The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S6E04

Episode Date: October 18, 2015

It's episode 4 of Season 6. On this week's show we have four tales about lingering lodgers, lucky legends, and diabolical do-gooders.The full episode features the following stories. The free version features only the first two tales."The Spare Room" written by Michael Whitehouse and read by David Ault. (Story starts at 00:02:55)"Those Who Hunt Monsters" written by Harlan Guthrie and read by Peter Lewis. (Story starts at 00:26:40)"Good Luck" written by Manen Lyset and read by Alexis Bristowe & Jessica McEvoy. (Story starts at 01:02:15)"The Paris Green Solution" written by Marcus Damanda and read by Jessica McEvoy & Peter Lewis & Erika Sanderson & Nikolle Doolin & Mike DelGaudio. (Story starts at 01:20:25)Click here to learn more about Gabrielle LouxClick here to learn more about Michael WhitehouseClick here to learn more about Harlan GuthrieClick here to learn more about Manen LysetClick here to learn more about Marcus DamandaClick here to learn more about David AultClick here to learn more about Peter LewisClick here to contact Alexis BristoweClick here to learn more about Jessica McEvoyClick here to learn more about Erika SandersonClick here to learn more about Nikolle DoolinClick here to learn more about Mike DelGaudioPodcast produced by: David CummingsMusic & Sound Design by: Brandon Boone & David Cummings."Good Luck" illustration courtesy of Jörn HeidrathAudio 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. It's the No Sleep Podcast. I'm David Cummings. Thanks for joining us. On this week's show, we have four tales about Langelley,

Langering Lodgers, Lucky Legends, and Diabolical Do-Gooders. I'm always glad to introduce new contributors to the podcast, be they writers, narrators, or illustrators. But this week I'd like to introduce you to a woman who joined us back in July and who has been working hard behind the scenes. Gabrielle Lux is the person in charge of finding and editing the stories we produce for the show. Gabrielle has a bachelor's degree in creative writing from Johnson State College in Vermont, and she completed her undergraduate internship at Green Mountains Review as an assistant fiction editor. Gabby has been unspeakably helpful to me as she scours the online writing communities, tracking down stories for us.

So we welcome you to the team, Gabby, and thank you for the tremendous work you're doing. Make sure you check the show notes to learn more about Gabrielle and the services she can perhaps offer you for your writing and editing needs. And since Gabrielle has been hard at work-finding stories, and we've got them all ready to go for you, let's wait no further and start the show. In our first tale, we meet a man who has recently moved into his new place, a rather modern spot with two bedrooms.

But as we learn from author Michael Whitehouse, when the second bedroom gets used as a temporary storage space, it's not long before it becomes clear that that room is not quite empty. Now all he has to do is figure out what or who is in there. Performing this tale is David Alt. So say hello to your new roommate and show him to the spare room. It seems ridiculous saying this, but I'm sure my new flat is haunted.

And believe me when I say, I wish it was all in my mind. It's not the most spacious of flats. I didn't buy it because I loved it. But it was all I could afford in an area close to work. The building isn't all that old, maybe 20 years or so. And the flat itself, which is three years. stories up is quite modern inside with wooden flooring and white walls. There are two bedrooms, one of which has been the focal point for everything that's occurred. When I moved in,

I threw everything I couldn't find a place for into the second bedroom. I've never been the most organised and I do tend to hoard things, if I'm honest. The spare room was filled with rolled-up posters, tools, DVDs, boxes of clothes. and even some old bedroom furniture I still had left over for my last place. There wasn't much room to move around in there, so you can imagine my surprise when I heard something unthinkable

coming from inside. It all started about two weeks after I moved in. I was cooking dinner in the kitchen one evening and I zoned out while stirring some pasta and listening to a podcast, as I often do, to get through the boredom of cooking. That was when I heard it. The boiling water faded into the background as I realized that the sound of bubbles forming and bursting had been joined by a very distinct noise.

I could hear the sound of footsteps walking slowly down the hall towards where I was. My nerves began to rattle. Someone had broken into my flat and was making their way to where I stood. I grabbed a kitchen knife. For those who think this is extreme, I've been burgled once. before, and slowly made my way into the living room and then towards the hall. Just as I reached the hall doorway, the footsteps sped up to running pace, followed by a door slamming violently. The hall was dark at first as it has no windows, and as I entered I felt like a child terrified of his own shadow quickly reaching for the light.

