The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S5E12

Episode Date: May 10, 2015

It's episode 12 of Season 5. We have four tales this week featuring stories about creepy kids, ruinous romance, and divine devils. The full episode features the following stories. The free version features only the first tale. Trigger Warnings "The Oddkids" written by Sarah Piper and read by David Cummings & Nichole Goodnight & Nikolle Doolin. (Story starts at 00:03:55) "I Knew He Was Cheating On Me" written by Charles Corcoran and read by Alexis Bristowe & David Cummings. (Story starts at 00:59:25) "The Church's Grimm" written by Cam Smith and read by Mike DelGaudio. (Story starts at 01:12:30) "A White iPhone 4S" written by Rona Vaselaar and read by Jessica McEvoy & Tisha Boone & Alexis Bristowe & Nichole Goodnight & David Cummings. (Story starts at 01:35:15) Click here to learn more about Sarah Piper Click here to learn more about Nikolle Doolin Click here to learn more about Mike DelGaudio Click here to contact Alexis Bristowe Click here to learn more about Tisha Boone Podcast produced by: David Cummings Music & Sound Design by: Brandon Boone & David Cummings "The Oddkids" 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. Close your eyes. Cales of horror to frighten and disturb.

Wain us as the sleepless hours tick past. Brace yourself for the No Sleep Podcast. Season 5, Episode 12. Welcome to the No Sleep Podcast. I'm your host, David Cummings. We have four tales this week, featuring stories about creepy kids, ruinous romance, and divine devils.

Now that we're 12 episodes into season five, I thought it would be a good time to remind listeners of our season past program. It doesn't hurt to mention it, right? Get it? Dozen? Episode 12. Anyways, dumb jokes aside, the season pass is our premium membership program

whereby you can hear all the full-length versions of each episode. You'll get the 25 regular season episodes and three exclusive bonus episodes. In fact, very shortly we'll be releasing our first exclusive bonus episode for season 5. I won't give away what it is right now, but let's just say if you're a fan of author C.K. Walker, you're going to love it.

And since we're talking about the season pass, I'd like to remind you that we're still offering our rent-to-own program. That means you can purchase individual episodes for only $1.49, and when your purchases total 14 episodes, you can contact me for an upgrade to a full season pass. It works out to you paying just a little over $20 and gets you all the season pass benefits, like those aforementioned bonus episodes. One of the other benefits of the longer episodes is that we get to do productions of longer stories.

Oftentimes we have to work with some shorter stories to fit into the free episodes. So, this week I'd like to give our free listeners, a taste of one of those longer stories. And even though the free show only has one tale this episode, it's a good one, almost an hour long with equal parts quantity and quality. So if you aren't already a Season Pass member, I hope you'll consider joining us for all the fun and frights we have to offer.

And now that you're primed for our good long story, it's time to settle in and start the show. In our first tale, we take a vacation down in Mississippi, a summer vacation, that is. As we learn from author Sarah Piper, a young boy spends the summer with his grandparents in the hot and sticky south, a far cry from his regular routine in Oregon. He quickly becomes friends with a local girl, and they spend their days playing in the nearby by woods. But the girl knows the secrets hidden in those woods, secrets she's desperate to avoid. Joining me for this tale are narrator's Nicole Goodnight and Nicole Doolin. And like the two young people,

we can only hope we avoid making contact with the odd kids. One summer, when I was a boy, my parents sent me to stay with my grandparents for the break. Raised in the Pacific Northwest, a small town in eastern Mississippi might as well have been an entirely different country for all I was concerned. The instant we got out of the airport, I was struck with the oppressive humidity, and I became convinced right then and there that my parents downright despised me. Of course, the reality was much kinder than that. My grandparents were good folks, and thankfully I met a girl within a few days of arrival, and we became fast friends. Her name was Jesse.

A local girl with long blonde hair and green eyes, the first pair I had ever encountered. I was in love at first sight. Jesse was a year or two older than me, but that didn't matter. much to us. Jesse was the reason I got up every morning, not in a romantic sense, of course, but a very literal one. Sure, my grandparents were very hospitable, but they were old and southern, about as far removed from my narrow worldview as could be. They just had no idea how to entertain me, and I think Jesse was as much a relief to them as she was to me, taking me off their hands during the days and curtailing somewhat my boundless, youthful energy.

