The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S7E18

Episode Date: August 7, 2016

It's episode 18 of Season 7. On this week's show we have five tales about freaky films, forbidden pharmaceuticals, and fallacious families."The Woman Made of Glass"** written by Lindsay Moore and performed by Nikolle Doolin & Corinne Sanders & Kyle Akers. (Story starts around 00:02:45)"Dead Arm"* written by Thad Jay and performed by Peter Lewis & Jesse Cornett & Dan Zappulla & Addison Peacock. (Story starts around 00:19:15)"My Little Sister"* written by Delany Mathas and performed by Jessica McEvoy & Atticus Jackson & Erika Sanderson. (Story starts around 00:40:50)"My Grandmother Had Alzheimer's"** written by D.W. Brahms and performed by Matthew Bradford & Erika Sanderson. (Story starts around 01:07:05)"Stolen Tongues - Pt. 1"** written by Felix Blackwell and performed by Mike DelGaudio & Jessica McEvoy & Erika Sanderson & Alexis Bristowe. (Story starts around 01:20:10)Click here to learn more about the voice actors on The NoSleep Podcast Click here to hear "Murder Castle" on Sonic Summerstock Click here to learn more about Lindsay Moore Click here to learn more about Thad Jay Click here to learn more about Felix Blackwell Executive Producer & Host: David CummingsMusical score composed by: Brandon BooneAudio adaptations produced by: David Cummings & Jeff Clement* & Phil Michalski**"Stolen Tongues" 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

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 18. A woman made of glass. Dead armed. My little sister.

My grandmother had all... It's the No Sleep Podcast. I'm David Cummings. Thanks for joining us. On this week's show, we have five tales about freaky films, forbidden pharmaceuticals, and fallacious families. We're excited to begin the first of a four-part series on this week's show. The final tale of our season past episode will be the start of the series, Stolen Tongue. If you hang out in the No Sleep subreddit, you'll likely be familiar with the series of stories about a man's fiance named Faye, her creepy sleepwalking, sleep talking, and what the family cabin in the woods has to do with the terrifying events they experience. Make sure you join us for all four parts of this series. And speaking of season past content, for the past couple of seasons we've featured a bonus episode. with our old-time radio productions of classic radio scripts from the early days of radio. I was happy to share one of these stories with our friends at the Sonic Society for their

summer stock series. If you'd like to hear the kind of stuff we do with our old-time radio productions, why not join host David Alt as he presents for one and all our version of Murder Castle. Just check the show notes for the link. and listen while you sit under the stars on a dark night with Peter Lewis, Erica Sanderson, Nicole Doolin, and Jessica McAvoy. But before you knock on the door of that murder castle, why not settle in for the stories we have for you on this week's show? In our first tale, we meet a woman whose superb dancing

has landed her a role in a film. But as we learn from author Lindsay, Moore, the student film requires her to dance while wearing a peculiar and very provocative costume with decidedly unexpected results. Performing this tale are Nicole Doolin, Corinne Sanders, and Kyle Akers. So be wary if you find yourself watching a film about The Woman Made of Glass. I'm a dancer, a ballerina to be exact. I've studied ballet for as long as I can remember. It's my one real passion.

I'd spend every waking moment dancing if I could. I met Adam when I was still studying. I had just turned 19 and was training at a small school in New York. Adam was a film student. He was tall, handsome, and clean-shaven. I don't think I ever saw him wear jeans, sneakers, or anything resembling casual clothes. He was always dressed in neatly pressed slacks and a button-up shirt.

He usually wore a tie. I had noticed him watching us practice, but I hadn't given him a second thought. It wasn't uncommon for us to have an audience at some of our rehearsals. My school put on a big production of Swan Lake every winter, and we let children and nursing home groups watch our dress rehearsal. So seeing Adam sitting in the audience every now and again wasn't jarring or creepy. It certainly didn't raise any red flags.

Adam approached me after one particularly grueling rehearsal and introduced himself. I've been watching you dance for quite some time. He gestured around at the entire group on the word you, making it seem like he'd been watching everyone and not just me. I'm making a movie, and I was wondering if you'd like to be in it. When I heard the word movie, I immediately thought he was asking me to star in a porno or something. I don't know if I have time. I understand your concern.

Let me assure you, this isn't a pornographic film. You will be fully covered at all times. He explained to me that he was a film student at a nearby university and that he was making a short film for his end-of-term project. It's about a man who keeps seeing visions. of a woman made of glass. She follows him everywhere, and her beauty ultimately drives him to madness.

I don't really act. Oh, I don't need you to. I want you to play the woman made of glass. You see, I initially thought the woman would just stand in the corner, just outside of his peripheral vision. But then I saw you dancing. You want me to dance? Yes.

