The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S5E18

Episode Date: June 21, 2015

It's episode 18 of Season 5. We have six tales this week featuring stories about wicked weather, wretched relationships, and frightening farm fields. The full episode features the following stories. The free version features only the first three tales. Trigger Warnings "Soft White Damn" written by M.J. Pack with narration and full production by Jeff Clement. (Story starts at 00:04:20) "The Apartment Across the Street" written by Ryden Armani and read by David Cummings. (Story starts at 00:21:35) "Your Body and You" written by E.R. Embry and read by Mike DelGaudio & Tisha Boone & Brandon Boone & Erika Sanderson & Jessica McEvoy & David Cummings. (Story starts at 00:36:10) "My Summer With Grandma" written by Seamus Coffey and read by Jesse Cornett. (Story starts at 01:08:15) "Bianca" written by John Contad and read by David Ault & Erika Sanderson. (Story starts at 01:22:30) "The Well Went Bad on the Pierson Farm" written by William Dalphin and read by David Cummings & Nikolle Doolin & Jeff Clement & Erika Sanderson & Jessica McEvoy & Patrick Cline. (Story starts at 01:36:25) Click here for Jeff Clement's YouTube channel Click here to learn more about M.J. Pack Click here to learn more about Ryden Armani Click here to learn more about E.R. Embry Click here to learn more about Seamus Coffey Click here to learn more about John Contad Click here to learn more about William Dalphin Click here to learn more about Mike DelGaudio Click here to learn more about Jesse Cornett Click here to learn more about Nikolle Doolin Click here to learn more about Erika Sanderson Click here to learn more about Tisha Boone Podcast produced by: David Cummings Music & Sound Design by: Brandon Boone & David Cummings "The Well Went Bad on the Pierson Farm" illustration courtesy of Unka Odya 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.

Wait us 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 six tales this week featuring stories about wicked weather, wretched relationships, and frightening farm fields. It was great to read all the positive feedback about last week's fourth anniversary show. Many people commented on how much they enjoyed hearing the people behind the voices and words. featured on the show. We are very fortunate to have such marvelous contributors.

I wanted to mention some of our other contributors who don't get enough attention, but who certainly deserve notice. For many episodes now, you have seen the amazing illustrations of artist Wukesh Godleski, or Luke, as I call him. Luke's delightfully devilish art brings another element of horror to our show. I've decided to offer Luke the chance to escape the No Sleep Dungeon in which I've kept him trapped for many months now. And so from time to time we'll be featuring the artwork of some other very talented illustrators. Like this week, for instance, we have the artwork of Unka Odia. You have seen Unka's artwork before because she is the person who created the No Sleep Podcast logo with its foreboding moon in the night sky.

It's wonderful to have some sights to go along with the sounds of the show. So we formally welcome Unka to the show and look forward to other new art in the coming weeks. I also want to highlight the work which Jeff Clement is producing these days. It's great to have Jeff's regular contributions to the show, and this week is no exception. Our first tale is a story which Jeff has narrated and fully produced. Not only does Jeff provide great content for us and over at Chilling Tales for Dark Nights. He is also very active on his YouTube channel. It's a place where he posts audio productions, short story readings, including horror, monologues, song covers, and original music.

I highly encourage you to check out the great work Jeff does over. there. You can find him at YouTube.com slash oral stimulations. Oh, and that's oral as in A-U-R-A-L. If you're looking for videos featuring the other kind of oral stimulation, he'll have to look elsewhere. So we've got the sounds and we've got the sights. I guess we've got to start the show. In our first tale, we're surrounded by the falling snow. Yes, even though we're marking the start of summer in the northern hemisphere, the thought of a cool, refreshing snowfall can help offset the sweltering heat of summer. In this tale from author M.J. Pack, we meet a man isolated due to the heavy snowfall, and while in his home, he quickly realizes there

may be something out there in the snow, something trying very hard to get inside his house. Featuring the narration and full production by Jeff Clement, we're reminded of what a great man with the last name of Cummings once wrote. When it comes to snow and whom it touches, it doesn't give a soft white dam. Been snowing forever. Every time it's, It seems like it's about to let up. The sky clouds over with that flat, white paper look, and down it comes. More goddamn snow. I stopped shoveling the walk after the first two days.

My dad was always real particular about his shoveling, so I tried to do the same, but fuck, man. It was useless. It may as well have been that Greek guy with his boulder, the way it piled up after I broke my damn back trying to clear a path. I told myself I do the neighborly thing and take care of it as soon as the thaw started, but it hasn't started yet, so... It seemed like the best idea was just to stay inside and stay warm. Make some soup. Drink some whiskey. More whiskey.

You might think that was the problem, the whiskey. But, no. I mean, I was drunk, but a good drunk. The nice, easy drunk that makes your head buzz in the funniest way. I hadn't looked outside in a while. Early on, I'd pulled down one of the blinds to sneak a peek, but saw only more fucking snow. The whole world was white and it was starting to piss me off, so I let the blinds go with a little snapping sound that made me feel better for some reason.

