The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S8E12

Episode Date: January 15, 2017

It's episode 12 of Season 8. On this week's show we have five tales about survivors, searchers, and strangers."He Won't Stop Tapping"‡ written by Collette Akile and performed by Jessica McEvoy. (Story starts around 00:03:00)"I Could Live Forever or I Could Die Tomorrow"‡ written by Jackson Laughlin and performed by David Cummings & Erika Sanderson. (Story starts around 00:26:20)"My Friend Found a Manuscript"† written by Ash P. and performed by David Ault & James Cleveland. (Story starts around 00:48:45)"The Unknown Hiker"† written by Jacob Healey and performed by Peter Lewis & Atticus Jackson & Kyle Akers & Dan Zappulla. (Story starts around 01:10:40)"Mother of Sorrows"† written by Leo Harrison and performed by Mike DelGaudio & Alexis Bristowe & Nikolle Doolin. (Story starts around 01:44:05)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 to learn more about Jackson Laughlin Click here to learn more about Ash P. Click here to learn more about Jacob Healey Executive Producer & Host: David CummingsMusical score composed by: Brandon BooneAudio adaptations produced by: Phil Michalski† & Jeff Clement‡"The Unknown Hiker" illustration courtesy of Jörn HeidrathAudio program ©2017 - 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. No Sleep podcast. It's the No Sleep Podcast. I'm David Cummings. Thanks for joining us. On this week's show, we have five tales about survivors, searchers, and strangers.

Well, it is good to be back for our first regular season episode of 2017. The No Sleep Team has enjoyed our break, and we're excited about what the new year holds in store for us. As most of you know, the big event taking place just over one month from now is our sleepless live tour. We can't wait. I have some news about the tour and our cast of No Sleep players. I'm sad to share the news that we're not. one of our announced cast members won't be able to join us for the tour. Nicole Doolin has made the tough decision to stay home and deal with other priorities in her life at this time.

And contrary to rumors, it has nothing to do with her being scared to be in a van with Peter Lewis. And while we're sad to not have Nicole with us on the tour, we are delighted to announce that joining us in her stead is the awesome and similarly named voice actor Nicole Goodnight. Nicole will be joining us for the full tour, so fortunately we won't have to get Brandon Boone to play one of the female roles in the show. We welcome you, Nicole, and hope all of you are making plans to attend the show nearest you. Now, you've waited a long time for season 8 to keep rolling along, so let's delay no further and start this week's show. In our first tale, we meet a woman with a mental illness, and it's one which makes it difficult for her to know if

what she's seeing is real. But as we learn from author Colette Akela, it's one vision in particular, which is most unsettling, even more so if it's real. Performing this tale is Jessica McAvoy, so don't take any chances. Assume what you're seeing is real, especially when he will won't stop tapping. A small renovated space in a house that's older than most. I always pay my rent on time, keep quiet after 9 p.m., and am unfailingly polite when I run into my neighbors, which isn't often. Every night now, I hear him at my window.

My bed is tucked away into an alcove, and it's the only place in my studio. apartment where you can't see the single window in the room. It used to make me feel secure that there were so few entry points into my home. Childhood trauma had made me wary of large spaces where not everything could be seen. After I first moved in, I used to comfort myself by thinking of escape routes. If someone was at my door, I would grab the knife that I kept to the side of my bed, put on the shoes, coat and purse that I always kept close by and be out my window in an instant. The screen was easy to remove, and there was an old oak tree I could use to traverse the three stories to the ground and my car. In my mind, escape would be relatively simple if it came down to

it. I wasn't expecting it exactly, but I liked to be prepared. It never occurred to me that I should have been worried about someone coming from the outside. Stupid of me, really. To preface and partly explain why it took me so long to realize what was happening, I should give you some backstory. I grew up with a severely, mentally ill parent. My mother is not someone I demonize or blame, but I recognize that her rapid mood swings and moments of total dissonance,

interspersed with periods of intense anger, gave me quite a few issues. I am wary of loud noises and am easily anxious. I'm in my mid-20s now, but throughout my entire life I have been prone to bouts of fear and paranoia. Feelings of being watched and hunted. I could never explain the sometimes overwhelming fear that someone or something was trying to kill me. Often I would experience very mild and nondescript hallucinations. The sounds of footsteps in an empty room or a vague shadow in the corner of my vision. Things I'm sure everyone notices from time to time, although without the intense fear that follows.

I had become so used to this fear that when it started, I just assumed it was my own anxieties. I try to always be logical, and for most of my life, it has suited me well. But not this time. I can hardly stand to let myself think about what happened. My therapist said writing about what's going on in my life might help. I don't tell her much. And what I do tell her is throwaway stuff. Things that happened to me when I was younger, that sound terrible because it was.

But there are also things I internalized and dealt with a long time ago. I never talk about the current fears and worries I still struggle with. However, I figured her advice couldn't hurt in my situation. If anything, at least it leaves behind concrete evidence of, what's happening. It's why I ignored the tapping at first. It was never frequent and often would only happen every week or so, at least that I noticed. I suffer from insomnia and often wake up multiple times in the night. At this moment, it's 2.47 a.m. and once again, I am unable to sleep. Who knows how many nights I slept through the sound, unaware of what was happening only a few feet away from me.

