The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S8E06

Episode Date: November 13, 2016

It's episode 06 of Season 8. On this week's show we have four tales about creeps, cults, and curses."The Closing Shift at Pizza Hut"† written by Malicent and performed by Jessica McEvoy & Addison Peacock. (Story starts around 00:02:45)"A Haunted House"‡ written by Manen Lyset and performed by Jeff Clement & Nichole Goodnight & Alexis Bristowe & Atticus Jackson. (Story starts around 00:25:25)"Lily Doll"† written by A. L. LaForge and performed by Nikolle Doolin & Erika Sanderson & Nichole Goodnight. (Story starts around 00:58:50)"Halloween Under the Irish Cultural Center"† written by Lucas Theriault and performed by Mike DelGaudio & Addison Peacock & Atticus Jackson. (Story starts around 01:23:40)Click here to learn more about the voice actors on The NoSleep Podcast Click here to learn more about the Sleepless Live 2017 Tour Click here for the podcast "Darkest Night" Click here to learn more about Manen Lyset Executive Producer & Host: David CummingsMusical score composed by: Brandon BooneAudio adaptations produced by: Phil Michalski† & Jeff Clement‡"Halloween Under the Irish Cultural Center" illustration courtesy of Jen TracyAudio program ©2016 - Creative Reason Media Inc. - All Rights Reserved - No reproduction or use of this content is permitted without the express written consent of Creative Reason Media Inc. The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is a horror fiction podcast. We're here to frighten you and mess with your head because that's what you want. So give in to your fear because tonight there will be no sleep podcast. It's the no sleep podcast. I'm David Cummings. Thanks for joining us. On this week's show, we have four tales about creeps, cults, and curses. I want to thank the many people who have responded positively to the new podcast, Darkest Night.

It's encouraging to see so many of you enjoying the creepy series. Just to be clear, we introduce the first episode on our no-sleep feed to make people aware of the show, but it now resides on its own feed, and by the time you hear this, the fourth episode should be out. So if you're looking to hear the ongoing Darkest Night series, just head over to Darkest Night series. just head over to darkestnightpod.com to hear all the episodes as they come out. And please consider leaving a positive review on iTunes. That's a great way to let others know about the new show. Thanks also to the many, many people who entered our Ouija Origin of Evil contest in October.

The contest is now closed and we'll be drawing the winners this week. So make sure you listen to next week's show to find. out who won the two prize packs. And so, during these tumultuous times, we hope you can settle in and enjoy our tales, ready to immerse you in our creepy, sleepless world as we start this week's show. In our first tale, we meet a young woman working at a local pizza place. As we hear from author Malicent, it was one night in particular which left her deeply shaken, all because of one rather unsettling customer.

Performing this tale are Jessica McAvoy and Addison Peacock. So you'd better hope for a quiet night if you're working the closing shift at Pizza Hut. Pizza Hut has been one of the best and worst jobs I've ever had. I'll start with the reasons why it's been good before jumping right into the bad stuff. It's going to make explaining what happened to me last night a lot easier if you know a little backstory. For a business that constantly reminds me how cheap it is, it pays me well enough as assistant manager. The work is typically repetitive and simple, and my days there usually melt together as it's more or less the same routine every day. Deal with customers.

Make the pizzas and wings. call the Pepsi Company and complain our order is late for the third time in a row. There's the odd time when things get tense. We get angry, complaining customers every few days, but every workplace that deals with customer service gets those. Thankfully, it never usually takes more than a free pizza or credit on their next order to make them happy again. For the past 11 months, I have been the restaurant's main closer.

My shifts never change from 4 to 11 or 4 to 12 on Fridays and Saturdays. Once in a while, I'll get scheduled for a 10 to 6 or 11 to 7 shift if one of our openers is sick, but that's pretty rare. However, it does happen. Since I live in such a small town, my Pizza Hut only deals with takeout and delivery orders. There's no dine-in area at all except a couple bar tables. and stools by the main entrance for people to wait for their order. The front lobby of the restaurant is tiny, and the kitchen is no exception. The entire back area is pretty much one big room, with a little area behind a wall in the back

that doubles as a prep area and office. There is no break room or employee bathroom. We do have one bathroom at the front for customers, right next to the pop cooler by the entrance to the kitchen. Now that you know a little bit about how the restaurant looks and runs, I'll move on to why it isn't a good place to work at the best of times. First off, I'm one of the only five people that work there. My boss and two other of my employees are contract workers from India, so English isn't their first language. They never talk in English when it's just me and them, so I'm always a little bit of them.