Like, yeah, take that snow. It was getting late, but I wasn't really paying attention at the time. I only knew it was dark out because I hadn't moved from the couch to flip the lights when the gray glow outside finally went down. You couldn't say that the sun set, not really, because it wasn't out all day. It was hidden behind them damn thick snow clouds. And the living room was that weird kind of blue you get

when the only source of light is a TV screen. I'd spend most of the day hopping from cable movie to cable movie, pretty bored but drunk enough by then that the sight of Goldie Hawn in overboard wasn't too rough on the eyes. She's an annoying bitch in the... that one and she's got a mouth like an insane person, but she's still pretty hot. So I'd settled in with a fresh glass of Jack, pants unzipped in case I felt frisky. And that was when the noises.

Sort of quiet at first. So quiet I thought it was just snow or sleet hitting the windows. Then a little louder, it was right. It was at the window for sure, but no snow makes a noise like that. After I really heard it for the first time, I waited to see if it was a fluke. But after a second, again, not fast or nothing, and not random either. Real deliberate. Same sound it makes when you drum your fingers on the table if you're restless.

Right on the window pane of my porch window. Someone was screwing with me, I was sure of it. Maybe pissed I hadn't shoveled the walk yet, out there tapping. on my window in the middle of a blizzard just to hawk me off. I waited another minute. I didn't turn down overboard in case they were listening close. Didn't want them to know I knew where they were out there. I was going to catch them off guard, see?

And when I heard, I snapped down one of the blinds, ready to make mean eyes at some punk kid or nosy neighbor. Weird, too, because the tapping, it was on the glass right there, right behind those blinds. I have watched the movie for about 10 minutes, waiting for the tapping to start up again, but it didn't. Pretty soon I drained half the glass of Jack and I was feeling okay again. A little jumpy, I guess, but it hadn't really scared me.

It was just getting to the part where Goldie really gives it to that snooty teacher when I heard something else. It started quiet again, getting a little louder every minute. until I couldn't write off the noise and the storm. This time, I did mute the movie and almost immediately wished I hadn't. It was this low voice. Couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman, but it was low. And it was talking.

Only, that's not right because it wasn't really saying anything. It wasn't saying words. Just sort of gibbering. A constant babble of sounds and wheezy grunts that meant nothing. It wasn't like another language or anything either. Like, you know when you hear another language, and even though you can't understand them, you know they're saying something. Maybe it's the way they say it, I don't know, but this was different.

My dad had a stroke when I was a kid. We were out shopping for a gift for my mom's birthday, and I asked him if you wanted to look at car. and when he opened his mouth he started talking, but it wasn't words, it was just garbled stuff. And he knew he wasn't saying the right thing, but he couldn't fix it. I hadn't thought of that in years. But the sounds outside? They were like that.

That's the closest I can get. Whatever it was heard me turn down the volume and got louder, gibbering like my dyes. dad that day in April. And for a horrible second, I actually thought it was my dad's voice. But he's been dead a long time, so there was no way. And it felt like as soon as I let go of that memory and that thought, the gibbering sounded less like him until I was sure. No, it wasn't my dead dad out there on the porch and the snowstorm. I was drunk, like I said, and for a minute I felt kind of sad about that. My head, it felt kind of funny, too.

Like I'd been watching TV in the dark too long. The buzzing that was nice earlier sounded more like hornets than bumblebees now. I finished the glass of whiskey, slammed it on the table, and looked through the blinds again. Nothing out there. Snowing, still, harder than ever. But nothing on the porch. right away the jibbering stopped. I don't know why I looked like that.

I should have been more careful. I didn't know what could be out there if it was a homeless guy or whatever trying to find a warm place to sleep in the storm, but a part of me also knew it wasn't a homeless guy and that I should have been more careful when I looked. Because homeless guys don't sound like your dead dad no matter how drunk you are. It was okay, though, because nothing was on the porch.

but I didn't unmute overboard, and I was pretty quick to get some more whiskey. A few minutes went by, probably the same as before if I really think about it, and now I heard something running, full on running, back and forth across the porch, something with big, heavy footsteps, and an awful lot of speed. Every third run or so I'd hear it throw itself against the wooden banisters at either end of the porch. The wood would groan and whatever it was would let out some weird chuffing sound. Not like it did knock the wind out of itself. More like it was laughing.

I didn't know what to do. I was too scared to look now and really wishing I hadn't had so much to drink. Or maybe that I'd had much to drink. much, much more. But after the latest slam against the banister, I thought I heard wood splinter, and without thinking, I yelled, Hey, stop! Bone was in the kitchen. I should have called the cops, but it didn't even cross my mind because then... Danny, Danny, Danny, Danny. It was the same babbling voice from before, and it made my name sound like gibberish, like my name didn't fit right in its mouth.

It wasn't running anymore. It sounded like it was shifting from foot to foot, back and forth, back and forth, fast, like when a kid gets hyper or has to pee. It was right outside the front door. Danny, Danny, Danny, are you sorry? Danny, Danny, Danny. It said, and my stomach suddenly felt like it was full of cold mud.