The whole thing would only take a week, And two days, tops. I would film you dancing, then edit you into the movie later. I can give you $2,000. As you can probably guess, I was a poor student who really, really needed the money. I gave Adam my number, and we arranged a time to film. The space that Adam had procured was on campus. It was a small windowless room that had been painted a bright, garish green.

Adam explained to me that this was for a green screen effect. He'd film me dancing and then edit me into different backgrounds. I thought it was a pretty cool idea. This is Kelly. Adam introduced me to a mousy girl with thick glasses. She's in charge of costuming. I hadn't considered how Adam would make me look like I was made entirely out of glass. Before I could ask him, he turned and walked towards the door.

I'll give you some privacy. Kelly held up a giant bag of sequins and rhinestones. Take your clothes off. When I balked, she explained that she intended to cover me head to toe in sequins and rhinestones to make it look like I was made out of stained glass. Technically, I would be completely naked aside from sequins and rhinestones. I opened the door to leave. There was no way I was going to allow.

someone to fill me like this. Wait, you can't leave. You said I wouldn't be naked. And you won't be. You'll be completely covered, I promise. I'm not doing this. What if I gave you $5,000? I had thought that his initial offer of two grand was generous, but this was something else entirely.

This was something that I couldn't turn down. I know five grand might not seem like. a lot, but to a starving dance student who's neck deep in student loans? Well, you get the picture. I let Kelly cover me with sequins and rhinestones. She painted my entire body white

and applied the sequins and rhinestones in intricate patterns. I can't remember how long it took. It must have been hours. I shoved my hair underneath a bald cap, which she also decorated. I remember staring down at the delicate

swirls along my stomach and over my breasts and being genuinely impressed. When I was finally in costume, Adam came back into the room. He gasped when he saw me, clasping his hands in front of his chest. Absolutely perfect. Adam set up his camera and told me to stand in front of the garish green wall. Kelly brought in a boom box and popped an audio cassette in. Just let the music. Take you.

The music was unlike anything I had ever heard before. In fact, I don't think I've ever heard anything like it since. I can't really describe it. It started with soft piano tinkling and gradually crescendoed into a full orchestra. Drum's beat, accompanied by full woodwind, string and brass sections. The music ebbed and flowed, swelling up into magnificent christmas. shendos and lowering into something barely audible. I don't remember dancing.

It was as if I'd been lost in some kind of trance. I don't know how long I danced. It felt like mere minutes, but in reality it must have been hours. I only stopped when the music did. I looked down and realized that my feet were bleeding. Blood welled up between the rhinestones and trickled onto the floor. I had left smeared red footprints all over the floor. I must have been bleeding for quite some time.

How could Adam have not noticed? How could I have not noticed? Adam was standing next to his camera. Tears streamed down his face. Kelly was nowhere to be seen. Oh, that was beautiful. So beautiful. So perfect.

He pressed a large thick of, envelope into my hand. Kelly will help you get changed. He picked up his camera and left the room before I could say anything. Kelly came back in and helped me remove the sequins and rhinestones. As it turns out, my feet weren't bleeding too badly. A rhinestone had cut one of my heels and another had been into my toe. Kelly carefully cleaned the white makeup off of me and bandaged my feet. She didn't say anything, even though I asked her numerous questions about her. about the project. Adam will get in touch with you if you'd like a copy of the movie.

She glanced down at the blood on the floor. I'll clean that up. I was shocked to see the sun rising when I left the room. Had I been in there all night? I checked my phone. It was nearly six in the morning. I had arrived promptly at 9 a.m. on a.m. on a Saturday, and I was leaving almost 24 hours later.

How long had I been dancing for? Luckily, I hadn't missed any rehearsals. I took the train back to my dorm and fell asleep instantly. A sleep so deep I didn't dream about anything. I woke up sometime in the afternoon to find an email from Adam waiting on my phone. You were perfection. I'll be doing a lot of editing. The final film won't be done for a few weeks.

I'll email you when it's finished. I remembered the thick envelope that Adam had handed me. I dug it out of my purse, opened it, and counted the money. There were five stacks of crisp hundred-dollar bills held together with rubber bands. True to his word, Adam had given me $5,000. I would have skipped all the way to the ATM if it hadn't been from my aching feet. It was months before I heard from Adam about the film. I had all but forgotten about it when I received an email from him.

