The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S6E24

Episode Date: March 13, 2016

On this week's show we have five tales about devilish duties, anarchic arachnids, and hateful housing.The full episode features the following stories. The free version features only the first two tales."Lost" written by Jeff McFarland and read by Atticus Jackson & Tim Valencia & Carrsan Morrissey & Nichole Goodnight. (Story starts at 00:03:00)"Do You Love Her?" written by Keith McDuffee and read by Dan Zappulla & Peter Lewis & Mike DelGaudio. (Story starts at 00:19:30)"The Creature of Kotch, Ohio" written by Alexander P. Pape and read by Mike DelGaudio & Peter Lewis & Nichole Goodnight. (Story starts at 01:01:30)"The Oregon Shriek" written by E.Z. Morgan and read by Corinne Sanders & Nichole Goodnight & Nikolle Doolin. (Story starts at 01:19:00)"Our House on Coffey Hill" written by Rona Vaselaar and read by Erika Sanderson. (Story starts at 01:38:50)Click here to learn more about Jeff McFarland Click here to learn more about Keith McDuffee Click here to learn more about Alexander P. Pape Click here to learn more about E.Z. Morgan Click here to learn more about Rona Vaselaar Click here to learn more about Atticus Jackson Click here to learn more about Carrsan Morrissey Click here to learn more about Nichole Goodnight Click here to learn more about Dan Zappulla Click here to learn more about Peter Lewis Click here to learn more about Mike DelGaudio Click here to learn more about Corinne Sanders Click here to learn more about Nikolle Doolin Click here to learn more about Erika Sanderson Podcast produced by: David CummingsMusic & Sound Design by: Brandon Boone & David Cummings."Do You Love Her?" illustration courtesy of Jörn HeidrathAudio program ©2016 - Creative Reason Media Inc. - All Rights Reserved - No reproduction or use of this content is permitted without the express written consent of Creative Reason Media Inc.. 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 five tales about devilish duty.

anarchic arachnids, and hateful housing. Welcome to the Penultimate episode of Season 6. I believe Penultimate is a Latin word, meaning this galdurn thing is almost finished, or something like that. Yes, next week is our big season finale, and we have some great stuff in store, including a harrowing highway trip, plus the next installment of MJ Pack series about Denny. And two full cast extended-length mind-bending stories packed into two and a half hours of horror for one and all. Let everyone know that this will be an episode not to be missed.

But that's next week, and a week can be a long time, so let's not forget about the great stories we have for you now. Plus, we're welcoming a new narrator to the show this week. Atticus Jackson has been building an impressive series of horror narrations on his YouTube channel, and he joins us on our first story this week. Welcome, Atticus. We're glad you're sharing your voice with us. So, with all that being said, let's make this the most penultimate episode we can and kick off this week's show.

In our first tale, we take a trip to the forest. No, there are no stares in this tale, just a group of friends who decide to do a good deed for a stranger. As author Jeff McFarland explains, when a lost cell phone is found in the woods, the friends attempt to return it to the owner. The question is, does the owner want it back? Performing this tale are Atticus Jackson, Tim Valencia, Carson, Carson, and Nicole Goodnight. So remember, there are some things out there that should remain lost. Late in the afternoon last Thursday, three of my friends and I decided we were going hiking. The warm weather was fading fast, and we planned on taking advantage of it while it was still here.

There's a state park about 10 miles outside of the town where we go to college, so we figured we would go explore a few of the trails. We went in the afternoon and followed a few easy trails, bullshitting and just goofing around. A few miles in, our friend Ali casually mentioned knowing something about an unmarked path up ahead that led to a great overlook. We figured, what the hell? We still had a few more hours of light. We should be fine. The path was hidden behind a wall of thorny bushes off the side of the trail.

We had been searching for so long that we were ready to call bullshit on the entire thing. But sure enough, after struggling through the two tallest bushes, we found a spot where the grass had been beaten down by footsteps. Unlike the trail we had come from, this one was dark. Pine trees towered high above, and the path was weaving in and out of them. Still, despite the small snippets of sunlight, Allie seemed to know where she was going, so we didn't give it a second thought. After a few twists and turns, the trees had grown even thicker, and the walk had suddenly turned into a climb.

We were struggling to keep up with Allie, and I tripped more than a few times. Despite having difficulty seeing, the light peering through the trees up ahead told us that we were nearing the end of the path. As we emerged from the choking forest, we retreated to a clear view of the rolling hills below. As far as the eye could see, the land was a patchwork of green. Pine trees lined the entire horizon. Only the canyon directly below us was devoid of any color. Much of the canyon had been ravaged by wildfire the summer before, and the black charred corpses of the trees beneath us were a stark contrast.

the rest of the scene. We snapped a few cheesy pictures of us posing on the cliff top for good measure and unpacked lunch. Just as we were gearing up to leave, my friend James returned from somewhere in the trees, zipping up his pants and pulling something from his pocket. Hey guys, check this out. He held up the thing in his hand. It was a small, sleek-looking square black plastic. It was... Is that a phone? Allie cocked an eyebrow in surprise. It looks that way. Sucks for them. It's in pretty good condition for sitting out in the woods.

