The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S6E03

Episode Date: October 11, 2015

It's episode 3 of Season 6. On this week's show we have five tales about sinister sounds from siblings and strangers.The full episode features the following stories. The free version features only the first three tales.Trigger Warnings"South of Seattle" written by Andrew Best and read by Jessica McEvoy. (Story starts at 00:03:45)"My Ex Won’t Stop Texting Me" written by Rona Vaselaar and read by Erika Sanderson. (Story starts at 00:16:40)"It's Not So Bad" written by Michael Orzechowski and read by Peter Lewis & Erika Sanderson & Jessica McEvoy. (Story starts at 00:28:45)"I Can Always Hear The Screaming When It Rains" written by Rona Vaselaar and read by Jessica McEvoy & Nichole Goodnight. (Story starts at 01:00:55)"My Brother Kept Talking" written by Robert Ahern and read by Mike DelGaudio & David Ault & Erika Sanderson & Jesse Cornett. (Story starts at 01:18:10)Click here for Brandon Boone's free music during October!Click here for Jack Werner's Swedish language horror podcastClick here to learn more about Rona VaselaarClick here to learn more about Michael OrzechowskiClick here to learn more about Jessica McEvoyClick here to learn more about Erika SandersonClick here to learn more about Peter LewisClick here to learn more about Mike DelGaudioClick here to learn more about Nichole GoodnightClick here to learn more about David AultClick here to learn more about Jesse CornettPodcast produced by: David CummingsMusic & Sound Design by: Brandon Boone & David Cummings."I Can Always Hear The Screaming When It Rains" illustration courtesy of Lukasz GodlewskiAudio program ©2015 - Creative Reason Media - All Rights Reserved - No reproduction or use of this content is permitted without the express written consent of Creative Reason Media. The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a horror fiction podcast. By listening to our stories, you are choosing to be frightened and disturbed for your entertainment. You do so at your own risk. Brace yourself for the No Sleep Podcast. Season 6, episode 3. It's the No Sleep Podcast. I'm David Cummings. Thanks for joining us. this week's show we have five tales about sinister sounds from siblings and strangers.

One of the things that continues to amaze me about doing this podcast is the fact that it's heard by people around the world. We have listeners from every continent and many countries I wouldn't expect to be fans of English language horror stories. I'm grateful you all listen, but if you happen to live in Sweden or speak Swedish, perhaps you'll be interested in a no-sleep style podcast in your own language. Jack Werner is an author and horror enthusiast from Sweden, who is now six episodes into his horror storytelling podcast. Now, I confess I don't speak Swedish,

but it certainly sounds like a cool, creepy show. So check the show notes if you're interested in listening. I've been mentioning recently the opportunities to hear the music of our maestro Brandon Boone, both through his Patreon page, and our sleepless contest, which is now wrapped up, and its winners will be contacted soon. But don't fret, because with October upon us, Brandon has come up with an extremely generous offer I'd like to tell you about. You see, wait, why am I telling you about this when the man himself could do it?

So, Brandon, take it away. Hey, new sleepers. This is your resident composer, Brandon Boone. In the spirit of Halloween, I wanted to show my gratitude for all your support. So for the entire month of October, the music featured on the show will be free of charge on braynonboon.bancamp.com. I hope this will keep your nights extra spooky during the haunting Halloween season and beyond. Stay sleepless. Stay sleepless indeed.

Make sure you check out the show notes for a link to Brandon's site and make his music a big part of this special spooky month. And Brandon has some new music just ready for you to hear, so let's wait no further and start the show. In our first tale, we decide to get away from it all. Take a trip into the countryside to leave the pressure of the work-a-day world behind. But as we learn from author Andrew Best, sometimes nature doesn't provide as much solitude as we might like. Jessica McAvoy performs the tale for us, so take heed, especially if you're in the Pacific Northwest in a spot south of Seattle. Sick to death of working myself to death, I took the first vacation of my life last year. A beat-up rebuilt Yamaha Zuma and a foolish sense of optimism carried me across the western United States on an adventure that seriously made me rethink everything I thought I knew about the world.

