The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast S8E15

Episode Date: February 5, 2017

It's episode 15 of Season 8. On this week's show we have four tales about dark entities that dwell deep within. "The Truth of the Thornton House"† written by Michael Marks and performed by Dan Zappulla. (Story starts around 00:02:40) "The Fetal Position"† written by Marcus Damanda and performed by Mike DelGaudio & Nikolle Doolin & Corinne Sanders. (Story starts around 00:29:40) "Two Facts You Should Probably Know"† written by Henry Galley and performed by David Ault & Oliver Gyani & Erika Sanderson. (Story starts around 01:01:10) "All Roads Go Somewhere"‡ written by Renea Reasoner and performed by Jesse Cornett & Nikolle Doolin. (Story starts around 01:31:10) 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 NoSleep Podcast Twitter page  Click here for the NoSleep Podcast Facebook page  Click here to learn more about Michael Marks  Click here to learn more about Marcus Damanda  Click here to learn more about Henry Galley  Executive Producer & Host: David Cummings Musical score composed by: Brandon Boone. Additional music for "All Roads Go Somewhere" provided by Nic Oppenheimer Audio adaptations produced by: Phil Michalski† & Jeff Clement‡ "The Truth of the Thornton House" illustration courtesy of Lukasz Godlewski Audio 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. It's the no sleep podcast. It's the no sleep podcast. I'm David Cummings. Thanks for joining us. On this week's show, we have four tales about dark entities that dwell deep within. With the start of our sleepless live tour, mere days away now, it's the perfect time to remind

everyone to follow us on social media. During the tour, we'll be absolutely flooding it with lots of tour updates, photos, videos, maybe even some periscope sessions. We'll try anything and everything to get our horrifying faces in front of yours. We'll probably be most active on Twitter, so follow us there to keep up to date with us on tour. On Twitter, we're at No Sleep Podcast. We're also on Facebook at facebook.com slash no-slape podcast.

And if you check our page there, you'll find a link to a newly created fan run, No Sleep Podcast Group, where you can connect with other No Sleep fans and even talk about us behind our backs. So find us where you can online, and we'll do what we can to spread the sights, sounds, and smells of the sleepless live tour. And now that we've gotten all social with you, it's time to become menacing again as we start this week's show. In our first tale, we encounter one of our favorite places, a reportedly haunted house. But as we learn from author Michael Marks, the haunting in question isn't up for much skeptical debate. No one, certainly not the paranormal investigator in this tale, have any doubts that this house is one to.

avoid. Performing this tale is Dan Zapula. So here are the hard-cold facts, if you will, it's the truth of the Thornton House. I know how crazy this sounds, but this is how almost everyone starts off their claim that they witness something paranormal. And I should know, considering between the years of 2012 and 2013, I conducted over 60 interviews with people who claim to have some sort of supernatural experience. Folks, I heard it all. Aliens, ghosts, demons, shapeshifters, skinwalkers, possession, extra-dimensional beings, and every last bit of it was bullshit as far as I was concerned.

But I was researching a book. The premise was that I'd go around the country and visit supposed sites of paranormal activity and do my best to debunk the claims that were made there, for the ones that I didn't dismiss outright any. And trust me when I say that there were plenty of them that were very, very easy to dismiss outright. One lady told me that goblins had been stealing her cigarettes. Suffice to say that I didn't investigate that one. In the course of that year, I gathered a pretty good amount of material, though, everything from poor foundations and old piping to drug use,

to uncovering lies and false claims from scam artists. And I came to find out that humans are capable of tricking themselves into believing all manners of crazy things. But I never experienced anything myself. At least, not until the last case that I took on. The Thornton House. That place was not like the others. There was no scam, no misidentification, no hallucinations. That place was, well, it was just wrong in every way imaginable.

So now I have my own story to tell. I'm going to tell you. I know how crazy this sounds, but the Thornton House is evil. It started with a tip that I was given by my publisher, that there was a man in Arkansas that had recently been institutionalized with paranoid schizophrenia. He had been found naked and carving crude symbols into his skin with a worn-out kitchen knife behind a local grocery store.