Is there a name in it somewhere or something? Our other friend Tony fidgeted with the bag he had brought his sandwich in. A few contacts. But there's no contact card for the owner. Just an unread message. You're not going to read it, are you? Hell no, man. I don't want a chance looking through this guy's pictures or anything.

You can't unsee that shit. Yeah, man. One time we found a bus. up phone at a carnival, and it actually belonged to the guy who ran the hero stand. He was talking to this chick about sucking her toes, and he had some weird-ass pictures of his... Nope. We ought to at least see if the inbox gives us some clues as to who it belongs to. James flipped through the phone's inbox with a wince.

Yeah, I guess so. Hey, look at this. He helped the phone for us to see. The screen read, Hey, if anyone finds this phone, I must have lost it while hiking with some friends earlier. I'm sending this from a friend's phone. If you could bring it back to the address below, that would be awesome. Thanks. Ali forced a laugh.

Well, I guess that answers that. I know that street. It's in a little trailer park like two miles outside of town on the way back. What's the date and time on the message? 12.20 p.m. today. It hasn't been out here for very long. We ought to take it back, just to help them out. Yeah, dude. I mean, what if it's a chick? She'll be super excited.

Maybe Allie could take her out to dinner. For sure. I can probably clean her pool while I'm at it. Ali rolled her eyes. Did I mention that we're all adults? Either or. Let's get this done before it gets too dark. We took in the scenery one final time before beginning our descent back through the thick bristles of the pines.

When we finished the trek back to Tony's SUV, the sun was already starting to hide behind the hills. We all piled in and began the journey to the trailer park, eager to get back home before nightfall. None of us were feeling brave enough to sift through the rest of the phone's contents, especially not after Alley's story from earlier. So we sat in a comfortable silence for most of the drive. By the time we reached the turnoff into the trailer park, the lone streetlight soft orange glow was brighter than the setting sun. We followed a narrow dirt road and were greeted by a large billboard that read Lazy Meadows trailer court in bold crimson letters.

Allie turned around from up front and looked at me. Are you sure we're in the right place? Yeah, man. When I was a delivery driver, I had to come out of this park a couple times. Never been to the house we're going to, though. I scoped out the different street signs as we passed by. We pulled up to an off-white trailer with little to no lawn in a full. flimsy looking metal staircase for a porch.

James looked down at the phone and back up at the house, comparing the addresses. Is this it? I guess so. There's no car parked out in front or anything, though. Yeah, but the lights are on inside. The porch light is on, too, so they might be expecting someone. Maybe they ordered a pizza. Yeah, well, a better tip.

I got out of the car. As we approached the porch of the white trailer, Allie pointed to the tree. trailer next door with a sickly green paint that was peeling like a sunburn. Huh. I wonder what kind of meth lab they've got going on in there. A breeze started kicking up gravel from the road, so I flipped up my hood to shield myself while James went to the front door. Hello? Hey, we found your phone out at the State Park. We thought we'd bring it back to you. Cut you a bit of a break. Hello? For a long time, there was nothing. Just the awkward silence of us standing in a strange.

Lawn and the moaning of the wind as it continued to pick up. Should we just leave the phone on the steps or something? Tony crammed his hands into his pockets. There's got to be someone here. Why would they just leave all the lights on? We were all surprised by the muffled, high-pitched voice that came out from inside the house. Dude, I told you it was a chick. James prodded Allie and the ribs.

Oh, yeah, like you actually... Hey, can we fucking focus here? I nodded that James. as he turned the door's handle. As he did, the pebbles from the road hit my face like a shotgun blast. My eyes stung and the cool air sent chills down my spine, so I was determined to get inside to escape the brewing storm.

As the door closed behind us, we were greeted by an overwhelming scent that reminded me of an old book. The place was well lit by warm yellow bulbs with no shades or any other kind of covering on them. The walls were all a spotless, white, and the floors were covered by a dark blue-greenish carpet with no stains to speak of. Overall, it was pretty nice for a trailer, but there was one detail that we were completely unprepared

for. It was completely empty. Not a single picture lined the walls. There was not one table, chair, or bed to speak of. Not so much as it dropped penny on the carpet. There weren't even curtains on the windows. The blinds had been drawn so there was no real way of seeing in from outside. We all stood slackjot in what was presumably the living room of this trailer home. James waved the phone in his hand. Uh, hello? We found your phone. After peering around a few doorways, we all sat out to explore the numerous rooms of the house. Tony and I ventured into what we assumed was the kitchen. There wasn't a stove or a fridge, but there were countertops and cabinets lining the walls, all spotlessly clean.