I loved Seattle, with the hip-original hippie neighborhoods and the perma carnival atmosphere of Pike Place Market. Patrol Bridge was a highlight. Gotta love a city that sees a bridge and goes, you know what this is? needs, a giant concrete troll. Getting out of Seattle, however, was a total nightmare. Restricted to back roads by a motor that capped at 40 miles an hour, I must have gotten lost a dozen times despite all the help I received from baffled gas station attendance. So I was behind schedule when it came to finding my campsite. Some miles south and a little east of the city, there's a free camp It's most often used by horse riders and boy can you smell it.

That's actually what guided me in the last few miles. There's a gravel road off of a service road and then a few crooked unpaved paths off of that. The trail markers were all bent, broken, or faded. In the end, I had to follow my nose. I sat up in my junior scout tent in the fading twilight. Mine was the only one there. I had the place all to myself. After a quick meal of apples pilfered from the previous campground,

I did my usual travel log spiel to my video camera by lantern light before turning in. I'm not sure how long I slept. I know I checked the time, but I'll be damned if I can recall what it was. Something had disturbed my well-earned beauty rest, but I was too groggy to remember what it had been. I sat in a stupor, too alert to fall back asleep, but too sleepy to be totally awake. Something brushed the side of my tent,

and suddenly I was more awake than I'd ever been. I had done plenty of camping by that point. I was familiar with the sounds of the usual nighttime critters, from raccoons to coyotes. Nothing had ever bothered me in my tent. tent before. Just snuffled around camp before wandering off and leaving me be. From the sound of the footsteps, it was walking on two legs. That was a first. My mind immediately jumped to the worst possible conclusion. There's a lot of conflicting information out there about how to deal with

bears, and a lot of it depends on the type of bear. Sitting there in the dark with my heart beating in my throat. I had no way of telling which species I was dealing with. Shout out or play dead. I was 30 yards from a sturdy cement block outhouse that might be a better shelter. As quietly as I dared, I slipped my boots on and got ready to dash. The tent zipper seemed impossibly loud in the night as I worked at open centimeter by centimeter. I move agonizingly, slowly. Once outside, I craned my neck around to see if the bear, if that's what it was, was between me and the outhouse. With the incredible illumination of the Milky Way, I could see the campground clearly all the way to the tree line.

There was nothing out there. I could feel something watching me. It was like feeling an insect crawling. along the back of my neck. There was no logical way for me to know something had its eyes on me, but out there in the dark, in the middle of nowhere all alone, I couldn't dismiss it. Still on high alert, I crept along and tried not to crunch the gravel under my feet too loudly. The outhouse was still my best bet. The door was propped open by a stone, but inside there was a heavy-duty bolt lock. I would have to spend the night surrounded by the smell of not only horse, but also

human poop, but I figured that was a fair trade for not getting mauled or eaten. My hand was on the latch when I heard the awful crunch of footsteps and gravel behind me. I kicked the stone propping the door open, out of the way, and slammed the heavy metal door shut, no longer caring how much noise I made. Whatever was on the other side had thumbs. Something tugged on the door as I struggled to bolt it shut.

I won, but it was close. There was a metal mesh along the top of the structure for ventilation. Through it, I heard the bellows of heavy breathing that matched my own. My phone was back in the tent because

I am an idiot. There was no way to tell time. The same stupid impulse that brought me out there in the first place kicked in. I had to know. Hello? Silence. Maybe they hadn't heard me. And then...

Oh. I could have shit myself. I was in the right place for it. The voice was feminine like my own, and the sound of it was a kick to the gut. I couldn't even tell you why. why it made me so uneasy. The sensation was like when you're walking upstairs and you're expecting another step, but your foot comes down on empty space.

I'm sorry, I thought I was alone. Every syllable was jarring. I'm sorry I freaked out. I didn't think there was anyone else here. Sorry, I'm here. You'd think now that I knew it was. another camper I would have opened the door but I never did. Some deeply buried instinct kept me from taking my hand off the bolt. You scared the crop out of me. Are there more

tent sites out there in the trees or something? I'm something. There are more. Her words made me sick to my stomach. Again, I couldn't have even told you why, only that they did. For From her odd syntax, I guess English wasn't her first language. Do you need to go? Use the bathroom, I mean. Because I'm going to be in here a while. That wasn't a lie. I wouldn't have opened that door if it was my own mother on the other side.

