must have gotten them riled up more than usual, since those critters are usually nocturnal. Thankfully, the wood-chopping neighbor must have scared him off. I'll spare you the boring entries in between those. They're pretty meaningless, as personal journals written by old geysers go. So why did all of that scare the crap out of me?

For starters, that old couple had been missing for a year. What you just heard was essentially the final words from either of those two, in written form at least. I believe the actual final words Tom spoke were, Please just leave my wife Alice alone. Alice, I believe, said something along the lines of, Oh my God, Tom, Hunter, before I kicked her in the caboose and sent her ass over tea kettle into the cistern with the others. The old lady caught me by surprise.

prize, so I didn't have time to make her into small pieces before tossing her in with the rest. It was getting pretty full. I was lucky she fit. I'll have a new cistern dug in the spring after I've got the old one filled in. Finally, I'll have a place the ladies will want to spend the night at, instead of having to convince them that I'm not some weirdo staying in a thin wall crappy cottage in the middle of nowhere. So, yes, the journal scared the bejesus out of me. Imagine if someone else had found that fucking thing. It would have only been a matter of time and I'd be done for. If you're like me, and I know you're out there, hopefully this will serve as a warning for you.

Thank God for you. for lazy kids. One of the most popular forms of TV these days are competition cooking shows. In this, our second tale from Keith McDuffie. We meet a celebrity chef and judge who is host of a wildly popular cooking show. But his past experiences have left him with an unsettling understanding of the meals being prepared on the show. Shane Nolan and Jessica McAvoy join me as we find out how one contestant is standing out among the others.

Perhaps it was because she was such a sweetie pie. No one likes being hungry. I've come to learn that there are many things that make a thing hungry. Lack of food is only one of them. Being hungry can make a thing hungry. a person crazy, but true hunger, that tends to lead to unpredictable reactions. The Big Game showed me just how much. The Big Game was a stroke of brilliance.

Reality cooking shows had begun choking the TV network schedules like cheap late-night crime procedures bleeding out from the confines of their dedicated food chain. channels. Viewers wanted an over-seasoning of drama thrown into the cooking competition pool, and of that they were happily served. More backstabbing, more tears. That's about when the big game moved in. The big game staked a claim into the growing trend of cookery, but there was another growing trend that they threw into this pot. as well. Farm to table. Not just farm to table, but forest to table. Competitors use only what they grow, harvest, or kill. Anything store-bought was out. A quarter-million-dollar prize. Ten contestants,

six weeks, four judges. One of them, me. I know what you're thinking. How you're thinking? How you're did a has-been rehab-frequeting rocker get put on television in the first place, let alone judging a weekly cooking contest. Believe it or not, I did have a show once, though it's unlikely most folks south of 50 years old remember it. In the woods with Gillian Rush lasted three seasons before being pulled from its, please just let me die, time slot, just after hour-long infomercials for pet vomit cleaning products and before the Star-Spangled Banner. Do they still put that thing on the air at night? Is it even called the air anymore? Anyway, trust me, I was relieved to the point of elation to be through with it, the network,

probably more so. I may have been best, or more infamously known, as the front man for Sweetie Pie, since broken up about ten years prior, or maybe for the seven or so times I was profiled in some tabloid as being caught naked, stone, drunk, wasted, passed out, or beaten the piss out of someone. Usually it was a combination of two or more of those. On more than one occasion, it was all of the above. In the woods was where some people saw a different side of me, a primal one. For me, hunting is more than playing, me man, me use big bow.

It's more than stocking game, putting careful and quiet arrows, through the lungs of pretty woodland creatures. That's what brought the viewers in, but it's not why I do what I do. It's for the meat. The cuter the critter, the sweeter the meat, someone once said. If I'd only stuck close to home,

I'd have said no truer words have been spoken. Unfortunately, I know better. At first, Wood, took place in my woods, just outside Colorado's White River National Forest. By the time the show's third season wrapped, the producers informed me that we were taking things international. Canada, Tanzania, Namibia, a few others. We pulled out what must have been close to a ton of incredible meat out of those places. Just outside Siberia is where things turned to shit in a hurry.