Police and doctors had sorted through his ramblings to find that he'd been a transient for the last 10 years, and the week prior to his discovery, he had decided to squat in the Thornton House, as it had been abandoned since the early 90s. Now, the man claimed that there were people hiding in the walls, and beneath the floorboards, who would appear and disappear just as quickly. And even more than that, he claimed that there was something alive beneath the house, and that everyone was in danger. Now, despite the man's clearly deteriorated mental state, police did investigate the Thornton House

and found pagan symbols carved into the walls, symbols very similar to what the man had cut into his own skin. The officers also reported hearing nearly inaudible voices, but were unable to locate the source, as well as a generally uneasy feeling. Apparently shortly after a team of local paranormal researchers attempted to study the house, only to flee three hours into their investigation, claiming that the site was, quote, too dangerous. This team of paranormal researchers claimed that their cameraman was thrown from the second floor through an old railing

and broke his ribs and collarbone in the process. Now, I felt it was far more likely that they had a terrible accident in a worn-down old house and the team decided to capitalize on it for recognition. My publishers and I attempted to line up. up interviews with those who had claimed to have had experiences in the house. The officers declined our request, and the paranormal researchers asked for a large payment to the exclusive rights to their full story, giving some credence to my theory that they weren't

exactly on the level. And sadly, the transient man had passed away shortly after I became aware of the case. The official reports claim that he had a poor reaction to a sedative that they used to calm him during one of his frequent psychotic episodes, and he seized and died exactly two months after setting foot into the Thornton House. Our attempts to get interviews with people connected to the house were not entirely fruitless, though, as through research I was able to track down the owner of the house, Tyler Thornton. He was living in Los Angeles and working in finance, and he gave me permission to investigate the house. And frankly, I think we were the first person to ask, as he seemed, it was kind of shocked that

anyone would even have any interest. And he agreed to a short phone interview. Now, apparently, the house had been passed to him after his father's death from cancer in 1993. He claimed he hadn't been back to Arkansas since the time he left home at the age of 17. He told me that his mother had passed away shortly after he was born. and his father grew increasingly cruel as time went on. Eventually, Tyler ran away from Arkansas with his then-girlfriend to California, and he never looked back, not even for his father's funeral.

He had attempted to sell the house a couple of times, but the thing had been in such disrepair that no buyer ever stayed on the line for long. Oftentimes, a single walk-through was all it would take to ensure they would get cold feet before putting down any money. I can remember the way his voice shook as he said those words, as if he knew something about the house he was scared to tell me. Even if he had attempted to dissuade me, though, I wouldn't have listened to him. The idea that everyone seemed so terribly terrified of this property only fueled my desire

to prove that it was nothing more than wood and plaster, with a legend fueled by atmosphere and overactive imaginations. Even as he ominously told me to be careful before he hung a lot of. up the phone. My nerves stayed steady and my mind stayed resolute. I booked my trip to Arkansas that night with plans to stay three nights in the Thornton House, just as I had every other murder site and abandoned asylum that I had visited. This place didn't even have that kind of history, though, from my interview I'd found out that no one had ever died in the house to Tyler's knowledge. His father died in a hospital in Little Rock after collapsing in a local park. He'd been expected

to be on bed rest at home, but it was assumed that he was delirious. When the paramedics got to him, he was mumbling nonsense, according to their official reports. I was confident that this would be yet another three nights of listening to the wind and banging on old pipes. Look, I'd seen enough strings of strange occurrences lead to nothing to not expect anything more than that. But much to my own surprise, I didn't remain in that house through the first night. I remember my first approach to the house, which was isolated at the end of a dirt road. The nearest neighbor was roughly a mile back the way I'd come. Not exactly the ends of the earth, but certainly enough out of the way that it added to the atmosphere, especially at dusk.

