The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S7E05

Episode Date: May 8, 2016

It's episode 5 of Season 7. On this week's show we have four tales about agonizing anatomy, sinister siblings, and bloodcurdling barflies. "Soft Teeth" written by Max Aaron and performed by David Cummings. (Story starts at 00:02:50) "A Seaside British Pub" written by C.M. Scandreth and performed by Erika Sanderson & Brian Mansi & David Ault. (Story starts at 00:09:40) "My Sister's Laptop"* written by Onyx O. and performed by Nikolle Doolin & Jessica McEvoy. (Story starts at 01:01:20) "The 1% - Pt. 2"** written by E.Z. Morgan and performed by Mike DelGaudio & Peter Lewis & Erika Sanderson & Nikolle Doolin & Jessica McEvoy & Corinne Sanders & Dan Zappula. (Story starts at 01:31:00) Click here to learn more about the voice actors on The NoSleep Podcast  Click here to listen to the Frightful Failures Podcast  Click here to learn more about Max Aaron  Click here to learn more about C.M. Scandreth  Click here to learn more about Onyx O.  Click here to learn more about E.Z. Morgan  Executive Producer & Host: David Cummings Musical score composed by: Brandon Boone. Additional music by Phil Michalski Audio adaptations produced by: David Cummings & Jeff Clement* & Phil Michalski** "Soft Teeth" illustration courtesy of Jörn Heidrath Audio 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

Be forewarned, 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. Episode 5. The Seaside British Bow. My sister's laptop. The 1% Part 2.

It's the No Sleep Podcast. I'm David Cummings. Thanks for joining us. On this week's show, we have four tales about agonizing anatomy, sinister siblings, and blood-curdling barflies. I had the pleasure of being on another podcast earlier this week.

I visit with the guys from the frightful failures on film podcast. We talk a bit about the podcast. and then I teach them some harsh lessons about what it takes to be a good horror storyteller. Check the show notes for a link and join us for the fun. This episode is being released on Mother's Day. I know I mentioned Mother's Day on the last episode, but there's a very special reason to mention it again. You see, the No Sleep family has a brand new mother, and we want to celebrate this wonderful news. Our musical maestro, Brandon Boone, and his lovely wife and regular no-sleep voice actor, Tisha,

welcome their first child into the world on Saturday, April 30th. The beautiful Ella Lorelei Boone, a healthy, happy little girl. So we celebrate with them and wish Tisha the happiest of Mother's Day, her first of many. From what I've been told, Brandon is already getting Ella working on the piano, so we look forward to hearing her musical compositions on the show soon. I know I speak for all of us in sending our love and congratulations to Brandon, Tisha, and Ella. Let's hope the new parents can cope in the new and very literal realm of no sleep. Well, I think it's time for us to birth our own little baby, named Episode 5 and Start the Show.

In our first tale, we meet a woman who has done. taken a very familiar job. Sorry, I've got a tooth that's killing me. Anyway, we made a woman who has a, I really have to get this looked at. It's just that I hate going to the dentist. Always have. Well, it actually started because of that man, the man with the soft teeth. You see, I remember the man with the soft teeth. He'd come into my room at night and bite me over and over. The bites didn't hurt and they left no marks. All I felt was pressure. The first time I saw his face, I was terrified. His eyes were different. Instead of two eye sockets, he had nine. They were clustered in front of his face and up his

forehead like a honeycomb two on top four in the middle three on the bottom the sockets didn't house eyeballs there was a single thin eye stalk growing from the center of each hole each stalk swayed in front of his face like long grass in the breeze and and when he'd visit me i'd lose the ability to move or scream all i could do was watch. After a week of visits and my parents not believing a word that came out of my mouth, I thought sleeping with the light on might keep him away. That was the night he started biting my face. The man would always move slowly and with great care. Every motion seemed calculated and precise. I didn't know what he was doing, but I had no doubt he did. The first time he got close to my head, I saw the inside of his mouth.

Like his eyes, his teeth were unlike any I'd seen. There were three rows of bulbous growths pushing from an array of holes in his gumline. They looked as soft as they felt. Each one was covered in fine, downy hairs. They reminded me of the fat bodies of moths. He'd open my mouth with his index finger and thumb. Then he'd get close. I felt his eye stalks brushing against my face and forehead and eyes as he pressed his upper teeth against my lower ones.

He closed his mouth around my chin, locking my lower jaw in his mouth. Oh, it was uncomfortable, but it didn't hurt. The man would stay there for ten minutes at a time, gradually modulating the pressure of his jaw against mine. And then, on the last night he visited me, he performed the same steps. Once my jaw was in his mouth, though, he applied more pressure than he'd used in the past. His eye stalk straightened out and felt like firm cables against my face. As the pressure increased, I felt his teeth start to burst against my own.

One by one, the thick, insectile bodies inside his mouth succumbed to the pressure and coated my tongue and gums with thick, bitter paste. I felt his tongue, which had never been involved in our interactions before, extending over my teeth and massaging the paste into my gums. I tried to wretch, but even that had been taken from me. The man did the same thing with my upper teeth and pallets. When he left and I could move again, I rushed to the bathroom, threw up, and brushed my teeth more times than I could count.