You need to go. Her grasp of English was improving with every sentence. There was something weird about that. Look, I'm sorry if I scared you, but you started it by creeping around in the dark. I won't come out. Can you go somewhere else? I'll be gone in the morning, I promise. I just wanted to sleep in peace.

You need to be gone. I promise you I creep in the dark. You won't be here in the morning. Fear cemented my mouth shut. The more I spoke, the more she did, and I didn't want to hear her voice anymore. I'm sure that makes me sound like a bigot or something, but I had the feeling I was feeding words to her, and the feeling was not pleasant.

It felt like she was hungry for them. The same instinct that told me to keep quiet the first time kept me from running my dumb mouth off again. I was either dealing with someone who was not. mentally well or was something else entirely. There was a threat in her words or the way she spoke them and I had no doubt she would be able to carry out that threat. I kept my hands on the bolt while they cramped and the first rays of sun crept sluggishly through the mesh at the top of the walls of my shelter. It wasn't until the sun was strong enough to make me sweat in my self-imposed prison that I

felt brave, stupid enough to speak again. Hello? Are you still out there? Hello? Anyone? There was no answer, which was the best outcome I could hope for. I opened the door. My tent was untouched, at least from a distance. The oppressive feeling of being watched had dissipated. I dressed and broke down camp in record time. My moped cranked to life, but it wasn't until I went to put my helmet on that I saw the footprint. I'd kicked that rock pretty far. It was close to my bike. Naturally, I went over to it.

I had to know. In a clear outline of fresh mud, there was a single print on the smooth gray of the stone. Not human, but a hoof, like that of an unshot horse or goat. It was so fresh, so vivid. It hadn't been there last night when I used the bathroom before I'd gone to bed. In the soft mud in front of the outhouse door were more of the same, some of them on top of my own boot prints. If you want to go looking for whatever the hell, it was be my guest. Just be careful with your words out there.

Because I figured out what was wrong with that voice when I watched the playback of my travel log video. It was my own. We've probably all received an unwanted text in the past, but it's even more common when you've broken up with someone who just doesn't want to let things go. In this tale from author Rona Vassilar, we meet a woman who gets increasingly annoyed by unwanted texts and decides to do something about it. Anything to put an end to it.

Performing this tale is Erica Sanderson. So put down that phone for a while, so you don't end up with the same complaint about how my ex won't stop texting me. I miss you. I held off getting a cell phone for as long as possible. I didn't have a really good reason, I guess, other than the cost. I was new to America and just setting out on my own. There was no way I could afford the monthly plan. I was the only one of my friends to still rely on a landline,

and it drove everyone nuts. I managed to wait until my 25th birthday, when I finally felt financially secure enough to justify buying one for myself. My friends all laughed about my change of heart, but I could tell they were relieved. To be honest, I was pretty pleased too. As it turns out, cell phones are ridiculously convenient. Who knew? I didn't start getting the texts until about a month after I bought my phone.

It was the first message from an unknown number that I'd received, and it read simply, I miss you. I was confused at first. What kind of introductory text was that? It seemed a little over-dramatic for me, and that was when I made the connection. About a year before, I dumped a deadbeat ex-boyfriend out of my life. Looking back, I can definitively say that he was really something of an overgrown child.

He expected me to cook, clean, set up his doctor's appointments, and give him. Yes, give him, half of my income. each month as he did not find it necessary to get a job. I shouldn't have stayed with him so long. Damn those devilish good looks. But once I came to my senses, I kicked him to the curb as all of his other girlfriends and victims had done before.

My guess was that he'd stalked my Facebook or prodded my friends for my new number. After all, this wasn't the first time he'd tried to reach out to me and I figured it wouldn't be the last. In the end, I chose not to answer. For one, I knew he would just try to manipulate me if I gave him a chance, as per usual. For two, it would give me petty satisfaction to let him feel ignored and unheard. Now, as a rule, I try not to be petty, but sometimes such a perfect opportunity is just too seductive.