From the outside, it looked to be in reasonably good shape. The paint was chipped and faded, but it was hardly the rotting pile of wood that Tyler made it seem like. So I grabbed my phone, my notepad, and the keys that I'd picked up from the real her that morning, and I walked across the overgrown lawn towards the front door. I could see streaks of blood around the door handle and running across the porch banister. I recalled that in the police report, the transient man had been bleeding quite badly when they found him, so I deduced the blood was likely his. I made sure to snap a few pictures before unlocking the front door and proceeding inside the house. Now look, I'm not saying my whole view

of the world changed as soon as I crossed the threshold of the Thornton House. No. I will say, though, that the place had a quality about it that I didn't feel in any of the other supposedly haunted sites that I'd visited. There was a thickness in the air that immediately put pressure on your chest, an overly oppressive atmosphere and feeling of being watched by eyes that wanted you to leave. In general, the place simply felt ugly. The first night of my research was always investigating the house fully from top to bottom, learning every nook and cranny, every pipe, and every hiding spot, all the while, of course, keeping vigilant for any signs of paranormal activity that I could document. I may not have been a big believer, but I certainly was a

profession. So I shook off the weight of the air around me and I put my headphones in. I always ran through a Beatles playlist while I worked. I found the upbeat music to make the work feel a little less dower as I walked through some seriously grim places. I was vigilant though and I kept a recorder running on me at all times as to make sure any disembodied voices would be captured. Up to then, I had a whole lot of recordings of me shuffling around and occasionally singing along to let it be. But the vibe of this place, regardless of if I believed

in the paranormal aspect of it or not, made the headphones even more valuable. I clicked my flashlight on and I got to work. As per usual, I decided to work my way from the top of the house to the bottom. The house had no attic so I would be starting with the second floor

where all the bedrooms were located. I carefully climbed the rotting stairs to the tune of Here Comes the Sun and made a right turn into the hall. hallway. I could see four doors, two on my left side, one on my right, and one at the very end. Fated and damaged paintings of scenery were hung along the walls, and a few of them lay broken on the floor. I could feel glass crunching beneath my feet as I walked to the single door at the end of the hall. I brushed my fingers along the symbols that had been mentioned in the police reports and felt an odd shiver

slide down my spine. But that faded away as soon as I stood in front of the door and prepared to get to work. I was struck by the stink of mildew and rot as I pushed the door open. Beyond, I could see walls that were once white tile, now stained with mold and filth. I saw a broken toilet leaned against the wall in the left-hand corner of the room,

and a rusted old tub and sink on my left. I could barely see my reflection in the layer of scummy, film that covered the bathroom mirror as I stepped over to the sink and twisted the knob. As expected, the pipes were empty and silent. The rot was old and likely had more to do with a leaky roof than leaky pipes. I pulled out my notepad and I started jotting down my observations so far. That was when I heard it through my headphones. The chorus of Strawberry Fields Forever doing nothing to mask the sound of what seemed to like something heavy

was dragging across the wood and thudding against a wall. I dropped my notebook in the filthy sing as I tore the music from my ears at a moment of sudden surprise. My eyes widened as I looked out into the hall from beyond the open bathroom door. There was nothing there. And the house had gone silent again, aside from the faint sound of strawberry fields, giving way to can't buy me love coming from the earbud stangling from my neck. I stood frozen for a series of minutes just staring into the hall with my flashlight, waiting for something to cross into its beam, but only emptiness greeted me.

I laughed to myself and shook my head. I couldn't believe that I'd let the place get to me. It was most likely that my walking around the house had just jostled something loose, and it had fallen. I wouldn't be the least surprised if I went downstairs to find a cross beam laying across the living room floor. The place was a wreck, after all. I put my headphones back in my ears just in time to hear the last verse of Can't Buy Me Love,

and reached over to the sink to pick up my notebook. Much to my surprise, it was gone. I searched all around the sink, the wretched smell coming from the pipes and drain filling my nostrils as I ducked down and searched around to the tune of, why don't we do it in the road. the notebook had somehow vanished. I checked all my pockets again just to make sure I wasn't remembering wrong,

and then checked all around the sink one more time, just to be sure. It was on this second look that I noticed the hole in the wall. It was tucked up behind the pipes of the sink in such a way that it was easy to miss. The opening was about the size of my fist, and despite the fact that it seemed nearly impossible, I could see my little notebook folded up and sticking out of it to rest against the bend of rusted and corroded metal in front of it. I swallowed hard.