Are you sorry, Danny, Danny, Danny? You're sorry, aren't you? Danny, Danny, Danny. Oh, Danny, Danny, Danny, Danny. Your daddy knows. Oh, yes, Danny, Danny, Danny. Your daddy's here. It sounded like my dad again, yeah, but...

Not really. The way a fun house mirror looks like you, but not really. Come outside, Danny. It said, Daddy's here. Daddy's back. Danny, Danny. Open the door. You forgot to shovel the walk.

Danny, Danny, Danny. Daddy's awful mad at you. And then I was standing at the door, reaching for the knob. I didn't remember even getting off the couch or setting my drink down or zipping my pants back up. I didn't forget to shovel, I told it, stepping slowly away from the door. I'm going to do it when it stops snowing, it said. Don't you know it's never going to stop? Sorry, Danny.

Be so sorry if you don't get out here and see your dad. Dad's not out there. I said this more to me than to whatever was on the porch. It felt good like I was getting a handle on something, so I said it again. My dad's not out there. It's the middle of a damn snowstorm, and he's been dead 15 years, and I don't know what you are. But you're not my dad. The gibbering started again.

It stopped saying my name and went back to running back and forth across the porch like it was throwing a tantrum. I don't know why it latched on to my dad. Maybe because he was the first thing I thought of. Maybe because I hadn't thought about him in a long time. Like I said, I don't know, but I listened to the barreling across my porch, babbling sometimes in my dad's. voice, sometimes in the same low voice I heard first. Sometimes, something else entirely. It ran back and forth on the porch for almost four hours. I never unmuted the TV, just stared at the blinds covering the windows to the porch and finished the bottle of jack.

Finally, the sun came up. I mean, not really. The sky got ivory white and the sun was behind the cloud somewhere, but the important part is it got light out and the thing stopped. I was pretty wasted by then, but I waited another half hour, waited to be sure it was gone and that the morning had really made it go. Remember how I said more whiskey? Kind of a lot of whiskey? I meant it. I'm going to need a lot more to get through this.

Because, well, I checked the weather report. today and another winter storm is coming through tonight. Up to six more inches by tomorrow morning. And the thing is, I don't know if I'll make it tomorrow morning. That thing is going to come back. It just is. And this time I don't know what it's going to say, but I do know that the first time it came,

I almost open the goddamn door for it. The other thing, the other reason I'm, I started drinking as soon as I woke up this afternoon, is what I saw before I finally passed out after my all-nighter with the whatever outside. When I saw when I finally did open the door and looked at the porch, the snow is deep, maybe up to my shins if I get really out there and wait in it, but it's not so deep on the porch. It seems covered, you know, but there's enough to leave tracks. And the damnedest thing is, there are tracks all over my snow, a dusted porch.

Sorry if this doesn't make much sense. I'm drunk and it doesn't make much sense to me either. But it's going to be dark soon. And all I can think about is what's coming back, what speaks in my dad's voice, what walks on its hands in the snow in the night. I am sorry. For those of us who live in large cities, it's common to take up residence in large blocks of apartment buildings.

As we learn from author Riden Armani, the proximity of nearby buildings can lead to the hobby, or perhaps the habit, of spying on people in the other buildings. But one man discovers that what he sees really isn't for his or anyone else's eyes. So close the blinds and mind your own business when it comes to the apartment across the street. Last time my girlfriend ever said anything meaningful to me was when she said, You just don't make me happy anymore. Figures. She chose right after I lost my job to break it off and leave me in this huge apartment by myself.

When I had my job and when we were together, we could afford this place. High rise on a street full of different high rises. All the works. Of course, now that she was gone and my job let me go, I couldn't even afford to pay the internet bill. I thought about maybe going back to my parents' house, but I knew that it would set me back even further. They live out in butt-fucking nowhere, and since I bike everywhere, it kind of eliminates all job options. At least here, I could try to get a job and then pay the rent that I owed. I didn't know what I was going to do about the rest of the necessities, though.

It took a few weeks before shit kind of started to fall off. The internet went first. then my phone's service afterwards, and then the TV. I sat on the couch then, staring off into nothing, realizing how much of our lives are made up of those three things. I didn't really have anything else to do, so I started just staring out the giant floor-to-ceiling windows. At first, there wasn't really much to look at.

Across the narrow street was an identical high-rise. Each apartment had the same large windows as my own. Some covered with curtains, some not. I found myself intrigued as I realized that I could actually see what a lot of the people were doing. That's how I started people watching. Most of them were boring. watching TV, having small get-togethers. My phone's camera served as binoculars as I watched people live out their lives.

I even moved my couch as close to the window as I could without anybody noticing. There was really only one person who drew me in. I lovingly started calling him sticky, based on the fact that he was really thin and his apartment, along with himself, were filthy. After a few times of watching him mope around his apartment, I realized that I recognized him. I had seen him leaving his building around the same time I left mine a few times in the past. The dude was dirty, and he always looked really sad. I wanted to feel bad for him then, as I watched him every night stumbling around and tripping over shit,

but I had my own demons to worry about. It's fucked up, but his anguish was my entertainment. The first time the escort showed up at his apartment, I didn't immediately realize what was happening. I had never seen anyone visit Stumbling Sticky in the past. No family and no friends, definitely no pretty girls. I didn't catch on until I saw him hand over a huge stack of cash. What ensued was not pretty. Not because of the girl, but because of how awkwardly he moved around her.