If my story is going to make any sense, I have to open that closet. One I hoped I'd be leaving very shut and locked. Seems now I've seen some new things I can throw in there to keep it company. Three days into our shoot and 20 miles deep into Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula, we were set to snag some bighorn sheep. As it turned out, we had some competition ahead of us, or more accurately, behind us. Fifteen hundred pounds of Camchatka brown bear. You ask, but bears in Camchatka only eat fish and berries? Yeah, hunger tends to lead to unpredictable reactions. The closest thing that bear saw to a berry that day was our cameraman's head,

as she rather easily squashed it like a ripe raspberry under her colossal paws. Except raspberries tend not to violently convulse or make gurgling noises when they're eaten. Our Russian guide may as well have been a fish. The bear's four-inch claws sliced through him from shoulder to groin. His entrails join in the cameraman's brain remnants in the snow. Me, he left behind like forgotten leftovers. I was beaten up and bloody, but not dead, though I felt like I should have been. A shattered hip, for starters.

Both of my femurs jutted through thigh flesh like splintered tree branches, though somehow missing critical blood pathways. All of that wasn't getting me out of there quickly, and after a week of no rescue, my tummy gets to talking to me. Then it starts to yell. And that half-eaten rusky that's been kept fresh in the cold, it's talking to back. Before I knew it, they're having a close conversation with each other, and then it's all quiet down there again. Like I said, unpredictable reactions. A day later, another hunting party found me.

I was brought back, patched up, and sent home. There was no more going in the woods for Gileon rush. The ordeal in the motherland certainly took a toll on my body and sanity. Vikodin and Percocet did a fine job of paying that toll. They did for a long time. Mental therapy to keep the physical kind company. What I remember most from Kampchatka wasn't watching what a bear can do to three human beings or what I resorted to for survival. I'll remember those things for the rest of my life, sure, but it's not what keeps peeking its head out from behind said closet on a regular basis. It was the sweet, pork-like taste. Fifteen years of brutal physical therapy and umpteen unpaid bills later, I luckily had enough sense to take the next offer thrown at me, to poke my head out

from my wasteland of an apartment, past the dwindling pill-induced fog, to appear on TV again. That sense, most likely, was due to not having enough coin to pay those aforementioned tolls if you catch my drift. As luck would have it, people seem to still like hearing what comes out of my pipes. Shrieking lyrics into a mic, screaming insults at hopeful chefs, it's all the same. It's still all music to the ears of the network suits when the viewership adds up. I may not know what the consistency of a lemon chiffon is supposed to feel like, or what a crocomboosh even looks like, but I sure as hell know my meat. You don't know your meat, you cook it like shit, I'll let you know loudly. The qualification rounds for the show's first season went well enough,

discounting the city-to-city travel. It was brutal. Only the comfort and rattle of sweet relief within my carry-on kept me from complete physical and mental agony. Six months and what must have been, tens of thousands of meals, most of them god-awful. There were only a few cooks that caught my attention. One of them was Jasmine.

Barber. Out of the ten contestants brought to L.A. to compete, Jasmine stood out from day one. Well, maybe stood out is a poor choice of words for a woman who couldn't stand at all. Jasmine had been confined to a wheelchair for the past couple of years. While crossing a road with her Nana, the both of them were struck by a DUI. Her grandmother was so bad off that she required extensive, constant, and costly physical therapy, Jasmine's desperate motivation to win.

Can we use the word special to describe her then? Extraordinary? All of the judges and contestants knew it. Hell, the whole TV watching country knew it. If Jasmine knew, she never loved. bled on. I greatly admired her for her unwavering, humble, southern girl voice and match and smile, despite her problems. She'd set during judging the blanket her Nana made draped over her painfully disfigured legs and just keep smiling. I'd have lost the rest of my marbles.

She was inspirational. are such a sweetie. Co-judge Abigail Roush would say, and it caught on. Maneuverin around that kitchen came as natural to Jasmine as her cooking skills. She knew how to panseer a mean venison loin or smoke a duck. Hell, even a big meat eater like me had to admit her accompaniments were revolutionary. It quickly got to where you didn't. notice she was in a chair. Remember, these chefs all had to lug along with them their own ingredients.

Coolers of meat, vegetables, fruit, eggs, hell, even flour. The only things given to them were some basics like salt, pepper, and water. The rest was all up to them. The pressure was unforgiving. So, after seven days and seven contestants, the big game was down to three chefs and their ever-dwindling food supply. Lucky for them, we had something special in mind for the eighth episode. A hunting trip to Big Horn Canyon Ranch in Riverside. Cook what you kill. Unfortunately, for Sweet Jasmine, the outing wasn't so fruitful. That smile, though, never faltered.