Searching through the cupboards revealed literally nothing at all, not even a single dust bunny. It had begun to rain outside. The pitter-patter of it was the only sound in the house. Tony's eyes narrowed as he stared at the blank countertop. Toot, what the actual fuck? Maybe we should just leave the phone on the counter or something. I found nothing under the sink. We had all but given up

When an airy high-pitched voice Called out from the living room You guys found my phone Oh thank you so much I'm just in the other room here I gave Tony a puzzled look Before we gravitated back towards the living room There James and Alley were both staring at each other with bewilderment

On the wall opposite from the door we had come in There was an open door One that definitely hadn't been there before The light from the living room poured into it, illuminating only the first few feet of a descending staircase before there was nothing but darkness. It was coming from the open doorway. In here?

He took a few tentative steps away from the open door. The hair on the back of my neck immediately stood on end. There was not supposed to be fucking stairs in a trailer home. We're just going to leave your phone on the floor if that's... All right. My voice wavered. I signaled to the front door with my thumb. Allie nodded in agreement and turned to lead the way back out.

As she did, the light bulbs above suddenly burst into a shower of glass and sparks. A horrible, inhuman shriek, both ears-splitting and thunderous all at once, erupted from the open doorway. The wind outside wailed. I clapped my hands over my ears and dropped to my knees, trying to shrew. shield myself from the broken glass raining down. The entire room started to spin as my vision would hazy and my stomach lurched. James only got to take one frantic step towards the front door before his head snapped back with a loud crack and he tumbled back into the darkness.

His feet kicked wildly as his muffled screams trailed back down into the abyss of the stairway. The lights in the other rooms of the house were flickering. I crawled along the floor using the fleeting light to search for an exit. I glanced up long enough to see Allie cradling her face with both hands, sobbing as blood dripped from between her fingers. Jim. Jesus Christ, somebody has... She was cut off when she lifted off the ground and was slammed into the ceiling, where she stayed. I crawled even faster, ignoring the glass shards burrowing into my palms.

Something toppled into me and sent me sprawling across the floor. Between the flashes of light, I could see it. Tony's body, twitching violently while a yellow froth poured from his lips and his eyes rolled into the back of his head. The letter had grown and slid back toward the wall fighting to get back on my feet. The house was trembling now. The walls buckled. The floor thrashed like the waves of an angry ocean. Lightning flashed outside and I saw it.

In the stairwell, a gnarled hand grabbing onto the doorframe. from out of the darkness. I staggered toward the front door, fighting to keep the contents of my stomach inside and failing. When I looked down, I couldn't believe my eyes. Even with my double vision, I could make out a small square of black plastic near the door. The phone.

James had dropped the fucking phone on his way down the stairs. I scooped it up as fast as I could and crashed through the door down the metal steps. I landed face first in the mud that was now, the front lawn. And again I was crawling, trailing, blood and dirt and vomit behind me as panic fueled my body away from the house. I got to my feet and I ran. I ran through the dark and the rain until I reached the edge of the trailer park, crossed the road and kept running. Town wasn't far, only a few miles and I refused to look back. I ran until my lungs screamed and my legs were on fire. When I finally slowed, I hoped Christ that my friends had gotten out as well.

But I knew better. I'm not proud that I just left them, but what the fuck was I supposed to do? When I got close enough to town to get service, I called 911 on my phone and spat out a clumsy demand that they send someone out to the address and the text message. I waited by the side of the road until I saw the lights of the police cruiser and demanded that I accompanied the officer. I had no choice but to force myself to return to the trailer. I had to know if my friends were all right. When we pulled up to the front yard, my mind shattered into a thousand pieces. I tried to cry out, but my throat only made a dry croaking sound.

The trailer was gone, and there were no signs of that lot having ever been occupied. No pipes or plumbing in its place. No tire tracks leading to or from the lot. No electrical meter outside. Absolutely nothing. Only Tony's SUV stood in the otherwise vacant mud pit. Now I'm sitting in an interrogation room. I've been here for hours, and the police are getting ready to send a search party out to the woods where we had gone hiking. They're convinced that I know more than I'm letting on. I gave them the phone, pleaded with them to run a trace on it, pull up the records, anything. They took it and disappeared for a long while.

When the officers came back, their faces were a mixture of suspicion and confusion. They told me that the phone was a dummy model, the kind they put on display in store cases. It had never been functional to begin with. Working in the IT department at a law firm can certainly be challenging, especially with a boss who has some peculiar demands. As we learn from author Keith McDuffey, when tasked with Ruffey, When tasked with retrieving emails from years of old backup tapes, a man discovers a series of videos which shed light on why the boss needs these files recovered.

Performing this tale are Dan Zapula, Peter Lewis, and Mike Delgado. So keep an eye out if an email comes your way with the subject reading, Do you love her? On the lookout for a new job. But I think it's time that I got a job that has nothing at all to do with IT. I mean nothing. No computers, no keyboards, mice, motherboards, wired networks, wireless networks. Definitely no fucking problem exists between keyboard and share issues.