I hate to say that I watched the whole thing, but I did. Not with sexual desire or even entertainment, but because it was like a car accident. Boy, it was awful, but my eyes were locked onto the scene. After she left, he seemed a little happier, at least for the rest of the evening. He didn't stumble over shit. I even watched him straighten up his apartment a little bit, but he went back to the same route. the next day, though the slightest bit brighter. I was completely intrigued by this.

I don't know why. It's not even a big deal. People pay for sex all the time. It was just weird for him, I guess. I didn't even know the guy. I don't know what I'm getting at here. Anyway, she started showing up every Friday after that for a couple weeks. He'd hand her the money, and she would do her job and do it well, despite the awkwardness. I noticed over time that he seemed a little bit happier. He slumped his shoulders a little less. I guess I became so into this. I started even rushing downstairs to watch him leave his apartment, seeing a new pep in his step.

Only a day or so ago did things go bad. I really wish I didn't see it. She showed up, as always. I waited for the cash handover, getting ready to avert my attention. By then, I was mostly interested in the changes to his personality afterwards. I didn't care much about the sex, just the way it helped him. Instead of handing over the usual stack, he shook his head. I watched as he put his hands ever so gently, but still awkwardly, on her shoulders, leaning in and attempting to kiss her.

She turned her head away. I think she spoke, probably to tell him something like, no cash, no ass, and started to walk towards the door. An awkward, lanky arm grabbed for her hair, and Sticky pulled her back hard. I think he realized what he did, because he let go, allowing her to fall on the floor really hard.

I was thinking about heading down to the front desk and using their phone to call the cops when she stood up more gracefully than I expected. She stared at him, calm, and said something I couldn't make out and honestly still couldn't tell you exactly what it was. She then opened her mouth, likely as wide as it would go. He stared at her, confused and a little scared. I zoomed my phone's camera in as far as it could go as I watched the sick. Coral-colored tentacle thing emerge from her throat, making sure my eyes weren't tricking me as it finished its grand

entry into the open air. The thing was long, and it swayed back and forth, almost like it was looking him over. She stood there, her hands at her sides, her eyes staring blankly at the ceiling, as the coral thing twitched. He opened his mouth, maybe to say something, or even scream, but that's when the thing darted at him and entered his mouth and started running itself down his throat. He seemed almost like he was going to fight it, but I watched as something dark traveled from her into the tube and into him. His hand. His hand. Hands fell to his sides, and he stared blankly at the ceiling just as she was, and shook to the point where I almost dropped my phone when she blinked,

and in almost an instant the thing backed out of him and returned to her. She looked around, and I expected to see evil in her face, but instead there was fear. He stood there for a second, his mouth still open, eyes still staring blankly, before he too returned to normal. A little too normal. His shoulders slumped even further than they'd ever been. He sleepily retrieved his wallet from his pocket and shelled out a stack of cash three times as big as normal. Instead of strutting out coolly as she usually did, she hurried away, slamming the door behind her. I set my phone down, not at all believing what I had seen, but knowing that I had seen it in real time.

I truly didn't know what to do, so I did all I could. I shut the curtains, I crawled into bed. I ran the scene over and over again in my mind, looking for an explanation before finally falling into dreamless sleep. Woke up the next morning to sirens. I opened my curtains to see if there was anything out on the street, but I saw something else instead. Where the glass in the large window of Sticky's apartment was, there was a hole. Later, I would learn that he committed suicide. He broke the window with a chair and just jumped out, landing on a car below.

I stared at that gaping hole in the window for a few minutes before I heard a knock on the door. Great. Someone knew I was watching and just had to come add more to my horror-themed plate. However, when I opened the door, no one was there, but there was an envelope with my apartment number on it, sitting on the floor in the middle of the hallway. I silently kicked myself in the ass for being a curious person as I grabbed the envelope and returned to my apartment. I sat down on the couch and flicked on the table-side lamp. pausing, I wondered if I really wanted to see what was inside. Of course I did.

The first thing inside was money and a lot of it. More than enough to pay off all my back bills had last me for a few months, even in this expensive joke of an apartment. There was also a note, written in shaky, Black Pen. Stranger. I'm sorry that you had to see what I did. I didn't want to.