My mind filled with visions of some large yellow-toothed rat leaping from the darkness behind the wall to take a chunk out of my hand. I slid my fingers into the space between the pipes and wall, and it felt like sludge and slime had collected in the spaces that I couldn't see. I gagged a little bit as my fingers finally touched the paper, and I attempted to pull the notebook free. The song from my playlist ended, and I expected to hear Yellow Submarine or maybe While my guitar gently weeps, but instead I heard a low growl for a moment, and what sounded like someone whispered through my earbuds, in a deep voice, that almost seemed to be layered with the coat of mucus.

Just as the voice spoke, I felt something sharp. Rake across my fingertips and disappear back into the hole. I howled in pain and fell backwards onto the floor, gripping my fingers as the gurgling voice faded out. All together now kicked into its first chords as if the playlist hadn't missed a beat. The happy, upbeat swing of the song I was hearing nearly matched my racing heart as I sat there staring into the darkness of the hole. I sat up and moved closer, raising my flashlight as the song.

song sped up in the same way it always had. But this time, it seemed to be taking my heart rate with it. I asked myself, if it was out louder in my head, I surely can't remember. My light crept into the hole as slowly as I could possibly move it. At first, there was nothing, but in a pace that matched my own crawl to the truth, a single scaly, clawed digit, poked its way out of the dark and curled downward to scratch against the wood. Then another, and another. And finally, behind it, a bulbous, milky eye opened, like the eye of a rotting fish.

I leapt to my feet and scrambled backwards towards the door. I steadied myself on the doorframe for a moment, as altogether now looped in my ears. Somehow the song had stuck itself on repeat. I felt the wood of the doorframe pulsed beneath my cut fingers, and I flinched away, my mind still reeling from what I had seen beneath the sink. The cuts on my fingers had smeared blood onto the wood, blood that was now fading away as if being greedily devoured by the house itself.

I could feel the floor ripple beneath my feet as I shone my flashlight across the room. I could tell the whole room was pulsing almost to the rhythm of the song in my ears. My wounded fingers dripped blood onto the floor that was quickly absorbed into the seams between the boards as I looked on at the mad scene in complete horror. My senses screamed for my legs to move, but it suddenly felt as if my body were encased in concrete. It wasn't until sounds of things scratching behind the walls

rose up and chorus loud enough to break through altogether now. and the voice returned this time, somehow mixed in behind the music that I was able to break away. I turned and sprinted down the hallway, which seemed to be breathing. Some of the remaining paintings falling to the ground with their glass shattering in my feet. I made the turn and headed towards the stairs. The door was in my sight as the second stair from the top gave way under the weight of my body and sent me crashing through the floor.

I honestly don't remember if I had time to scream before total darkness swallowed me, and I slammed hard into the damp concrete floor of the basement, and felt rotting pieces of wood rained down on me from above. My whole body was wracked with pain. As I attempted to get to my feet, I could feel my arm hanging loose from its socket. I dislocated my shoulder. Every breath I took filled my chest with full. fire and sent a shooting pain up and down my side. My ribs were at least bruised, if not broken entirely.