The front door lay at the end of the hallway, and I'd be like to be like a child. lying if I didn't say that I thought about running to it and leaving the flat and any unseen intruder behind. My imagination started to run riot and as my mind played with images of an attacker lurking behind one of the other three doors present, I nervously smiled to myself. I began to suspect that the footsteps had come from somewhere else, perhaps the flat above me. Still, I couldn't shake the unsettling feeling that I was not alone. First, I peeked nervously into the hall cupboard. Nothing there but bed sheets and towels.

Then I checked my bedroom. The only crime being committed in there was the mess of the place. Finally, I stood in front of the door to the second bedroom, the spare room. Swinging it open, I let out a sigh of relief that the room was still filled with junk, but otherwise empty. At the time I put it down to my imagination, but now I know. know that it was the earliest indicator that something was wrong, that something was in the flat with me. I'd say about a week or so passed before anything happened again, and by then I'd put the footsteps out of my mind. It was a Sunday afternoon. I'd had a bad cold that week,

and work had been difficult to get through, so I just stayed in the flat over the weekend, hoping I'd feel better by the morning. I was sitting on the living room couch, binge-watching a TV show. The light was streaming through the windows and my mind was as far away as possible from anything frightening or supernatural. Suddenly, and with no warning, someone walked into the living room behind me and marched straight through into the kitchen. I was startled and when I turned round I only caught the last moments of the kitchen door being slammed shut with a bang. For some reason, my first reaction was to start shouting and swearing that I was going to cause whoever was in my kitchen real bodily harm. I wanted to frighten them away, but really it was I who was terrified.

I ran into my bedroom and grabbed a golf club from my set, which had been languishing in a cupboard since I moved in. As I wandered into the hall, the fear got the better of me. I unlocked the front door, opened it, and ran out into the hallway, which I shared with the other residents, and then out into the street. After a minute or so, I was around the corner out of sight phoning for the police. 30 minutes later, the police arrived. I only entered the flat once they had searched it thoroughly for the intruder. Nothing seemed to have been stolen, but the kitchen door had been shut, as I thought.

The police entered the room but found no one and told me that if someone had been in my flat, that they'd already left. The kitchen itself was intact, but bizarrely the intruder had turned on the lights, opened the oven and left it running on a high heat. The police seemed satisfied that no one was there, and while they told me to phone the local police station if I saw anyone suspicious, it seemed clear to me that they thought I had imagined the entire thing.

Even I began to question it myself, wondering if I'd left the oven on from the night before and forgotten about it, do stop on Kaufmanson. The following night, I knew there was more than just my imagination at play. I tried to put the previous day out of my mind, but the sounds of footsteps and banging doors stayed with me. I've always thought the best remedy for a weary mind is sleep, so that's what I intended to do. I went through my nightly routine before going to bed.

Front door locked, check. Windows closed, check. TV and other appliances switched off, check. I shuffled off to bed, curled up and put the TV. on, so I had something to fall asleep to. The noise keeping me company and any paranoid thoughts at bay. Then, about five minutes later, I heard an unmistakable noise. A click.

It was the light switch in the hall and was accompanied by light trickling underneath my door into my room. I'm sure I must have taken in a sharp inhalation of air, but I remained silent, still and frozen. someone was standing at my bedroom door. I could hear the floorboards creaked under the weight. Before I had time to react, the intruder walked slowly down the hall away from my room, stopped for a moment and then I was sure of it, entered the spare room.

It took me a few seconds to piece together what had just happened. For a moment I hesitated again, wondering if I should phone the police or whether this was just another flight of fancy. Suddenly I heard a loud, clattering noise. My things were being thrown around violently. I called the police quickly and then frantically moved a wardrobe against my bedroom door, hoping that I would be left alone. Then I heard the intruder again. A door creaked open quietly, almost inaudibly. And slowly, surely, surely. The footsteps began walking towards my bedroom door. They then stopped right outside my room as if the person were about to enter.

That was the most terrifying thing, having to wait to see what the intruder would do next. Suddenly I heard a banging sound. The police were knocking on my outside door. The footsteps then turned, marched down the hall into the living room and then kitchen before ending the entire ordeal abruptly with a loud bang of a slammed door. By the time I let the police into my flat, I was visibly shaken. And yet they found very little at first. The kitchen was, as it had been before, the oven door lying open, spewing out heat into the night. A spare room, however, was another story entirely.