Free screening of the woman made of glass to night in Talbot Hall. I cursed and considered skipping rehearsal to go see the movie. Our dance instructor was a notorious hard-ass, though. The only way he'd let anyone skip a rehearsal was if they dropped dead. I emailed Adam and told him that I wouldn't be able to make it. I never heard from him again. To this day, I've never seen the movie I appeared in. I don't know exactly what happened in Talbot Hall,

only what I saw later on the news and what Kelly told me when I went to visit her in the hospital. Talbot Hall was a large lecture hall at Adam's school. It had been packed with film students and their friends to the point where it was standing room only. Adam turned off the lights, fired up the projector, and started playing his film.

Something happened. No one has been able to figure out why, but about three minutes into the film, people in the audience began to react strangely. It started with fidgeting and small movements, and it quickly escalated. People wept. They howled and,

screamed and made animal noises. They laughed uncontrollably. They attacked each other, screaming and clawing and biting. Some people got up and began dancing. One girl laid down on the floor and just let herself be trampled underfoot. When the whole ordeal was over, she had been reduced to bits of pulp and bone. If not for a charm bracelet with her name on it, they wouldn't have been able to identify her. A couple in the middle of the room tore each other's clothes off and just began fucking like animals.

Several other people, some of them couples, some of them not, join them in the grotesque orgy. A girl turned to her boyfriend and began scratching him, raking her kneels along his chest until bloody strips of skin began to peel off. The boy sat there and howled, never moving. It was as if everyone had just snapped. Another boy pulled a big plastic button off of his backpack, snapped it in half and used the jagged edge to slash his own throat. People danced in the blood spurting from his neck, rubbing it on their faces and into their hair like shampoo.

As the boy lay dying, a girl pounced on him, sinking her teeth into his cheek and, tearing off a huge chunk. She chewed thoughtfully, then swallowed. Adam stood in the midst of the chaos, never taking his eyes off the flickering scream. He was weeping. Tears streamed down his face.

It was like he was oblivious to everything that was happening around him. Kelly told me all this when I went to visit her in the hospital. The last thing that she had seen before friends, She enticly clawing her own eyes out was me, dancing on the screen at the front of the room. The sequins and rhinestone shimmering like glass. It was too beautiful. She scratched absently at the bandages wrapped around her face. And hideous and grotesque and beautiful.

A surprising number of students survived. I tried talking to them, trying to figure out what had happened. Most of them refused to talk to me once they found out that I'd been the dancing woman in the film. The boy who'd been scratched up by his girlfriend reluctantly agreed to talk to me. His name was Kyle, and he'd been in Adam's film class. Adam always seemed like a regular guy. He was really into Grindhouse and Gialo films, but that's not so weird. A lot of people in class were into weird shit.

They all wanted to make world-changing art films. Kyle sighed and looked down at his bandaged chest. My girlfriend doesn't even remember doing this. I don't really remember it either. I just remember dancing. You were the dancing woman? Yes. He nodded thoughtfully.

I didn't see you on the screen. I mean, not really. Not the way you are right now. You're normal right now. You're not... You were something else in the movie. I don't know what. You were just...

His voice trailed off and he shook his head. I can't really describe it. It was like you weren't human. It was so scary. It was wonderful and terrible. All at the same time. It didn't make much sense to me, but I didn't press any further.

I never saw Kyle after that. I never saw Kelly either. Adam was never found. No one saw him leave the lexswain. lecture hall, and there were several bodies too damaged and mutilated to identify. It's entirely possible that he died. It's also possible that he lived. I've never seen the movie that he made.

As far as anyone knows, there aren't any copies of it. When the police checked the projector, the film was gone. As more and more soft drugs become legalized these days, there are still those who seek the thrills or escape of harder drugs. In this tale from author Thad J, we meet a man who gets an invitation to try a highly sought-after new drug, one which provides a trip with sensations that are both wonderful and deeply disturbing. Performing this tale are Peter Lewis, Jesse Cornett, Dan Zapula, and Addison Peacobar. So please, just say no if someone offers you the chance to try dead arm.

I've been completely clean for about two years now, and I owe it all to the last drug I ever took. It apparently goes by many names, and it's not easy to get your hands on it. The people who use it only give it to close friends, or people who they mean to do harm. Nothing can prepare you for the experience, not even smack. Myself, I did dead arm when I was a senior in college. Finals were getting rough. I had a group of buddies that I took things with, not exactly the type of friends your parents hope you'll make.