out of the loop. My other co-worker works only part-time since she's still in high school. So with her there only a few hours a week, I spend a majority of my time working without talking too much to my other co-workers. It can get pretty lonely. Now a little about me. I just turned 20. I'm a smaller female, and I live about 10 minutes away from work. That's a little bit. That That's ten minutes walking one way. I don't have a license or a car. This typically doesn't bother me, but it does get kind of scary

when I'm walking home in the dark after midnight. Thankfully, the walk to my house is in a pretty good part of town. I have yet to run into any real issues. Other than the language barrier between me and most of my coworkers, the only real problem comes from the night shifts. Since one person is fully capable of doing all the closing duties, I am left there by myself from 8 p.m. onwards. This means I have to answer the phones, help customers, and make all the orders. It's not usually busy, so I never have a problem with that, unless there's the odd time where I get four or five orders at once.

but I am really fast at making pizzas. I can usually get them made in in the oven within a minute and a half of the order being taken. The real problem with being alone on closing shifts explains it within this very sentence. I'm there all alone. It can be kind of spooky sometimes if there's someone weird that comes in. Anyone could rob me or hurt me, and there would be no one there to help. I've talked to my boss about my concerns, but he always dismisses me saying, I'm a phone call away if you need help.

We should not have to pay a second person to do your job. Jerk. Last night, I worked my usual clothes. Since it was Sunday, I only had to stay until 11, but it felt like I was there for hours more. Last night, my fears of what would happen when I was alone came true. My shift went normally for half the day. By the time 8 o'clock rolled around, I had said goodbye to my morning crew and had already

started on the closing checklist. Weird stuff started happening around 9.30. I was making dough in the back, taking my time with it since 30. was not much else to do. I heard the beep-beep of the doorbell, and automatically I spun around, looking up at the TV displaying real-time footage of the front lobby. I stared at it for a few seconds, confused. The front was empty, and I could not see anyone out the windows outside.

Convinced I had imagined it, I carried on with my dough. I greased and oiled five more pans, finishing the stack. I stacked them on top of each other and picked them up, turning around to check the camera again before I carried the dough into the walking cooler. My heart leaped painfully in my chest, and I fumbled with the stack, nearly dropping them all on the floor. A man was standing in the lobby, peering into the kitchen. At once I set the pans down, wiping my hands on my apron before I ran out to greet him. He had shocked me, but I got over it quickly. I figured he must have been standing in the blind spot last time I checked the camera, the spot where I used to hide when taking

extra break so my boss couldn't see what I was doing. Hi there, sorry about that. I didn't see you come in. What would you like to order? I didn't see you come in. The man repeated my words. I didn't see you come in. I stood still for a second, not knowing what to say. I was getting a really bad vibe from this guy, and as he spoke, it got worse. I tried to ignore it, convincing myself with little success that I was being silly. The man looked average enough, despite being very dirty. He was very tall and looked older than my dad,

but he was dressed strangely. He was wearing a shiny light blue dress shirt tucked into gray stained sweatpants. His sweatpants were tucked into his socks. His hair was greasy and combed to the side. His pockets were stuffed with what appeared to be all the mince I had in the jar near the mediation. use. He smelled like he hadn't had a shower in weeks. It sounded more like a timid statement,

and I wondered what this guy's problem was. It took a long time, but he finally ordered a small pepperoni pizza with eight boneless wings. I rang his order in quickly, happy he had finally said something. I couldn't help notice the way his mouth moved when he talked. I went just straight up and down like a doll. He didn't have any teeth, and his breath nearly made me gag. I'll have your order ready in ten minutes. I placed his change on the table. I thanked him again and walked into the kitchen,

wishing there was a door instead of an empty frame leading into the kitchen. I didn't want him to get curious and look in again. I went into the walk-in, grabbing a small pan to make his pizza. Before I got started on it, I checked the camera again, feeling a little better when I saw the man sitting at the bar table, reading what looked like a menu from the front counter. Convinced he was just not all there and most likely homeless, I ignored my gut feeling that something was wrong and prepared his order.

I had the pizza in the oven in under 30 seconds. I dropped his wings in a basket and set the timer on the friar. Six minutes to kill before they're ready. I took this as an opportunity to check my phone. I picked it up just in time. I was receiving a call from my friend Lana. Hey, you caught me just as I'm taking a few minutes break. What's up?

Hurry up and be done with work. I'm so bored. I glanced at the clock. One more hour. 10 p.m. I was startled by this. It felt like I had just looked at the clock. Half an hour had gone by since the man had come in.

You should walk over and pick me up. There's this weirdo here and he's giving me the creeps. Are you alone again? Yeah. I tried to talk to my boss about it again, but he never does anything. Anyways, I'll see you in a bit. I hung up the phone just as the friar timer started to beep. The wings were done.