On the nights when I was awake to hear the noise, it would become almost incoherent in my worry. In my head was the constant mantra of, it's not real, it's in your head, it's not real, it's in your head. I would put on the noise-canceling headphones my best friend had given me, pull the covers over my head, and tried to relax with the knowledge that it was just my anxiety acting up again. The bad nights were the ones where I would change the channel on my TV that was constantly on. The background noise helped distract me. I knew if I put on something bright and loud, I wouldn't have any hope of getting back to sleep.

So I reserved doing this for the nights when the feeling of dread was so overwhelming I could hardly string a sentence together. There were even a few times that I would text my friend in the middle of the night to tell him that I felt like something was watching me. I wanted to know that if I was murdered or I disappeared, someone would be aware something was wrong. I don't know what difference it would have made really, but it was a comfort to me that someone else knew that I was scared, that I thought something was after me. It went on like this for months. And in all that time, I never actually checked the window. I was so convinced what was happening was in my head.

I didn't want to play into my delusions. There are so many excuses I could use. In the end, though, I think I was simply afraid to know that I might be right. At first, tapping seems pretty innocuous. It wouldn't be too difficult to actually bring. into my apartment. The window latched, but as I said, it's an old house, and the latch wasn't the most secure, although I always made sure it was locked. It was that thought, and the fact that I was on the third story, that kept me from actually looking around the small divider wall separating my

bed from the window in order to confirm that I was just hearing things. In retrospect, I blame myself for what I let happen, even though I know that my paranoia saved me in a sense. I also know that it killed someone, and that's something I'll have to live with myself for the rest of my life, however short that may be. My day-to-day life continued normally for quite a while, with my nighttime worries contained solely to those times when I would hear that strange noise. It wasn't a tap on the glass, you understand, but an odd little clack. I would convince myself that it must be one of those strange sounds that old houses make when they settle. Maybe a squirrel from the tree was feeling curious and had jumped onto the some two feet of slanted roof that was in front of the window,

or perhaps a leak in the gutter above. Curiosity was certainly involved, but it wasn't a squirrel. making the sounds. One night, the tapping happened to coincide with when I needed to use the bathroom. Usually the night where I heard the repetitive noise were ones where I was content to stay in bed under my covers. My apartment gets very cold at night. As I finished washing my hands and started to leave the room, I froze when I began to hear

that very faint but distinct tap. It was always very rhythmic in a way that would be soothing if it wasn't so out of place. For every second that passed, there would be a quiet little tap that accompanied it. You might think the noise would have driven me crazy, but it was almost indistinguishable from the hum of my refrigerator and the soft sound of my television with the volume turned low. The noise would only ever last for a few minutes, at most. Another reason why I never bothered to investigate it. However much I could justify not

leaning over the three feet it would take to discover the source of the noise, it seemed silly to stay trapped in my bathroom when it was the middle of the night and I had to work early in the morning. At that point, I had convinced myself thoroughly that nothing was actually happening. Those moments before I learned the truth of what it was are bitter to me now. I was comforted by my own ignorance. One thing you should know is that when I get up at night to use the restroom, I don't bother to turn the light on. It's connected to my room, so the light of the TV is usually enough to navigate by.

And as I mentioned earlier, my bed is completely hidden from view of the window. So after a minute of psyching myself up to leave the bathroom, years of ingrained habit led me to cautiously peer around the edge of the door jam. What I saw, I will never forget. Instead of the clear view of the night sky that I was expecting, there was a man crouched outside my window, perched on the slanted bit of roof. As I watched, he repeatedly opened and closed his mouth. His eyes locked on the blank space of wall that I would be behind if I was in bed. The rhythmic motion caused a slight sound as his teeth clashed together.

His face, a rictus of ecstasy. Through the pain of glass, the sound was muffled enough that it could be mistaken for a very faint. I think I went into shock in that moment. I certainly froze. I still don't know if I should be grateful for that or regretful after the events that followed. You see, the man never actually saw me as I remained still as a statue just beyond the door of my bathroom. He must have thought I was still in bed, as I always am. I think what disturbed me most, beyond the obvious, was his expression. of hunger. It was so wrapped that I felt a pang of empathy. Something was very wrong with his

expression. It reminded me of when my mother would go away, so to say, and her normal personality would disappear for a while. In her place would be someone who knew her thoughts and emotions, but it was as if everything positive and sane had left the building. She would twist you up until you felt as bad as she did. She was almost absent-minded in her cruelty, her desire to bring you down to her level. It was that association that gave me pause, because I had really only gotten a glimpse of his face. I was too scared to look again, and beyond the shadows of his expression and that terrible chewing motion, his figure had been indistinct in the darkness. I had had seen figures in the shadows of my fear before, and I wanted to be absolutely certain that

what I saw was real before I made a fuss about it. I had never liked to draw attention to myself, and after all, if it really was happening, he had never actually made a move to harm me. My therapist says I normalize things that aren't healthy or necessarily safe due to my upbringing. Dealing with my mother also made me extremely open-minded when faced with people who seem to suffer from mental illness, including those that came across as disturbing. All my explanations of why I made the decisions I did feel like excuses. It's a sour taste in my mouth. One thing was certainly true of his expression.