The next few months seemed to corroborate my inference. His attacks weren't constant, but were always vague pleas that seemed to indicate that he needed a new host to leach off and couldn't find one. It was unsurprising that he tried to reach out to me first, as I'd been the most loyal and long-lasting of all of his girlfriends, and the most naive. I was the perfect target. The messages were always in the same vein, and quickly became tiresome. I miss you. I wish I could see you. I thought I saw you in the crowd today, but it turned out to be just a dream. Ugh, pathetic.

One night, about eight months since I'd had my phone, I slipped up. I have to admit, I'd been drinking. It had started as one beer to help me unwind after work and quickly snowballed into a one-woman party. I was thoroughly smashed when I received a much longer text than usual. I miss you so much. I know you don't really. read these, but today of all days, I need you to know how much I love you. I'd do anything to see you one more time. Today of all days, I wondered. I tried to wade through the mushy haze of my brain.

The first thought I had, I seized. Today must have been our anniversary. Sure, why not? It was the perfect opportunity for a little manipulation. He was a prick, but he was smart. And then I had an idea. He wants to play games. Okay, let's play. But I'm going to change the rules. I swear my thoughts slurred. I began to type,

and my autocorrect struggled to clarify through my drunkenness. If you want to come see me, then why don't you do it? And then, just for good measure, I let him know that I knew he'd been investigating me. You know where to find me. I sent it, and with that, I changed fate. When I woke up the next morning, I had 13 missed calls. I tried to remember through the throbbing of my skull

just what bullshit I'd done the night before. I groaned when my texting history answered my question. Well, at least I hadn't answered the phone, thought. I silently prayed that he wouldn't message or call again, but I feared that I'd merely succeeded in egging him on. To my great relief, he stopped messaging me. For a week or so, my phone was blissfully free from his assaults. I was secretly satisfied, congratulating my drunken self on her ingenuity. The next week, I received a knock on my door. I opened it only to reveal a man of the badge, his solemn face and blue uniform standing stark in the morning sunlight.

His partner stood behind him, his face hard as stone. I felt a strange coldness seeping into my veins as they stared at me. Um, good morning officers. Is something wrong? With very little introduction, they invited themselves inside. I let them in, not sure what they were looking for, but positive if they wouldn't find it. I'd figured they'd made a mistake and was even more surprised when they began firing questions. Do you know anyone by the name of Silence Madison?

I was stumped, completely puzzled. I can't say that I do. Why? We found a series of text to you on her phone. We found only one reply from you. The younger officer pulled out to print out of the text that I've been receiving, along with my one drunken reply. Reality started to dawn on me.

Did you receive these messages? Yeah, but they were coming from an unknown number. I thought they were from my ex-boyfriend. And that's why you sent that reply? I was sweating nervously. Yeah, I thought it would make him stop. I was a little drunk, so maybe it wasn't. the best decision.

The younger officer stepped outside as the older one sighed. There seems to have been a rather unfortunate accident. What do you mean? He took a deep breath and opened his mouth. Silence had had a very rough first year of college. Classes were hard. She didn't quite fit in. Her life was a mess of stress and papers.

And just when she thought it couldn't get, any worse, her best friend since childhood, Raquel Wagner, died in a car wreck. The death was instant, but silence's pain was not. She'd withdrawn into herself as the semester went on. Her family and friends mourned Raquel's loss, of course, but they continued their lives as people are wont to do. Silence, on the other hand, could not bring herself to leave her friend in the past. She tried to deal with it. She really did. She looked for outlets. She tried to put on a happy face when she went to class, but she sank slowly into a darkness that felt inescapable. And when that darkness was truly thick, suffocating, insufferable, she'd text Raquel's

old number. A useless gesture, but sometimes it would bring her comfort. And on the anniversary of Raquel's death. When she was at her lowest, she finally got a response. If you want to come see me, then why don't you do it? You know where to find me. She tried calling, but she didn't even reach voicemail, because I had never set it up. So she'd done the only logical thing she could do. She'd reached for the box cutter she'd swiped from work and opened her veins to the possibility of infinity. I made a terrible mistake that night, a mistake that ended the life of someone desperately struggling just above the surface. Her father forgave me, but no matter how many times I apologised, her mother had nothing but hatred for me. I understood that. To her, I had been

the final push to kill her daughter. The police told me over and over that silence herself had ended her own life. I was not to blame. But inside me, the seeds of guilt spread far across my heart, growing like weeds that I just couldn't uproot. It was a long, hard year. I managed to get back on my feet and continue on with my life, although silence's death hung over me like a shadow. No matter what I did, I just couldn't forget her, no matter how far away the incident seemed. Yesterday was her anniversary. I tried my best to get through the day, pretending I'd never heard her name, never heard that story.