None were students like me, just townies, all different ages from 17 to almost 60. None of us were alike in any way, except for the one thing we had in common, what we were putting in our bodies. We'd veg out, high as kites, escaping the world, escaping our problems. The more pressure I felt in my normal life, the more I turned to smack to help me through it. I would never even associate with these other folks before I started using, but they were slowly becoming my only friends. There was this one dude whose house we went to that we only knew as Moses. He had a two-bedroom apartment, but somehow we fit almost 15 of us in there to chill at the

parties he threw. I hardly ever spoke to Moses, but he took a liking to me for some reason. He'd share some of his extra potent shit with me. At times, buy me pizza and beer and generally just acted cool. He must have been 40-something but never had a stick up his ass or anything, very laid back. One day I hit up, Moses, after failing a final, and asked him if he was having a get-together that night. He texted back, no, so I started making plans with other people. Then like ten minutes later, he texts me again. Actually, yeah, but can you just come? Don't bring anyone out. Naturally, I head over to his place because I want to get fucked up, regardless of who else is there. I knocked on his apartment door, and he let me in.

The place was empty. Whoa, man, where is everyone? Moses looked at me seriously, the look I had hardly seen on his face before. Hey, listen, you've been pretty chill and level-headed at my parties, and I want to offer you. for you something. I'm going to this dude Ted's house tonight. He's got some of this new shit that he's super exclusive with. He's down for you to tag along, but you have to really keep it on the down low. You win? What is it that he's got exactly? I, it's just, you'll see. But trust me, It's out of this world.

You win? Bitch, you serious? You might as well have just described a Thanksgiving feast to a starving man. Ten minutes later, we had arrived at Ted's apartment complex. It was the dingiest shithole I had ever seen. Trash was lying around the front of the building. Broken glass was scattered about, and the place just had a certain stanchoble.

to it. Although I wanted to leave, my itch to get high was stronger. We went up to the third floor where Ted's apartment was. Moses had a brief conversation with whoever opened the door before we were let in, assuring him I was cool. Ted's apartment was even more disgusting than the rest of the building. Almost no furniture, just dirty blankets and tuesday. towels thrown on the floor with like ten people laying around on them, still as corpses. There someone was having sex with another person who looked barely conscious. All of them were moaning in such a bizarre way, almost like a death rattle from the grudge, but a lot louder.

It was freaking the fuck out of me, but I figured I wouldn't care about it at all soon enough. The doorman came to me and Moses. You guys ready? You know the deal. It's 150 for a hit. I've got it covered. It's this kid's first time doing dead arm. Get him first.

Moses pulled out a small wad of cash. He handed the cash over and the doorman grunted in approval. He took a belt from off the only table in the place and from its drawer he conjured a syringe. looked to be full of a brown substance that looked to me like liquid dirt. He wrapped the belt tight around my arm. Moses made conversation as the doorman got the needle ready. Where's Ted at?

In his room, don't fucking bug him. Fair enough. No bed tonight? Nope. Remember what happened to his arm last week? He's too embarrassed to be seen like that, I guess. Should have just cut it off. No doubt, brother.

The doorman approached me with the needle. I nodded at him, and he stuck it into one of the protruding veins in my arm. I watched the brown liquid leave the syringe and make its way into the bloodstream. As soon as the needle was out, I immediately and unwillingly dropped to the front of the first. floor. My knees just stopped working. Everything stopped working. I couldn't move my head, arms, legs, even my mouth was hanging open, completely numb, completely paralyzed. My head started ringing terribly. It was terrifying. I started to try and call out, but all I could do was moan. And I realized, jolt that the noise I was making was not at all unlike the noises everyone else in this room

was making. Then, suddenly, the ringing in my head stopped with such a deep relaxation that I cannot even describe to you through words. It was unlike anything I had ever felt, almost otherworldly carelessness. My paralysis suddenly did. not matter. My finals did not matter. Nothing mattered. My muscles felt like they were being lightly tugged in every direction. It felt like my body was dissolving into a puddle onto the floor, and it was incredible. Not long after, I saw Moses fall to the floor by my side. The doorman stepped over us both and put the syringes he had used on us away. Then he went back to standing by the door, playing on his cell phone.

An hour passed, nothing but pure bliss and silence, apart from the moaning and the humping in the back. Soon, though, that latter noise stopped, and suddenly this bare naked dude was standing above me. The guy who was doing the banging, he crouched down to me. this hungry look in his eyes. I didn't care. I couldn't care. All that mattered was that I was lying down, with my muscles being deliciously pulled by whatever the shit in my veins was.

Unable to move, unable to think, only existing at bare minimum. The naked stranger started whispering something to himself and licking his lips. He got closer to me, his face mere centimeters from mine. Hey! The naked stranger was yanked off of me and thrown into the apartment wall. The doorman raised a fist to him threateningly. What the fuck do you think you're doing?

You paid for that one in the back, not this one. Come on, man. Let me have this. Is this gonna be a fucking problem? Ted in here? I heard the naked man whimper in fear. He shook his head, hustled to grab his clothes, and then ran out of the apartment with them.