Whoever this man was, if he was even real, he wasn't all there. So I waited until the tapping, which I now knew to be clacking, stopped. I waited an additional ten minutes before peering around the frame of the door, although I felt little relief when I saw he was gone. I ran to my bed and immediately texted my best friend, the only one I ever confided in about the noises I would hear, and settled in to wait out the remaining four hours until sunrise. I felt safety in the pattern that had been established, and indeed nothing happened to me that night. Sharing all this makes me feel like an idiot as I think of my choices. At the time, though, I knew the police wouldn't be able to do anything without actual evidence,

and I still wasn't convinced that it wasn't in my head. Still, I should have gotten out. Found a place to stay for a few days at least while I figured it all out. Instead, I begged my friend to stay the night. I figured we could stay up and keep out of sight in my little alcove and play tabletop games until the noise started. By this point, the noise of his gnashing teeth was happening so frequently that I knew there was a good chance that if it really was a stranger climbing up to my window,

it would happen again that night. If it was in my head, I would finally know for sure. If not, knowing how calm my friend was, I thought that maybe he could snap a picture of the man and we could at least get some proof that I wasn't losing my mind. By this point, my friend thought I was just hearing things, given my past paranoia, and agreed to stay the night in order to assuage my fears.

He was my best friend, my family. That was the last night I ever saw him. We played games late into the night, but he was unused to being up at odd hours. and ended up falling asleep at around midnight. I stayed up and waited, and finally at 303 a.m., I heard it. I had never felt so tense as I shook my friend awake

and indicated that he should keep quiet. I knew the moment he heard the tap. The sound of teeth clicking together through my closed window. His face went through a series of expressions. Disbelief, worry, and then finally, determination. He grabbed his phone and stood up, stepping around the small wall that partitioned off my bed without any sign of hesitation. I'll never forget the sound that the man outside the window made.

It was a shriek of agony or excitement, I don't know. It certainly took my friend aback, and before he could bring up his phone to take a picture, The sound abruptly cut off. I rushed over to the window and saw that the man was gone. He must have cut across the side of the house because I couldn't see a sign of him. And although it was a long fall, he could have easily jumped down to the porch awning below

and from there dropped the ten-odd feet to the ground. I had thought about getting out that way a million times before. I could tell how shook up my friend was. He never thought this was real. Something about his expression was off. And no matter how many times I questioned him, he refused to tell me what he saw, other than confirming that he had seen a man on the other side of the glass.

We decided to wait it out until daylight, seeing as we didn't have a lot to go on. And in the morning, we would go to the police and tell them what we knew, which was not a lot. Honestly, I didn't even know if what was occurring, could be considered a crime. Once the sun had risen and the stranger had remained out of sight,

seemingly gone for the day, my friend declared he was going to go home and change and let his work know he would be late. Then he would head back over and pick me up and we would go down to the station. He lived close, so he said that it would be 30 minutes at most. He was never the punctual type,

so after 35 minutes, I wasn't too concerned. After 40, with no word, I began to call, and after an hour with no response, I had dialed 9-1-1. I must have seemed hysterical on the phone, but the tired operator still tried to treat me with sympathy. She told me that, unfortunately, there was nothing they could do until my friend had been gone at least 24 hours, and that without any evidence of actually, being stalked, they wouldn't be able to do anything for me. She did ask for my address and told me she would have patrol cars pass by more frequently for the next few nights. It was a cold comfort.

At that point, I knew the man must have somehow gotten to my friend. His car had been broken into before. It was one of those older models, and I knew that if I was really being watched, it would have been easy to see my friend pull up at the start of the night. A lot of people, especially guys, don't tend to look in their backseat every time they get into their car. We all think we're safe until we aren't. I called out from work and spent the day driving around the city, going to my friend's apartment, his job, anywhere I thought he might be. I ended up circling around the city for hours in search of his car, but I couldn't find anything. Once the sun started setting, I headed back home.

Here's the thing. I don't have the best relationship with my mother. As soon as I could, I moved away. I never kept many close friends, and after dealing with some medical bills, I don't have a lot of money to my name. I'm sure I could have figured something out, maybe found a quiet spot to sleep in my car, or even reach out to one of the countless,

Facebook friends I saw around but never really got close to. He was the only real family I had left, though, and I am angry. I don't have much else to live for, and I just get so tired of being so afraid. It's exhausting to live your life mistrustful of the darkness that lingers in the corner, to feel as if at any moment something seeks to do you harm. He disappeared yesterday, and as I wait here in my dark apartment, the TV playing softly in the background, I try not to think of what happened to my friend and the part I played in it, or of the pained hunger in the man's face as he stared at where he knew I would be asleep. Most of all, I try not to think of the horrible, distorted quality that his face.

jaw had. I thought it was just my paranoia, but I could have sworn that in the darkness, I saw his mouth stretch wider and wider with each clack of his teeth. A grotesque maw set against a shadowed face. Finally, after hours of waiting, I can hear it. It's a very faint, metronomic sound. And if I didn't know what it was, I would almost think it was soothing a firm latch. Most of us want to live a good long life and try to take care of ourselves. But in this tale from author Jackson Loughlin, we meet a man whose secret for a long life comes not from looking after himself as much as it does from looking for others. Joining me for this tale is Erica Sanderson.