I really didn't. Please don't tell anyone what you saw. Nix Black. Yes. I hope. This token will help with your troubles. Only troubled people. When your entertainment and technology budget is limited,

sometimes you have to rely on outdated forms of media, like old VHS tapes, for instance. In this tale from author ER Embry, we meet a man who discovers an old videotape with a laughable, homemade educational program about puberty. But he soon realizes the silly, cringeworthy production is far more disturbing than it is funny. Narrators Mike Delgado, Tisha and Brandon Boone,

Erica Sanderson and Jessica McAvoy perform the tale for us as we encounter the nightmare hidden underneath the lesson about Your Body and You. In the heat of the Alabama June, I often find myself taking refuge in some of the department stores downtown. See, I live in a mobile home just south of I-81, and the place is a big white piece of shit, drowning in another big white pieces of shit. My neighborhood, it's a breeding ground for redneck brothels and meth labs. The trailer I live in is supposedly air-conditioned, evidenced by the gray box hanging from my only window. and the extra dough I have to fork up when I pay my rent,

but for some reason, I continuously find it hard to breathe in my own home. So, in other words, I feel like I'm perfectly justified for wanting to get out in the house as much as possible. I've always meant to get out of this shithole of a town, but I can barely carry my own weight living in a trailer park. I got into my black fore that is now orange from years of rust and miles driving on dirt roads. I decided on heading to the Goodwill to pick up some VHS tapes. Even though it's the 21st century, the trailer park don't have cable, forget about satellite.

I only own a VCR player. So as you can imagine, my sources of entertainment are living it to books and tapes. My friends tell me I'm perpetually living in 1997. I tell them I'm fine with that. My town's Goodwill is crammed between a bakery and a fabric store that's missing one of its neon letters. The walk from my car to the front door was excruciating, as I had left my sandals out in the sun,

and it felt as if I was wearing oily frying pans. My goodwill is like any other, I suppose. All the pants in the clothing section smelled like their previous owners had never learned what a bath was. Toys were mostly composed of Barbies with missing legs and glassy, white eyes. And the books were either eaten away by age, water, and probably earthworms. The movie section, however, that was my prize.

They had the usual, Hancock, ET, Independence Day, Die Hard 2, a surprising amount of Will Smith titles. A few of them made me chuckled. Good Burger. That would be a good one to watch for the guys. About twice a month, my buddies and I sit down, crack open some cold ones, and make fun of movies, you know, MST3K style. One of my friends, Dick, is actually a fan of SNL and an even bigger Keenan Thompson fan,

so I knew Good Burger would be a great movie choice. I snorted just thinking about it. As I picked it up off the shelf, I noticed another movie that was trapped in the back of the shelf. I couldn't make out the full title. All I saw with the words, Your Body. Out of curiosity, I tried to slide it out from behind all the other movies, but I pulled too hard and they all came cascading off. the shelfing on to my sand.

I held back a yelp and noticed the teenage door clerk glaring at me and popping her bubble gum. The Your Body film was still in my hand, so I gently laid it to the side and bent over starting to pick up movies. I stacked him up and slid them all back in the shelf in no particular order. I couldn't find Good Burger after that, so I just counted my losses and picked up Your Body. However, now that I held it in my hand, I noticed that it's full title was, Your Body and You. Upon further inspection, I realized

that it was a sex ed film from the early 90s. Jackpot. In my head, I did the math. Outdated VHS tape plus uncomfortable child actors, plus sex terms like testes,

ha, equals funny movie. Aside from the title on the front cover of the tape, there was a prepubescent boy and a girl facing away from each other and looking generally shy, all set to a very saved-by-the-bell-esque background. It was bright, sickening yellow with a bunch of pink and purple triangles and circles. Instead of there being a description on the back, however, there were three snapshots of events that apparently took place in the movie. One was of a clown-like man

in white face makeup, ruby red lipstick, a crisply iron black suit, and out of the same. And out of a clown-like man. outstretched arms. Another was a person with a brown paper bag over their head surrounded by cornfields. The last was of a person in a purple cardboard robot costume with their dryer vent arms sticking out at 90-degree angles. Well, now these images caught my eyes being very out of place for a sexette film. And the more I looked at the tape, the more it looked homemade, as if it was a home movie and someone just compiled the cover of the tape together in Photoshop.

I made my way over to the register and handed it to the clerk who gave me a weird, you're such a perve look. I paid for it and she asked me if I wanted a bag between clicks of her chewing gum. I said, no, thanks. I carried it back to my car and drove off. Now, if we're being perfectly honest, I forgot about the tape for the rest of the day. I spent some time looking for clothes that would be. fit me. I've always been a stress eater. I had been going up a few sizes. And I ate at Chili's for

lunch. After spending most of the day downtown, I made my way back down the dirt road into my trailer. Unloading bags of clothing and a few groceries, I noticed the tape hidden under all the plastic, and I smiled again. This was going to be a fun movie night. I called the guys over, but most of them had work or dates or some other stuff like that. In the end, I decided, at the postponed movie night to the next weekend. But as I picked up Steinbeck's travels with Charlie, my mind flung itself back to the tape. For the second time that day, my curiosity got the better of me.

I went outside at 11 o'clock to get an old sex ed film from my truck. I know, I'm a creep, but, you know, the pictures on the back, they piqued my interest. When I got back inside, I turned on the old black TV. It buzzed as it turned on, playing white noise at what seemed like full volume. I scrambled for the remote and turned it down, and then slid the tape out of its cardboard case and into the VCR. It was clear that someone had been watching the film before I had, and didn't take the time to rewind it back to the beginning. The tape started in the middle of a song.