And most importantly, and most absolutely definitely, no backup tapes. To gouse them, burn them in a fire And piss on the smoldering ashes Your monthly foals and nightly incrementals Can go to hell Oh, what's that? You want your most precious files safe Up to the minute while tough shit

Don't look at me. Not anymore. Would it surprise you if I told you I lost my job last week? Right, I know. Probably not. But it's not what you think. I quit.

I had no choice in the matter, really. Sorry if saving my own ass from a psychopathic boss ranks higher in importance to me than my next paycheck. A paycheck, which helped keep the beer fridge and herb jar full, and my pension for pizza and gaming satiated. I'd be fine if that was all I had to worry about funding these days. But since my folks booted me out of the whole and business, their basement, after what happened, I have to add rent to that list, utilities, and a car payment,

and shit, gas. Otherwise, fuck, I'd be fine not working at all. No job is worth dying for. One reason I'm having such a tough time finding work is because not only did I quit a paying job with an okay career outlook, I left the next gig, the one I quit the first one for, after only one day. I know. I know. I sound like a spoiled fucking brat. And I wouldn't know a hard day of work if it hit me square in the jaw. Oh, boo-hoo, you had to live inside the basement of your mommy and daddy's mansion. How dreadful. But you know what? Fuck you if that's what you think. Okay? You have no idea what kind of life I've led from a few words out of my mouth. So keep your preconceived judgment out of this and hear me out.

There really are very good reasons for both of those employment, well, unemployment decisions. You may not believe me, and hey, that's your prerogative and all of that. But at least I'm laying it out on the line so that some considerate soul might see that I'm not bullshitting here. If it gets me a decent job, again, not an IT. please, God, not at IT. Talking about all of this again might be worthwhile. I may, you know, die a horrible death and all that from telling the world about this, but I've got little choice. Back about a year ago, I graduated with the BA and computer science out of Boston University. About a month before graduation,

I had landed an intern-like job with a law office out of Cambridge. I say intern-like, because unlike an internship, I got nothing in the way of college credit for it, and the pay was about what you would expect. The office had recently lost their sole desktop support administrator, and they needed to quickly fill the role until they could find someone permanent. I didn't ask what happened to the last guy, and I didn't all much care. I was just thankful he was gone and left the opening there for me. The typical workday was pretty much your run-of-the-mill desktop,

support monkey stuff. Make sure printers were kept full and unjammed, dealing with malware, overabundance of spam, Wi-Fi issues, that sort of thing. I also had to make sure the tapes from the backup server

were rotated out every night. And that meant removing the previous night's incremental backup tapes, storing them in the off-site delivery storage container and placing fresh tapes back into the jukebox for the next nightly incremental run, except on Fridays. That was the scheduled

full backup run. My boss, Don Huber, Esquire, insisted on not reusing older tapes, on account of stricter guidelines for data retention in the law office or something like that. The office was on the small side, about 25 people, all of them with desktops. I kept them all working and clean, inside and out, and all of them got backed up, including the on-premise email server. Toward the end of the last month of my employment there, Huber, who I should mention is one of three partners of the firm, called me into his office. Let me tell you this about Huber.

I feared that guy. I'm not a small man myself, and I don't tend to intimidate easily, but this guy gave me the fucking creeps. He towered at least six-seven thin as a rail, and his 60-something-year-old, face was gaunt and pale, except for the swollen nose that the man couldn't stop blowing into that god-forsaking, crusty handkerchief he kept in his pocket. And his breath, dear Lord, his breath, I swear to God, a cloud of that shit lingered around for an hour after he left the office. And despite his constant coffee binging, he always looked tired and uninterested in anyone, never smiling past those bloody gums of his.

God forbid he ever look at you with his two pissholes in the snow. Jonathan. My name is Jonah, but I was not about to correct him. Close the door. Ugh, that breath. Shit. Huber continued in his drawn-out, tired way. Jonathan.

But that's all. he said. Was the guy trying to make me correct him? I didn't take the bait. Yes? Backups. You make sure all of our computers and the email are backed up. Every evening, am I right?

I nodded. And the old backups are stored out of the office by that something mountain place? Yeah, they're taken every night around five o'clock. And about how many years of backups would you say they have? Wow. All of them? Say about seven years' worth? He considered this a long moment.

I have an important assignment for you. It's going to take some time. A bit of overtime work. Wonderful. Okay. I hope to sound more. disappointed than pissed off. Will that be a problem?

All right, so I sounded pissed off. Nope, let me know what you need. Huber glared at me. There was no bullshitting this guy. I mean, he's a lawyer for crying out loud. I am not. But I don't think he gave a shit about my feelings, except for making sure that I was sufficiently terrified

of him and uncomfortable. I'm working on a case. It's one that is very personal to me, so I need to trust that you will keep the details of what you are doing to yourself. Do not speak of it to anyone else inside or outside of this office. Do you understand, Jonathan? I nodded. The details of Huber's task were pretty simple, but the deed itself was not. Our 90s era email server stored file attachments on a local file server, separately from the messages.