So let's learn of the man's choice when he realizes I could live forever or I could die tomorrow. There are reminders of death everywhere I turn. The sterile smell of freshly clean sheets, the steady beeping of my heartbeat monitor, the quiet sobbing that seems to drift in and out of the east, I see you. Yet even among these reminders of mortality, I find myself thinking about life, in particular, the life that I've lived. I'm not very useful these days. My legs don't work much.

I don't hear or see too well either. Most of the time I'm too stiff or sore to do anything except lie here and think. But my mind is still sharp. I suppose it's finally my time. I could try and prolong my suffering another year or two, but I don't know if it's possible. Even if it is, I'm not sure if it's worth it. Life's simple pleasures become less pleasurable

when you've done them all a time or two. Nowadays, telling stories about my life is all I'm good for. My voice box still works and my fingers can still pick up a pen, so as long as there's a willing ear or a set of open eyes, I have something to keep me going. There isn't much inspiration in this lonely hospital room, but I still have my memories to be my muse. This isn't my first day in the hospital.

Of course, hospitals are much different now than they used to be. But even in the 1870s, we had an idea of what cancer was and how you treated it. The words malignant tumor weren't widely used back then, but the idea was the same. If the doctor said you were going to die, then you were going to die. going to die. I was fairly lucky. I was wealthy enough to try every treatment option there was, but the tumors growing in my stomach were essentially inoperable. Apart from the endless prayer and pseudoscience popular at the time, all treatment options were eliminated within the first year. But I was stubborn in the way that only a rich man can be, so I never stopped.

stopped searching. In what was supposed to be my last month on this earth, April 1876, I found my cure. It came to me in the form of a young woman. She was one of my nurses. Her name was Victoria. She took a liking to me in her time at my bedside. I'll admit that I took a liking to her to her as well. One evening as we sat alone in my bedchamber, she told me she knew a way to cure my disease. It would be quite easy to do if I would do her one favor. And what's that, my dear? Leave your wife. Marry me. I was a desperate man in desperate times. I figured I was either going to leave my wife. I was either going to leave my wife, via death or leave my wife via adultery didn't make much of a difference to me.

There's a woman in my life now who reminds me of Victoria. She's the only one who still visits me. Her name is Mary Beth, but she tells me just to call her Mary. Before I was in this hospital bed, she was my neighbor. She lived in a little house just down the store. straight from me with her husband and a newborn daughter. They were a nice family. They did all the things my body had grown too feeble to do on my own, like mowing the lawn and shoveling the snow. Her husband passed away last year.

Oh, I hated to see Marybeth cry, but when you got to go, you've got to go. Hmm, where was I? Oh yes, yes, Victoria. She wheeled me out of that hospital and down to the lower side of town. That's where her family lived. Her home appeared small and the lawn outside was full of strange foreign statues and ornaments. She led me through the inside of her home, past numerous family members. There seemed to be more people staying in that home than the space would allow. Every time I thought I had met the last of her relatives, another pair of cousins or siblings would come around the corner to greet me. At last she brought me to a large bedroom at the back of the house. There was no door, just a simple white sheet that hung in the doorway.

On the other side sat a giant bed, far too opulent to be in a place like this. Propped against the headboard of the bed was a little old man. He was covered in deep wrinkles and his eyes were white with cataracts. Victoria said something to him in a language I've never heard before, nor heard since. He nodded his head slowly. Then she spoke again. Father, this man is terminally ill.

He has cancer, but we are in love. The old man groaned again in the unrecognizable language. Victoria hesitated, but just for a moment. Father, I know you're on the verge of death. You've lived a long life. I know that you can choose when to pass. Pass on your gift. I stared at the old man in silent confusion.

Victoria hadn't mentioned any of this to me beforehand. The old man considered silently for a while. Then he and Victoria spoke in their language for a long time. After a few minutes, she wheeled me to his bedside. The old man reached out his hand. and took my own. He looked at Victoria and muttered some words. He wants you to lean in so he can pass on his gift. I did as she said. Her father leaned forward and put his lips on my forehead. All at once I felt a surge of electricity jolt through my body. It was an indescribable feeling,

all at once painful and pleasurable. Then a moment later, the old man was gone. His body lay in a heap at the edge of the bed. I felt healthier than I had felt in years. Victoria told me we had to leave before the rest of her relatives knew what had happened. That's the first time I ever fed. I ate that old man's soul then and there.

My cancer went away. I felt younger than I ever had before. Victoria and I ran away for a time. We traveled the country on my savings and explored all the hidden and wonderful things that most people never have the chance to see. Oh, I would love to tell you the stories of the adventures we had together

but I don't think this is the time or the place. After 11 months together, I began to feel ill once again. My cancer returned in full force. Victoria had known that this was coming, and she told me that I must feed again. You're living on borrowed time, John. Am I going to die? Not if we can help it.