The place where my grandparents lived was about a mile out from a place called Ashbury Wood, and it was a mile I walked daily. I would always meet Jesse on the path heading my way. On rare occasions she would already be at my grandparents' house when I was leaving, and I never saw where she lived. It didn't matter much to me, though, because the woods were our real home. Ashbury Wood wasn't particularly dense, but boy, did it seem to go on forever. Jesse showed me a few paths around the woods, unofficial trails to interesting sites, like clearings, hollowed out trees, or even just a place where a funny-looking bush was growing.

We told each other stories of our hometowns, imagining what life would be like if one of us lived where the other did. Whenever we fantasized about having her come live with me, she would get a strange tone in her voice, but I never thought much of it. While the woods were our home and playground, we still set limits for ourselves. If we went too long without seeing something Jesse recognized, we immediately turned around until we were in familiar territory again. She also set boundaries, significant features we shouldn't go past for one reason or another. Decades later, and the only one I can remember is the creek. The creek itself, we should have was nothing to be concerned about. It was just a shallow stream of water that may have come up to my

waist, with sloped banks on either side that were sheer but not insurmountable. The first time I discovered it, I immediately headed down into the water, just about ready to cross to the other side when Jesse cried out from behind me. Stop! I whirled around on one foot as gracefully as a young boy can and looked up at her. She stood staring across the creek and out into the woods on the other side. Her hands were balled into fists and kept straight at her side, and I remember being worried that she might be crying. I climbed back up the side of the creek coming up beside her.

What's wrong? We need to turn around. Jesse's voice was barely above a whisper. She looked terrified and slowly peeled her gaze away from the trees and onto me. We have to turn back. Reluctantly, I agreed, but only because I could see how upset the situation was making her. Like I said, the water itself wasn't that deep or rapid, and it wasn't even that far into the woods. On the walk back, I raised these points, but Jesse stayed quiet, leading me to a

small clearing in the trees that we used as a sort of home base for our adventures. Sitting me down, Jesse stared into the grass for a long moment before she spoke. Two years ago, I had a friend name Emma. Her hands were balled up in her lap, shaking. We used to play in these woods, like you and me do, and one day, just like you and me, found that crick. I laughed, not because of the content of the story, but because I'd never heard someone pronounce it crick before. Her head snapped up to look me in the eyes and I fell quiet. Standing across from it was these kids who looked about our age, only they weren't right. That time there was only two. One of them, his head just hung to the side like this.

Jesse let her head flop to the left, hanging limb. Another was real tiny, and his hands and head were even little. littler, like tinier than a baby's. Now, I'm not proud of this next part, but we weren't exactly sugar and spice to them, if you know what I mean. I shook my head that I did not. She sighed. We would call them names.

Tees them, you know, because they was weird. Emma would throw sticks sometimes, though she couldn't hit water if she fell out of a boat. The story paused as Jesse smiled to herself, remembering her friend fondly. Did they ever talk back? I asked, bringing her back to reality. No, just stood there looking at us, making these weird squeaking noises. Emma and me, we started calling them odd kids, because, you know, they were kids, and they sure shit were odd.

I blushed at such intense language, but Jesse didn't notice. But no matter what we did to them, they never came across the crick. Always just stood on the other side, staring and squeaking. Wasn't always the tune, neither. There was different ones, four or five in all, I think. What happened to Emma? The direction the story was going was obvious, and I was eager. her to learn. Jesse stayed quiet for a long while, staring into the ground and absently picking

at the grass beneath her. At first we were afraid, right? The odd kids weren't normal, and we would scare each other silly, telling stories of how they eat people and like to run around naked together, just dumb stuff. But as time went on, we got less and less scared of him. It got to the point where we'd stand right on the other side of the crick and dare him to cross over, but they never would. One day, we're sitting there talking to ourselves, ignoring the weird-headed one, like he's just another tree, and Emma said something about him being too chicken to cross. We both looked at him, and he just walked off, turned around and went deeper into the woods till eventually we couldn't see him. And I teased Emma that he was daring her to follow him, that she was chicken as she didn't go.