I never saw the man again. Yeah, it's been years and years now. I've been plagued by dental issues my entire adult life. Every visit brings worse news. It's gotten to the point where I'm dealing with irreversible bone loss. Eventually, my teeth will fall out. The foundation to which they're attached is, it's simply deteriorating. It's not uncommon, but it's rare for someone my age who is otherwise,

in perfect health. And as if on cue, the day after my most recent trip to the dentist, I lost my first tooth. I'd felt it loosening and the dentist said it was only a matter of time, and more will follow. I scheduled an appointment to see him in three months. It was as frequently as my insurance would allow. More of my teeth started to wiggle when I poked at them with my tongue. I started to accept their fate. But recently, my resignation has developed flickers of fear and disbelief. The tooth that fell out started to grow back. I'd never heard of such a thing, but I can see something grayish white pushing through the raw socket.

When I touch it with my tongue, it's soft, and I can feel my tongue brushing against it almost. as if it has nerves of its own. I'm trying not to think back to the memories of the man in my room, but it's impossible not to. You know, not when more of my teeth grow looser by the day, and especially not when I have seven painful spots near my eyes and forehead that feel softer than they should. Yeah, I really...

really should get to the dentist. Oh, and I'll have to thank author Max Aaron for the reminder to take care of my teeth. Dental health is important. Now, as I started to say, when you're looking for work and are willing to settle for less than your ideal job, some people decide to work in bars and restaurants. As author C.M. Scandrith shares, a British woman finds employment at a pub and encounters an array of strange patrons who frequent the establishment. They might make you think twice before you consider the same type of work. Performing this tale are Erica Sanderson, Brian Mansey, and David Alt. So grab a pint and let's learn what happens in a seaside British pub.

There are few things as depressing and shitty as working in a seaside British pub. Sticky floors, sticky tables and sticky-fingered patrons who are reluctant to part with their money. Here in the UK, we don't work for tips, which is a pain when you're dealing with sour-faced misers who don't give a rat's ass about your student debt and the cost of living. D' decor is strictly traditional. Football flags and football jerseys spatter the walls like some drunk patrons pissed sports all over the place. Everything is brown Whether it's the wooden floor, the wooden bar, The brown leather stools Or the faded to brown booth seats that were once maroon

Even the drinks are brown Bourbon, beer, guineas Whiskey, rum And the ubiquitous mixer, coke The only thing that sets this bar apart From all the other shitty seaside British pubs Is the Cleontale Which, to be honest, is the only reason

why I still work here after 10 months of threats, harassment, assault and minimum wage. I can feel your mind ticking over thinking, what could possibly be so interesting and engaging about the patrons that they could keep her working in a hole like this? To answer that question, let me tell you a little about the people who frequent this place. The losers, the outcasts and the freaks of the supernatural world. Mona looks haggard today sucking on a palmal

and nursing a pint of stout her nicotine yellow poem is showing grey at the roots and the wattles under her chin quiver with each suck of the cigarette one of the two flat screens in the bar is playing the music channel and Mona curls her thin

lip gloss sticky lips at the image of some UK pop star jarrating her nearly naked hips to a thumping baseline as her lips parting contempt crooked yellow teeth flash, blackened with meth rot. Her strappy heels and off-the-shoulder dress were designed for someone 20 years younger and someone with padding in places she doesn't have.

Her nubly spine rises starkly from the skin of her exposed back, giving her the appearance of some haggard meth-addicted stegosaurus, and the hemline of the ensemble is just above her crotch, so when she sits at one of the cigarette-scarred tables near the window, anyone in the booths can see straight into the dingy cavern beneath her slack wrinkly thighs. She gives a brown speckled smile as I breeze by her table and replace the ashtray for her. I'm pretty sure she likes me, even though I'm the antithesis of her. Young, plump and brown-haired, typical northerner stock.

How many boys are looking for a good time? You could always try, Dano. I gestured with my free hand to one of our... regular malingerers who sits hunched over a Guinness at the bar. But Mona knows better than to mess with the likes of him. Then it happens. A fistful of drunk students crash in through the swinging doors of the bar, which, despite being a dive, is on the route of a fairly famous uni pub crawl.

This is Mona's bread and butter right here. Her roomy eyes narrow as she picks out one of the lads. The youngest, most awkward-looking of her. the lot. Like an old well-oiled engine she rattles into life and engages in her well-practised pity story, telling him of her hardship on the streets and her terrible childhood. The kid is like a hair in the headlights, wanting to bolt but held in place by the adept handling of the predator before him. She isolates him from his friends and bends her head closer to his. For some reason the others are ignoring them. None of the young men's mates are ribbing him for the

chatting up an ancient minging methaw like Mona. Three minutes later, she's leading him by the hand to the bogs, having promised him the blowjob of a lifetime. He glances nervously back at the raucas crowd of yobboes I'm currently handing out drinks to, and then he's through the smoke-glass doors at the back of the pub, heading for some piss-stale graffiti clutter cubicle, where he will indeed receive the best,

and probably only BJ has ever had. He emerges as his mates finish their round and prepare to move on to the next leg of the pub crawl leaving two smashed pint glasses for me to clean up and ringing ears from their cacophony of rival jokes. Dano nods to moan her as she waltzes back to her table. They had a deal it seems so no doubt the next lot of random revellers

that descend on the pub are his. That's fine by moana though. Wiping the corner of her mouth she parks herself back by the window and taps out another palm out. It's not hard to stare when you see the manifestation of another worldly power. But working in this bar, I've developed a knack for turning a blind eye. I know the process, though.