What do I? do, Victoria. You need to feed again. She took me to a hospital, just like the one I'm in now. We found an old man who had been involved in a nasty mining accident. All four of his limbs had been crushed. Even if he had lived, he'd most likely spend his life as a quadriplegic. Instead, I planted a gentle kiss on his forehead and sucked that life straight out of

him. It left a dusty, dry taste on my tongue. I wonder how many times I've fed. Usually I only need to once a year. But if a person is too weak, then whatever I get from them won't last me that long. The symptoms will come back in just a few months. I believe I've fed at least 150 times. That's 150 lives I've taken. Most of them were people that were already doomed. The elderly, the mentally ill, the suicidal. Occasionally, I tried to do the world a favor and feed on someone who really deserved it. There were a few rapists, an abuser, here and there.

A few years ago, I fed on a man who was a suspected serial. killer. Oh, his life left a horrible taste in my mouth. It tasted like bleach. But sometimes I've had to feed on people that didn't deserve it. If it had been too long since my last meal, then I had to make do with what I could find. I tried not to think about those people. Those aren't stories that I like to tell. When her husband died, Marybeth asked me if I had ever been in love. She was still dressed in her black funeral gown. She had come over to visit me and tell me about the service. Her face was still wet with tears.

Oh, yes, yes, once upon a time, a long time ago. I never loved the woman. I was married to before Victoria. She had married me for my money. Victoria would have given anything to be with me. It was she I truly loved. We had several children together. We watched them grow up. As the days went on, her hair went gray and she developed wrinkles like her fathers. But I stayed young as long as I fed. Eventually our children grew old and moved out on their own. Victoria progressed into her old age, but I stayed the same.

People began to notice. John, you don't look a day over 30. Wow, what's your secret? Why, they're going to say Victoria's a cradle robber. Oh, but I knew if I stayed around for too long, people would start to talk. They'd wonder why a man who should have been in his 60s looked 30 years younger than his wife.

Besides that, Victoria had grown ill. She developed a cancer of her own, but of the brain rather than the stomach. It left her once beautiful mind in shambles. On a good day, she barely remembered who she was. on a bad day she couldn't even dress herself there was little keeping me in that world so i ran away and started a new life somewhere else but before i did i took my beautiful victoria out of her suffering i figured that this way she'd always be with me her life tasted like strawberries it kept kept me young for almost two years.

Sometimes Marybeth asks me to tell her about what it was like when I grew up. I can't tell her about my real childhood because it was almost 150 years ago. So instead I invent stories about the lives I could have lived. She believes them, why wouldn't she? She has no idea how old I really am. I think she must suspect I'm in my 70s. The feeding doesn't bring the youthful appearance back as much as it used to. No matter whom I eat or how much, I still look older that I once did.

I feel older as well. My joints are sore and my eyesight is going. The age is catching up with me. very slowly. I've lived many different lives. I've seen every country I've ever wanted to see. I tried multiple professions, although it seems the only one I ever really had a knack for was traveler. There isn't anything left in this world that I haven't done. The thought of living yet another life seems to bore me now. For the majority of lives, I've tried to keep a family close by.

I've sired countless children with countless different wives. But every time the children grow up and the women grow old, I stay younger than they do and I have to leave. Some of these women I abandoned without a trace. Some of them I used to prolong my own life. When I noticed that I was actually, aging, albeit at a snail's pace, I tried to keep others close to me. I couldn't travel anymore, so their company became my only form of entertainment. Besides, if I ever needed to feed,

then I had someone nearby whose life I could take. Throughout the years, I've run out of people to keep close to me. The ones I haven't fed on have grown old or or moved away. Although I have children, they are all much too old to even consider the idea of their father still being alive. Mary Beth and her family have been the only ones in my life for the last few years. They're good company, but I couldn't bear to lose them. They're all I have. I'd rather die than be alone. When their baby girl, was born, I was overjoyed. It had been years since I'd gotten to help raise a baby. I loved all my children, even if I had to abandon most of them. That baby needed someone as experienced as me

to take care of it. Oh, I know she did. That's why I had to do what I did to marry Beth's husband. Scott was a wonderful fellow, but when he told me that he was going to move Mary and their daughter across the country, I just couldn't have that. I didn't care about his new job and how wonderful an opportunity it was. Mary Beth was all I had left, and I was not about to see her go. Scott's life tasted like salt. Mary thinks he had a heart attack, but I know the truth. Oh, she was heartbroken when she found his body. It was hard on me to see her that way.

I haven't fed a day since that day. Seeing her like that broke my heart. As I've considered all of this, I've grown sad to die. I can feel it in my bones. though, tomorrow's the day. I think Mary Beth knows it too. She's been at my bedside all day. She tells me between tears that she loves me. She thanks me for all I've done for her family. Oh, of course, I thank her right back. She's been a wonderful neighbor and friend to me. It pains my heart to think about

How sad she'll be when I pass on She would be destroyed And after all she's done for me I'm not sure I can do that to her It would be so inconsiderate I would gladly feed and prolong my life if I could For her sake of course She needs me, you know.