On top of the more severe damage, I could feel blood running down my skin from deep cuts made by jagged boards that had caught my body on the way down. With hazy eyes, I surveyed my surroundings to see the room awash in the orange glow of lit candles upon an altar adorned with red cloth. Behind it, was some kind of occult symbol I couldn't recognize. And in my time, I'd seen many and learned their meanings. The headphones had finally fallen from my ears and could clearly hear what sounded like claws scraping the stone walls of the basement. The noise came from all around me and passed that I heard the sound of altogether now, playing at what sounded like half-tempo, like someone was slowing down a record. I pulled the phone from.

my pocket, half expecting it to be coming from the speaker now that the headphones have been detached, but the phone was smashed from the fall. The song was coming from the walls. I hunted around the room for any sign of an exit, but it was pitch black outside of the light of the candles. Hands with scaly-clodd digits like the thing in the hole grasped at me from the darkness, their bodies forming themselves from the shadows in the walls, as if they were trying to find some purchase in the real world. I could hear them scratching and whispering, and I slammed the heel of my palm against my head with my usable hand, as if that might quiet them, as if it was all in my mind. The voices of gurgling madness, half bent in rage and agony, stuck in my mind

like fish hooks being drugged across my skin. I saw things in my head as I stumbled away through the dark. Eviscerated bodies, a heart with a blade through. through it, an old man who looked sickly and pale, near death in fact, chanting. I heard the promises made to him of life everlasting. None of it was clear, but the puzzle comes together in my mind now. Tyler Thornton's father was attempting to save his own life, and he'd resorted to disturbing means to do so. Some ritual left unfinished as death caught up to him before he could see his plan through.

I snapped back to reality as I stumbled over a rusted wheelchair and into a wall. I felt the hands grasp at me and grazed their claws across my skin, and I screamed and howled as I attempted to tear myself free. I gripped at jutting stones that became hands trying to encircle my wrists, writhing humanoid torsos, half-birth and pulsing, lunge for me as I backed away, begging for freedom and screaming in total agony. I pulled free and fell backward to the floor again. The sounds and sights around me felt like they were tearing my brain apart.

And just as I thought I might lose my mind entirely, a massive pulsing eye opened on the ceiling above me. It was yellow and bulging. And as the pupil flicked madly around the room, It dripped some kind of viscous fluid down on me. It growled from within the walls. The music continued to play slowly as it repeated what it said over and over again, until the words seemed to melt together into white noise.

I frantically searched for any sign of a way out, and my heart leapt into my throat as my eyes caught sight of what looked like a scene in the darkness that let light leak through. A door, a window? It didn't matter. It was some kind of way out of the hell I was in. I managed to pull myself to my feet through sheer will and charge towards the opening. The hands clawed at my clothes and tore at my hair and skin,

the horrifying eye of whatever had become trapped in the damned house fixed on me, as I battled through what felt like a mass grave of corpses that refused to let go of life. My body struck wood, and it splintered under my weight, and I thank God for the dilapidated state of the house, for in better days I doubt I could have broken through the door in my state. I fell back to cold concrete, but I'd made it out of the room of the altar and into the basement proper. My eyes saw moonlight shining through basement windows and old shelves containing knicknats and tools collected over a lifetime, and most importantly, the stairs there are. led to freedom. I could feel eyes staring at me through cracks in the walls and hear fingers scratching and clawing at their prison of stone and rotting wood. I felt the vibrations in my chest

as some great old thing howled for freedom as the music it mimicked in such a horrifying way faded into nothingness behind its anger. I stumbled up the stairs and out of the house into the fresh air of the night. I remember weeping like a baby as I felt the cool night air in my skin and saw my car in the driveway. I ran towards it and got in without ever looking back in the direction of that damn place. Not even as I started the engine and slammed my foot down on the gas and tore down the road and as far away from that place as I could get, did I ever look back? I abandoned the book after I got out of the hospital, despite some protest from my publisher's end. I told them that after the accident I had had at the Thornton House, that crawling around old abandoned

buildings had lost any appeal to me, as there was little there to begin with. I couldn't tell them the real story, that writing a book from the point of view of someone who didn't believe when I'd seen what hides in the shadows with my own eyes was going to be impossible. So instead, I share my story here and leave you with the warning. Do not go near Thornton House, no matter if you've heard of it or know its location, no matter if you're curious or you want to see the truth for yourself. There is no good that comes from it. Only darkness and a mind left with visions of horrors and whispers in your ears that never go away. I still hear the voices in my head and see that yellowing eye bulging out from somewhere beyond this world so close to freedom.