I was listening with rapt attention at this point. To my young mind, this girl's tale of terror more closely resembled a great campfire story, made even better by the fact that it allegedly took place only. a brisk walk away from where I sat. Together, the two of us crossed the creek, because, like you said, it ain't that big. And we climbed up onto the other side, chased after him. We went maybe a quarter mile in before we started hearing that squeaking again.

Only up close, it didn't sound like squeaking anymore. It sounded like chittering. They surrounded us faster than either of us expected, coming out of the trees like ghosts. I was frozen in fear. I couldn't move a muscle, just staring at the odd kids and wondering what was going to happen. Then one of them, the limp-headed one, he grabbed Hema, and she screamed, that just is like it woke me up. I tore out of there as fast as I could go. practically leaped the crick in a single jump and ran all the way home.

My lungs was on fire by the time I stopped, and I was crying all over the place, people trying to get me to tell them what happened. But... Her voice trailed off, and I could see tears welling in her eyes. Did you? She shook her head, blinking away the tears. I felt guilty I felt guilty for leaving her and I just kept thinking that she'd come home

that she'd be right behind me and we'd cry about it never go across that damn crick again but she didn't Jesse shook her head again but she didn't she didn't never come back Nobody ever went looking for her neither, because she was an orphan.

I didn't say nothing, and so nobody even know where to look. Staring out into the woods in the direction of the creek, Jesse's voice cracked. The odd kids got her. I don't know what they did with her. I'm sorry. I tried consoling her, unsure of what to say. but Jesse wasn't paying attention to me anymore she stood up

brushed the dirt off her denim shorts and started walking towards town I got up and chased after her wait where are you going home home but why the concept seemed alien to me it was the middle of the day

Who would want to stay indoors? I can't stay in these woods. Not today. You should go home too. We'll meet up in the morning. But I can... But nothing. She stopped and turned to face me.

Go home. Jesse started to turn around again before something else occurred to her. And don't ever, ever. go across the creek. You hear me? I nodded silently, and she reached out, grabbing my shoulders and giving me a firm shake. Say it.

She demanded. I promise, no going across the creek. She stared into my eyes, as if searching my soul for a way to ensure my sincerity. Whether she found it or not, she eventually released me and headed off, leaving me standing alone in the woods with nothing on my hands but free time and my own thoughts. I looked back in the direction of the creek and the mysterious woods beyond. Were there really such a thing as odd kids?

I knew monsters didn't exist in Oregon, but here in Mississippi it felt like anything could be true. Plus, Jesse had told the story with such conviction that it felt disloyal to be skeptical. I spent the rest of the day in the woods, wandering aimlessly. Part of me wanted to go back to the creek, but real or not, Jesse's story had scared the hell out of me. At one point, I got just close enough that I could make the creek out through the trees, and I peered. as hard as I could at the bank on the other side. I wanted to make out a pair of eyes staring back at me or hear that chittering Jesse had talked about.

Heck, at that point, I would have accepted a quick blur between the trees as concrete evidence, but despite my willingness to believe, nothing came forward to present itself. The opposite bank was devoid of life, and I didn't have the gall to investigate any closer. As the sky dimmed, I reluctantly began the long walk home, unaccompanied for the first time all summer.

I considered Jesse's stories of the odd kids and almost started to get a little angry with her. Of course they didn't exist. She made them up just to mess with me and threw in another girl, conveniently orphaned to drive home the scare. I shook my head and laughed, thinking about how gullible I had been. Later at dinner, I ate with the ferocity of an animal. I hadn't realized how hungry I'd become, alone in the woods all day thinking, and the chicken my grandmother cooked was

the most delicious thing I'd ever eaten. It was only on my third drummed. stick that I stopped long enough to ask them a question. Did you guys ever hear of anyone going missing in the woods? I asked between bites, interrupting the regular meal time silence.

They looked at one another quizzically as if searching their collective memory. No, I don't think so. My grandmother eventually said, Ring any bells?