Everything in there had been violently thrown around, much of it broken and torn. An old mirror smashed and most of the boxes and furniture upturned. I swore to the police that the intruder had never left that they couldn't have and that they still must have been in the flat somewhere hiding. But that suggestion was greeted with an unhealthy amount of incredulity. I won't bore you with the details, but these strange events continued for over two months. Sometimes it would be something small, a piece of furniture out of place, a light switching on by itself, but on three separate occasions, the same exact occurrences

which had left me barricaded in my room took place. Footsteps in the hall, the spare room left in disarray, and then the slamming of the kitchen door and the oven lying open. Eventually, even on the quiet nights, the fear of something happening became too much for me. The anticipation took a heavy toll. Most nights nothing would occur, but then on others the same ghostly footsteps would wander through my home. I just couldn't sleep there any longer. Finally, I couldn't bear it any longer, and so I spent several nights at my brothers

just to get a good night's sleep. I told him the truth, but he just seemed more worried about my state of mind than anything else. I don't blame him. I can imagine how it all must have appeared. After a few days, he offered a solution of sorts. He would house sit with me.

He wanted to see, these occurrences for himself. I didn't enter back into the flat lightly, but if someone else experienced what I had, it at least would confirm to me that I wasn't going mad. I slept on an airbed on my bedroom floor while my brother slept in my bed for three nights in a row with nothing strange occurring. Then, finally, on the fourth night, as I was drifting off to sleep, I heard it. Click. The light in the hall came on. My brother sat up, startled, and looked down at me on the floor, his expression one of disbelief. He whispered for me to get up, which I did.

We then listened. The footsteps gradually appeared as if starting from somewhere far off. They continued, growing louder as they walked slowly towards my bedroom door. I think that's the first time in my life when I've seen. my brother genuinely scared. As the footsteps neared, he jumped out of bed and dragged my wardrobe in front of the door. It was then that he made himself quite clear, whispering in a low voice. He hadn't thought that anything would happen. In fact, he just came and stayed with me to set my nerves at ease or to prove that I was sleepwalking and causing the issues myself. He didn't believe, but as the footsteps stopped

outside the bedroom door, he swore under his breath and stood by the window. I think of as a natural reaction to look for a possible exit, but being three stories up, there wasn't anywhere to go. Then it played out as before. The footsteps turned and walked away from us down the hall. They entered the spare room, which was followed by the noise of my things in there being thrown around. Finally, the footsteps walked to my door again, stood and then marched down to the kitchen, slamming the door behind. Neither of I slept the rest of the night, and in the morning my brother recommended that I leave the place behind and find a new home. Easier said than done. As a condition of my mortgage, I couldn't sell the place until I had officially been living there for two years.

He offered for me to sleep at his place until I could find somewhere else to rent in order to wait the two years out, but I just couldn't afford it. My brother and his wife had two kids and were trying for a third in a two-bedroom house. Staying there was no long-term solution for any of us. Later that day, he phoned me, overly excited by the idea that he had found a solution. He'd been doing some research online to see if other people had experienced similar strange goings on in their homes and what they had done, if anything, to stop them from happening. He told me that he'd read a couple of similar accounts.

Footsteps, lights being switched on and off, furniture being thrown around violently. One family from Arizona in the US had supposedly got rid of a similar unwelcome housemate by simply confronting it. Several experts, and I used that term lightly, believed that poltergeists and other noisy ghosts behaved in such a way because they were confused and reacted violently to this disorientation. I was skeptical, but as my brother continued, it began to seem less ridiculous and worth a try at least, especially if it meant I didn't have to sleep on someone else's floor for the next two years until I could sell a flat.

He then told me that one of these experts believed that such disturbances occur when the spirit of someone who has passed doesn't realize it is dead. When it wanders around a place which it used to call home, it sees objects, belongings, etc., which are unfamiliar and simply cannot understand why. In this utter confusion it lashes out, mostly at possessions, but occasionally at people who it sees as invaders of its home.

One particular instance was reported in a family home. A bedroom would be thrown into disarray because it used to be the deceased's. By confronting the spirit while it was manifest and telling it that it no longer lived there and that it had passed on, the entity dissipated and moved on. It all seemed like mumbo-jumbo to me, but then so too did the very idea of a ghost, and by this point I was convinced one was living, or unliving, in my flat.

We agreed then that we would at least try to confront it. I have to say I was curious, but part of me wanted to just leave it all behind. My brother had the idea that we should clear the spare room out completely, and sleep in there each night, and take in there. until the footsteps appeared. It made sense, as that was a focal point for the disturbances, but the entire weight filled me with apprehension. On the second night, it happened.