As the tacky slurry of semen from the awkward young man slides through her innards and is absorbed into her body, moaners turkey neck tightens and her lips fill out slowly. Liver spots and nicotine stains fade from her hands and the roots of the brittle, horsey perm turn honey blonde and glossy, matched by the youthful glow that suffuses the perk roundness

of her once slapped breasts. Filling out the dress in all the right places, she flashes a smile, a brilliant white teeth at me, and leaves 20 quid under her glass as she exits the pub, tottering into town on smooth, faintly tanned legs that just 20 minutes ago

looked wrinklier than the uniron shirt Dano has been wearing for the past two weeks. And so the cycle of mourner begins anew. Her youth regenerated, she'll suck dick and drink the seed of young men until she's gorgeous enough to attach herself to some wealthy old arsoul and bleed him dry for her meth abate. Eventually she'll end up back here. Haggard, old and hideous.

The cycle complete again. How long she's been doing this, I don't know. It could have begun after the first opium dens opened in London, or even as far back as when humanity first discovered the cocoa leaf. As for the young awkward lad from the bar, his vitality will fade over the next week or so until he can't get out to bed. Wasted, frail and grey,

he'll gasp out his last breath on a sagging mattress in his student hostel as his heart flutters to a halt, drained of all the precious life force that once animated him. Perhaps he'll die with a smile on his gaunt face, remembering the best and only blowjob of his life. But even if someone were to connect the dots, the ancient methore who sucked him dry doesn't exist anymore, subsumed back into the body of a healthy 20-something clubgoer.

What mourner is exactly, I don't know. Here in the British Isles, a lot of old fairy magic still lingers and slides through the blood of the locals, suffusing them with odd powers and the taint of the fay. All I know is that in a month or two she'll be back. A cigarette between her browning teeth and 20 quid left for me at the end of the night. In a world a pinny pinches and minimum wage wars,

a tipper like morner is a rare ray of sunshine in the drizzle-clouded financial winter of a student barmaid's life. The tide rack on the beach is strong today. That greasy, greenish pung permeating everything with a taint of rotting sea life. And it's on days like this. that Stan will visit the bar. A beat-up cab will pull up outside the pub, listing to one side. It's always the same cab and the same driver, as nobody else will take Stan as a fare.

The driver, an Arab chap in a pressed white shirt and black slacks, will open the rear street-side door, and Stan will heave himself out of the vehicle, which is a process that can take a couple of minutes. First is bald, dusky brownhead will emerge, shiny with sweat which pours down his impressive jowls and onto the chewing gum spotted footpath below. Everything about Stan quivers, except for the top of his head.

From there down his flesh becomes a near molten mess of folds and rolls. His sweaty, swaying moves pressed wetly into the fabric of his enormous shirt and the effusive weight of his ponderous stomach poured into his custom-made jeans where it stretches the denim down to his failing knees. Pinwheel elbowed arms moved to pick up a cane in each fleshy paw, then Stan painfully shuffles into the bar. Each step a wheezing wobbling victory for this morbidly obese colossus. The bar owner reinforced a chair for Stan years ago,

as the booths were too small and the bar stools too difficult for him to climb onto. So at the end of his epic trek from cab to chair, Stan will collapse with a bubbling groan into his seat, then pull a tablecloth-sized Anki out of his pocket and vigorously mop the slick of perspiration from his smooth crown and rippling cheek pads. That's when the smell kicks in. It's not just the rank order of unwashed folds of skin.

Stan has his own particular reek. It reminds me of shipbuilds and rotting fish combined with something briny and ancient, like finding your granddad's tackle box from 50 years past still stinking of cod ghosts and rasset guts. Stan is probably my least favourite customer to deal with, and he's a pervert to boot. Whether Dano and Stan are truly friends,

or simply struck up an alliance of convenience, I don't know. Whatever the case, they'll chat animatedly about the local football team and whinge about the weather, while Stan mops himself with his oversized care chief, and Dano flips a tarnished half-ground across his knuckles. I like to pick my moments to deliver drinks to his table, waiting for Stan to embark upon some wheezing rant about the poor management of the Tigers this season.

Then I'll nip in and took a pint on his offside before he can rotate his bulk to grab at my ass with those greasy digits of his. Give an half a chance, Stan will have his hand halfway down your pants before you can recoil in horror. At some point during the evening, a man will enter the pub. never the same guy twice in a row but usually non-descript he'll buy a drink and sit at the table behind Stan

after drinking a third of whatever it is the man will leave without a word his mostly full glass still sitting on a cardboard coaster never one to waste booze Stan will nonchalantly swing one quivering arm around take the drinking coaster then press the drink to his moor and suck it down on the coaster has written a time and address left for him by the stranger.