Her husband agreed. Why do you ask? I shook my head, taking another bite to buy myself some time to think of an answer. Just something I heard some kids talking about. Some jerks were trying to scare Jesse and me by saying a girl named Emma went missing. Suddenly, my grandmother's eyes lit up with recognition. You know, I didn't hear nothing about that, but I do recall. that girl being terrified of those woods. She nodded thoughtfully over a spoonful of corn. Yeah, it was a couple of months back that the girl came tearing out of the woods like the devil

himself was on her heels, screaming and crying. I didn't know his way into it on account of her father asking people if they would leave his daughter alone. But I overheard that the girl weren't right for a couple weeks. just sitting in a room and not talking to nobody. Lord only knows what happened to that girl, but it shook her something fierce. I suddenly felt a sick terror in my stomach,

like the feeling you get watching a recording of yourself, only to see something terrifying looming, just out of your sight, something you never knew was there. Did this mean the odd kids were, real? Had they been watching me as I stepped into the creek? So you never found out what happened? I hesitantly asked, unsure if I wanted the answer. Grandma just shook her head and the three of us continued eating in silence. Grandpa brought up a baseball game he'd seen on TV earlier that day,

and I feigned interest as well as I could, but I wasn't all there. My mind was back in the woods at the creek, inspecting every square inch of my memory for a sign of something. Sleep didn't come easy that night, and when it did it was wrought with nightmares. Thoughts of the odd kids crawled through my mind, bringing me back to the creek. Looking deeper into the woods, I saw dozens of pairs of eyes staring back at me, slowly bobbing back and forth as though they were advancing towards me. My dream self was paralyzed, helpless to do anything but watch as the monsters came out of the shadows. The one Jesse had described, with his head sagging to the side, led the most of the

applauding advance. As a group, the odd kids crawled down into the creek, dragging broken limbs and torn flesh behind them, each of them chittering off tempo with the others to create a horrible cacophony of noise that filled my ears and bore into my soul, staring into the hungry eyes of the limp-headed leader as he reached out to drag me down. I awoke. The noise still rang in my ears, and, coupled with my panic, caused me to flail against my blankets as though they were trying to engulf me. I fell onto the floor with a hard thud, finally coming to rest.

My grandfather burst into the room, and my grandmother was close behind me. him. Are you okay? He bellowed, still full of adrenaline, even though he was beginning to realize there was no threat. Embarrassed, I kicked the sheets off of me and stood up. Yeah, just a bad dream, I muttered. As I came to my senses, I realized the noise I had been hearing was the sound of cicadas filling the room, broadcasting their mating calls to the world. Laughing off their overzealous response, my grandparents led me downstairs to breakfast, which I accepted readily. That morning, I walked all the way to the woods without running into Jesse. I stood at the edge of the path, looking back down the road, trying to make out her

figure, but nobody was there. Sying, I walked all the way back to my house, then down to the woods again, there was no sign of her. My adolescent mind filled once more with nightmarish imagery, but I did my best to stay grounded in reality. She was the last person who would have gone across the creek, and if the odd kids ever ventured out of the woods, surely people around town would talk about them, right? Armed with these rationalizations, I decided to head to our favorite clearing and wait for her. She wasn't there when I arrived. Part of me had expected her to be waiting in the grass, ready to laugh in my face when she learned how I'd walked up and down the path two more times before thinking to check our spot, and as an hour slowly ticked by, I began to wonder

if something bad really had happened to her. But if something had, what was I going to do about it? I had no idea where she lived, and she was the only kid I knew in the area. Almost unconsciously, I began to head towards the creek. I had only promised I would. I had only promised I couldn't cross it after all. And if she was so concerned about my whereabouts, she should have let me know where she was going to be. Besides, if she had been able to outpace the odd kids when they were right beside her, I'd be able to get away long before they got close. My legs were filled with a giddy, nervous energy as I kept walking, sometimes at a quick pace and others at barely a shuffle. Once the creek itself was in view, I began to move from tree to tree, using them like cover from whatever might lurk on the other side of the creek. I inched closer, cautious to not disturb even a single twig in my approach.