There we were, sleeping on the floor like we did when we had sleepovers as kids, waiting in the spare room for something we didn't understand to appear. With everything removed, the room seemed bare, and I felt a strange sadness for the point. place, an emptiness. At around 1 a.m., I first heard it. Somehow I knew it would appear that night. I felt it in the atmosphere like the tension before a storm.

The whole light came on. My brother looked at me with a mixture of fright and excitement. Silence. Then the footsteps began. They walked slowly. down the hall to my bedroom door. And there they waited, while we waited also in the place where my belongings had been bashed and broken over and over.

Finally, they turned and began their slow, shuffling walk towards the spare room, where we now lay. By the time the footsteps reached the door, my brother and I were both on our feet. I've never been so scared, and I can. hear the terror in my brother's shaking breath. Then, the handle turned slowly. The door. Nothing. There was nothing there, just an empty doorway. My brother had taken out his phone and was recording video, but he couldn't see anything but thin air. I can't remember the exact words we used, but between the two of us, we hesitated finally conveying that if anyone was there, they were dead,

that they no longer lived in the flat and needed to accept it and move on. Nothing again. We waited for a moment. And as I turned to my brother to smile and suggest that perhaps it had worked, the door slammed shut and the light in the spare room went out. Utter darkness. I panicked, and I'm a little ashamed to say I screamed for help, the fear of being trapped welling up inside me. I could hear my brother fumbling around.

round. He told me to be calm. I wasn't. He told me to look for the door. I couldn't find it, disoriented by the dark, as if the room had changed somehow. It felt smaller, cramped and stifled. Then, in the darkness, I heard it. My brother clearly did too, as he swore under his breath, asking if the sound was coming from me. My voice wavered, and I simply said, no, behind us. in the gloom of that throom, we could hear breathing. The breaths were long and somehow carried threat with them. And then, horrible inhaled gasp, followed by the deafening scream of a man right behind me.

Terror overcame me, and as I finally found the door, my brother knocked into me in the pitch black and headed out into the hallway with me quickly behind. In the fevered escape, I lost my footing and managed to fall onto my side, on the floor directly in front of the open door to the blackness of the spare room. The wind had been knocked out of me, but if I could have, I would have cried out in horror at what I saw. The light in the spare room flicked back on revealing a figure standing in the room facing the wall. It began to turn slowly, and as it did, I could see what I can only describe as a face. Its skin bloated and tinned with a bruised blue and its hair oily and soft.

straggled. I kicked the door shut and as my brother helped me to my feet, we ran out of the flat only to hear the spare room door open behind us and running footsteps heading once more into the kitchen. We did not look back. I haven't slept in the flat since then. In fact, I could only step foot in it to retrieve some of my things when accompanied by my brother and two of my friends during the day. I refused to sleep there and between my family and myself have managed to find the money needed to rent elsewhere while I wait to sell the place. It's further from work and the area isn't as nice, but I really don't care. After speaking to the couple who lived there before me, you might already suspect what they

told me in way of an explanation. They too heard footsteps occasionally in the hall at night, but nothing else of consequence and happily lived there with their young son for a few years. What they could tell me was that they had bought the flat from an estate agent and knew fine well the history, but not being superstitious, they knew they had a bargain on their hands if they ignored what had happened. The original owner had lived there by himself. By all accounts, he was a very private person, and so no one in the building knew him very well. One night a terrible scream was heard from the man's flat, and believe me, it is his. When neighbours went to his

door he did not answer, and soon afterwards the smell of gas filled the hallway outside. The emergency services were called and the building evacuated. When they entered the flat, they found the man's bedroom in disarray, his belongings torn and broken up. In the kitchen, they discovered his dead body, kneeling on the floor half sticking out of the oven, his skin blue due to asphyxiation. I've thought about the entire events often, wondered why the man's ghost still lingers there. I've wondered why he made his presence felt more strongly to me than those who lived there before me.