And still, I was on the floor without a care in the world, almost raped by a stranger and couldn't be bothered to give the slightest shit. I lay there for another hour. Slowly I felt myself coming back down to earth a bit, although I still couldn't move or think straight. I started becoming a bit more aware. I wondered how long I would be like this. I wasn't worried about it. It was just genuine curiosity.

I also started to ponder about where this dead arm stuff could have possibly come from and what was in it. Call it my inner conscience, call it God, or call it voices in my head, but something answered my bemusement. Discomfort started coming into my lower back. I still couldn't move, but it was a bit of a relief, knowing that my body was starting to respond to the things around it. Shit, even the relief itself was a relief. Some of the other people around me who were on. On dead arm started to come out of it and stumble out of the apartment, thanking the doorman as they passed. By then it was like 2 a.m. At probably around 2.30, the doorman got off his phone and went out of my sight. I heard him knock on a door, most likely to one of the bedrooms, and call out.

Yo, Ted! I'm out, man. You still got six or seven out there, so just a heads up. Although I could hear noises in response, I couldn't exactly tell what was being said. The doorman spoke again. Yeah, all right, man. Have a good night. The doorman came back into my view, stepped over me, and walked out of the apartment. Another hour passed when I heard one of the doors in the back open. At the same time, someone came walking out.

One of the people who had been high on the floor started coming to, a woman. I heard her say to someone softly. Oh, hey, Ted? Thanks for the hit. Do you think you can help me to the door? My legs are still a little numb. The noise that replied almost completely killed my high. It was a mix between a scream and a wet gurgle.

If I had heard it a couple hours ago, I wouldn't have cared, but I could feel myself coming down, and I was suddenly, absolutely terrified, but still couldn't move. Two pairs of feet started making their way towards the door. One after another, two people came into my line of sight. The first was a 30-something blonde woman. She was stumbling a bit, using the wall as support before making her way out the door. Couldn't recall exactly what she looked like. But the second person, I will remember until the day I die. He was a man, but unlike any person I have ever seen before or since, his body looked like it had been. been stretched, pulled every which way like elastic. His arms were so long that his fingertips were

touching the floor. His jaw was so wide open that the entirety of his mouth had to be at least a foot long and it was full of jagged, broken and yellow teeth. The skin under his beady eyes was black and sunken. The hair on his head was grown in uneven patches. Brown patches were all over his face, arms and legs, and they were disgustingly leaking a similar colored liquid onto the floor. It looked quite a lot like dead arm. This man was practically inhuman. Nobody in the human race, regardless of our breakthroughs in cosmetics looked like that, or was ever supposed to look like that. It was a fucking monster standing over me, and even still, I could not move. All I could do was scream, and even then, not very loudly.

When I did, the wet, beady eyes of the monster person looked down at me. The thing's head cocked slightly, and a look of confusion came over its face, as if it couldn't understand why the fuck I was screaming at the sight of it. It shook its head and walked out of my view, which terrified me more. I didn't want to look at it, but I also didn't want to be unaware of what it was. My mind was racing furiously, wondering what I should do. if maybe somehow I could roll myself to the door. You will all fucking thing was Ted. I tried to fight the overwhelming urge to just lay there,

but found myself as helpless as before. The straining to move at least one of my muscles was fruitless and started paining me greatly. Suddenly, my muscles weren't. relaxed, they were flaring up. It hurt so badly I didn't even scream. I just passed out. Woke up, I was myself again, and I immediately started screaming as the memory of what went down last night came rushing back to me. Moses, who looked like he had just woken up himself, was crouching next to me instantly.

Dude, get a hold of yourself. Relax. I told him everything that had happened from the naked stranger to the voices I had heard after taking the dead arm and the oozing monster that had come out of the back room. Throughout my explanation, Moses's face fell. You need to leave right now. Ted's insecure enough as it is, and you're not going to help by call. calling him a fucking monster.

Thankfully for you, he's asleep right now. What the fuck, dude? He was stretched out. He didn't even look like a person. Side effect of the dead arm man. Ted knows how to party. Are you fucking telling me that we could end up like that if we keep using that shit? Dude, don't you remember how good it felt?

Are you telling me it's not worth it? By the time he finished his sentence, I was already out the door. I got out of the apartment complex and turned my head. From one of the windows on the third floor, I saw a glimpse of Ted, the monster person, staring down at me with those tiny eyes. the impossibly wide jaw still agape in a permanent state of relaxation. I screamed and sprinted away. I couldn't help it. Ever since that night, I refused to touch another substance.