There's no one left who would work. Only Mary Beth would get that close to me. Scott's already gone, and I don't have anyone else that would let me get my face close enough to feed on them. I'm too tired and diseased to get out of bed. The nurses wouldn't come close enough. The doctors don't even bother with me anymore. All I have left is Mary Beth and her daughter. Oh, I couldn't.

Could I? I mean, it's not like she could resist. She's too small. My body may be feeble, but it wouldn't take much to lift that infant close enough to feed. Oh, it would be over in an instant. Mary Beth asked me to watch the baby while she goes downstairs to get a coffee, so I have a few minutes to think about it. She'd be sad at first, but she could always have another one.

Oh, there are plenty more men in the world who could help her with that. and then I would be able to stay in her life. That would make her happy, right? Oh, it's a tough decision. I could die tomorrow or I could stay a while longer. Oh, it's staring at me with those big blue eyes. They're practically overflowing with life. Why, I bet it has enough life in that chubby body to sustain me for several years.

I wonder what it would taste like. There are many tales, both legends and factual, about the nightmarish world of the Paris catacombs. But as shared by author Ash P., a found document highlights what two archaeologists attempted to discover in those dark tunnels. Performing this tale are David Alt and James Cleveland, so we can only hope the story in question is a hoax, the one revealed when my friend found a manuscript. A friend of mine is an urban explorer.

He goes to some weird-ass places. He's done Chernobyl, tour at abandoned shopping centers and theme parks across the world. technically he's committing crimes a lot of the time although he sees them as victimless he's only putting himself at risk by going to these places so to play safe he wants to stay anonymous for this one of his favourite haunts is the maze of tunnels underneath the city of paris he says they're monitored by police or security guards or something like that

but that there's only ever four or five of them down there at any given time there's hundreds maybe thousands thousands of miles of tunnels, so he likes to pretend he's in some sort of assassin's creed-style game and stalk the guards without them noticing. I'll try not to judge. I mean, people are going to get their kicks wherever. But last week he found something. He was apparently in one of the more roughly quarried section of the catacombs,

chased out of familiar territory by a guard who caught sight of him when he saw this. I've been given a scan of the manuscript. It's a bit heavy going in places. As for when it was written, your guess is as good as mine. I just hope this is some elaborate hoax. Otherwise, well, fuck. Anyway, here it is. Forgive the haste of these passages for I must work diligently to make my final act

the inscription of the events of the past few hours, and what little I understand of the discoveries preceding them, before my remaining light gives out, and I am lost to the annals of time. If any civilization remains to read this, please forgive the part I have played in unleashing whatever chaos is presently upon the world. My name is Dr. Harold Flint, and with my associate Dr. Adrian Cole, I had ventured into these catacombs with purely the most benevolent of archaeological intentions. I was Cole's apprentice while I studied beneath him for my postgraduate qualifications, in awe,

of the man's insight and intellect since we first crossed paths some twenty years hence. When I graduated and took up my present position at Oxford, the two of us remained in close communication and academic collaboration. Several years ago, Dr. Cole made some rather audacious claims at a conference, marrying our chosen field of archaeology with theoretical physics and ancient philosophy, with the gathered minds shooting him down quite severely. Undeterred, or most likely spurred on by their disapproval, he spurned human connections entirely until two months ago, suddenly emerging from his self-imposed exile

and publishing a paper entitled The Potom Tao, or Mankind's Echo Through Time. Widely regarded as the ravings of a genius tipped over the borderline to insanity, it was his Mona Lisa, his personal Sistine Chapel. Dr. Cole had publicly stood by what he wrote, his university had dismissed him. I had publicly dismissed what he wrote, my university stood by me.

Nevertheless, he reestablished discursive contact with me, and I, for my part, was more receptive than most. From what I could decipher of his fairly incomprehensible speech, he had been trawling through historical documents to track the movement of a specific artifact, a relic believed to be the source of as wide a variety, of powers and phenomena as there were cultures who claimed at some point in time to be in possession of it. Dr. Cole quoted such a plethora of scriptures. It seemed apt to compare its legacy to that

of the Holy Grail, whereof most accounts are fiction, fancy and falsehood distilled from that rarest brain of genuine truth. It was this grain that Dr. Cole claimed to have tracked down, having chased it through academia from the sands of Arabia to the Tibetan plateaus, and it is to this very spot he traced its journey. Supposedly predating even the Babylonians and Samarians, this particular relic had found its way to Europe through the common medieval practice of trading and thieving search articles, before being sealed off in the chamber adjacent to where this note will have been discovered.