I threw my phone in my bag and walked around the corner to the main part of the kitchen. I sauced the wings and cut the pizza, carrying the order to the front while looking forward to seeing the man leave. I looked around and felt my knees grow weak again. The fronts was empty. The stool the man had been sitting on was jutted out. The menu he was reading was on the ground. This completely freaked me out. I hadn't heard the doorbell, so he couldn't have left.

My eyes drifted over to the bathroom door. The handle's button was horizontal, meaning it was locked from the inside. This made me feel a little better. He was just in the bathroom. There's nothing wrong with that. I stood at the till, aimlessly looking through stuff. as I waited for him to come out so I could give him his order. I looked down at the bottom of the screen at the time.

10.15 p.m. 10.21 p.m. 10.34 p.m. He had been in there for a good half hour before I mustered the courage to knock on the door. Everything all right in there? At once I heard shuffling. as if I had startled him. I backed up, preparing for him to come out. The shuffling then stopped, but he still didn't open the door. I walked closer again, raising my fist to bang on the door again when I heard a click.

And 40, I was at a loss for what to do. I had grown very paranoid, and I now knew something was wrong, but at the same time I couldn't just stand there and wait for something to happen. It was 20 minutes to close and I still had a few things to do. I braced myself to open the door and deal with it when I heard him whispering. I jumped back like I had been burned. He was recycling my words again from earlier when I was on the phone. But I was in the back of the kitchen behind the wall. There's no way he could have heard me unless he had crept back there and listened in.

I backed away from the door and grabbed the phone, dialing my boss's number. My hand shook as I struggled to press the buttons. Bright light suddenly distracted me, and I looked up to see a car pulling into the parking lot. I thanked my lucky stars as two people got out and walked towards the restaurant, holding hands. However, seconds before they could open the door, the bathroom door creaked open. My heart pounded as I looked over, not sure what I should prepare myself to see. The man looked the same as before, except covered in sweat, and he was panting like a dog. His hair was sticking up everywhere like he was pulling on it.

The couple walked in, looking cute. curiously at the giant menu a few feet over my head. As I turned to look at them, the man suddenly leaped forward, making me scream and jump back. He didn't touch me. He grabbed his order sitting on the counter and then bolted. And I mean bolted. He ran like someone was trying to kill him,

across the highway and into the neighborhood beyond. The relief I felt when he was finally, gone was explainable. I was nearly laughing when I took the customer's order, so dizzy I could hardly keep it together. I rang in what they wanted and raced to the back to prepare my last order of the night. 10.52 p.m. With the customers in the front, I felt comfortable enough to look out the windows and make sure the man had not returned. It was dark, but I could see enough. And after a good few minutes of checking things out, I decided it was safe to say he was gone for good. I was also starting to wonder where Lana was and hoped she hadn't run into the creep.

Then 57 p.m. I brought out the customer's order and they thanked me, leaving me no tip, but I wasn't expecting one after they saw me scream as the man grabbed his order. As soon as they drove away, I turned off the open sign. and race to the back to grab my things. I put my jacket on and went to the back area to turn off the computer system, realizing I forgot to check the bathroom to make sure the man hadn't done anything weird in there. I dismissed the thoughts. I wasn't going to spend any more time here than absolutely needed.

I've had enough for today. The computer made a few beeping sounds as the entire system shut down, and the light above me went out like a little. it's supposed to. The only thing on now was the security camera, and I glanced up at it hoping to see Lana walking over. Something bothered me about what I saw. The front was empty and dark, but I could still see the shapes and shadows of things. There was no one inside but me. I used the master switchboard next to the computer to turn the front light on, and I nearly had heart attack. The man was standing outside the door, not moving, and staring in through the glass.

It's hard for me to remember everything that happens next. All I can recall is running into the walking cooler and locking myself in as I called the police from my cell phone. I remember crying as I tried to recall to them what exactly had happened. They drove me home and promised to keep a look out for him, but that didn't make me feel much better. I felt like they didn't entirely believe me, but I was sort of expecting that. I went to work early the next morning, still terribly paranoid, even though it was the middle of the day with lots of people around. I was going to tell my boss I couldn't work nights anymore, starting now. There's no way I'd put myself through that again. I opened the door, and my co-worker gave me a grim look,

looking not at all pleased as he motioned for me to look over at the bathroom door. It was covered in caution tape, with a giant sign that read, out of order. I asked everyone I worked with what happened in there, but no one gave me a straight answer. I'll never know how to fully explain what happened last night. I feel somewhat safe knowing I won't have to work alone ever again. But one thing has been bothering me since it happened. Lana walked here to pick me up, and that man was outside. I called her all day.