The singer was the cardboard purple robot from the back of the cover. I hadn't taken a good look at the robot before, but, Now that I looked at it, I realized how laughably makeshift the costume was. The body and head were made out of two separate cardboard boxes that had been painted purple. It had square eye and mouth holes cut out, but they were covered with black mesh so you couldn't see who was inside. The arms were made from dryer ventilation, and the legs were just purple sweatpants. The person in the costume was doing the robot and singing in a shrill, barely distinguishable voice.

I realized that was probably a woman in the costume. I wanted to rewind to the beginning, but I was entranced by the comedic awkwardness of this song. Music was okay, I suppose. It was synth music, and it seemed to be the only professional thing that I was seen. I can remember a few of the lyrics. Like I'm saying, it was probably the most cringeworthy thing I'd ever seen.

When the song was over, the shot panned to two little kids who couldn't be older than ten. A boy and a girl, same ones as on the cover. They were both sitting on the carpeted floor, and they seemed to be in the middle of a game of Monopoly. They both clapped hesitantly. The shot changed to a close-up of the clown man from the cover of the tape. I nearly jumped out of my seat.

He was sweating profusely, and his wide makeup was rubbing off, but he didn't seem to care. He grinned with his ruby lips and looked off camera, probably at the robot, and said, Oh, Peeobot. I almost laughed at the robot's name. Pubeot? But then again, something about that clown rubbed me the wrong way.

The way he looked at whatever was off-camera like it was a piece of meat, or the deranged twinkle in his black eyes. I don't know. He just creeped me out. Unsettled, I rewound the tape until I no longer heard the faint humming of the VCR and then pressed play. It started with a single synth note that led off into nowhere, and the words appeared on the screen, Baker Family Productions,

and then, of course, your body and you. It was at this time that I noticed how damage the tape was. It was the occasional visual tear, but sometimes it went full-out distortion, and it was almost unwatchable. The actual film started with the boy and the girl laying on the carpet playing Monopoly. The shot zoomed down and the clown man walked on screen.

The boy and the girl feigned surprise. Who are you? The boy asked, standing up with the girl. The clown man said in a gravely crusty the clown impersonation. The kids didn't laugh at this ridiculous announcement, which surprised me. Pubot jumped on screen. In unison, they said, Together, we're going.

The girl asked. Pupster glared. at her. The girl gasped and put her hand over her mouth. Pubot dropped her arms. They all stood in silence. I'm sorry, Daddy. Pubester lost it. Bucks up her lines, bitch. He turned to the girl. Why can't you be more like your brother? The girl tried to apologize again. Fucking save it. Pubster and Pubot walked off screen and the boy and girl sat down at the board game again. The girl wiped her eyes on her sweater. And so they did the same scene again,

me with my mouth gaping open. But when it came to the part where the girl messed up, she stayed silent and the boy said, But what is puberty? And Puberty answered. Puberty is when your body goes through. Pupster smiled. His lips gleaming. That's right, Pube.

Their transition from children to adults. After a little bit of silence, Pupster ran over to the camera. All right, cut. Was that so hard, Tabitha? Emotionless, the girl shook her head. The boy stared at the floor. Pupster moved the camera to the side so Pubot took up the whole screen. After Pupster said action, Pubot started singing that horrible song. I fast forwarded still in shock from what I saw.

Pubot finished the song and the shot changed back to a close-up of Pupster. This was strange. The film seemed generally unedited, but there were still cuts here and there. Pupster appeared to be the director, but he didn't seem to be what my parents would call all there. Perhaps he forgot to edit the film before it was distributed. After Pupster finished his line, he said something without breaking eye contact. with whatever was off camera.

The camera shifted to the boy in Tabitha. Tabitha said in a monotone voice. Pubot started saying something, but Pupster stopped her. He raised a gloved hand. His voice was strained as if he struggled to keep his temper under control. Tabitha needs some time out so she can reflect on her lack of acting. Tears welled in Tabitha's eyes. The shot changed to someone walking up the stairs.

They had the camera in their hand, and I couldn't see who it was. They turned on the kitchen light and walked over to the window. I could hear rain pittering on the roof, and when the cameraman set the camera facing out the window, I saw how dark it was outside. They turned on the porch light, and outside I could see that the house was out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by acres of cornfields.

The front yard had a single baby tree and a dirt road stretching out for miles. But as the camera adjusted to the new light source and got less blurry, I noticed something attached to the tree. There was a flash of lightning in for a split second, I saw it perfectly clear. Tabitha was chained by her legs to the tree, face first in the mud. Her back was heaving up and down as if she was hyperventlating. The rain slapped her on the back of the neck and her hands covered her head. Suddenly, someone started speaking.

Their voice was crisp and crackly. They were probably speaking right next to the camera's microphone. Consider this a lesson. The shot changed to a man in his kitchen, frying bacon. It was Pupster, only he wasn't wearing his makeup or suit. He was an average-looking guy with some stubble and a bathrobe on. The sun shone through the kitchen window brightly and the bacon sizzled in pot. Pupster was humming the puberty song that Pubot had sung the night before.