Declaring to Dano that he's hungry and feels like a fish curry, Stan will call his cabby friend on his oily phone and then heave himself to his feet and shuffle outside to wait. The coaster gone from the table and tucked into some crevice on his enormous person. A couple of hours later,

Stan will return to the bar as self-satisfied smugness of a well-fed fat man plastered across his pudding features. While none of this is absolutely sinister in and of itself, and you might think Stan a pitiful creature more deserving of sympathy than fear, my time at the bar has disavowed me of this naive notion. Sometimes after Stan's return from his curry stop,

he'll gripe about indigestion and demand that I get him in antacid and a pint of water. Bloted and gassy, he'll proceed to ooze rancid meat sweats and trickle out sneaky farts until his corner of the pub is a gagging myasma of sweat-shit stink. Often I'd be too distracted by the stench to do anything more than running with his tablet and water, then exit as quickly as I can. But on one particular occasion, I saw something that turned my bar-hot blood to ice water.

Stan's massive gut rumbled and quivered at the best of times, barely placated with crisps and pork scratchings from the bar, but a movement from under his tent-like shirt ran across the surface of his gut like a pregnant woman's baby turning and a human handprint pressed starkly and plainly against his stomach wall

then vanished now Stan has his own cubicle in the bogs like his chair in the bar it is reinforced and fitted with mobility assistant sandals any other toilet would probably shatter under his bulk it just so happened

that on the fateful night that I saw that thing in his stomach. Stan's toilet backed up and my boss asked me to take a look at it. I could tell from tapping the S-ben that the pipe was blocked solid so I did my duty as a jill of all trades and proceeded to take a wrench to it. Five minutes later the pipe was off and a slurry of greasy shit studded with human teeth spilled across the hill-marked cubicle floor. Stan was eating people. A lie it seemed. I followed Stan one night, begging off from work with a supposed blinding headache.

His cab wasn't hard to follow, listing from one side from his weight it couldn't be missed. Eventually it pulled up to appear on the waterfront and Stan laboriously peeled himself from the sweat-soaked leather. As the cab driver pulled away, Stan lay down his jewel canes and wobbled to the edge of the slippery pier and looked into the moonlit waters.

At first I thought he'd had a stroke. He simply collapsed sideways and into the water. I expected an almighty splash and an eruption of spray, but the impact never happened. And instead, I heard the silky whisper of something large but streamlined entering the swells. I ran then, sliding on the slimy boards of the pier, and made it just in time to see the enormous,

slickly black-brown body of a titanic eel slip through the waters and vanish. Then I was alone, only the full moon, the stinker tide rack, and Stan's abandoned canes to keep me company. That Stan is some kind of way eel, I have no doubt.

Nor do I doubt that whatever his deal is with mysterious strangers in the bar, it has to do with body disposal. I think that out of all the denizens of the pub, Stan is the one I would least like to run afoul of. Many and varied, are the traditional folk tales of the British Isles that begin with a strange traveller entering an inn,

then tricking the innkeeper and the good folk within by means of sorcery, chicanery or sleight of hand. In one, it's a prankster's cowhide that, as if by magic, produces endless copper coins when struck with a stick. In another, the innkeeper refuses hospitality to one of the fabled fairfork in disguise, and in doing so calls down a terrible curse upon all under his roof.

The tales all hold a common thread, as though woven from the same spindle, the truth spooling through the tapestry of rich and convoluted stories like a dark weft of warning. And that common thread tells us that never do these tales end well for anyone but the strange traveller. So it is with the patron we know as Dano. If Shane McGowan had a shorter, thinner brother with teeth, he would be a spitting image of our Danor. An alcoholic of legendary status Dano spends more time in the pub than any other patron His favoured stool at the bar as grooves worn into it

That perfectly match the angles of his bony arse And I swear that there are two shallow dimples in the bar itself From where his elbows rest That Dano is as Irish as a Sligo sunrise Was never in any doubt From his thick accent and proclivity for Guinness To his profane yet gilded tongue He's a walking stereotype to show

shame the proudest expat Irishman. If you're asking what he does for a living, he'll burr at you in his thick brogue without providing any real information. Oh, listen, that. Before embarking on some wild anecdote that will instantly suck those listening into his world of aftrudes and outright fabrications. Like his Pogues famous doppelganger, Dano has a voice to pull crowds, which is precisely what he uses it for on Friday nights.

From down the street his lilting Irish verse Will slip through the drunken street banter Firing some primal part of the Anglo-Saxon psyche And guiding the feet of paying customers to the bar He'll call for his newfound fans to wet his whistle With an endless river of Guinness Belting out traditional favourites like Whiskey in the Jar Molly Malone and Danny Boy

The very song that earned him his nickname Surrounded by his circle of fans his mood grows darker and meaner as he gets progressively pissed on his favourite drop. Until finally the alcohol reveals the true face of our Dano, a mean drunk with a sadistic streak as wide as St George's channel. The warning sign is when the coin comes out, a battered and tarnished silver-aff crown that's as older as I am by 30 years or more. Dano's lips will quirk into a smile that his acquaintance is no means trouble,

and the coin will begin to dance up and down his arm. knuckles as his capricious nature asserts itself. I betcha you you can't balance a point between these two other points. Streetwire students and Google smart patrons will take him up on his offer and show the old drunk fool that his time at Scheister in his long past. Dano will gripe when he loses and then challenge them to more of the same. Make these seven coins into two lines of four. Drop a matchstick on its side, balance a coin on a 20-quid note.