Each time it goes to voicemail. I was hoping to get a concrete answer about what was found in the bathroom, but it's growing apparent that it may be a while before someone tells me just what exactly was discovered if they even tell me at all. I got most of the information out of my boss, who talked to me for a long time about the night's events. He ended up looking over the security footage from when the man was in the restaurant and went over with me what he saw. He told me he watched the man sneak into the back when I was on the same.

on the phone, getting very close to me. He said if I had done so much as turn around, I would have saw him. I was told there had been paper towels stuffed into the toilet. The entire roll by the sounds of it. The cardboard cylinder was found stepped on, on the floor. I didn't see anything too strange about this, and I asked why everyone was being so quiet about it. I was told afterwards that there had been blood covering the paper towels. There was a smeared bloody handprint on the toilet seat. I don't know what to make of this. I don't understand

where the blood came from. There's another factor that's being left out of everyone's explanations, and I'm hoping that once this settles over, people will give me the last piece of the story. I have a feeling that they aren't telling me for my own good. Blood and wet towels everywhere is disturbing enough. Lana has finally made contact with me. It's not the kind of contact I was hoping for, but at least it's something for now. I got a text from her a little over half an hour ago.

It read, Sorry, I missed your call. I don't like that text. It doesn't seem like her. Lana's the type of girl that uses exclamation points in every message, and always uses proper spelling, grammar, and capitalization. That aside, I just think it's a weird thing to say. I called her tons of times, not just one call.

Maybe I'm reading too much into it, but I'm getting so paranoid, I can't help it. I'm walking to her house after I. post this. I really hope it's just paranoia making me so worried. There are few themes in horror storytelling more familiar and terrifying than a person whose home is inhabited by an unseen specter. In this series of experiences from author Manon Lyset, we learn of how he and his family were affected by the strange and unexpected occurrences. Performing this tale, our Jeff Clement, Nicole Goodnight, Alexis Bristow, and Atticus Jackson. So listen to what it's like to truly live in a haunted house.

I want to start off by pointing out a very obvious fact. There's a huge difference between real-life hauntings and the ones that you see on the big screen. I don't mean just because the movie world is populated solely by good-looking people and riddled with every cliche trope in the book, but because movies like to tie things up and a neat little bow at the end. They might not always have good endings, but they always give you a reason for what's going on,

a rotting corpse hidden under the floorboards, an ancient burial ground discovered in a backyard, a long history of brutal murders in the house, a demonic heirloom of some sort. The list could go on and on. That's not the case, in the real world. At least, it wasn't the case in my experience. My story starts a few weeks before I moved into a new house and ends the day I moved out. Because truth is, sometimes there are no

answers to why a house is the way it is. I lived in what I believed to be a haunted house for five years, and these are my experiences. It started in 2000. when my parents sat my sister and I down to announce we were moving again. As an army brat, I was used to this conversation. We were told when and where we were moving and then shown a photo of the house. As an army brat of two retired army parents, however, I was a little confused as to why we suddenly had to move in the middle of the school year, but I didn't question it.

As weird as it might seem to people who have lived in the same house all their lives, To my family, moving was the status quo. As was the case with every move, there was a part of me that hoped that this time would be the last time, and that would finally settle down in a permanent home. I didn't get off the hype train until I saw the house in person, and boy, was high quick to jump off. Hurled myself right out the window, really. For one thing, it was a rental property, which in and of itself meant it was temporary. but more importantly, the place looked like crap.

I remember there being newspaper spread out on the floor in the middle of the kitchen, right under a yellowing, low-hanging light fixture dripping water. My bedroom was painted black, and the previous tenant had scribbled poems about suicide on the walls in multicolored crayons. Though I now find the thought of some emo kid doodling with wax crayons rather amusing, at the time I was royally creeped out. The stairs were creaky, the ceiling was waterlogged, and the whole house was as dusty as an attic.

I couldn't believe this was the place my parents had picked. It wasn't as though we were poor and desperate. We were your average middle-class family. We were moving out of a lovely, semi-detached home with our own swimming pool to this din of dirt and grime. And if all that wasn't bad enough, I found out that the previous tenants had just up and left. They'd withheld rent for months, neglected the upkeep, then one day just disappeared, taking all their stuff with them. The owner was never able to track them down.

So, yeah, we were off to a great start. The next time I saw the house was the day we moved in, and thankfully it looked much. better. The owner had changed the leaky light fixture, cleaned up the dirt, and applied a fresh coat of white paint throughout the house. The only thing that still made me uncomfortable was the laundry room at the foot of the basement stairs. I'd get this creepy, crawly feeling whenever I'd go in. You know, like when you feel someone breathing down your neck, but turn around and no one's there, It was bad enough that I'd usually dash past the door whenever I went downstairs. And if I had to go inside, I'd use a leg to prop open the door just in case.