Finally, I was only a few yards from the near bank of the creek. I crouched down and quietly got to my hands and knees. closing the last stretch on all fours and keeping a close watch on the trees ahead of me. Jesse! I hissed out Jesse's name in a low voice, straining my ears into the woods to catch anything of interest. But nothing happened. It was just another ordinary day,

and I was just some weird little boy whispering into the forest. I was just about to turn around, when a brief flash of movement caught my eye. I hadn't noticed it before because I was scanning the ground, but turning my eyes up, I saw a silhouette of something I couldn't quite make out. It swayed gently in the breeze, as though it was suspended from the branches. The leaves broke up that distant form, which must have been several dozens of feet away, and I immediately forgot my promise to Jesse.

I had to know what that thing was. Just as I was about to swing my legs down the bank of the creek, a call startled me to my feet in an instant. What are you doing? Jesse was standing a ways behind me, clinging on to a tree as though she might fall without its support. Though her tone was one of anger, Her face was ghost-white.

She beckoned me towards her, clearly unwilling to go closer to the creek than she was. I twisted my body around, raising an arm to point at the thing I had seen in the treetops, but I couldn't relocate it. I saw something, I said, scanning the leaves for the swaying form. And with any luck, it didn't see you.

She hissed, stamping her foot in the dirt. I shook my head, my boyish curiosity trumping her obvious fear. Be such a scaredy cat! I said, crouching down to see if I could find the figure in the branches. Briefly, I wondered if it had moved, but that seemed impossible. Whatever it was, it wasn't animate. I'm going across. No.

Jesse screamed, lunging towards me. I was already startled by her cry, and mid-turned she collided into me at full force, sending us both tumbling down the bank and into the creek. We yelled and flailed as we fell, both of us landing on my back. The muddy water babbled over us, and I scooted away, pulling myself onto the far bank of the creek. Jesse followed more out of a desire to get out of the water than anything. Nice going, I said sarcastically. The water was actually a little refreshing in the summertime heat, but we knew that before long we'd be drowning in humidity, our damp clothes suffocating what

little comfort sweating brought. I crawled up onto the opposite side of the Creek, once again raising my eyes to the branches to find what I'd seen. Please, please can we go. Jesse was at my side, clutching my arm, despite the fact that I was a good half a foot shorter than she was. We really need to go, please. Come on, just a little bit further. Wonder and excitement had overtaken all other emotions. in my mind. Before, when the creek was just a memory, it was easy to picture a world of monsters

lurking just across the way. Now that I was here, in the light of day, I felt empowered. I could see that there weren't monsters, so obviously I was safe. Truth is, I'm lucky to be alive. Tugging Jesse forward, I walked to the spot where I had seen the thing hanging from the trees, but now it was nowhere to be found. From where I was standing, I could still make out the creek, and I tried to imagine myself crouched low on the other side, looking up into the branches. The wind blew lazily through the trees, shaking them this way and that, but nothing unnatural hung from the canopy. Saw something right here.

I said aloud, justifying my persistence to Jesse. I did feel bad for dragging her somewhere she obviously didn't want to be, and I thought if I had something to show for it, maybe she would have understood. Instead, here I was, staring up into the trees like an idiot

with a terrified girl clinging to my side. Her eyes darted back and forth across the tree line, as if waiting for something to suddenly appear and attack us. Unwilling to leave empty-handed, I coaxed us slowly forward. As we pressed on, the woods around us seemed to get quieter, as if we were entering some sort of dead zone in the forest, a place where even the birds and critters refused to go. Jesse's nail dug into my arm, but she stayed right by my side, no longer making any noise except a small whimper with every exhalation. After another five or ten minutes of walking, we came across a rocky outcropping, jutting out of the ground, and a small hole leading down. Intrigued as I was by the promise of more adventure, something else caught our attention.

A strange doll laid propped against the mouth of the cave, facing us. Its elongated forehead drooped slightly over its face, making the upper right side of its head concave. Its eyes were small and beady and black, shining in the midday sun, and tufts of hair had been placed into its scalp in a disorganized manner. It was garbed only in small denim overalls covering grungy cloth skin. Before I could even draw breath to comment on it, Jesse was fiercely tugging me away. That's it. That's one of them. She was practically screaming, raw tear her coming through in her voice. But her reaction was scaring me more than the object itself.