Huber laid out a rule long ago that the attachment storage had to be cleaned out of everything on the first of every month. Every month. You had to have any documents you wanted to retain printed and filed, then allow the system to automatically purge. Probably is some sort of legal thing. Don't ask me, remember, I'm not a lawyer. Now he needed me to go through the past year to retrieve all of his files for this quote-unquote case of his. That meant retrieving a shitload of tapes, then spending hours, make that daze, restoring both the full and incremental backups of every system.

A major pain in the ass. And Jonathan, do not, under any circumstances, view the files you are retrieving. It is of important legal procedure that you do not view them. Is that understood? Yep. I mean, yes. Understood. With that, I'd say he was as satisfied as he was going to be.

The following Monday, two crates of 8mmag tapes filled the desk in my butthole of a backroom office, and I got to work. Probably most of you have not worked with these old backtapes. backup tape jukeboxes. Well, let me tell you, they suck. They're a pain in the ass to load, and the robotic arm for rotating tapes in and out of the drive is dog ass slow. I also had to perform the file restores early in the morning after the nightly backups ran, since I only had the one unit to work with. And this is three, four in the morning, mind you. It was start then or never get anything done for the people in the office all day, and you can be sure as shit I was logging all of that overtime

and strolling into the office later than usual. At first, the file restores were pretty run-of-the-mill crap. Thousands of word documents, PDFs, images, probably photos of crime scenes. There were some audio files here and there too, most likely from testimony recordings and the like. And just like Huber the Uber, the Uber creep asked, I didn't open any of them. That is until the video files started to dump out.

It's like this. Boring does not begin to describe those nights. Brain numbing. That works. If I was in law school, maybe I could dig into the tomes in the office library and read up on some old cases, something like that. And even then, I was barely able to keep my eyes open, so my head wasn't so much ready for soaking in knowledge at that hour. The firewall, one that I sadly still did not control, blocked access to anything you can see. consider fun to watch or read, managed by some third party or some shit. And now there are these videos I'm seeing restore back into the file server.

Now mind you, videos aren't something seen very often within email attachments at that place. I'm not sure they knew how to operate cameras on their phones, let alone transfer some files from one. They weren't the most technical bunch. It was coming on two in the morning, I was bored, and I now had something that could pose as entertainment. So I double-click the first one, and I watched. What popped into the video player was fucked up, to put it mildly. A heavy-set woman in about her late 50s, she was bound and gagged, tied to a chair, in what looked like some kind of dirty basement. She was dressed in a soiled white nightgown, her graying hair laying wet and matted against her face and forehead.

At first, I thought this was just some disturbing crime scene evidence that the woman was dead and the camera operator took video rather than stills. Only, no one else was in the room. No cops. And the woman was not dead. She appeared to be asleep or passed out, as you could clearly see she was breathing. The person working the camera rotated around the seated woman, making no sound other than the occasional footfall upon the concrete. The video turned to focus in on the woman's right thigh, where a smear of blood ran down it from a small wound.

The camera came to a stop and clicked into place, presumably into a tripod. A hand came into view then wearing surgical gloves, holding a syringe. It jabbed the woman and plunged whatever liquid it held, and then pulled away. Some shuffling off camera and hands are back again with another needle. Only this one, this one is huge. He inserts this long-ass needle into this woman's leg, right about at the bleeding wound. And the hand moves away, and I can see it's a blood-drawing needle, filling something I couldn't see. And about a minute later, the needle's withdrawn.

More blood trickles down the woman's leg. A bag of blood swings into view, with number zero zero zero sloppy written on it in Sharpie. A click and the camera's raised up again focusing on the woman's face. And there's a soft kissing noise. And the gloved hand comes into view again, pressing two fingers against the woman's lips. And the video ends. I closed the video player window and couldn't have gotten up. out of that place faster than if it had been on fire.

The next morning, I called in sick. It wasn't exactly a lie. I really didn't feel well. At a sleepless night to what I'd just watched, I felt like complete shit. I was told Huber wasn't happy about my being out, personally asking about my work on his quote-unquote special project. Rather than risk getting outright fired,

I told him to let him know I'd make it in that night to make some more progress. I wasn't sure what to do at that point. I had no idea the context of the video, and I didn't know who it belonged to. As they're stored on the attachment server, they aren't labeled with what email message they belong to. Without the accompanying email itself, the attachment's just there. I'd have to restore the old emails as well if I wanted to match them up. If I let Huber know I was touching those files, he'd shit can my ass in a heartbeat. For my own sake of sanity, I just assumed it was disturbing evidence for a case long since closed, and I went back to work that night.