The camera was probably set up in some cupboard as I could see the whole kitchen. A woman with bedraggled hair and a white tank top stumbled in and turned on the coffee maker. He was making Sunday morning small talk. It dawned on me that this woman, Betty, was Pubster's wife and was probably Pubot. Betty almost said something, but then her eyes were caught by something out of the window. She screamed, running frantically out the front door. Pupster smiled to himself, flipping a few slices of bacon. About 30 seconds later, the screen door flung open with Betty carrying Tabitha in her arms.

Her eyes remained closed and her damp, matted hair hung from her scalp like wet noodles. Betty laid her down on the kitchen's tiled floor, putting her lips on her daughters in an ignorant kind of attempted CPR. This, however, was unneeded as the girl's stomach. was still heaving up and down like it had been the night before. Something Betty failed to notice. Tabitho was still alive. Pubster turned around and grinned at Betty, his hands clutching the counter behind him.

Charlie stayed silent, looking at his wife like she was an aunt trying to escape a swimming pool. The smile stayed on his face, but it was only what I can describe as a fake smile. The kind that newsakers used when they want to seem charismatic, the kind of mask that only a sick, demented shell of a person would wear. He stopped leaning against the counter and approached his wife, slightly bending over as he walked, as if she were a small child. He kicked his wife in the shoulder.

She fell to the ground grasping where she had been kicked. She was about to scream something like, Charlie, what the fuck are you doing? Until she noticed him digging around in the knife drawer. And even though it had been filmed on a shitty household camera, I could still see the terror form in her eyes. The way her expression had gone from infuriated to scared in just an instant. Despite the pain in her shoulder and her daughter laying unconscious on the floor, Betty scrambled to her feet and out the screen door. Charlie was in no rush.

He found the particular knife he was looking for, stepped over his daughter and walked briskly out the door. After a few seconds, I could hear him faintly in the distance. For minutes, I stared deeply into my television screen, waiting for something to happen. I nearly jumped when the little boy walked into the kitchen in his onesie pajamas and pulled himself into his seat. He saw his sister laying cold on the floor, but he didn't say anything or even look at her. It was as if he was trained not to speak up. Part of me wanted to fast forward, but I was overcome with a sudden empathy for the kid. His stomach audibly growled, but he didn't do anything about it.

He just sat there, still as a statue, awaiting further instruction. Minutes passed and Charlie returned. His bathrobe sop and wet from last night's rain. His knife was gone. Ignoring his son, Charlie picked up Tabith's body and carried her further into the the house off camera. He returned and made himself a cup of coffee. Drinking in black, he walked over to his son and ruffled his hair. The final scene of your body and you was probably the reason I chose to burn it. It wasn't for a religious reason or anything or even for censorship. I've always

firmly believed in the pursuit of knowledge, but there are some things the world would be better off from sin. The final scene was the same one depicted on the back of the tape. A girl with a paper bag over her head surrounded by cornfields. Her golden yellow hair twirled down from under her bag and onto her shoulders. She was moving amongst the cornfields, speeding quickly through yellow stalks. It didn't take me long to figure out that she was in the back of a truck. The girl sat still as a statue to spite the

fact that she was in the back of a speed and pickup. After minutes of the same continuous shot, the truck slowly glided to a halt. I heard the driver's door open, then slammed shut. Charlie walked into the frame looking pissed off. He opened the back of the pickup and grabbed the girl by the wrists, and then dragged her out of the back and into the dirt. I half expected her to kick and scream, but she stayed still, only slightly wincing when she hit the ground. Charlie sat her up and pulled some rope out of his jean pocket. The sun beat down

on them both as he tied her hands behind her back and forced her to stand up. He walked over to the trunk and unscrewed the camera from its tripod. Grabbing her by the wrists, Charlie began to lead her into the cornfields while carrying the camera. The stalks brushed by them as they walked. The more they move, the more I could make out a small clearing in the distance where a couple of a couple of stalks had been pushed down. They made their way to it, and I felt a dropping sensation in my stomach, as if I had just falling off a skyscraper and was just seconds from hitting the ground. Charlie pushed his way into the clearing.

Inside was Betty, laying face down in a puddle of dried up blood. It had crusted into the soil, making it reddish-brown. Charlie forced the girl with a bag on her head to her knees. At this point, her shoulders started moving up and down. and her chest shuddered. Even though the bag blocked her face, I knew she was sobbing. She knew where she was. She knew what happened to her mother.

Instead of saying anything, Charlie sat in the dirt with his daughter, still pointing the camera at her. Tabby, when was the last time Mommy took you to Sunday school? Inhaling deeply as she spoke, Tabitha said. Charlie didn't say anything immediately, but I knew. he was smirking behind the camera. Tabitha sniffled. Besides, if he really loved you next to me. Tabitha shook her head onto the paper bag.