All too happy to take his money, the Apless Mark will grow cocky, figuring they got this old sot figured out. Then the coin dancing along Dano's brawl sunken knuckles will stop and vanish abruptly. 200 quid says I can balance the point on an upright toothpick. Like a man bargaining with the gin of legend, the mark will make certain to clarify the rules, to ensure Dano can't swindle them out of easy money. assuring them that there is no trick

Dano will swear on his mammy's grave and on heart that he's being truthful Unable to resist The sap will take the bait But the thing is This is the one time that Dano is telling the truth Standing the toothpick up right on the bar It makes a great show of putting the pint glass on top

And feeling around for the sweet spot There is laughter and shouting from the audience and a look of smug satisfaction from the mark. Then his hands snap away from the vessel and the onlookers fall silent. Atop a single splinter of wood balances a full pint glass. There is outrage from the hustled victim

who demands to inspect both glass and toothpick. Danos sits back, the silver half-crown back in his hand again as the poor soul checks for some contrivance to make the impossible possible. But there is no super-guile. No hole in the bar, no hole in the bottom of the pine glass. Dano's green eyes flash with anticipation,

and he sizes up the crestfall and know it all who just lost 200 quid. I'll tell you what. If you don't have the 200 quid, I'll just have your autograph. With that, he'll slide a napkin and pen on the sap, who gladly signs the square of paper and thanks his lucky stars he didn't have to part with that much cash. Slap in the relieved idiot on the back. Dano will buy the man a drink,

then proceed to treat him like family for the rest of the night. And when Lou finally closes up the bar, they'll leave together, arm in arm, singing Irish ditties and staggering off into the dark. And the man will never be seen or heard from again. I knew it was dangerous, and I knew it was stupid. But after working in this place amongst these monsters, fear has become a familiar friend.

Following Dano was harder than I thought The sea fog rolling in off the streets And making it hard to distinguish shapes Along the poorly lit pavement The buildings became unfamiliar And the fog tinted faintly green But I had to find out what Dano was doing with these men Both vanished into an alley

And I hurried to catch up A strong hand caught my arm And twisted it up behind me in a sour-smelling palm slapped over in my mouth Watch The alley stretched out before me, impossibly long, with emerald fog enveloping the buildings on either side. The man from the bar staggered along the paving stones.

His face now a confused rictus of fear as he backed away from us, staring fixedly behind. I tried to twist my head to see what he was seeing, but Dano's calloused hands held me firm. Don't look, lass. Don't ever. No longer just backing away now. The man in the alley scrambled, fell and picked himself up. Then he ran.

He ran as though pursued by the owens of hell themselves. As a cacophony of baying beasts and shrieking Eldritch voices exploded behind me and an ancient, livid fear tore at every fibre of my being. As the maelstrom of hellish sound passed overhead, Dano turned me sharply and threw me into the wall of the alley, facing away from the deafening dim. The screams of the man echoed down the alley, pleading, begging and wobbling with fear. Abruptly it all stopped, leaving Dano and I alone in a stinking seaside alley, empty and slick with damp.

Releasing me, he spat on the flagstones and fixed me with his frigid stare. Lass, if you follow me ever again, it'll be your soul that I offer up as hell's tithe of the wild hunt. That Dano could have just left me there to suffer. for the same fate played on my mind for days. I know now that not all the tales about travelling strangers and unlucky indwellers were based on fiction, and I wonder how many are known firsthand to be the fair creature we called Dano. I think that if it weren't for the stalwart and silent presence of the bar owner Lou,

that we would all have suffered some darkly unpleasant fate by now. Anyone who was worked in a stint in hospitality or in a customer service role, will be able to tell you dozens of less than amusing anecdotes about problem customers. These folks try our patients, with their demanding insouciant disregard for our workload, and seem to believe that they have the God-given right to gnash their teeth and cry, I want to speak to your manager at every other breath. Considering my manager, Lou, is as mute as Adrian's wall is long. This is something of a moot issue.

But dealing with these people isn't any less stressful, because of that. Many of you will know the type I'm talking about. The bob cut 30-something supervisor with dangly earrings and cat eyeliner who pushes to the front of the drinks queue and glares murderously if it ain't longer than 30 seconds to serve her, all while you juggle eight pints, ten shots and a plate of thermonuclear chips fresh from the friar. Thankfully, Janet is not one of those people.

In fact, Janet and I have a lot in common. Hiking is not something I'd ever thought I'd learn much about and certainly not from an office-dwelling computer support specialist. From the black stairs to Ben Nevis, Janet has done them all. An avid wilderness adventurer. She even hikes through the darkest depths of winter, finding every lonely tour and tracked between here and Aberdeen. She tells me it's an exercise in stress release

and, truth be told, she fucking hates nature. City born, an apartment raised. Janice blows up in cherry red ives at the touch of grass seeds and explodes into a building crescendo of sneezes from the slightest waft of pollen. But she says she needs the Ikeen to stay sane. Being employed in an ordinary 8 to 5 job makes Janet something of an anomaly among the bar patrons,

which also means she's a favourite with Lou, since she always pays up front and never keeps a tab. Tidy, fits. and practically dressed, Janet is a wiry, wind-tanned ball of restless energy with white-blonde hair, ice-blue eyes, and a pair of silver rings on each thumb, which in some circles apparently denotes her status

as the lover of the fairer sex. I discovered her sexual proclivities on my first night working the bar, while Dano and Mona looked on with poker-dry expressions. Caught off guard by the pleasant manner of this sun-browned, well-dressed woman in her 40s, and relieved that not all my customers were dour coastal weirdos, and I stuck her flirting for friendship.