It was going well until about 10 o'clock that night when I received a text. A text from a number I'd been trying desperately to forget for the entirety of the last year. Thank you. Being hard of hearing is something you might expect as the senior years arrive, but it can be especially tough when you're young. As explained by author Michael Orzachowski, it was only when his hearing improved as an adult that he realized the silence has its benefits,

namely it can keep out unwanted sounds and voices. Performing this tale are Peter Lewis, Erica Sanderson, and Jessica McAvoy. So watch what you say, because someone might hear you when you say it's not so bad. As a kid, my hearing was terrible. When I say terrible, I mean I was actually considered hard of hearing and had to be taught sign language throughout a lot of my early school years.

I feel lucky now as an adult that my hearing has improved, but I always remember how nice the silence could be. I feel like our brain can go on a sensory overload or that our senses can deceive us, and I wish that was the case in this story. However, I learned hard and fast that sometimes the shit you hear is, in fact, exactly what you think it is. I say this mainly because, as a teenager and a stupid one at that, I was always the one who liked to tell stories. I wasn't a bad kid, by any means.

I would actually consider myself to be a pretty good guy. I cared for a lot of people and was never cruel or harmful. I just told stories. I liked the attention. And when you can't hear, you can find a lot of ways to get attention. But as my hearing improved, I couldn't seem to harness. the attention I would so easily receive as a kid. No longer could I walk in a room and people make efforts to look at me so I could read their

lips or make sure that I was in the front of the class whenever I was made to sit through one. I was just kind of normal. I hated it. So I began to tell a few little fibs here and there. I would tell people that I couldn't hear them or that I'd say. had heard something, and it always added to the drama of any situation. I would use it to get out of fights with my parents or my brother, and would use it to get out of homework if I didn't do an assignment. No teacher is going to tell the kid who can't hear

that it's his fault he didn't hear her say what the homework was. This bought me more of that attention I craved quick. Tell you all of this to make you distraud. trust me. In fact, it's quite the opposite. I tell you this so you know that I've learned my lesson. I tell you this because I have to be reminded of my mistakes all the time. At least once a week, minimum. This happens always will. It gets you caught up. When I was about 17, I had a job working down at the neighborhood convenience store. It wasn't any big chain store or anything, was slightly larger than a mom and pop shop. You could tell by the way it was set up that it wasn't really built to be a convenience store, but in the city, real estate is real estate, and you take what

you can get. I would work a lot of the night shifts. We were close to one of the bar districts, so it was pretty normal to see the drunks stumble in looking for some deep-fried garbage that we'd kept on the heaters all day, or to buy a giant bag of cheese curls that they would devour half of before they even made it to the counter to pay, and would be in the store until around two or three in the morning, depending on when I felt like closing up. I was lucky enough to have been promoted to shift manager about four months before, which really just meant that I could finally lock up on my own and be on a shift by myself. Now, in the city, as you can imagine, there were always homeless individuals hanging around, and every now and then I would have to step out

and ask them to leave. They never really got aggressive when I would shoe them away or anything, so it was something I grew pretty accustomed to doing. Like I said, not often, but regularly. This being the case, I grew to know the faces of most of the loiterers who would stand outside the store and beg for change. Some of them weren't so bad and would just sit there with their sign, not bothering anyone. I didn't mind them too much. I only had to step up if they would start bothering the customers. I remember it was a pretty chilly morning, probably about 2.30 a.m., but it was a weekday, so the bars weren't really slammed. I had a few people stumble in and buy a few things. I remember there was a guy walking in with a girl, obviously trashed, who still had

vomit on the corner of her lips. He bought condoms. It made me feel queasy. That's not important to the story. It's just a detail. I recall pretty distinctly about that morning. I finished mopping the floor and put all the cash into the safe before walking around the shop to check for any straggling customers. Once I saw it was clear, I grabbed my bag of street clothes I'd changed out of at the beginning of my shift and headed out the door, hitting the lights behind me. I don't remember exactly which corner it was, but I know it was one that led into one of the hundreds of alleyways in the city. All I remember is being scared to death because I stopped walking for two seconds, mind you, that this is still damn near three in the morning.