That was an odd kid? An oversized doll? Calm down, I said, tugging back against her. It can't be. Look at it. It's not breathing. It's just a doll. Rinching my arm out of her grip, Jesse fell face first in the dirt, but was on her feet a second later. I heard her starting to run and turned to tell her. her that she didn't have to get any closer if she was scared, that I would go examine it alone. As I stared in her direction, however, my voice caught in my throat.

Standing where Jesse and I had been, not twenty seconds ago, was another doll. Only this one was different. It was cleaner and more well made, as if whoever had made the one by the cave had learned from their mistakes. This girl doll was standing beside a tree, watching us with those same all-black eyes, short brown hair matted with dirt, and clumped to her head haphazardly. A tattered red dress clung desperately to her right shoulder, and beneath it the cloth's skin looked much cleaner than the others, much more real. Before I could say a word, Jesse broke the silence.

I expected her to shriek, but instead what came out of her mouth was barely above a whisper. Emma? My terror level shot up to their limits when the girl doll took a step forward. I glanced backwards to see the other doll was pulling itself to its own. its feet, awkwardly shambling towards us. Any doubt I had in Jesse's story evaporated in an instant. The odd kids were real, and they were right in front of me. Without another moment's hesitation, I grabbed Jesse's wrist, suddenly becoming the one desperate to get us out. Come on, come on, let's go!

yelled at her, but she didn't even seem to hear me. She instead began to walk towards the girl doll, towards Emma, I guessed, though I couldn't see how that could ever have been Jesse's friend. I kept pulling at her arm, even as the thing behind her got closer. Jesse was focused exclusively on the other girl, locking out the whole rest of the world. The doll reached out to Jesse, and she raised her own hand out as well. Jesse!

I began to say, but I was interrupted by a heavy object falling directly onto my best friend, sending her crumpling into the dirt. On top of her was a small, human-like figure, with the head and hands proportionally much smaller than they should have been. Finally, observing one up close, I realized their skin wasn't just dirty cloth. It was rotten, mottled flesh. I scrambled backwards as the little creature gripped Jesse by the hair, tugging her head up painfully. Jesse screamed and clawed at the ground, trying to shove the thing off of her,

but the creature she called Emma sagged to its knees, clamped a hand over her mouth, then turned its head to look at me. Energy surged to my legs and I shot upright. I was in full panic mode, operating on a primal instinct to flee, but just as I started to run, I collided into a solid force that knocked me back down to the ground. Another one of those things stood before me, his head flopping awkwardly to the left, just as Jesse had demonstrated. The one I had seen slumped by the cave came into my view, holding a large rock in its hands. Before I could roll out of the way, the weight came down on my head, sending a splitting pain through my skull. My vision went white and a deafening ringing filled my ears, but I stayed conscious throughout. I could faintly feel things tugging at me, pulling me across the ground as I struggled just to regain my senses.

The blinding white slowly faded to an impenetrable black and the ringing dulled to formless shuffling, and the odd kids' strange chitters echoing off of the walls of the cave. I did my best to stay limp as I was dragged across the rough stone, tearing into my shirt and cutting my flesh. I'm certain I whimpered in pain, but the odd kids didn't react to it, hauling me further into their lair. Eventually, the motion came to an end. I was propped against a rough stone wall, and even in the darkness I could tell that one of them was just in front of my face,

quietly muttering to itself in those strange, arrhythmic noises. Its coarse fingers grabbed my hands, and it began stretching a strong, thin fabric around my wrists, binding them together. It wrapped for what felt like ages, until it finally. seemed satisfied that my hands weren't going anywhere, then moved on to my ankles to do the same. Once that was done, the thing shuffled away, the noise of its movements getting gradually fainter before disappearing altogether. Meaning to breathe a sigh of relief, I instead let out a choked sob, finally letting myself express the terror I'd felt through the whole ordeal.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I sat in that cave and cried, certain I'd never see my parents or grandparents ever again. Only when I heard more movement coming my way did I make any effort to quiet myself. I did my best to control my breathing. sucking in breaths through shuddering gasps and letting them out slowly through my nose. I tried to picture what the noises were. Slowly I put together that someone else was being dragged down the same rough path I had been. They were bringing Jesse back here too. For a brief moment, I felt hope.