My mama was a very strict Christian lady. However, she didn't always agree with everything that the good book said. She always said that she never believed that the devil was a snake or a fallen angel. In fact, she believed that the devil was a snake. The devil lived out here in Nebraska, eaten from people's cornfields, and making men eat their wives. Whenever I asked her if I could go out and play in the fields, she always warned me that if I should come across Satan himself, I shouldn't look him directly in the eyes. I should drop to the ground, cover my head, and call for help. She spoke about him as if she had met him once.

I never came face to face with the devil, never directly anyway. Charlie got up and dusted off his pant legs. Always said that the devil could twist a man's will, turn a martyr into a murderer. The tape ended there. The screen turned blue and a single word appeared on the bottom left corner. Stop. Was this the end? How could it be?

What happened to Tabitha, the boy? It eventually crossed my mind to do research on the matter. Like I said, the internet was not an option in my neighborhood. I must have wasted a quarter of my rent money on driving to the nearest library. When I pulled up, I walked inside the glass sliding doors. Hmm, air conditioning. The luxury I had never been able to afford. The elderly woman at the front desk asked if she could help me.

I asked if I could use one of her computers. She said yes as long as I had a membership, which I did not. I paid a couple of bucks for the registration process, received my username and password, and then sat down at one of the monstrous white computers. The library was almost deserted. The other people were the librarian and a fat guy drooling over the graphic novel selection. I logged in and opened up the internet. I'm sure what to search, I typed in

Your Body and You. I clicked through a couple of pages of search results, turning up nothing of interest, just a bunch of dot-gov pages. Scrolling back up to the search bar, I typed in Charlie Baker. It turned up the Wikipedia page of Charlie Baker, the Republican governor of Massachusetts. Dead end. Scrolling back up, I typed in Baker Family Productions.

Surprisingly, there are a lot of Baker families out there that produce things. Gospel music bands, homemade films, even canned goods. However, after scrolling through a couple of pages, I found a single thread on some backwater gore fanatic forum called The Charlie Baker Murders. Reading the thread, I saw that it was started by someone like me who discovered one of Charlie's VHS tapes. Only the one he saw wasn't your body and you. It was a film called Everett's Big. Big day. People on the forum were interested by the movie, as it was also unedited and showed

Charlie Baker's general abuse to his wife and children. They dug deeper and through public record and several deleted Wikipedia articles, they uncovered more and more about who Charlie Baker was. Charlie Baker was born on the outskirts of Manawi, Nebraska. The town was small back then, but now it had a population of just one, Elsie Eiler. The town is now the smallest in Nebraska, and by extension, the United States. Charlie grew up with only one parent and four brothers, and when he was a teenager, he got a job at a nearby corn mill, which he kept until later in his adult life.

As he grew up, Charlie spent increasingly more time at Manawi's tavern, which was owned by Mrs. Eiler. Isler was not only the mayor of the town, but also the owner of the library and the tavern. And it was at this tavern that Charlie would be, meet Betty Skaggs, a single mother who lived in an old farmhouse in the middle of a bunch of overgrown cornfields. They quickly built a relationship and got married, and Charlie moved into Betty's house. However, as time passed, Charlie got more and more irritable and aggressive. He lost his job

at the corn mill as he would constantly get in fights with his co-workers, and he was deemed too dangerous to be around heavy machinery. It was at this point that Charlie bought a camera. At first, he filmed things just a document. He'd take the camera with him when he went for rides or to the general store or basically anywhere. Eventually, Charlie decided to make movies. His wife was worried about how they were going to feed the kids, but she was also terrified to what Charlie would do when he snapped, so she humored him. The local police found Betty and Tabitha dead in a cornfield.

Betty from knife wounds, Tabitha from dehydration. Charlie was gone. After a couple of months, they found the body of Everett, Betty's son, stuffed inside the house's sewage tank. His body reeked the shit and blood. His skin had started to peel off from weeks of corrosion. Together, the Baker family made over a dozen feature-length films. However, only four of them were discovered by the forum users. Your body and you was the final uncons.

covered film by Charlie Baker as far as I can tell. None of the forum users had discovered it yet, and the thread hadn't been updated since 2010. And so I burned it. The world doesn't need another Charlie Baker. The final post on the thread was by a user called Remit Trib. He was a Nebraska resident who was intrigued by the whole thing, so he took a trip down to Manawi and managed to get an interview with Elsie Eiler.

Her husband had died in 2004, making her the only resident left in the town. He sat down with her in the Manawi Tavern and asked about Charlie Baker. Oh, him. She said distastefully. I was friends with his mama, you know. He was always such a sweet boy. I can't imagine why someone so nice could go and do something like that. There must be some reason why.

Remitrived told her. Elsie sighed. You know, when he was a boy, he would come into my shop with his brothers and tell me about his day. I would give them a small order of fries and sit down and listen to them. It was the usual kind of thing a little boy would talk about. Who shot who when they were playing cowboys? who got stung by the most bees and so on. However, every once in a while,

Charlie would tell me that he saw the devil out in the cornfields when he got separated from the rest of the boys. 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 week for the next episode of the No Sleep Podcast.