So around 1 a.m., more files were restoring from the tapes. I was more than halfway done at that point. I take a look at the progress and the expanding list of files. More videos. I wasn't sure I wanted to chance another one, but of course I did. I'm a dead cat like that. The video I opened this time is yet another bloodletting. Same woman, same place.

Only this time the woman is much thinner, and her leg is not looking good at all. The wound looks infected and festering, and there's a lot more dried blood. This time she's not so passed out, but close enough to it. She mumbles something behind the cloth blocking her mouth while, the unseen cameraman goes to work. And this time, the bag he fills is labeled number 0-1-1. I wasn't watching them in order. Dear God, were there ten more of these?

Maybe more. So I opened another video. This time, the window filled with something much different. Definitely much more disturbing. The camera faces Don Huber's unoccupied desk. The old man comes into view, holding a steaming mug of coffee in a brown paper bag. He sits at his desk and calmly opens the paper bag, removing one of those fucking bags of blood. He holds it up to the camera.

It's half full with the label 008 written on it. And the old man smiles. He fucking smiles! And that's not the most disturbing part. Huber takes this bag of blood and squeezes about a half cup of it into his coffee mug. He seals the bag back up again, puts it into the paper bag. He sticks his index finger into the cup, swirls it around, mixing it all up. And then, in a big gulp, it's down the hatch.

He swallows down what must have been half the mug. And when he lowers his arm, his lips and teeth are stained red. He looks at the camera and he smiles. Then he laughs. It's not just a chuckle. It's a full-blown cackle of insanity. Tears are streaming down the man's face and the laughter is becoming more maniacal. And he takes another.

swig. Another until the mug is drained, dry. And again he smiles and again he laughs. He wipes tears from his face and then walks from behind the desk off camera. And the video ends. I'm not sure how long I sat there at my desk in silence. I couldn't get the sound of hubris insane laugh out of my head and I couldn't erase that bizarre image of him. sucking down that concoction and finishing it off with a bloody grin, enjoying every last drop. And there were more of them. With the files that continued to restore onto the file server were more videos.

Lots more. I'd like to say that I refrain from watching them. I mean, that's what a sane, rational person would do, right? That person would have seen quite enough. He'd stop right there. go to the police with that shit. He might get fired for being wrong, and then for opening the files he was told outright

not to open, but if he was right, some in prison woman is maybe saved and that vampire gets locked up. I'd be a hero, one who broke the trust of his employer for justice. Yeah, that worked out well for everyone else who's blown a whistle.

And shit, I was barely out of college. The remaining videos were more of the same. bags labeled anywhere between 0-0-0-0-21 were filled and then later consumed, always with the laughter and the smiles. Now it made sense why Huber's breath was so goddamn bad. As I watched the old man cackle in another video,

I felt I could smell the rancid odor through the screen. No, I could actually smell it. Jonathan. How is the project coming along? It was Huber. There in the office. It was three in the morning, and I was alone with that blood-guzzling freak.

I nearly shit myself. Uh, Mr. Huber, hi. Yeah, I, uh, yeah, the restores are still chugging along. It should be done in another day or so. The old man pursed his lips and nodded slightly, not taking his bloodshot eyes off of me. He was carrying a coffee mug. The coffee mug.

Oh, dear Christ. I just got off the phone with my mom. I told her where I was and that everything's good, and I'll be home soon. I thought telling Huber I'd be missed would keep me from becoming another one of his blood supplies. His lack of reaction told me he didn't seem to care. Uh, so what brought you around here so late? Or is it early? A high-profile corporate litigation I'm working on.

Couldn't sleep if I tried. This'll be my home for a while. So, Mrs. Huber, your wife, she doesn't get upset at you being away? Huber narrowed his eyes. Shit, I must have touched a nerve. Now I wished I had called my mom. Thankfully, it didn't take long for his look to sob. I've been softened.

Lydia Burr is bedridden. Has been for months. I have someone taking care of her while I am in case. I nodded in mouth to silent. Ah, of understanding. Anyway, I'm glad you're still here, John. I'm going to head out now. But I need you to print out a list of the files you've been able to restore so far and leave it on my desk.

I'll leave you. the door open. Sure, no problem. Thank the good Lord I wouldn't be alone with him anymore. I hoped the elation in my voice wasn't too apparent. Huber left, taking most of

his dragon breath along with him. Before leaving myself, I got the file listing printouts and brought them into his office. It's not often I go into that room. It's kept locked when he's not around, and somehow he's kept his PC out of technical trouble, which meant

little need for me to enter. And that's why I never bothered to notice the photo sitting on his desk before. It was the woman in the videos, the bloodied, tied up woman in the chair, Huber's wife. The papers fell from my hand. I gathered them up as quickly as they'd fallen, threw them on the old man's desk, and got the hell out of dodge. I went over the whole thing in my head as I sped home. Huber, that sick son of a bitch, had his wife tied up in his basement, draining the poor woman into blood bags, and chugging her down like some sort of macabre breakfast drink. And then the smiling, the laughing, tears of laughter drinking every goddamn drop.