So, yeah, aside from the laundry room, the house was fairly normal at first. Sure, I'd hear a few strange noises here and there, but they were just the sounds of the house settling and water running through its pipes. It always takes a bit of time to adjust to a new home, but after a while, the, cracking and snapping in the walls fades to background noise. They're just sounds you notice only when you're not familiar with a place. A flushing toilet, for instance, could wake me up in the middle of the night for the first couple of weeks, but after that, I could sleep through it easily.

I think it's just survival instinct. Our animal brains trying to keep us alert in a new environment when it's not sure where danger might lurk. If I had to pinpoint the exact moment when things, changed. I'd say it happened one night a couple of months after we moved in, and long after I'd adapted to the sounds of the new house. Now, one thing most people don't know about me is that I'm about as good at falling asleep as I am at playing the ukulele. And I can't play the ukulele. I go from wide awake to wide awake, to wide awake, to slightly drowsy, to suddenly asleep. The process takes

over an hour, every night, no matter how exhausted I am or how late I go to bed. That night, like every other school night, I went to bed at 10, expecting to fall asleep around 11. I wasn't sure exactly how long I'd been in bed for, but I was still awake when I heard a sound, unlike the ones my brain had grown accustomed to ignoring. A knock at my bedroom door. Along with that knock came a man's voice. Are you asleep? I turned over. Hmm? No.

Let me in. Dan? Can I come in? It didn't sound like my dad, but who else could it have been? Okay. I heard quiet footsteps towards. me and then felt something putting weight on the bed, kind of like a parent's hand when they lean in and give you a good night kiss. That's when I realized I hadn't heard the door

opening. My eyes shot open and I saw someone standing over me. I can still remember him clearly. He had pitch black hair, a long crooked nose, an aging face, thick eyebrows. and a scornful scowl. I could see him so clearly, as though my room had been lit up by the flash of lightning, even though there hadn't been so much as a cloud in the sky that night. The final detail I noticed, before my eyes shot momentarily towards my lamp,

was the black raincoat he wore. By the time I flicked the light on and looked back, he was gone, and I was covered in sweat. My eyes wandered at the clock. Ten past ten. If it had been a dream, if I had been asleep when it happened, then it had been the quickest I had ever fallen asleep.

That night marked the first of many strange occurrences. It was a hot summer day and I was hiding away in the basement browsing the web. My first year of high school was over and I had committed to spending my summer vacation doing absolutely nothing. It was around 3.45 p.m. when I heard the front door opening. Just in time, I thought. It was obviously my dad getting home from work. He was a morning person and worked an earlier shift to avoid rush hour traffic.

I headed up the stairs to say hello, as I usually did. Hey, Dad! He didn't reply. I turned the corner and headed down the hallway leading to the entrance. But when I got to, there. It was empty. The door was unlocked, so I knew he had come home. Dad? This is where it gets a little complicated. The first floor looped around in an open rectangle with the stairs going up in the center of it. There was this mirror between the front door and the garage door, and from that mirror,

you could see the hallway where I'd just come from, as well as a sliver of the stairs all the way up to the second floor. After calling for my dad another time, I caught a glimpse of his silhouette in the mirror. He was standing behind me in the hallway, which really isn't impossible to achieve. He would only have to circle around the living room through the dining room in the kitchen, then into the hallway where I stood. The only thing that was odd was how quietly he'd managed it. I once again turned around and smiled. Hey, how was your day? In a split second, I realized the figure wasn't in the hallway, but rather up the stairs. Just an optical illusion, I figured.

But an optical illusion didn't explain how Dad had avoided the familiar screech produced by the third step, a quintessential sound of someone going upstairs. That's when I realized something weird was going on. Dad? No answer. The dark silhouette walked out of sight and towards my parents' room. Every single cell in my body was telling me to get out. All the warning bells were blaring danger, danger.

But I didn't listen. I mean, I clearly saw a man in the house. I heard the front door, and it was exactly the time my dad usually came home. Aside from him ignoring my welcome, there was no reason for me to think something weird was happening. Yet my body was telling me otherwise. I ran up the stairs to the second floor and peeked into my parents' room, where I saw the silhouette of a hand pulling away from their dresser and towards their walk-in closet.

I'm honestly not sure why the hand was what did it for me, but it was the push I needed for my brain to catch up to whatever danger signals my body was sending out. I just remember going from thinking, dad, to realizing burglar. I mean, it's such a weird thing, right? Just a hand. It's not like I'd be able to recognize my dad's hand if you showed it to me in a lineup of random hand photos. I'd probably think you were a little weird for having a bunch of photos of hands on you to try the experiments in the first place. But that's not the point.