Most of all, there is one question for some unknown reason which never seems to leave me. What made him scream in the first place? When a single father watches his son grow up and head off to school for the first time, his protective instincts go into overdrive. As author Harlan Guthrie explains, a new person to the neighborhood raises concerns

and makes his father fear his son is in danger and perhaps he'll have to do something about it. Performing this tale is Peter Lewis. So stay out of the way when you encounter those who hunt monsters. always loved the name Calvin. Growing up, I had fond memories of reading Calvin and Hobbs comics in the backyard with my little brother. We'd spend the day hanging out in the tree fort laughing like madman at the mischief caused by those two. It was the only name that came to mind when my wife told me we were pregnant, and the thought of having a crappy little tyke running around

causing mischief just made the idea of becoming a father less scary. There were other famous Calvin's. Calvin Coolidge is the only one that comes to mind at the moment, and maybe that's the Calvin my wife thought of when she agreed to the name. But to me, it was always after that rambunctious little troublemaker. Sadly, she never got to meet our little Calvin. as she died given birth to him. Needless to say, he was brought into this world, tainted. Though his blonde hair and soft brown eyes were unlike his mothers,

he was the spitting image of her to our family and friends. It's an odd thing passing around a child with the fresh thought of death in everyone's mind, looking at this small human, so innocent and pure, and yet knowing it had already taken a life. I think that's part of the reason I decided to have him baptized. I don't believe in God, but I had to take my feelings out of it. Becoming a father, a single father, that meant that I didn't have to look out for only me anymore. I was responsible for someone else's soul. I could care less if I spend eternity in so-called hellfire, but I wasn't going to risk putting Calvin through that. The term is called

Pascal's Wager. Essentially, it's better to follow the belief that there is a God than to not follow them and find out there is a hell. I had to think of it as insurance. Better to be safe than sorry. The priest gave me the rundown, informing me that we are all born into this world with original sin, but I felt like my son had more than others. In the eyes of God, the tiny hands that could barely hold a rattle were covered in my wife's blood. Landing in Houston on the day of his baptism was an ordeal. I was already nervous about the flight with Calvin, but as luck would have it, his ears didn't pop coming back down,

and Calvin serenaded the entire plane with his heart-wrenching rendition of There is a terrible pain in my head. What can I say? He's a natural singer. I remember dashing through the... airport praying for his wailing to stop, weary and drained from the lengthy flight, when all of the sudden, as if the sea itself had parted, he stopped. As if disarming a bomb, I nervously pulled him back from over my shoulder where I was holding him, to see him staring, wide-eyed at a stuffed animal pinned to a long trail of other stuffed toys in the small shop I was standing next to.

That day, the day of his baptism, we welcomed Jake, the lovable stuffed green alligator, to our little family. For the next few weeks of his life, Calvin was quiet, eerily so. And it's the fear of every new parent that something is wrong with their child. If they're too loud, too quiet, too smart, too slow, it's a sea of endless black. that you're navigating with a penlight. But the doctors assured me that he was normal. Normal. Such a subjective word.

But in the context of a healthy baby boy, it was perfect for me. Slowly he grew. It wasn't that he looked like his mother. His eyes, nose, and lips were all different. In fact, pretty much the only thing. thing he got from her was his ears sticking out like a taxi with the doors open. No, it wasn't the look of her, but his little micro-manorisms, the way he pointed when he wanted up, that small way he lifts his eyebrows, the crinkle his forehead made. It was all so

reminiscent of her that oftentimes I would catch myself just staring at him, remembering the past. As he matured, our relationship got more complex. I never bothered dating. Between a new child and work, I was a full-time dad, which I was more than okay with. Calvin, Daddy, and Jake would go to the park, the zoo, the science center. Hell, I'd see more of Seattle with Calvin and that little stuffed alligator than I had the seven years I spent living here. But, like all good things, you know the rest. Suffice it to say, Calvin grew up fast, and before I knew it, he was starting kindergarten. Leaving him at school was always the absolute darkest part of my day.

Someone that had consumed so much of my life was gone from it, and handing him over to the teachers there was just heart-wrenching. However, seeing him again was always the highlight. It was when he started school that the realization of just how much I loved being a father dawned on me. He was my whole world, and I was happy to always be his. It was around that time I started noticing my nose. neighbor from across the street. Little glances at first, a parting of the curtains. Light on in the office far later than I felt it should have been on, but it wasn't until I saw

him walking from his car one day that I really started to become suspicious. He was an older man with no wife, no kids. He seemed to work from home like myself, but every time I saw him, He was looking at Calvin. The most concerning thing was that he was relatively new to the area. Neighbors that I had ended up becoming close with knew nothing of him, and most didn't even know his name. Yet I always caught him staring at our house. During the summer months we would play outside.