I never spoke with Moses or the old crew again, and I never even once walked near Ted's house. Not long after my night there, he was gone, and I never got the invite to come back, and part of me was glad. He's what I was afraid of, the most, because I know someday I'm going to end up just like him. I'm off drugs now, because nothing can compare to dead arm. Nothing at all. I will, and I will use it. This is one addiction that no amount of rehab can help. The relaxing helplessness, the stillness of the mind.

Oh, and that soothing voice too. I hear it even today, the time whispering to me. And I know growing up with identical twin siblings can be difficult for some people. But as we hear from author Delaney Mathis, a woman describes how her sisters were identical in looks only, which led to a gut-wrenching series of events which were both bizarre and unexplainable. Performing this tale are Jessica McAvoy, Atticus Jackson, and Erica Sanderson. So let's listen as the woman explains the mystery of, my little sister.

This story starts when I was nine, when my rich and miserable parents decided that having a baby was the best way to save their marriage. I guess you could say that it worked. I mean, they stayed married. But on the other hand, they stayed. stayed in a toxic, loveless, bordering on verbally abusive relationship for another eight years. But it was a baby, and I was excited. I wanted it to be a girl. My little brother Garrett wanted a little brother of his own.

It ended up being twin girls. Lily and Ava were physically, completely identical. I mean, just exactly the same. We painted their nails different colors to tell them apart. Even when they got into toddlerhood, there wasn't a single difference in their faces. Personality-wise, they were night and day. Lily was quiet as a baby, content to snuggle with whoever happened to be holding her at the time. Ava was always louder and never settled in the arms of a person she didn't know.

I doted on them both. Garrett tolerated them, and my parents, predictably, were just as emotionally distant with the two of them as they'd been with myself and my brother. But I loved those girls, and I tried to personally see to it that they never lacked for affection.

We all got older, and Lily and Ava developed their own personalities. Lily was still quiet, shy around strangers, but happy to play once she got to know someone. She liked pink and purple and Barbies and ponies. Ava was still loud, still rowdy, and far less shy. She rejected pink on principle and stuck her tongue out at people. When they got a bit older, they both got pushed into ballet. which Lily loved and Ava hated.

It took some persuading, but I convinced mom to sign her up for soccer. She loved that. Ava had some other minor rebellions as she got older. One involved Aunt Jane's wedding to Todd, who was an asshole lawyer, and refusing to put on her flower girl dress. Another involved Todd himself, where Ava would throw tantrums and refuse to see her asshole lawyer. say hello to him. She got older and refused to be the perfect young lady mom wanted her to be,

and it came to a head when she cut off all her hair. I don't want to be a girl! She was content with her emergency pixie cut, and mom started to let her wear jeans. I had my own little rebellion in dating a boy my parents hated Austin. They told me that he was too old, but I'm pretty sure they just hated that he was working at a hardware store to get through community college. I ignored their concern. I thought I loved him, as much as a teenager can really be in love with someone. I got accepted to a university not far from home, and I had a steady boyfriend. The whole future seemed pretty damn bright to me.

It all came to a screeching halt. a few months before my 18th birthday. You see, mom and dad were at some kind of charity ball thing and wouldn't be back until the next day. And Garrett and I got the brilliant idea to sneak out to see a midnight premiere while they were out. Neither of the girls ever woke up in the middle of the night. We thought we were fine.

God, were we wrong? It was nearly three in the morning when, Garrett and I got home. There was a car and the driveway I wasn't expecting. Austen's. He said that he got a text from me asking me to come over. I told him I hadn't texted him. He showed me the message that I did not send,

which also said that I just got a new phone and a new number. It was weird, we thought, but went ahead and invited him in for a late-night snack. I went upstairs to check on Ava and Lily. Ava and Lily weren't in their bets. After turning on every light in the house and running around the property screaming for 10 minutes, I put in a panicked call to 911. The cops showed faster than I would have expected, and I guiltily explained that I wasn't there when I should have been,

and I didn't know where the girls were. They asked if the door had to be. been locked when I got home. I was tired. I couldn't remember. They called in some officers to start searching the area, and one of them interviewed us about the events of the night. I distinctly remember the look on the officer's face when I told them that, no, Austin didn't go to the movie with us. He was here when we got back. They didn't seem to believe his weird text story. I fell asleep on the couch around five in the morning without putting together those particular pieces. I figured it out pretty quickly when I woke up and was told Austin was taken to the station for questioning.