Point is, I didn't feel safe anymore. I backed away quickly into my room and reached for one of my many decorative swords. Decorative but sharp. I unsheed the weapon and closed my door slowly, careful not to make too much noise. It was a fight or flight situation, and by gosh, I was going to fight. It seems absurd to me now that my reaction wasn't to call 911, but then again this happened before every kid in their pooch had a cell phone. and the only landline upstairs was in my parents' room.

It's not like I could have waltzed in there and made the call without getting caught. So instead, I stood in my room, hands trembling as I waited and listened. I could hear his footsteps up and down the hall, followed by a slightly muffled voice. There were pauses in between, as though the person was waiting for a reply, but not a reply from me. A reply from someone on the phone, I supposed. I strained my ears, but couldn't for the life of me make out what he was saying. Who was he talking to? Did he know where I was?

I shouldn't have called out so many times. Obviously, he knew he wasn't alone in the house. Would he come after me? My heart pounded in my chest and thumped in my ears. I could feel adrenaline surging through me, but as stupid as I was, I wasn't stupid enough to move. It was safer to stay where I was and wait. My real dad would be home soon, I figured.

But then everything went quiet. I slowly approached my bedroom door and listened carefully, but the voice was gone and the footsteps had stopped. It was as though the house was empty again. Just to be sure, I waited long. longer. And by gosh, I felt like forever. At least in teenage time, it did. Unsure of what to do, I opened the door a crack and looked out into the hall. If I'd been in a horror movie, that would have been the moment when something would have suddenly jumped in

front of the door. But nothing happened. I came out of my hiding spot and slowly went room to room, opening every door looking for whoever had broken in. Again, this was a very stupid thing to do, and I should have run out and called the cops, but we all know teenagers don't make the best life decisions, and I wasn't immune to teenage bravado. Luckily for me and my continued existence in the universe, all the rooms were empty. Confused and rattled, I sat at my computer and kept my sword on my lap until the door opened 20 minutes later and my dad called my name. I ran upstairs with my sword, and he gave me that weird look dads give you and they catch you doing something not quite your age. Hell if I know what he thought I was doing with it.

Probably thought I was playing make-believe or something. Long story short, he'd gotten caught in traffic. I told him about the burglar, and we went from room to room checking each one. There was nothing out of the ordinary and nothing had been taken. And honestly, to this day, I'm not sure. that that was a relief or somehow more frightening. I know what I saw that day. I know someone was in the house, because after all, if my dad hadn't unlocked the front door, then who had? My house wasn't the only place where weird things happened. There was something eerie about the whole neighborhood.

When my friends came over, we'd test out that teenage bravado I was telling you about earlier by taking nighttime walks in the woods close to my house. My friends would take turns clinging to my arms and yelping whenever something made a sound. They said they felt safe around me. I don't know if it was because I just had that really secure air to me, or because I'd told them about the weird things I'd experienced and survived in my house. One night, my friend and I were walking back to my place after skating at the park. We used this shortcut behind an outdoor mall, a dimly lit path that connected the main road to the residential area.

Even though it looked kind of creepy, it was by no means unsafe. Barely 25 meters long, the path was hardly the kind of place a psycho killer would go to stock his prey. As we started walking down the snowy path, I stopped for a second and looked up at the snowy. sky. It was pitch black with neither a single cloud nor the flicker of a star anywhere in sight. For some reason, it struck me as really odd. I felt that tingling sensation at the back of my spine I'd get whenever I walked by the laundry room. Weird. It's too dark. Almost as soon as the words left my mouth, there came a gust of wind so soon. strong, it dislodged a massive icicle hanging from a tree about 20 meters ahead of us.

And when I say massive, I mean it. It was a couple of feet long and as sharp as a knife. You know how they've got warnings for falling ice around buildings nowadays because that shit is dangerous? Well, imagine this icicle being three times bigger than the ones you're supposed to watch out for. Now imagine that it was out for goddamn blood like some shitty B-list movie. See, this thing didn't gracefully drop to the ground. It defied gravity and made a bee line for my friend and I. She shrieked and grabbed me so tight she nearly knocked the wind out of me.