I would usually read on the porch while Calvin would dig holes in the lawn or run through the sprinkler. We lived on a small, quiet street just outside the city, so outside was always a safe and viable option. On this day, Calvin was on the lawn while I sat on the porch, reading something by Michael Crichton, and after a paragraph or so, I glanced up at Cal to see the man from across the street had come walking by with his dog

and was letting Cal pett it. Quickly I stood up and briskly jogged over to them at the curbside, absentmindedly losing my spot in the novel as I did. His name was Gavin, a disheveled-looking, light-skinned man who was far too smiley for my liking. He was everything, a new parent feared in a neighbor, and adding that to the fact that he had just moved in a few weeks ago, left an uneasy feeling in my stomach.

I can't explain how or why I didn't trust Gavin. I like to think of it as a primal instinct, something that just feels off about someone when you meet them for the first time. Our body's way of telling us to shut up and listen for once because something isn't right. It didn't help that his staring at the house seemed almost more free. after that afternoon. And over time, my suspicions towards him only grew. Every time Cal and I were out in the front yard, he'd walk by with his dog and make small talk with Cal in a soothing childish way as if he were talking to his own child. Eventually, I decided that we should stay inside most sunny days or play in the

backyard. And over time, the uneasiness I felt subsided. Though I never completely let my guard down, I did breathe easier as my nightly surveillance of his house showed that he was no longer keeping his lights on after hours. For a long time, nothing stuck. We both saw less and less of Gavin, and as winter came, I had almost stopped checking his house until one evening, after school, I was picking Cal up from kindergarten, and I noticed that Gavin was standing there at the gate to his school. As if acting purely on instinct, I exited my car and walked straight towards him, slowing my pace as I approached him, forcibly changing my demeanor from anger to friendly but curious. I called his name from a few feet away, and with a sharp turn, he spoke.

spun around. He acted squirrely the minute he saw me and almost instinctively began to leave until I called out his name again, loud enough for the other parents waiting around to hear. As I stood before him, I saw the cracks in his lips, the white hairs in his peppered moustache, the lines in his face. And every inch of me seethed. as he stood to keeping one of his hands in his pocket the whole while. Watching himself, was this sick fuck touching himself, watching the kids in the school? As my eyes darted from his hidden hand back to his face, he smiled, coily. And with the faintest wetness in his eyes, he made some excuse about looking for his dog who had gotten out

and quickly excused himself. Butched him leave as I clenched my hands in fists, unaware at how tense I had become. From the schoolyard, I heard the bell ring, and moments later Cal came out holding the hand of his teacher, Mrs. Henley, who came over to me and had previously mentioned how great Cal had been doing. It's always a proud moment for a parent when a teacher remarks at how great their child is. That night, after I tucked Calvin into bed, I went to my office to get some work done.

My work is understanding to my situation and allows me to log on and off at my leisure so long as I get work done, and I always get it done. I had just sat down as Calvin called out to me. Slowly I climbed the stairs to find Calvin in tears. He had had a nightmare. I climbed into bed next to him, and with a soft touch, I stroked his hair as he called me of the man in his room. Softly, I told him that everything was fine. No one was here and that he should go back to sleep.

Just as he was nodding off, he slowly sat back up, pushing off my chest, and asked where Jake was. His stuffed alligator. After a begrudging sigh, I spent the next. little while poking around but couldn't find him and told Calvin that we'd look for him first thing tomorrow. With Calvin asleep, I slowly walked back down the stairs to my office, just as a quiet knock came from the front door. With a puzzled look, I turned to listen again, thinking I had imagined it. Again, a quiet knock came from the front door. I unlocked it and threw the door of the door open to see Gavin standing there. The color drained from my face, and my mind raced as he stood there,

inches from the inside of my house, steps from the front hall and just a short jog. From my sleeping child, I slowly moved my foot behind the door and tensed my body. Gavin looked at me with his large glasses and smiled and eerie grin. The metal from his cavities twinkled in the porch light as he apologized for disturbing me. Currently, I asked what he needed, and as if taken aback, he quickly and quietly apologized for running off so abruptly earlier today at the schoolyard. Through his dark eyes, I saw a fire burn deep. Something sinister hid behind his gaze, and at that moment I knew that Gavin was not a good man by any means. And in that moment, I just wanted him gone.

Oz, he held out a thin, cold hand. Hesitantly, I took it, but when I shook his hand goodbye, I noticed for the first time that for an older man, he had a number of tattoos. My eyes gave me away, and when he noticed me looking at them, he quickly pulled his thin sweater sleeve down and mentioned that it was actually from some time he spent in prison. As the words left his mouth, his eyes darted nervously, and the lump in my throat sank to my stomach, weakly and spun around, leaving a shadow on the porch as he did. Slowly I closed the door and locked it tight. Standing with my back to the front door, a chill ran up my spine as I drifted my gaze up towards Calvin's room.