As selfish as it is to admit, at the very least I took comfort in knowing that I wouldn't have to suffer alone. Part of me even entertained the notion that perhaps together, Jesse and I could escape this cave and never, ever come back to these awful woods again. Of course, the reality of this plan had many obstacles. The cave was utterly dark, something that didn't seem to affect the odd kids one bit. For all I knew, there was one sitting right there with me, silently watching and waiting for me to make a move so it could pounce on me again and finish the job. On top of that, they easily outnumbered us. The odds were stacked against us in every conceivable way.

Jesse noisily entered the room in which I was kept, and her muffled screaming gave me a sense of the dimensions of the room. It seemed smaller than I expected, likely only a little bigger than my own bedroom. Still, it was plenty big for storing the two of us. Just as I was wondering if they would leave Jesse and me alone together, the room was filled with a soft blue, luminescence. One of the odd kids, I couldn't tell which, with their backs turned to me, was brushing their fingers against a strange kind of moss on the far wall, and the agitation sparked a chain reaction across the entire plant. Tendrils of blue light arced over the wall in a brilliant pattern, the illumination branching off itself like a snowflake before finally filling in,

covering the cave wall in the most beautiful display I'd ever seen. And there, in front of the glowing moss, was Jesse. She had been laid out on an obviously man-made dirt platform, and her struggles stilled as puffs of spores from the glowing moss fell onto her. The odd kid stood over her, observing for a moment, before bending forward over her. In my life, I had never heard the sound of flesh tearing. But the very first time was unmistakable.

I jerked at the noise as if it had been my own skin, and my heart beat so fast I worried that it would give me away. I screwed my eyes shut and just listened. As the odd kid did, God knows what, to my helpless friend, only a few feet from my face. Mustering up what courage I could, I began to work the bonds around my wrists against a jagged rock, working just slowly enough to not make too much noise. The ripping noise soon gave way to gurgles and wet squishing, but I didn't allow my seat. self to picture it. Instead, I thought about my grandparents, about seeing their warm smiles one more

time. I thought about the airplane that would take me out of Mississippi, and I thought of every excuse I would ever use for the rest of my life to keep from getting on another plane back. I had to survive this. I had to. Sure enough, the ropes came free with enough effort. Once they were weak enough, I managed to pull them apart with brute strength, the fibers tearing away from each other with a soft sound, something that was almost pleasing contrasted against the disturbing noises coming from across the room. I groped around in the near dark,

my fingers moving from rock to rock until I found something loose enough and big enough that I felt comfortable with it. I now stared directly at the odd kid, its back still turned as it performed its macabre ritual on my friend. Sawing the rock across the ropes around my ankles, I worked my nerve up to what I was going to have to do next. Armed with a rock, I was going to attack the odd kid, knocking them out with one good blow. Fair play, I thought to myself. Next, I would grab Jesse and hoist her over my shoulder. She was taller than me.

Sure, but I wasn't a weak kid. After that, we would sneak out of the cave somehow, then sprint back to my grandparents' house, and be safe. The wraps across my ankles fell away, and I slowly stretched my legs out before getting them underneath me. The odd kid was still oblivious to me, and part of me hated that.

Here I was, about to bash in its skull with a rock, and it didn't even consider me enough of a threat to turn around and check on me. I whispered, the rock clutched tight in my, fist as I held it out to the side behind my head. The odd kid finally swiveled around, and I stared into its soulless black eyes one last time before bringing the weapon across. The sensation was nothing like I expected. Instead of a solid blow and a resonating crack, my hands squelched through its blotchy skin with little,

resistance. I stood there, stunned and staring into its remaining eye as its face hung loosely around my wrist. Soft scratches made their way across my hand, and I jerked it back, the force of my fist pulling out of its head, tearing another gouge through the skin that was not skin. Looking down at my hand, I saw the single most horrific thing I had ever seen in my life. Instead of brains, blood, and gore covering my hand, there were bugs. Centipedes, spiders, ants, and more, too numerous to count, swarmed over my skin. The bag of flesh before me slumped to its knees. before keeling over, its occupants surging out of the hole in its neck.