morning. To light my cigarette, it's a bad habit, I know. And all of the sudden, I feel something heavy land on my foot. It made me jump back, and I looked down to see a woman crawling out of the alley, wearing nothing but rags. Her dark hair was a mess, and her skin was incredibly pale. She looked kind of sick you would expect from one of the homeless around here. She didn't look like an addict or like she was on a bad heroin binge or anything. She just looked sick or hurt or both. It was dark out, so some of the details of that specific moment escaped me. She crawled closer to me and I can hear her mumbling.

She was trying to communicate with me, but I didn't want anything to do with this woman. I said something along the lines of, sorry, I can't hear very well. Have a good night. And I tried to walk away. She screamed as I started down the street. I turned around, and she was looking up at me, her cheek laying on the cold concrete, her mouth slightly open. She mouthed the words, help me, keeping her eyes on me the entire time. I looked around for a car or anything to break her concentration, but the streets were empty was just her and I.

I wasn't going to go near her, but from where I was, I asked her what was wrong. She kept her face on the sidewalk and mouthed those same two words again, that she wanted me to come closer, which in most cases I wouldn't even think about doing, but this woman looked to be in pretty bad shape, and it didn't look like she could stand, nevertheless actually harm me in any way. I slowly approached her and asked her again what was wrong.

She just malved the words, again. I want me to help you exactly. Keeping her face down and her eyes locked on mine, she grabbed the raggedy leg of her pants and tugged them up to show her skin. It looked as if someone had stepped all over her legs. There were small cuts, but lots of bruising. It was clearly swollen, and there was no doubt in my mind that it was broken. She grabbed her other pant leg, dragging her face along the sidewalk to do so in a grotesquely agonizing manner. When she pulled it up, you could see that that leg was just as beaten. Someone had really hurt this poor.

Once again, she mouthed her message to me for breaking eye contact throughout the ordeal. It seemed as though this woman never even blinked. It makes my stomach not a bad guy. I swear, if it were any other time of day, I would have been able to help her. But my feeling of exhaustion from the day mixed with my slight sense of dread held me back. I asked if she wanted me to call an ambulance. I asked if she had any family. She just stared.

I should have. The way she looked at me, sent chills down the spot. The only thing that my simple, 17-year-old brain could think to say, it's not so bad. She kept staring at me as I backed away from her, eventually turning around and walking as fast as I could without running. running in the opposite direction, leaving this stranger on the sidewalk. On my walk back to work, I passed the alley where I had seen her. She wasn't there. I think I remember even checking deeper into the alley for any signs of struggle

or maybe anything that would be evidenced to a mugging or something. But the alley was actually pretty clean as far as alleys go downtown. I walked into work and asked my co-worker if she had heard or seen anything when she left the shop last night around 10 o'clock or so. She said no and asked why. I told her about the woman and she just shrugged. Sorry, it must have happened after I left. We got back to our work and again I did my checks and locked up the store. I was a little nervous to walk home.

night, thinking I might run into that lady again. I couldn't shake the feeling that she was going to be around every corner. I couldn't stop thinking about the way she pulled her face across the concrete, or the way she crawled along the ground, the way she stared at me, or the fact of it her there. What if she died? That would be my fault. There was nobody else around. and nobody else coming. I was the only one who could have helped. This bothered me. I had picked up more shifts at the store.

I was making a good amount of money for some dumb kid, and I had honestly almost forgotten about the incident by the alleyway. I would come into work, do my job, lock up, and leave, just like clockwork. It was all the same, five or six nights a week. I don't remember how long it was after the incident that it first started happening. But I know she'd been out of my mind for a while when it did, so it had to have been a while. I recall walking home, just as always, when I thought I heard a noise. I wasn't sure what it was, so I just kept moving, but I know I was definitely more alert after.

After that, as you could imagine at 3 in the morning when you're walking by yourself, I hear it again, and it sounded like a voice. It was very unclear, so I couldn't make out what it was saying, but I figured I was probably just tired, so I kept on walking. Along my walk are these giant glass windows, the kind that look reflective so you can't see into them, like the ones you would see on some street. street-level offices and such.