What the hell was he? And why in God's name was he taking videos of the whole process? he had to be emailing them off to someone. But to whom? And why? The sun was rising by the time I walked in the door at home, and needless to say, I wasn't much ready for sleeping. Rather than dwell further on what I had just learned about Huber,

I got to work on the most logical thing I could think of, my resume. I was getting the fuck out of that office as soon as possible. Either Huber would be caught and taken to jail, causing the whole firm to crumble and all of its jobs along with it, or that vampire would find me fit to fill more blood bags. No thanks. Having sent my resume off to as many IT support job postings as I could find and fit into, I finally passed out on my keyboard at about 10 in the morning.

By the time I woke up early that afternoon, I had a voicemail from a recruiter from one of the jobs I'd applied for. I called them back, set up an interview for the following day, and headed back to work. I had a little skip in my step, knowing it may not be so long before I wouldn't be going back there anymore. Inside my office, the printouts from the previous night sat on my desk. A post-it note stuck to the top of the pile had Huber's handwriting on it.

Continue project. Move all files ending in M4V onto USB storage. Do not open. the files. The video files. Of course that's what he wanted. The crazy fucker wanted to keep them all for posterity or something, then probably take the tapes and have them destroyed.

Sure, I wanted to get the hell out of that job, but I did not want to let Huber get away with what he was up to. I decided that not only would I copy those videos to a USB key for Huber, but I'd make a copy for myself, along with the emails they were attached to. I just needed to complete the file recovery that night, then restore and save the emails from the same time period with my own copy. And with that, I could send it all off to the cops anonymously and hope that they nail that creep and save his wife

before she's nothing but dry flesh and bones. I managed to avoid Huber that entire day. I swear to God, I thought I heard his cackling laughter from behind his closed door on a few occasions. That bony finger swirling around in his mouth. mug, that blood-stained RIN. As the next dawn crept up on me, I

had completed restoring the last of the incremental backups. I had 50 or 60 videos stored onto two USB storage keys. One copy for Huber, one for me. As planned, I restored all of the old emails for myself as well. I left

Huber's copy on the desk in his office, which was thankfully unoccupied, and left for home to get some sleep. I had an interview to rest for. For a job, I hoped I could start ASAP. The interview was for 10 that morning. And after about five hours of shut-eye, I downed a pot of coffee and print myself up and arrived with little time to spare. The job was for an IT consulting business that had set up shop within just the past six months, and business was taking off and they needed to fill some entry-level

remote tech positions to keep up with the onslaught of demand. I nailed it. They made me an offer on the spot, and I snatched it right up. I'd only met with a couple of the lead techs, but I sufficiently impressed them enough to fill one of the spots. I strolled into my old office that afternoon to find the storage containers. All of the backup tapes, gone. Huber got in early and got rid of them all. He was covering his sick and demented ass from being found out.

Likely, he was toasting another mug of his vile brew to whatever fire melted the tapes down to a nondescript heap of plastic. That night, while Huber was rewatching and reliving his gory glory days of sucking down the blood of his wife, I'd be working to match my own copy of them to the emails he'd sent and shut that fucker down. I used my time at the office to type up my letter of resignation. I threw it onto Huber's unoccupied desk and checked right the hell out of there. And on my way home, I got a call from the new job. and it wasn't one I was expecting.

Hi, Jonah. Hey, this is Steve Page from Peter Pross. You seem like a cool dude. Thought we might meet up tonight for a couple of cold ones with some of the team. Welcome you aboard. What do you say? That sounds fantastic. I said that I'd head out that way after the office closed about 7 o'clock.

And meanwhile, I had some videos and emails to deal with. When I got home, I flopped onto the couch with my laptop and threw on some TV. I plugged the USB key. with the videos and emails into the laptop, copied everything off, and got straight to work. Opening the email files was pretty straightforward. All that was left was to match the file names and dates to Hewers' outgoing emails, and I'd have the bastard by the balls. After about an hour of searching, I found what I was looking for. We'll make that half of what I was searching for. I was able to match Huber's outgoing emails to only half of the videos,

those of him doing the blood drinking, and the laughing. There was no email subject, nothing in the body of the message, just the video and one recipient, P-P-K-G at gmail.com. It was when I searched Huber's inbox that I found the messages attached to the other half of the videos. Huber wasn't sending the videos of his wife. He was receiving them from someone else. Unlike Huber's outgoing messages, these emails did. contain a message.

They were all sent from the same address he'd been sending to. I read only the first. Subject of her. Or should I call you soulless, blood-sucking lawyer, Don? Like that name better, you should change it. I'll keep this short, because I know you're a busy man and have a lot more blood-sucking to do. And now I don't mean...