Surrounded here by the bones of countless Parisians, I can hardly think of a more appropriate, resting place. Indeed, here it should well have remained untouched and silent in its vigil, as I undoubtedly will. We had arrived here some three days previous after a challenging and disorienting journey through the murky depths of these catacombs. Preparing for what we thought was the worst-case scenario, we had packed enough water and canned food to last us for two days with enough torchlight to see me through hopefully until this account has been pent. We carried with us to radio communicators, one of which has been sat unresponsive by my side for the greater part of

24 hours. To my acute despair, I cannot account for the present whereabouts of Dr. Cole. All I know and what little I understand of precisely what occurred following the chamber's discovery will follow. The door itself, as you may observe, appears to be a rectangular construction of chiseled quartz, gleaming with a once polished luster at odds with the dull stone surrounding it, and barely larger than the frame of an average man. There is no obvious mechanism for its release, and Dr. Cole shared with me little of the strategy he employed in its opening, yet open it he nevertheless did. He had lain his hands on either side of the block roughly equidistant from its center,

and uttered something in a dialect I did not recognize, but which my untrained ear would approximately transcribe as Hawaii Shah Poultram Tao. Aside from the nomenclature of the artifact itself, I can neither claim to understand the phrase nor its implication, but upon this utterance a deep rumble began behind the door. A century or so of dust and grime shaken free into a coarse choking cloud in its manipulation by unseen mechanisms.

As we both retreated in simultaneous spasmodic fits coffee, the quartz entrance slid upwards, revealing a precisely carved but bare passage, the darkness within seemingly thicker and heavier than that which surrounded us. Any explorers without our zest and zeal would likely have been perturbed, or at the very least discouraged from the idea of entering the narrow hallway, extending before us well beyond the reach of our torchlight. Something about its geometry seemed at odds with itself. It may have been a trick of the dim light, but the walls seemed at once impossibly straight and gradually twisted, as if a steady spiral began at the entrance and continued to some indistinguishable depth.

At the same time, however, there was a deliberate precision in their carving, and I regret being sufficiently qualified in neither mathematics nor engineering to discern any meaning or purpose behind our observations. In hindsight, we should have retreated and returned with a varied team of academics at a later point to conduct a thorough analysis. With such hindsight, however, we never should have opened the door in the first place. Nevertheless, Dr. Cole and I had already discussed our procedure should the entrance be uncovered, so that we would not act in panic or be overwhelmed by a range of feelings and emotions that even now still roll within my bowel. I am struck by a profound sense of awe that, in spite of my lack of comprehension, shook my rudimentary understanding of the world and made me question all which I had previously held dear and true. More distressing, though, is the veil of dread that clings to my sweat, slick skin,

and dwells deep and heavy within my core. He had entered, then, taking with him a torch and one of the two radios, leaving me at the ingress. I watched in equal excitement and apprehension as his silhouette against the torchlight faded into the distant darkness, leaving the orange glow to dim and die behind him. We carried with each of us a pocket watch, and I was to check on him at intervals of exactly 60 seconds.

This I did, and his regular responses reassured me that he was making good progress along the tunnel and could not yet see any form of chamber or opening. We discussed the subtle illusion of the spiral, which seemed still as prevalent as he continued through the passageway. A full 15 minutes had passed by, and we had moved to discuss the futility of the exercise. Our radios were presumably reaching the end of their receptive distance,

with a harsh, crackling interference distorting our voices, and I had only just suggested making my way along the chiseled corridor behind him, when he let out a cry of what I thought to be distress, but soon discovered to be elation. His torchlight had caught the end of the passage, and he was excitedly making his way into the chamber that awaited. I hesitated, unable to make out what he was saying over the static, before informing him that, contrary to our agreed procedure, I was following. Over my shoulder I could still make out the rectangular entrance

when Dr. Cole's voice filtered back into a relative clarity over the radio and I halted my advance. He had been describing the room he found himself in with an unrestrained and unabashed excitement gushing gleefully about a floor of concentric circles, pillars upon pillars and intricate timeless carvings of the language in which he had spoken earlier. It was a marvellous sight. he explained, the scale of the place thus that he could not make out the surrounding walls for the sheer number of gargantuan ceiling supports. The centrepiece of it all, he related, was a lustrous

altar, possibly a sarcophagus, carved from some blue mineral that partially reflected the light of his torch to dazzling effect. It was as he approached the azure altar that he ceased responding to my requests for contact. I was anxiously glancing from the face of my timepiece to the oppressive darkness of the tunnel before me and back again, my heart thudding to be free of my chest with every passing minute. I rationalized that perhaps in his advancement through such a massive chamber he may have moved further out of range of the radium. Stealing myself, I set off once again after my colleague. I had called out four of my minute-by-minute alerts before I heard his voice once again, still broken by the persistent interference, but undoubtedly tinged with panic.

Come no further, come no further, turn back. Having advanced thus far into the tunnel, I did not heed his warnings, picking up my pace to try and clear the signal, pressing him for a reason, an explanation, asking him what in God's name was happening. In spite of my concern, he neglected to answer, redoubling his pleas for my retreat, his voice strained through anguished sobs. Entrance, place your hands on either side of the door and sealed this away. This utterance stopped me in my tracks, the honest intensity in his voice chilling me. I had still been rushing to his aid. He was clearly a need of assistance, and I was the only one point.

to assist, yet in practical terms. If we would certainly both be in danger, it was not worth the entire expedition meeting our fate down here with no warning left to would-be explorers, with no indication of our whereabouts for the discovery and internment of our bodies. I prefer to think of this moment pragmatically, for the greater good, but it was more than likely an unforgivable compound of cowardice and terror that invoked my steady backwards retreat. I was still calling out to Dr. Cole as the radios flickered in and out of signal, still begging to know why, pleading with him to tell me what he saw. I still hoped to see the glow of his torch following me back along the passage, still prayed for his safe keeping.