I never paid them much mind at all, but for some reason, that evening, I turned my head and looked at the reflection. I could see myself and the buildings on the other side of the street. But laying there in the middle of the road was the woman, her face on the ground, staring directly at me in the reflection. I quickly turn around, but when I peer into the street, the lady is gone. Just vanished. I look in the mirrored glass once more to see the streets were empty. I feel my heart racing in my chest,

and I'd be lying to you if I played the tough guy and told you I didn't run home as fast as I could. I laid in bed that night, staring up at my ceiling, trying to convince myself that it was nothing. I was just being a bit delusional. There was no lady. I saw the empty street. What I saw. Then I heard the voice again.

This time, a little... It sounded like it was coming from outside. It was a woman's voice, but it was still too faint for me to make. make out what it was saying. I kept telling myself to just go to sleep and forget about it. Just go to hear it again. Go to sleep. Tried my best to ignore it. But my curiosity and my fear made my ears perk up. But I still couldn't make out the words. It kept repeating and I turned my television on to drown it out. That worked well enough for me, and I eventually fell asleep. It must have been a Friday, because I know my mom was home when I woke up around noon the next day.

My TV was still on and was louder than it normally was. I always had to have the TV volume up higher due to hearing loss. The television was always a tough thing for me to hear even now as an adult. I walked downstairs and sat in the living room on the couch next to my mom. I asked her if she had heard any voices the night before, and she just smirked. Her response was a joking... Did you? I told her that I thought I had, and she just chuckled to herself, telling me that maybe I didn't need to be out so late working all the time.

I smirk back and focused on whatever show she was watching at the time. I decided it was time to take a shower, so I made my way into the bathroom. Now, for a city home, I was always impressed with how big our bathroom was. We weren't wealthy, nor was the house itself very big at all, but the bathroom was huge, almost too big for the house. I was standing in the shower after pulling the curtain. shot for about three or four minutes when I started hearing the voice again. This time it seemed even closer, and this time I could make out what it was saying. It's not so bad. You know how

they say that you can get a stone in your stomach. Well, this was no stone. This was Mount Rushmore. I was standing there naked, shaking in fear. I wanted to turn my head, but I couldn't force my muscles to do so. It's not so bad. My eyes were watering by this point. I wanted to look away from the shower wall, but I was so terrified at what I would see. The wall seemed to be the only. safe option.

It's not so bad. It was even with one burst of energy. I cranked my whole body around and looked out through the translucent shower. She was. She lay flat on the bathroom tile. Her body quaking and is rolled up and her lululated. Louder than I ever have in my life. Forcing my eyes to shut, releasing the tears to drip down my face.

only to be washed away by the water spouting from the showerhead. My mom banged on the door, calling my name, begging me to open up and let her in. I opened my eyes to see the floor bare, just as it was when I got in the shower. I opened the door for my mom, still shaking, and told her everything. She shook her head at me.

You need to get some rest. I yelled back, saying it wasn't rest that I needed and that I knew what I saw. She told me that I needed to stop it and get some sense. I pleaded for her to believe me, but even with my obvious fear, she didn't want to hear it. She left the bathroom, and I followed quickly behind her. I went into work that night just like any other. The girl who was on shift before me was still there helping out a customer. I pulled her aside after the store was clear and reminded her of the woman I saw weeks ago.

I told her that it was really creeping me out and that I would really appreciate it if she would keep me company that night. I didn't tell her about everything I saw because I knew that she, just like my mother would not. never believe me. For some reason, she actually agreed, and even offered to drive me home so I wouldn't have to walk. I couldn't have been happier to hear her say that. We kept up with our shifts until hers ended, and she went around back to change out of her uniform and into her normal clothes. For the rest of the evening, she sat on her phone or just talked with me about whatever was on her mind. I honestly couldn't tell you much of what we talked about that night.