We were both frozen as this thing easily capable of impaling us through our winter coats came hurtling towards us so quickly we couldn't even. even have run if we wanted to. Then, just as it arrived within two feet of us, about the distance of my personal bubble, it banked sharply to the right and stabbed into the ground like an arrow. I swear I'm not making this up. My friend still talks about it to this day. One second, the icicle was coming at us the next it did an abrupt 90-degree turn. Hell, if I didn't know any better, I could have sworn I saw it deflecting off of something. I have a photographic memory, and whenever I think back to that night, I can sort of

see something there in front of us, like the sheen of a window or something. Then, for a brief moment, as we were trying to catch our breath, I saw the man in a black coat standing under the tree, just standing and staring at us. I felt my stomach turn, and I looked at my friend. She was still looking at the icicle in the snow. By the time I looked at the tree again, the guy was gone. Sometimes weird things would happen to the house itself. While I was the only one in my family to actually see the man in a black coat hanging around,

everyone could see the things appearing on the walls. More specifically, one day, just out of the blue, I noticed something near the light switch at the foot of the basement stairs. Yes, close to the laundry room, but on the opposite wall. It looked like a bloody handprint, except drawn in red crayon. I'm not saying my sister and I were perfect little angels, but we were very well behaved, and neither of us would have done something like this,

partially because we respected other people's property, partially because our mom would have made us clean it up no matter how long it took the scrub off. I definitely remember a detailed conversation about drawing on the walls and how we could do it if we wanted to, but she didn't know any easy tips to get crayon off the wall and wouldn't help us clean if we embraced our inner artist. And mark my words, you will clean it. That's how I knew my sister hadn't drawn the handprint. That's why I dragged her downstairs to show her. This wasn't here before, was it?

I mean, it was possible it had been there all along and I'd never noticed it. My sister ran a hand over it curiously. I remember how much bigger the handprint was compared to her hand. The fingers were thicker and longer as though belonging to a fully grown man. I felt a sinking feeling at the pit of my stomach. It wasn't. She looked as creeped out by the mark as I was, but I still had to ask. Did you draw it?

Wasn't your room covered in crayon before we moved in? I nodded. Yeah, you can still see the color when the paint gets scratched. She rubbed her hand against the handprint again. That's probably what happened here. The paint wore off or something. Yeah. Yeah. That would have been the end of it if we hadn't gone to our computers and noticed a dent in the wall.

A dent that looked like a goddamn skull. A fist-sized skull, but a skull nonetheless. We saw it at the same time and gave each other a conspiratorial look. Maybe that dent had always been there. Maybe we'd only noticed it because we were a little on edge about the eerie handprint. That's really creepy, right? Yep. This was the first time anyone else in my family had seen proof of the bizarre things that happened in that house.

As for my mom, she didn't seem all that bothered by either the handprint or the dent. She didn't even make us wash it up. And now we come back around to the topic of teenage ravato. When you're a teenager and a group of peers, you'll eventually get to the point where you stupidly want to test your bravery by going somewhere creepy and seeing who cracks first. My friends and I had already conquered the woods, so naturally we had to up the ante. This is where my laundry room came in. See, I wasn't the only person freaked out by the laundry room. Without ever mentioning it to my friends, every single one of them had told me they

felt something weird about it. I mean, yeah, they knew I'd seen creepy shit around the house, but I never told them how the laundry room in particular made me uneasy. Unlike the rest of the house, it was unfinished. It had a hard cement floor instead of carpet, an incomplete ceiling, and exposed wall studs with pink insulation ripe and ready to be picked like cotton candy. Maybe those factors contributed to the overall creep factor of the room, I don't know. At some point, someone decided it'd be a good idea to lock ourselves in the laundry room, turn off the lights, and see what would happen. And that's exactly what we did, because we were dumb teenagers looking for a cheap thrill.

We packed ourselves in the room, all five of us. Honestly, I'm not sure how we all fit. That's how small the room was. We huddled together and I gave everyone a final warning before I shut the door and turned off the light. We were quiet at first, but within about a minute, I felt my friend's grip tighten around my arm. Then, all of a sudden, she shouted. Something just touched my leg. There were a few laughs, but no one admitted to grabbing her.

The laughter subsided, and I felt a sort of strange tension in the room. Maybe, one by one, we all realized. we hadn't been the ones to touch her. I want out. That was enough for me. My instincts were already going haywire. They had been from the moment I'd shut the door. I swatted my arm toward the light switch,

but felt a void in its place. I pawed around blindly, expecting to feel the wall or the insulation, but my hand didn't connect with anything. Now, even though I avoided the laundry room, I'd been there enough times to know exactly where that light switch was. Even if I didn't, there wasn't enough room in that room for me to not touch the wall when I swung my arm. Something's got my leg.

It's not me. I'm not even near her. I was the only other person there, and I knew I hadn't grabbed her. I tried for the doorknob, but just like the light switch, I couldn't find it. I felt as though the room had taken on completely different proportions. I don't know any other way to describe it. You know that feeling you get when you miss a step or you think there's one step more than there is? It was kind of like that. It made no sense.