That's around the point I got hysterical because the girls had now been missing for hours, and now my boyfriend was a suspect. And God, it was my fault because I was supposed to be watching them and and I will tell you right now that the cops did not find Lily and Ava. Mom and Dad got home and had a screaming match with each other, with the officers, and then with me, because they knew that boy was bad news, Danielle. And a few hours turned into a few days, which turned into a few weeks. and the girls still didn't turn up. Austin was never arrested

because there was nothing linking him to the crime besides his being there. But I couldn't help wondering if the boy I thought I loved had killed my little sisters. And that sort of thought wriggling in the back of your mind doesn't lead to a healthy relationship. So I turned 18 and I went to college,

And I left Austin behind. Mom and dad had a nasty divorce. Garrett acted out. And I took econ classes. That was all five years ago now. Three weeks ago, I woke up on a Saturday morning to four texts and two missed calls from mom. A text from dad, two from Garrett, and a mist call from Austin of all people. I hadn't seen him in years, but he had.

was this random call. My mind raced through the possibilities. Finding the girls was one of them, but it rang to low. I had long ago accepted that they were dead and tried to push through my guilt about the whole thing. They did find the girls. Sort of. They found one of the girls,

and they didn't know which one. Austin actually found her. He'd apparently spent every weekend of the past five years looking for them. A bit to clear his name, but mostly out of concern for them. Or so he told me. His call went something like this. But I'm asleep and I just called the police and they're coming, but I thought you should know too. I only found really, I'm not sure.

So I sped home just as fast as I could. Mom and dad and Garrett and Aunt Jane and Uncle Todd and even Austin were at the hospital, where my little sister, who was probably Lily but maybe Ava, was being treated for malnutrition and dehydration. She looked so different from the eight-year-old versions of my sisters I'd had in my head for so long. This girl that was my baby sister was, hall and gangly with a few growing curves. Her skin was frighteningly pale, but her hair was the same

shade of brown, and when she opened her eyes, they were the same blue-green. But there was a problem. She refused to talk. The doctor had done a full check-up on her, and there was nothing wrong with her tongue or her throat as far as he could see. She just refused to talk. She refused to write her name or give us any indication of whether she was Ava or Lily. This was further hindered by the one permanent injury she had. Burned fingers and toes. Her prince had been literally burned off of her.

I spent a lot of. time crying and begging her to forgive me when nobody else was in the room. And she just smiled and patted my hand. I took that to mean she did forgive me, but the guilt still ate at my insides. It was easier before when I'd accepted that they were dead and moved on. But now, one of them was still alive, which meant the other might be. be. Thank God they must have thought we abandoned them. What happened? Where were they? Who took them? Lily slash Ava refused to answer. She did, however, seem quite happy to be near me.

Garrett as well, and Austin, and mom and dad to an extent. She was less enthused about to anybody else. Shortly after she first woke up, she just started staring at Uncle Todd, almost not blinking. A mute teenage girl in a hospital gown, staring you down without blinking, is surprisingly unsettling. Todd left pretty quick. I remembered how Ava would throw tantrums because of Todd, and wondered if she was Ava. She had long hair, which is why Austin's first impression was Lily. But hair grows, especially over five years. So we took Lily Ava home.

The first week was mostly getting her healthy. I called into work, and after an explanation of the seriously particular circumstances, they gave me an unpaid month off. I took it happily. My little sister barely ate and seemed to never sleep. She spent most of her time staring at whatever was directly in front of her,

and I wondered what she had seen to make her eyes so lifeless. Her twin murdered, a quiet voice nagged. The staring was a bit unsettling, but I could live. I was happy to have her back, whichever twin she was. There was a renewed search for the other twin.

We tried to go to Lily Ava into telling us where she had been, but she stayed as quiet as before. Austin apparently simply found her wandering in the woods. And Austin visited a lot. He brought over candy, he remembered that both the girls liked, and then something only one of them liked

to see if we could narrow it down. Lily, Ava, barely ate any of it. In addition to the guilt over the fact that I left my little sisters alone, there was new guilt over having thought Austin may have murdered them. If my little sister's reaction to him was any indication,

he very much did not kidnap them. The first week was just a lot of waiting around. The second week was when things got... Weird. It was kind of like the first 20 minutes of paranormal activity, where lights flicker and a door creaks a bit, and things just sort of turned up where they weren't supposed to be. Add that to Lily Ava's unsettling,

stare ahead at the thing behavior, and the house I grew up and started to feel. feel a bit less welcoming than it used to. But most of those quasi-paranormal things completely went over my head at the time. It was pipes creaking, wind messing with the doors. Aunt Jane and Uncle Todd visited. That was when the lights first flickered. But we all put it down to needing a new bowl.

My little sister stared at Todd the same way she had in the hospital. and it clearly made him uncomfortable. It was a few hours later when I heard Uncle Todd's voice from down the hall. I only heard the end of a sentence. You are. When I opened the door, he jumped. He had been talking to Lily Ava, who was sitting sedately on her bed and staring at him the same way she had been before.