I screamed at the top of my lungs and beat my arm against the wall of the cave, sloughing off the vermin in sheets. Through the chaos, I called out Jesse's name, forgetting at the time that I had already expected her to be unconscious at best. Her head tilted to the side, and she raised herself up onto her elbows, staring at me. My heart swelled, thinking for a moment that, if nothing else, at least we would get out of this alive. When the azure glow of the moss reflected off Jesse's all black eyes,

through the darkness I ran, heedless of the frantic chittering that echoed off the stone all around me, I ran into every single twist and turn in those tight tunnels, still struggling to scrape all the bugs off my arm. With every passing moment, I expected to feel the odd kids' hands wrap around my legs, drag me back to that room, and do to me what they'd done to Jesse. Turn me into one of them.

Finally, I saw a thin shaft of life, at the end of the darkness. I scrambled out of the cave and into the open woods, the full moon giving me plenty of illumination to find my way. Through the entire sprint, I tore at the flesh of my arm with my fingernails, scraping off the remains of the odd kid as they wriggled and crawled across me. The entire run is mostly a blur now.

I didn't stop once, didn't even peek behind me for fear of seeing those things one more time. When I burst into my grandparents' house, the two of them were both awake, sitting up in the living room waiting for me. I must have told a tale with a single look, because their stern expressions melted upon seeing my eyes, and they stayed up with me the rest of the night. sitting on the couch and wrapped in a blanket. I just stared out the window at the dusty road that led from the house, praying that I wouldn't see Jesse walking down it. The next day, after I'd slept and eaten,

my grandparents tried to coax out of me what happened. I didn't know what to tell them. Eventually, I told them I'd just fall in a sleep. sleep in the woods and had a nightmare, freaked myself out, and ran home crying. They hugged me and laughed gently, and my grandpa said I should call ahead the next time I'm going to worry them half to death. I smiled, and Jesse's face appeared in my mind's eye. I didn't let myself be alone for the rest of the vacation. This meant staying in door. for the most part, something I was more than fine with.

When word got out that Jesse hadn't been home in a few days, and people started searching, my grandparents asked me if I knew anything about it. I wanted to tell them about the odd kids. I should have said something. I know that now. But, like the scared child I was, I just said. said I didn't, and they left it at that. Three weeks later, I got on a plane and went home, and for the first time since the cave, I felt like I could breathe again. I no longer had the threat

of the odd kids looming over me, just waiting for a moment's lapse in readiness so they could I'd like to say that I don't know what happened to Jesse, that her fate remains a mystery, the coward's way out. Jesse died because of me. Because of my hubris, my curiosity, and my stupid thirst for adventure, Jesse lost her life. This is something I think about every day,

even some 30 years later, and it hurts just as much as the first time I realized it. Thousands of miles and a couple decades now lay between me and the worst summer of my life. But it isn't perspective that's prompted me to finally tell my tale. My daughter Maggie has been getting excited about collecting bugs, and as uneasy as it may make me, I'm not the kind to stop her. What really unsettles me about it is how her bugs act. Every time she brings me one of her little jars, the bugs inside, watch me. I know how crazy this

sounds. I know bugs don't see like you and I, but it's like they want me to know that they know I'm there. I went into my daughter's room a few days ago when she was out at school and picked up her ant farm to see what would happen. I expected them to freeze, to turn and look at me, but instead they went into a frenzy. Every last ant swarmed the side of the container, crawling over each other and climbing against the plastic that separated them from my right. hand. The hand the bugs were on for minutes as I stumbled blindly through that cave, frantically clawing them off. I watched, horrified, as the ants literally tore each other apart to be the one closest to my hand. What did the odd kids do to me? 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-sleeppodcast.com and click on the Season Pass link. Purchasing a season pass will help support everyone who contributes to the podcast, and in return you'll get 25 full-length episodes and three exclusive bonus episodes. All for only 1999. This is David Cummings. Thank you for listening and join us again next week for the next episode of the No Sleep Podcast.