And I still fear what happens if it ever gets what it wants. It can be heartwarming to hear those stories on the news about people who never knew they had a long-lost twin and then get reunited. But when the story comes to us from author Marcus Demanda, you know it won't be quite so sentimental. In it, we meet a man who learns that his twin wants to reunite in a most unsettling manner. Performing this tale are Mike Delgado, Nicole Doolin, and Corinne Sanders. So get comfy for this story. In fact, why not assume the fetal position. I didn't know I had an identical twin brother until earlier this month. I'd always thought I had a pretty open relationship with my family. Knowing they kept this secret from me as strange and upsetting.

It's a betrayal, willfully and deliberately carried out for 40 years, one that both of my parents are guilty of, and perhaps my older brother and sister as well. Oh, they say they never knew, my brothers and sister. I believe my little brother Bobby, John and Abby, I'm not so sure about. You know, I'd like to say that's the worst part, the broken trust. Yeah, but it isn't. That's just family bullshit, same as everyone has to deal with. I don't know what I would have done with the information. My twin brother died in utero.

Happens often enough, even today. In 1976, it would be a little. wouldn't have been unusual at all. His name would have been Lee. I've seen where they buried his casket, the little plot at Mount Castle Cemetery with the thin black marble plaque. I went there earlier today. It was the final proof, if I needed any. I'm going back there tonight with a shovel. For a living, I teach middle school English, but I still haven't given up on the dream of writing the next great American novel. I'm not married. Never have been, never want to be.

For six years now, I've lived with a Russian blue bundle of feline fur that answers to the name Constance. I was having a rough go of it a few weeks ago. One evening between Christmas and New Year's, I'd sat myself down to right, and ended up instead just staring at the blank screen for hours as though waiting for it to fill itself. The only thing full was the ashtray, and the formerly frosted beer mug was a little.

warm and slick with condensation, along with what remained of beer number seven. Constance stretched out on the chair's headrest behind me, blowing sleepy little cat breaths into my ear while I just sat there, defeated. This is me at the start of any new project. Nothing new. I'd get through it, sooner or later. I thumbed off the monitor and saw the gray reflection of myself wreathed in stagnant cigarette smoke. The waning buzz threatened to switch over to an ordinary headache at any second, and the soft escape of sleep beckoned. I lean forward, passively dislodging the cat who hopped down from the chair disgruntled, and I rested my face in my hands, a mockery of prayer. Dear God, please give me an idea. I suck at this tonight, said a voice slightly distorted,

as though it had come through the cheap computer speakers that sat at either end of the desk. It was my own voice. It took me a second to realize it, but there was no doubt. It was me. Only, I hadn't said it. My lips hadn't moved. I jerked my head back, startled, and against the dim yellow light of my living room, I saw the darkened reflection of my face in the screen smiling back at me. But I wasn't smiling. I was sure of that. You should write about killing our parents. Mom's a whore and a liar, and dad's a fucking vegetable.

Write something like that, you cunt. Something worth reading. I saw him, saw myself say it. I watched his eyes jerk up and down like he was appraising his other self through a thin sheet of gray glass that separated one reality from another. You're half dead, bro. How did you even make it, huh? I should be sitting there.

Not you. The face and the screen narrowed, and I saw myself as I might have been with a little diet and exercise, without the steady infusion of cigarettes and beer that filled the off hours of my life. Fewer gray hairs and a steady recovering sharpness in the glare of my own reflected eyes. In the screen, I almost looked my own age. I almost looked good. I stood up, reflexively, my heart pitching in cold-blooded thumps that felt like an oncoming cardiac event,

and promptly tangled up my feet in the chair and spilled myself onto the floor. The lukewarm beard and my stomach suddenly churned, and I must have spewed a pint of it onto the carpet before I'd even realized I'd bumped my head on the coffee table going down. I rolled onto my back, holding my forehead just over the right eye. knees curling up to my stomach as if I'd taken a punch to the gut. Oh, dizziness. I heard constant screech, then scramble on her soft feet from the living room. I faded.