I asked if everything was all right. Todd smiled and told me he was just trying to get her to talk. I nodded. He left. My little sister blinked at me and sighed. The door shut behind me and I jumped. Must have been a change in air pressure, I thought at the time. Then the third week began.

Lily slash Ava took up drawing, though she wouldn't let it. anybody see what she drew. I was fine with that. I was happy to see her doing something other than staring. More lights started flickering, and I started wondering if there was something wrong with the power lines or our circuit breaker or something else I didn't really know how to deal with. Austin kept visiting. He asked me to lunch. Just, I mean, just to catch up. I smile. and told him that, yes, lunch would be nice. Lily Ava seemed to have a bit more of an appetite. She was still pale, bordering on gaunt.

She still didn't sleep very much. Uncle Todd and Aunt Jane came by again. They were going to spend the night. While they were there, I decided to take Austin up on the lunch offer because I really couldn't deal with Mom and Aunt Jane and their wine talk. Lunch was good, pleasant even. It was sort of ruined when Mom sent me a text telling me she was going shopping with Jane. Dad was at work and Garrett was at school,

which meant that Lily Ava was alone with Todd, who she seemed to hate. Austin and I had talked about seeing a movie, but we went back to the house instead. So when we got to the house, there was nothing that outwardly signaled any kind of danger or disturbance. But walking up the steps to the front door just felt weird.

I can't quite describe it. The hair on my arm stood up and I got this sense of dread in my belly. I opened the front door. I screamed and took a step back right into Austin because just it was Todd. Todd hanging from a noose tied to one of the ten-foot-high rafters in the living room. His body was spinning ever so slowly. And when he turned to face me, I saw gouged out eyes and blood all over his front

before I shoved Austin out of the way to throw up the line. lunch I'd just eaten. Austin, bless him, ran into the house yelling. Lily, Ava, are you here? I needed to call the police, I knew.

My uncle had been murdered. You're supposed to call the police. But there was something nagging me. I turned to look at the body again. He was still facing me. It wasn't just blood on his front. There was something else. There was something on his chest.

I stepped forward. The hair on my neck was standing up. It looked like a kitchen knife was lodged in Todd's chest, holding a piece of paper to him. A drawing, I realized. I took another step forward. Blood was obscuring some of the paper. but I could make out the words written at the top of the page. It was an address.

It was Todd's address. The drawing was... It was Todd in Jane's garage, drawn like a diagram. There was an X drawn over one spot on the floor, with an arrow pointing to it. I screamed for Austin. He ran down the stairs, telling me he couldn't find. find my sister. I pointed at the map. We, we need to go and check.

The pieces weren't quite adding up in my head, but there was a map, pointing to a place we could get to in 20 minutes. And at the time, that seemed like the logical place to go. Austin told me we needed to call the police. Fine, we'll call the police, but we'll also go. So I called the police while Austin drove. I babbled to the 911 operator about what was in the living room and my address and the address of the place we were going now because a map on the dead body told us to. The operator tried to talk some sense into me, but I ignored her. So we got to Todd and Jane's house and I punched the key code to their garage.

The doors opened. Todd's car wasn't there. which made things easier. The X was on the spot his car would have been covering. I ran to Todd's tool table and made my pick. A sledgehammer. Danny? Danny, what are you? He was cut off by the sledgehammer hitting the concrete.

It was a bit more difficult than I expected, and my arms were already rattled by the impact, but I was running on adrenaline. I raised the sledgehammer, and saw, swung again. There were cracks already appearing. Danny, what the hell? Get a crowbar. I swung again. Austin got a crowbar. It took about 10 minutes for the smashing and the prying to make any serious progress, but then we could see a wooden board underneath the concrete. We weren't sure how big the board was, so we kept prying until we hit an edge, and then we pried.

at the board. That's when the smell hit. It wasn't overpowering, not after so many years, but it was definitely there. It was there before we'd fully uncovered what was being kept there, confirming my fears. Austin wrenched the board up, and I paced behind him. God kidnapped the girls. Todd killed one of them but not the other And my little sister, the one still alive, killed him But how? How could she have hung him from the rafters? Why didn't she tell us it was him?

The board snapped and I jumped. There was a large enough hole for Austin and I to see what had been hiding underneath Todd's garage. But I... I didn't know what to say. I heard police sirens in the distance. But she... She was at the house.

There were two bodies in the hole. Two small child bodies. One clad in a Cinderella nightgown and the other in shorts and a t-shirt. It was Lily. and Ava. It couldn't be Lily

and Ava. As I said, that was three days ago. We don't know how Todd was hung from the rafters. The lights have stopped flickering. My little sisters are getting a proper funeral

next week. We haven't found the girl who was living in our house. Somehow, I don't think... 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,

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