The sounds emanating from my radio in response were not reassuring in the least, the occasional sharp breath, a grunt of effort, a cry of alarm. His final words to me came through in a moment of surprising clarity, as if he had been by my side the entire time. Yet they will stay weighing my conscience down until my dying breath, confounding and terrifying me even beyond. That was all I needed to turn tail and break out into as close as the narrow passage would permit to a sprint for the entrance. As my torchlight flashed unsteadily around me, I am truly ashamed and emasculated to admit that I stumbled, the wall stealing the skin from my elbow on my brief journey to the floor of the corridor, the darkness enveloping me in the relieving embrace of

unconsciousness. I awoke in a shallow puddle of crimson, a deep gash on my forehead still leaking the liquid. Bleary and unsteady, I clambered to my feet. I was. feet and exited the passageway, slumping to the ground and questioning whether what had transpired was reality or the nightmarish product of concussion. I needed to write this down to make sure to check for the sake of my sanity whether I feel I am drawing more from fact or fancy. In inscribing this, I am increasingly sure of the tangibility of what transpired, in gazing around at the musty catacombs I feel ever more fearfully rooted in the real. Dr. Cole has been lost, somewhere within that dreaded tunnel.

Two hours had passed between the discovery of the chamber and my revival, so it was entirely plausible to me that he made good his escape, passing my prone foreman leaving me for dead. Yet, as the entrance was unsealed, the implication was more dire than I dared accept. I waited by the open door, calling out on the radio a hundred times or more, tears mixing with the blood that still rolled down my cheek. As I felt I might be giving into

mania to Mirage, I saw a dim glow from deep within the tunnel, growing gradually in intensity. My hopes surged my logic overwhelmed by optimism. I should have known that, should Dr. Cole be making his way back to me with torch in hand, the light would have been yellow. I may not have been thinking straight when I assumed my colleague's radio had been broken, but that he was here now, pressing forth out of the passage accompanied by a soft blue light. I was freely weeping with joy at this sight, on my hands and knees in the entryway, screaming his name with the enthusiasm of an asylum committal. There was a figure there I was sure of it, making its way along the corridor, growing nearer and nearer, silent but clearly drawn by my shouts.

In a moment of startling lucidity, something slotted into place in my mind, or rather fell out of place. I stood in an instant, my hands at either side of the door all my optimism drained from me as I prayed that this was all there was to sealing off the chamber, as Dr. Cole had implied. Sure enough, that reassuring grind of stone against stone sounded, the massive block of quartz sliding back into place. The blue glow I was being bathed with being cut off to a band across my legs, then gone. The catacombs were silent around me, save for the furious panting of my breath, the air dripping with an atmosphere heavy enough to bury me alive. It slowly sunk in that I had sealed my companions. companion, my friend, my mentor inside, this place of marvel and discovery turning into his tomb.

We had failed on our quest, a quest for something I did not fully understand, and the only man who did understand our pursuit and its objective was entombed with it. I dreaded making my way back to the surface, explaining this to the police to Dr. Coles, albeit a strange to family. No matter which way I twisted it in my head I was responsible for his fate. I had plenty of opportunity to rush to his aid, and I had left him to die. I had killed him, and there was no denying my culpability. It was only as I was cradling my bruised and battered ego that I reminisced on the instance of my fall. It was inexcusable, utterly unforgivable, since I had more than enough light to see by, not just the torchlight which I kept steadily in front of me,

but the faint blue glow illuminating my panic-stricken footsteps. The wind of realization blew me away. I was not alone in my retreat. Something had caught up with me. Something had pushed me, had made its way past me. Something had escaped. Something that had lain inside that chamber for centuries. trees, perhaps even longer. Something of unspeakable power and influence, something untainted by the

passing eons. As my torch dies, I must describe the observation that instilled the panic I experienced directly before sealing away what I thought was the only inhabitant of this sacred tomb. Why, I would most likely be deemed a sufferer of some concussion-induced dementia. The figure bathed in blue light was certainly humanoid at least, even if its limbs were disproportionate in their elongation. But the geometry of the corridor itself had suddenly made a bizarre sort of sense to me when I realized, in profound horror, that the figure was inverted. It walked smoothly and purposefully towards me, its head a few inches from the floor, its feet progressing steadily along the ceiling of the passage. I cannot bring this tale to the surface world.

I can only sit clinging to the futile hope that someone discovers me and by proxy this note. Until then, I shall remain here praying that the hammering and pleading I can still hear behind the quartz is not that of my colleague. But another mere illusion of my exhausted mind. I shall rest a while here. attempt to ignore the screams. For time in our netherworld as to move back into your own reality. If you would like to find out

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at the No Sleep Podcast, we thank you for listening. Join us again next week when our unseen hands will 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.