When her arm slipped around my waist at the end of my shift and she offered to buy me a drink, I nearly shat. But despite that rocky start and the embarrassment of declaring my steadfast heterosexuality, we ended up becoming friends, and found in one another an outlet for our respective frustrations at work by regularly bitching over a pint or two about our customers. While my frustrations run to impatient assholes and rabby drunks, Janet's line of work involves a grieved middle managers

who've lost precious Excel documents that they need for a meeting that started five minutes ago. That her work is rage-inducing is an understatement. Abrupt dismissals, roodness and sexism plague her day. If another fucking bloke in a suit asks me if he can speak to a man instead of me, I'm going to defrag his fucking face with a sacks. 60 kilo UPS. As I understand it, Janet's temper has cost her more than one job in the past, and she's just barely clinging to this one by the skin of her teeth.

Her reputation as an acid-tongued curmudgeon forced her out of London, hence why she works in this shit-hole of a town for far less than her skill set is worth. My first hint that something was up with Janet was her refusal to take me hiking. Sorry, sweetheart. I'm into you and all. but I've been working a shitload of extra hours and I need my alone time. From behind us at the bar, Dano muttered a thinly veiled jibe about lesbian camping activities and how much he'd pay to see us in a tent together.

The fuck did you just say? The venom in her voice was practically palpable, arcing across the pub and cutting through the low-key pub chatter and the drone of the two TVs. Before Dano could shoot back a smart-assed rejoinder, The pint in his hand, winding resonance, and shattered in a shower of Guinness and glass, leaving him with a fistful of splinters and a faceful of shock.

Wild-eyed and equally shocked, Janet threw 20 quid at the bar and hurried off into the night. On my walk home, I noticed every street lamp for 100 metres down from the pub had blown. Only the display lighting from a few other shops cutting through the brackish seaside gloom. A preternatural chill crept through my thick coat, and I made record time back to the warmth of my flat. When Janet returned, she put 50 quid on Danos tab and mumbled an apology.

All seemed well from there. Janet was even on the up at her work, getting a small promotion and more responsibility over a team. Initially, she smiled more and seemed in much better humour. That deteriorated remarkably quickly. It's these fucking hours they're making me work. She spun her drink in a puddle of coffee. condensation.

And being on fucking cool as well. I can't get outside enough. You could see it in her stance. She was on edge and agitated constantly. At the slightest provocation, she would snap at people and her thighs jittered with the nervous energy

that was pent up inside her. Or at least I thought it was nervous energy. We were having our usual bitch session near the back of the pub when a group of three young men began to pay us a little too much interest. Evening ladies. Kiss off, we're having girl time.

The lad sniffed and gestured obscenely to his mates. That time of the month. Ugly lines bulge along Janet's jaw. Best you and your gobshite giggledic friends trot right the fuck along now. Her shoulders heaving as she sucked in huge, rage-fueled breaths. Or what? You're going to go us, Grandma? As he spoke, The table under Janet's flat hands began to smoulder gently.

I'm still not sure how Lou managed to move so fast, but his enormous arm was around my middle before I knew what was happening. Then he threw me past the trio of idiots and behind the bar, where all 198 centimetres of his brawny, gym-built body slammed me to the ground. The sound that permeated the pub as we hit the deck still raises my accles just thinking about it. First it started like a distant moon, like the bitter midwinter northerly howling down from the ice-armid hills. Then, as it grew nearer, a discordant harmony like the shrieking of a thousand predatory prehistoric avians

rose to jar it into a terrible demonic crescendo. Above us, every glass vessel behind the bar burst into a billion fragments, showering us with razor flinders and important alcohols. Lou clapped his massive hand over my ears as the cacophony intensified into a spear of pain that shot through my skull the bones in my arms and legs vibrating in agonising harmonics. Then it was over. Lou rolled off of me, brushing glass and spirits off his cut-riddled shirt. I pulled myself to my feet, unheeding of the splinters all over the bar as I leaving my shaking legs to standing.

Dan O'er was crouched behind the reinforced chair that belonged to stand. Mona sat near the shattered bar window, smoking a fresh cigarette with a complete lack of concern. Janet's booth was a wreck of red. The woman herself stood, bathed from head to toe in the blood of the three young men, of whom there was no trace, only a crimson radius that reached to the high roof of the pub, where gobbets of blood and fragments of bone dripped rhythmically onto the slurry of human remains on the floor. Lou appeared beside me with a mop and bucket, then nodded to the mess of glass and liquid behind the bar.

As I cleaned, still in utter shock at what I'd just witnessed, Lou pulled out his sturdy old Nokia and rapidly fired a text message off before he joined me in cleaning up. Fifteen minutes later, a battered old cab pulled up outside and the wheezing, heaving rolls of Stan's body poured out of the vehicle, then into the bar. I'll leave his part of the clean-up to your image. imagination. I understand now why Janet goes hiking alone. Out on the starlit moors, far away

from civilisation, I picture her standing naked under the arch of the sky, the grass smouldering under her bare feet and screaming her supernatural rage into the infinite heavens where it can't do any damage to any living thing. When she came back to the pub, she told me she'd turn down her promotion. Too much stress. It's not good for your health. The tale of how I became employed at Lou's Bar is an interesting one. Like many a poor student, I scoured job sites, newspapers and bulletin boards

for a part-time gig to help pay my rent and uni fees. Of course, there's fierce competition at the start of the year and the jobs rapidly dwindle, leaving the painfully young and the patently luckless, like myself, struggling to get by. Down to my last 10 quid for the week, I'd raided the local Tesco for a trolley full of pot noodles and on my way out I reflexively checked the notice board behind the checkout.