That was when Andre, the cameraman, disappeared. Disappeared, though, wasn't the word used to explain Andre's suddenly not showing up the next morning. The common story going around was that since he was a dealer on the side, he probably pissed off the wrong client and was laid out in a ditch somewhere. As you might have guessed, Andre and I had a bit of an understanding going on. His absence didn't sit well with me, mostly because I was running low. People had pretty much forgotten about Andre by the time primary filming began that night. Most talk was around how in the world Jasmine Barber would pull this off without bagging an animal the day prior.

The look on her face said it all. She did not look. Jasmine, though, did have something to serve that night. The plating came to the four of us judges, with Jasmine's entry hitting us last. Wild boar ragu over black truffle popper deli. How the fuck did she get boar meat? Should have been my first thought.

Instead, I just wanted to know when it was my turn to try it. The comments from the other three couldn't have been more ass-kissingly positive. Sweetie, you've outdone yourself this time. I was up and I dove in and I knew. For 15 years I had known. Somehow I can't swear. I can't speak came out of me. The chefs, judges, and audience heard speechless,

though that's not quite what I meant. You'd think they'd find it odd that this loud-mouth fool suddenly had nothing to say, but it was enough to convince everyone that Jasmine was in the finals. And now all I was thinking of was Andre, and Jasmine's ragu and Russia. When I hit my room that night, I had a hell of a time trying to sleep.

Didn't matter what I took, and Andre wasn't answering his cell. About two in the morning, there's a knock at my door. It's Jasmine. I'm shitting my pants. Jasmine? What are you doing out of my? Outside your wing of the hotel. You guys are supposed to be sequestered. Sorry, chef, but I thought you could help me with something. Though she maintained her angelic demeanor, her face was pale and sickly looking.

Her hands fumbled under her Nana's blanket. She's got a fucking knife, I thought. Well, I heard you have a... with pain, sort of like me, with your legs, I could really use some of, you know. I wanted to tell her that I was sure of what she did, that her ragu was bits of a missing cameraman, cleverly disguised as wild pork. You may not know this, but I've had that kind of meet before. Three out of four judges would never know the difference, and I was partly envious of that. The thought of not wanting to become Jasmine's final dish the next day took over, though,

however in the hell she'd do it. I threw her the half-empty bottle from my pocket and quickly shut my door without saying a word. Just before the pills kicked in and fly, finally kicked my ass. I remember thinking maybe paranoia was just another thing to tell me that rehab was a good place to visit again when this was over. The final day of shooting. The last contest. My head in a fog. I wasn't sure if what happened earlier that morning was real. Jasmine certainly didn't let on that it was, but one thing was sure, she looked even worse than I last remembered. Andre, so far, was still a no-show. The audience watched as the two competing chefs did their thing, blazing through the hour of cooking with skills to impress.

Judgment time comes and Jasmine's up first. smiling as usual. It's my own take on shepherd's pie. I call it Sweetie Pie, in honor of Chef Gillian and the pet name y'all have for me. I used to chanterels, caramelized shallots, and the rest of the wild boar. My stomach lurches.

I'm first. I crack into the crust of Jasmine's dish, and I see Andre's head on the plate. My fork breaks his unnaturally soft cranium, revealing its steamy, meaty contents. Andre's pearly dead eyes gaze at me, then collapse within his broken skull as a river of chunky brown gravy pours out.

I shut my eyes. I take a deep breath. I look again, and the head is gone. The pie remains. As if with a mind of its own, my fork full of its contents lifts and my mouth complies. One chew, two, it's... You're tripping? Andre.

I look down at the plate again, and there's the pie. Movement to my left. Camera number two is there. And And Andre. Alive Andre. Three choose. Four. Not Andre?

My lips form. My eyes fixed on Jasmine. Every other eye in the room. is on me. Jasmine's smile remain while her eyes frowned with worry. Or was it pain?

A tear wells. Her eyes quickly glance at her hands, tightening on her Nana's blanket at her lap. What lap? My forked holy shit.

Wow, Gillian. That good? I'm frozen staring at the girl in the wheelchair. This sweet girl who came to my door early that morning, who gave new meaning to being hungry to win, and whose actions were most definitely unpredictable by anyone. Only I seemed to notice the crimson stain beginning to bloom from beneath her nana's blankets.

There's something else I learned from my ordeal in Russia 15 years ago. It feels damn good not to be hungry. Yes, guys? I said to the other judges. Yes, it is. The audience erupted. The other judges cleaned their plates. I watched Jasmine as she wept with relief.

Finally, she didn't have to be hungry anymore. 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 Noseleeppodcast.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.