I drove Cal to school the next day and returned home to round out the latest piece I'd been working on. During the summer when I had been watching Gavin's house nightly, I had moved my office so that the window overlooking the front of, front lawn was right behind my desk, giving me a great view of those passing our lot and of Gavin's house across the street. Work was a struggle. After every line I wrote, I would look up to Gavin's house across the street, hoping, but not wanting to see something, anything, to alleviate my fears. Every sentence typed was like one step forward, two steps back as I began. writing things that made no sense. I shot up out of my chair and kicked over the coffee table in frustration.

Is that sicko doing over there? The heat in my chest again boiling up within me, driving my heartbeat, growing faster with each image that flashed through my mind. I walked to the front door and grabbed my jacket. I had to confront him. I had to do something. I stopped at the front door and paused my hand hovering over the knob. What is he planning to do to my son? As images of the most horrific acts burned into my brain, questions came pouring out of my lips. What if I can't stop it?

What if I can't help him? What if I go over there and he kills me? What stands between Gavin and my child then? My son! My life! My entire world! I turned around and walked to the kitchen with determination in my steps. Every step on the hardwood floor clicked beneath my shoes

and without so much as a break in my stride. I retrieved a large kitchen knife from woodblock. I turned around to face the front door, and my legs gave out. I fell to the floor, weeping. What was I doing? What have I become? Nothing about this is normal or right? Do I just put on blinders?

Go about my business and live my life praying that Cal grows. up without being molested or kidnapped or worse, just hoping that he grows up at all. For as long as I could remember, the Edmund Burke, quote, hung by my desk. I had always thought that it sounded crisp the way the phrase turned, but maybe it was meant to be more than that to me. All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing my son. And nothing in this world would stand in the way of... With tears in my eyes, I stood up and slipped the knife into my jacket pocket. I left the house and closed the front door behind me as I wiped the tears from my eyes.

I stopped halfway across the street as I noticed that Gavin's car was gone, and after a quick knock on the front door, my suspicions were confirmed. Gavin was indeed out for the day. Slowly I looked around the street. During the day, it was always quiet, but today not even the wind blew. No one but the snow-peaked houses sat watching. After a moment, and sure enough, the by the bad. back door was unlocked. With fire in my stomach, I stepped inside. Stepping into the house was a waking

nightmare. Its corners were dark and muddy. All the curtains were drawn and little to no natural light touched a single surface. He had only been here for a short while, but he had already turned this house into a cesspool. Plates and dirty dishes. littered the counter and showed early signs of mold. Clothes were strewn about and the floor was covered with dirt and dust. Slowly I stepped further inside and called out Gavin's name, quietly listening from movement. As I continued inwards, I looked over my shoulder every once in a while, again calling out his name to ensure that he wasn't home. The house sat, sad, quite. quiet, a putrid tableau of filth. And even though trespassing, how my suspicions were not supported

through anything I could see, that was, until I found the basement, I descended a set of cold cement steps as my heart beat audibly in the cellar. At the bottom of the stairs, I could see a single light bulb hanging on a string. And nervously, I gave it. a pole, filling the basement with shadows cast by the single yellow light. Sitting cross from an old, stained couch was a large cork board affixed to the stonewall of the basement. I walked over and studied it with cold prejudice, like a shepherd surveying the grassy field for wolves. Pinned to the board were pictures. The schoolyard, the name of Cal's school.

My heart sank. There was a picture of Cal. Standing there with his teacher, holding her hand, his blonde hair and soft brown eyes that were so unlike his mothers. But Cal's hair was shorter in this picture. and his teacher was wearing a sundress. As I reached out and took the picture from the board, it dawned on me that this picture was taken months ago.

In the early summer, before Gavin had even moved here, I turned away from the board as tears began to well in my eyes, and as I did, I merely took. choked. There, sitting on that stained couch, was Jake. Cal's stuffed alligator. All started to spin. Had he been in my house? Did he go into Cal's room? What would have happened if I hadn't found this? Cal is my life. He's my world. And, and Anne, and, and, he's a lot of Everything I do is for him. I would do anything for him.