Pinned to the cork board was a printout in jaunty comic sands reading Bar staff needed. Should have a can-do attitude and great customer wrangling skills. Text me with your details and I'll arrange for a trial. Below the message rested a series of carefully scissors tear off phone numbers, three of them remaining. With nothing else on offer, I thought I'd give it a whirl. Negotiating a job offer via text messaging was an experience I'd never had before,

and it put me strangely off guard, as I couldn't present my bubbly gregarious personality to sway the mystery bar manager into employing me. Even more curiously, he probed into where I was from originally and pointedly asked if my family lineage contained any non-U.K. blood. Desperate for employment, I was at least able to reply honestly to the racist pub owner that I was as pure bread anglo as they get, for ten generations or more, and fair-skinned enough to burn on a sunny winter's afternoon.

Half an hour later, I was sent the address of the bar and told to head over where I should introduce myself to the big blonde guy behind the bar. The place was clearly a dive from the outside, though someone had made an effort, to throw some fresh paint on the exterior and the glass in the windows looked brand new. A haggard mutton-dressed-as-lam thing with a weathered blonde perm sat in the window, fagging up despite the UK-wide smoking banning pubs.

I was already starting to get a feel for the place. Inside was as I've described in my previous tales, a sepia-hued, sports-sticky loser trap designed to suck money out of those who could ill-afford to part with it. Two bulbs were out in the fly-speckled ceiling and on the bar stood an absolute colossus of a human being using hands as broad as footballs to replace the blown lights. Blue tattoos wound around his forearms

and disappeared into the short sleeves of a white polo shirt which barely contained the barrel chest and thick neck of someone who lives most of his life outside of work in the gym. Standing nervously at the bar, I watched him climb down dust off his hands and turn a radiant, white, smooth smile towards me that caused an involuntary flutter in my stomach. An unkempt Irishman nursing a Guinness growled at me. That's loo. He doesn't say much.

Ushering me behind the bar, the giant mute began to show me around the place and explain, largely through hand gestures and the odd scribbled note, my new responsibilities. So that's the story of how I got the job at the pub. After my first week, Lou offered me a part-time job, an envelope and a page of instructions about the running of the pub. Most of it was general business, how to lock up and set the alarm if I was the last one out and the like. But at the end of it all was a curious passage that read as follows.

Should anything terrible ever happen to me, open the envelope which you should keep safe and not show to a single soul. Grateful just to have a job that at least paid minimum wage, I took the envelope into the back of one of my textbooks and promptly forgot all about it. The idea that anything could happen to Lou seemed faintly preposterous, though as I got to know the peculiarities and personalities of the pub patrons, I began to realise that I actually knew precious little about the propriety. Hell, I didn't even know his last name.

And why he had absolutely no fear of the property, the motley of fair weirdos that graced his establishment, I also had no clue. He seemed as mortal as me, plainly able to bleed and therefore able to die. But that didn't mean he accepted everyone into his pub, as I later found out. Nobly shoulders, an oily pony tail,

and a sparse goatee Mark Dave is exactly the kind of loser who should belong in the dingy seaside pub. But even a monk's died in the wool miscreants and malcontents, there was something off about him. He claimed some distant noble heritage, that he was descended from the ancient side kings of the north. That his apparent birthright gave him no unique gifts was a sawpoint,

and he would often mutter dowly to himself when the others ribbed him about his claims to an Eldridge lineage. Hence he earned the unkind moniker, the Duke. One fateful night he apparently had enough of it all and started smashing up the place. After Lou tossed him out on his arse, battered and bruised, the Duke had vowed he would come back and kill every last one of us, Lou especially.

We didn't see him again for many months, but when he returned, it was clear that something had changed. Whether he'd made a bargain with someone's seely spirit or he had made a pact with hell itself, he clearly had power now. Sorry, love, but you're going to have to leave. His leather trench coat creaked as he ignored me and planted himself on one of the bar stools cock in my head

I pitched my voice to cut through the buzz of the ambient pub noise Lou, got a visitor for you As my boss pushed through the door from the kitchen The temperature in the bar dropped abruptly The dishwater in the sink icing over in an instant Pale blue light flared in the joke's eyes As he raised his hands and chanted a string of alien vowels.