There was one part of the shift, early in the morning, like 1 a.m. or so, that I needed to go back into the freezer to restock our ice cream cooler that sat up on the counter. I walk in and I feel the cold air take over. I always loved the freezer. It felt so good towards the end of the shift to just stand in the cold for a few seconds. I hear the door shut behind me as I reach for the box of frozen ice cream cones. It makes me jump, but it was nothing out of the ordinary, so I just shook my head, and I think I even chuckled a bit, thinking of how paranoid I was being.

Then I heard it. It's not so bad. I looked down to see the woman at my feet. I jump back. and run to the door, grabbing the cold handle and hitting it with my shoulder. Nothing. It was locked. I started to bang on the door with both fists as I watched the woman crawl towards me.

She kept repeating the same words. It's not so bad. Why the fuck didn't I help her? Why the fuck did I say that to her? Why don't fuck? Did I just leave her there? I'm slamming my hands and crying for my co-worker to come to my rescue. Suddenly the door swings open and I fall onto the floor scurrying on the ground away from the freezer.

What the hell is wrong with you? I couldn't form words, so I just pointed into the freezer. She looked inside and... There was nothing there. Seriously? If this is your idea of a joke, it's not funny. Especially since I'm the one doing you a favor. Everyone is always doing you a favor.

You don't appreciate any of it. That's just how you are. I can't believe people listen to you at all anymore. You're not funny. I'm going home. She walked around me, still on the floor, shaking. I pleaded with her to stay, but she refused and slammed the door on her way out of the store. I was alone.

I was scared. I was also very angry. I don't know where my brass balls came from, but after she left, I grabbed my jacket, and I ran outside and down the street, not even stopping to lock the shop. I made my way down to the end. alley where this whole thing began and I screamed. Where are you? Where the fuck are you?

I kicked a trash can scattering garbage across the ground. I was crying and screaming and I didn't care who saw me or heard me. I repeated myself over and over for what seemed to be forever, but was probably looking back on it only two or three minutes until I had. heard the voice. It's not so bad. There she was back on the cold, hard, locked up to her. What do you want from me?

Leave me the fuck alone. It's not so bad. Go away. Stop fucking bothering me. I should have helped you. He didn't. Now let me. me be. Her eyes were still locked to mine, and for the first time I saw her begin to smile.

Her skin stretched and wrinkled as her lips curled up her face. She put the palm of her hand flat on the concrete and lifted her torso up. She bent her broken leg under her body. She bent her broken leg under her body, letting it crack and pop as her knee found the stone beneath her. I listened to her bone snap. She lifted herself to her feet. I felt urine running down. She took a step toward me. Her one leg bent backwards, so hyper-extended that it made her topple as she walked, all the while, grinning and staring. I wanted to run. Then another.

Years were streaming down my cheeks, and my mouth hung open as she stood only two feet from me and opened her mouth to reveal her grisly smile, hard to describe how she looked at that moment. But I know she was paler now than ever. Her lips had no way. color, and she far too many teeth for her mouth. She leaned in, only inches from my face, run. That's so bad. Woke up, still in the alleyway, smelling of urine right before the sun

came up, so I knew I must have hit it when I landed. I sat up and looked around. I was alone, Thank God I was alone. I checked my body for bruises or scratches or bites or anything. There was nothing. I was untouched. My feet. Quit my job that next day. I didn't want to ever be near that alley ever again.

I never wanted to be near that city again. I moved away about a month after the incident. Things have slowed down now, but every now and then I hear her voice at night, and those nights, those nights can be tough. Whenever it happens, I just shut my eyes and I wait for it to stop. I've sort of grown used to it now, as weird as that may sound. My life is definitely very different now. No more swooning for attention, no more bullshit, no more playing stupid games to get what I want.

Now that this is my life, I have learned to make the best of it. And really, it's not so bad. We thank you for being with us for our devilishly dark tale. If you would like to find out how you can hear the full-length versions of our audio program, please visit the no-sleeppodcast.com to learn about our season pass program. 25 episodes, each over two hours long, and three exclusive bonus episodes, all for only 1999. On behalf of everyone at the No Sleep Podcast, we thank you.

Thank you for listening. Join us again next week when the darkness pulls you away from sleep. This audio program is copyright 2015-to-2016, Creative Reason Media, Inc. All rights reserved. The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors. No duplication or reproduction of this audio program is permitted without the written consent of Creative Reason Media, Inc. Thank you.