The room was small and narrow. Even if I missed the mark, I should have hit the wall. And if I was facing the wrong side somehow, then my hand would have connected with the washer. But it didn't. Then, finally, just as I heard one of them shriek, I felt the cold metal door knob and swung the door open. We ran out of the laundry room so fast we could have outrun Sonic. My friend, the one who said something had grabbed her, pointed to the laundry room door. Did you see him?

See who? When the door opened, there was a man standing in the corner of the room. I nervously popped my head into the laundry room, turned on the light, and looked inside. The room was empty. We spent the rest of the evening hiding out in the living room. My friends never went in the laundry room again after that night. The last incident that happened wasn't quite as spectacular, but it was just as puzzling as everything else. I was about to start my final year of high school, when my first.

parents announced we were moving again. I was actually pretty upset about it. For all its faults and creepiness, the house had become my home. We'd been living there for five years, five whole years, the longest I'd ever stayed in a single place, and now we were leaving. With just a few months left on the lease, this happened. It was almost noon, and my sister and I were off school for the summer. I was reheating a meal in the microwave, and my sister came down the stairs and looked at me with a frazzled expression on her face. I have a weird question. Would you mind counting my library books? I checked the microwave. I still had a few minutes to go. Uh, sure? Why? I followed her towards the stairs. I need to return them today, so I counted to make sure I had all of them, and I did.

But then I turned around to get my bag, and when I turned back around, one of the books was missing. I counted to make sure, and sure enough, I was one short. Did it fall under your bed? I checked. It wasn't there. I recounted just to make sure, and suddenly I had all my books back. Okay. She continued. But then I triple checked, because when I counted, I didn't see the book that was missing, and I'm definitely short by one.

It's not in the pile. Can you just count and tell me if I have 21? When we got to her room, she looked surprised. She pointed to a book at the top of her pile. There it is. I turned on my heels. Guess my work here is done. Can you just count just in case?

With a shrug, I knelt down and counted all the books one by one. 21. You've got them all. Thank. I headed back downstairs just as the microwave stopped at zero. But weirdly enough, it started up again, marking three minutes on its timer. I figured it was some kind of electrical glitch and stopped it manually so I could eat. For the record, that was the only time the microwave ever did that.

After lunch, my sister and I headed to the basement to play video games together. As I turned the corner, I saw something gleaming on the floor, sofa, and table. What's that? I don't know why, but my first thought was ice. As I moved closer, however, I realized it was a glass. My sister and I stood there for a second and looked at the mess. Where did that come from? That's when we noticed the light fixture on the ceiling.

The circular light shade was missing. From what I could gather, the light shade had broken somehow, but not in a way that could explain the mess. See, because there were shards on the table and sofa, I figured it must have exploded while on the ceiling and showered down. The problem was, if it had broken in the air, then the metal ring screwing it in place would have been up there and would probably have a few pieces of glass still hanging from it.

The ring, however, was on the floor, which meant the light fixture had fallen straight down in a large gap between the sofa and the table. But then, how had glass gotten on the table and sofa? Hell, how hadn't we heard the thick glass lampshade break? My sister and I both thought it was really weird, but we cleaned up the mess and explained the situation to our parents as best we could. Mom wasn't mad. She told us there must have been an air bubble in the glass that caused it to explode. That didn't explain the ring being on the floor, but, hey, at least she wasn't blaming us for the mess. That was the last thing I experienced in that house. I think it was a sort of sick goodbye message from the entity I'd seen so many times.

We moved about a month or two later. In the years since, I've often wondered about the house and if it's seen, next tenants experience similar things. I know it changed hands quite a few times. People move in and out every couple of years or so I've been told by a neighbor I've stayed in touch with. I've also wondered about the family that lived there before us, wondered if they left the house because they too had seen the man in the black coat, or if their departure was unrelated. I'll probably never know why the hell that house was haunted. It was barely 25 years old. Hardly old enough for something to have happened to it without there being any information about it in the news.

All I know is that something was seriously messed up with it. I live alone now in a nice and safe condo, and I haven't experienced anything weird since my family moved out of that house. Your time in our netherworld back into your own reality. If you would like to find out how you can hear the full-length versions of our audio program, please visit the no-sleep podcast.com to learn about our season pass program. 25 episodes, each over two hours long, and three exclusive bonus episodes, all for only 1999. On behalf of everyone at the No Sleep Podcast, we thank you for listening. Join us again next week when our unseen hands will be.

drag you down into our dark storyland. This audio production is copyright 2016-2017 by Creative Reason Media, Inc. All rights reserved. The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors. The name The No Sleep Podcast is a trademark of Creative Reason Media, Inc. No duplication or reproduction of this audio program is permitted without the written consent of Creative Reason Media, Inc.