Lou moved like a dancer, sliding past me and straight under the bar where the Duke sat with crackling sapphire flame wringing in his fists. But before the newly fledged sorcery could utter the final syllables of his spell, there was a great crack. And two feet of silver-bladed Claymore

pierced the bar, impaling him through the gut. Sag him forward onto the blade, the man coughed a great gouter crimson onto the sticky wood under his hands. And as he did so, the arcane energies around his fists flared at the contact with fluid, licking along the wood and engulfing the blade. With an arterial howl of surprise and triumph,

the Duke grasped the sword in both hands and dribbled out the last words of his curse. A searing flash of blue flame engulfed the blonde giant behind the bar. And then Lou was gone? Only a heap of smouldering black ash marking his demise, still grinning bloodily on the end of the warped and blackened blade the sorceress snapped the ruined sword then lurched out of the bar

leaving spatterings of red in his wake all we could do was stare in abject's shock the instructions in the envelope were clear and concise leaving little rum to be misinterpreted but why Lou had chosen this particular god- forsaken stretch of desolate coastline for his last rites was not at all clear The cave was exactly where he described it in the letter And inside was the dented and patched cauldron that he said would be there

Fill in it with seawater took several trips But once it was full, a litter driftwood fire under it And waited for the sun to set As it finally slipped below the horizon I fished the lock of blonde hair from the bottom of the envelope And cast it into the slowly boiling seawater Keep the fire burning till sunrise the letter had said.

But whatever happens, do not look into the cauldron, not under any circumstances. Nonplussed, I wondered what could possibly happen if I did. I settled back on my coat and backpack and let the tears come as I watch the flames flicker under the oven-sized such-streaked vessel. Lou was the sole reason I was still able to afford my flat intuition, and he in his motley of loser supernaturals

had become like a surrogate family. Lulled by the warmth and crackle of the fire, I finally slipped into an exhausted sleep. I awoke with a preternatural sense of dread. The fire had burned low, and I could see nothing beyond a dim circle of radiance. Heaping more of the stacked driftwood onto the coals, the cave slowly brightened

and my stomach lurched with vertigo. Around me, the cave walls were lost in hundreds of metres into the darkness. the ceiling far beyond the reach of the light. Emerald sparks danced on the bubbling sea water surface of the cauldron and tendrils of steam rose from it curling into sinister shapes. Of the cave entrance there was no sign and in fact, apart from the circle of stone that I and the cauldron sat upon there appeared to be no other ground at all.

More terribly, something stirred in the abyss surrounding my island of rock, something that moved slowly and languidly with a maddening celestial grace that fired a primeval terror in the core of my being. I did not belong here. The cauldron groaned, as though it bore a great burden of weight and something splashed in the verdant depths.

Chilled despite the warmth of the fire, I found myself caught between the horror of the something that turned ponderously and hugely in the darkness below and the unknown thing inside the cauldron. How long I huddled in the no-man's land between the glimmering murmuring cauldron and the precipice, I don't know. My phone was little more than a paperweight, refusing to even turn on in this otherworldly limbo.

Voices began to slither out of the void beyond the firelight. Monstrous at first, then becoming familiar as family, they distorted echoes pleading me to look inside the cauldron and insisting that if I did not, this night would never end. Stuffing the sleeves of my coat over my ears, I screamed at the voices to desist. The pillar of rock that supported the cauldron trembled at my voice, as though my cry had disturbed the unknown beam off below.

Fairy fire danced on the water now, blazing, moiling, and leaping in the confluence of baleful radiance. The fire beckoned me, and the cauldron murmured soothing me. again as though calling for me to approach. Closing my eyes, I willed myself to think of anything but the cauldron, to think of kittens and sunny nooks, bumblebee-filled meadows and the smell of old books. Green flared against my eyelids and I felt the pillar of rock tremble again,

both entities seeming angered by my refusal. Gritting my teeth, I focused my will into a singular point and found a well of calm in the center of my being, some old piece of my ancestry that could not be touched by these forces. And then, abruptly, it was over. Sunrise lanced through the entrance of the cave and shone on the battered old cauldron, now empty of even seawater. Of the dread precipice and the dire fairy fire, there was no sign. Only the normal rock of the sea-damp cave remained. I had done my duty.

I had completed Lou's last rites. As I entered the pub, the soul-rending strains of Danny Boy stirred my weary heart, and fresh tears slipped my sea-salty face. Inside, the others had gathered to pay tribute to the fallen hero. Danny's voice lending an eternal atmosphere to the place, the sticky wooden floor and dusty football banners fading into the background as the tune rose to claim the focus of the pub,

As the final note trailed off, Mona sniffed and blew her nose into a napkin. Dan O grimly picked up his guineas, and Janet patted me on the back as she busily wiped under her eyes with her free hand. Slow sad on it clapping came from behind me, and I turned, confused to view the twisted smirk of the Duke, standing in the door of the pub. Get out. Tutting me gently, he stalked forward.

That won't. Then there was a blur of motion and the Duke no longer stood in front of me. Instead, he now hung from the thick wooden doorpost, a bronze-shod spear pinning him through the heart. And behind the bar stood Lou, grinning from here to ear. With a final gurgle of confused dismay, the Duke stared at the apparition before him, then died. What happened in that cave lies unspoken between Lou and I.

a closely guarded secret and security against those who might seek his death in future. A precious lock of his hair lies tucked away in a hidden place should the need to use the cauldron of rebirth ever arise again. And as for me, the child in the cave left its mark on my soul. I see things now.

Things no mortal should be capable of seeing. But that's a tale for another time. Better get off the computer. My employer is taking me out to dinner. It's our nocturnal presentation. Now it's time to drift off into your own nightmares. 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 past 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. We'll have more stories for you and whatever that is standing right behind you. This audio production is Copyright 2016 by 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.