That metaphorically, as you'll see from the attached video. You may remember that when you took me into your employment, part of that deal was the promise of your firm finding help, for my wife had a gentleman's agreement. In return for free assistance from me, for your office, you would assist us in suing the company responsible for the accident resulting in my accident, resulting in my wife's handicap. That is not what happened.

Instead, after several years of my free services to your firm, you against me and my family. You saw that there was more to be gained by representing the other party, turned around and countersued us on their behalf. They won. You won. Lost nearly everything. Last night, I lost my wife.

Now, for you to lose something. It's up to you for how long. To remain alive, your instructions are simple. Firstly, do not forward this message or its contents to the authorities, nor make them aware of it in any way. We still control your firewall and know what comes in and out of there at all times. I will know.

You could, of course, copy the files and send them some other way, but know this. Your wife is kept alive only by my administering her with the basic nutrients to stay that way. So if I were to say be killed or go to jail, she's as good as gone. Now don't worry, Donnie, you won't be without your wife entirely. I will be sending you that bag of her blood. One every few days or so in return, all of it.

Like the blood sucker you are. of yourself doing this and email it as an attachment back to me. And here's the most important part. Show me how much you enjoy it. Show me how much you're enjoying every last fucking drop of it,

you blood-sucking motherfucker. I don't care how many cupfuls it takes or what the hell you mix it with, but you will Drink that bag dry and you will laugh. Convince me you love. First delivery comes tomorrow morning.

I expect your first video within four hours of that. Tell, tell, enjoy your breakfast. Signed, the Kenster. Kenster. I knew I heard that stupid nickname somewhere before. Was it at the office? Yeah, that was it.

First day of work. One of the delivery guys who sometimes picked up the backup tapes once asked where the Kenster was. I had no idea who he was talking about, but now I knew. He was the IT guy I replaced. Before he left, he cleaned up anything and everything in the systems about him. Everything gone. Almost everything gone, I should say.

I still had the restored email. I checked the time. Seven o'clock. Late. Shit. Drowning my shot nerves and alcohol sounded like a decent plan at the time. I called a cab and met up with Steve Page and the other pewter pros at a bar across town, about a half hour later. After a couple of hours of us chatting about all things geek,

I was happily on my way to becoming plastered and forgetting about the whole nightmare with humor. That ended right quick. Don't worry if you get stuck with a tough client on the job, Jonah. We've all had our run-ins with him. Another pro named Andy spoke up. No shit. Remember that old bat who insisted on me reinstalling Windows 95? 90 fucking 5! I had to torrent and burn some old ISO of the thing.

I hoped it wasn't teeming with a hidden North Korean malware party. Steve gave him a punch on the shoulder. Jesus, Andy! Seriously? You don't do that shit. Anyway, Jonah, if you get stuck with a nut like that, you come talk to me or you find the boss. Because if you can't do it, the Kenster can! I choked on my last sip of beer like I was drowning.

I'm sorry. The Kenster? Damn, you okay? Well, yeah, man, he owns the shop, Ken Graham. Goes by the Kenster in all the nerdy circles, like us. He's the real pro at pros. Knows how to deal with all types. You go to him with the difficult-to-please-ones, and he's got you covered.

He's a little corky, I guess you could say, but you'll love working for him. You know, I wonder what's holding him up. Holding him up? Yeah, he was supposed to show up tonight. Guess he wants to meet you in particular. I showed him your resume and I'll be damned if his eyes didn't light right up. Looks like your past experience of that law office paid off. You've already got his eye, big guy.

Steve tried to give me a shot on the shoulder, but I was already beelining for the door. There was some confused yelling from behind me as they followed me outside. Most likely something to do with me skimping on the tab. I threw myself into the nearest cab and shot home. And that was a week ago. So, I guess saying I quit my last job wasn't so accurate after all. In truth, I hadn't even started yet. I bet there aren't many people who've done that,

not without a backup plan on deck at the time. I have no clue what Huber has planned for those videos he had me restore. Not really sure why you'd have them destroyed either. If he turns them in, his wife's likely a goner. Maybe she's dead already. Maybe he just doesn't care and just wants to stop the blood drinking, making sure he's got what he needs to make sure the Kenster pays for what he's done. But the news has been quiet.

No reports of a missing or dead Lydia Huber, and no arrests of pewter pro's owner, Ken Graham. Me, I'm keeping hold of my copy of those files and emails. That insurance at least helps me get a few winks of sleep every night. My parents, of course, haven't understood my unemployment, so I'm out on my ass and basically paying for this dump out of what little savings I have left. That's not much. Not anymore. I've tried calling my mom for the past couple of days,

basically to beg for her to let me back into their basement, which believe me is a vast upgrade from this shithole. But she's not picking up my calls. It never took it. very much to disappoint her. I'm getting a text message. God, I hope that's her. You know, I'm still sometimes surprised

she even knows how to send one. Especially one with the video. Why is she sending me? Oh, dear fucking God. Do you love... We thank you for being with us for our devilishly dark tales. If you would like to find out

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