What would the police do with this? It isn't enough. But I know what it is, what it means. It's the sick, twisted pedophile across the street who wants to rape and murder my son. Flames flicked from my ever. repore as the fire within me raged, wild and untamed, could taste the bitter sting of bile on the back of my tongue, and the iron-like taste of blood filled my mouth as my whole body quaked with anger. My little boy, my Calvin, Pascal's wager. Better safe. I couldn't care. I couldn't

Care less if I spend eternity in hell. But I'm not putting Calvin through that. It was at that moment that I heard Gavin come home from my jacket pocket, switched off the light above my hem of the stairs for him. In the darkness, dust fell from the ceiling like brown bits of snow as each floorboard above creaked and groaned under Gavin's weight. I could hear him in the kitchen above, and after a pause he turned to the stairs and began walking down the cold cement steps to the basement. I rose silently in the shadows and waited until he was right before me. With each step, the cold click of his heel matched the beat of my heart, and finally as if acting on muscle. memory alone, he reached for the light, just as I turned it on.

Her inches from my face was Gavin swelling in his eyes. A stream of questions ripped through my mind in an instant. Why are you crying? Are you crying because you didn't get to rape and murder my son? Are you crying because I'm here to find you out, you fuck, thinking? about all the lives you've taken. How many was it? How many little children have you raped and murdered?

You fucking foul, Kant. Your filth, you deserve to rot. Gavin simply stood there, frozen in the moment, as tears ran down his cheeks. The thoughts continued to race through my mind as I glanced back and forth between Gavin's eyes, and after a beat, he simply looked down at the knife in my hand with a puzzled and pained look. Through his spit-filled mouth, he managed to sputter out a single word before I pussed his stomach with the blade. As I drove the knife repeatedly into his abdomen, The pained look of confusion that painted his face slowly twisted into a horrific scream.

My free hand, I grabbed his lower jaw with such force that I could feel his lower teeth brittle and warm bend beneath my palm. I'm not going to describe what I did. Suffice it to say that I was eventually only stabbing a pulpy mess of sinew and guts. By the time I was done, the tip of the knife had been driven with such force that it was embedded into the cement stairs. With speckles of blood on my face, I sat slumped at the bottom of the stairs, wiping back the tears from my eyes. I looked over at the lifeless corpse of this monster beside me, and I could feel myself starting to breathe again as I filled my lungs with an iron-filled air.

After a moment I reached out, grabbing a wet piece of his shirt, and wiped down the hilt of the knife before driving it one last time into his head leaving the blade protruding from his cheek the way a sick fucking pedophile should be left. Eventually I caught my breath and stood up walking over to Jake on the couch. With a smile I went to pick him up

but stopped when I realized that it wasn't Jake. In fact, it wasn't even a stuffed animal. It was a green t-shirt. that was thrown carelessly on the couch with the other clothes from the laundry. In the dark of the basement, I let out a weak laugh and shook my head softly. I turned away from the couch and walked up the cold stone steps to the main floor, stepping over Gavin's lifeless body. I left through the back door, taking one last look at the putrid cesspool of a life this man had lived.

And then I went home. In the shower just now, I kept thinking over what had transpired. It was like a dream, something that didn't happen. I kept replaying the moment over and over in my mind, the feeling of give while holding. the knife the second it pierced his flesh, the bits of skin and muscle that loosened with each stab. The look on his face as I took his life. It felt good. It felt good to do something right.

To stand in the way of evil men. I had totally lost track of time and it had been nearly an hour. since Cal had finished school, but luckily Mrs. Henley was at the door just a little while ago with him. When I saw him, my heart nearly burst, and when he ran into my arms, I couldn't help but giggle like a kid. He's the kind of child that brings it out of me. I thanked Mrs. Henley profusely and invited her in for a cup of tea, which she reluctantly accepted. We talked for a while. You know, she is quite beautiful. But I couldn't help but notice that she had a sadness behind her eyes today.

Normally, I wouldn't push, but as Cal played in the other room, I coaxed it out of her. She told me that an older man had come to her school today claiming to be her father. This man who spent the last ten years of his life in prison for breaking and entering, a man who could never be the kind of father I am to Cal. Her words, not mine. She even said, I'm the perfect father, which I have to admit made my heart flutter a dad.

Anyway, before she left, she reminded Cal not to leave his toys at school again, and handed Jake back to him. And you know what? He said, thank you. I didn't have to prompt him or remind him or anything. He looked right at her. And he said, thank you.

I've never been so proud of him. My Cal. My Calvin. I've always loved the name Calvin. We thank you for being with us for our devilishly dark tales. 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 for listening. Join us again next week when the darkness pulls you away from sleep. This audio program is copyright 2015-2016, 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.