What the hell, bro? It's just me. Get your bitch ass up. I'm trying to help you, you stupid, cunt. I realized at that moment that my first impressions had been correct. I was hearing him, myself. whatever, through the computer speakers. This, I thought, makes zero sense.

And then, curtain, darkness, sleep. The reason there are both fraternal and identical twins in this world come down to one gestational difference. Identical twins share a single placenta. There's an ongoing competition for nutrients going on and there all the time, a real sibling rivalry. Arguing over who gets the best bedroom in a new house can't even hold a candle to it. It's typical for both babies to come out the other side a little light and underfed. Very often, one never comes out at all. Fraternal twins have no such concern. I awoke,

still holding my head to the peculiar pain of Constance clawing at my stomach. I sat up, peeling my face from the vomit, drenched carpet, and brushed her off me. She crawled back onto my lab. I tried to pet her, but she was right back at it again, burrowing her claws into my midsection with the same focus and intensity she spent at her scratching posts. I had to stand to extricate myself. God, cat, what's your problem? I looked over to the computer. The monitor screen was dead and blank just as it should have been. Her reflection showed only me, the real me, with a puffy, lumpy, lumpy bruise blossoming over my eye

and half my face a mess of congealed puke. Constance hissed, not at me, though. She hissed at the half-dried carpet pond of recycled chicken caesars salad on the floor. Yeah, yeah, I'm getting to it, I thought. Chill out, pussy. I told myself it was just in my mind the way the bits of chicken seemed to twitch under my fingers as I mopped up the mess with paper towels and carpet cleaner.

That or some apartment bugs had found their way to it. Something. I don't know. I didn't look. My head was still blurry with alcohol and the injury. I'd probably concussed myself. I still felt nauseous. The next day, wearing sunglasses, even though the sky was gray, I went to the urgent care.

I made myself go early, not wanting to be late for my weekly visit with Dad. I was right about the concussion, self-diagnosis for the win, and got a pretty serious scolding from Dr. Riddick for not getting someone to take me to the ER the previous night as soon as I'd come to. She further advised me to let someone else handle the weekly visitation with Dad. She was quite adamant. You need recovery time. You need to stay home, dim the lights, and stay off the computer for a week at least.

Got that? She was young, Dr. Riddick. Probably hadn't been out of medical school very long. Twelve years ago, she could have been a kid in one of my English classes. The local urgent care was a well-established landing pad for new doctors. I'd known this one for less than a year. Got it. I'll be good.

You better. I'll know it if you don't. Kids at school who got their bell rung playing football or falling from a cheerleading pyramid are typically only advised to closet themselves for three or four days. Dr. Riddick was giving me a week, hoping she'd get three days out of it. I knew the strategy well, negotiate high. As for the stomach discomfort, which came and went, she promised to look into it if it lingered another day or two. Nausea was common with concussions. As for skipping the meeting with Dad,

no, there wasn't much point in arguing with her. I was going to go one way or the other, and she was never going to approve no matter what. You see, both of my brothers were working today, and Abby lived in Michigan. I didn't know if my father would recognize me, but on the off chance he did, I didn't want to disappoint him.

I had the visor down against the reflected sun glare as I pulled into the parking lot of Manor Point Nursing Home. The mashing of slush under the wheels was uncomfortably loud. The unwelcome sunlight blinking through the clouds unsettlingly painful. My stomach lurched again. I parked the car, flipped the mirror lid from the visor to check myself. I shouldn't have been surprised to find the other me there. Eyebrows arched, no sunglasses, and a voice that crackled through the dashboard speakers, even with the radio off.

He's not our father, you know. He didn't want either of us. He wanted you aborted. That's all you are to him, you little cock weasel. The abortion he wanted, but didn't get. I shut the mirror lid, rested my head against the steering wheel. Cock weasel? What does that even mean?

I should have told Dr. Riddick about the hallucinations. There had to be a prescription for this. Some kind of antipsychotic or something. Too late now, I thought, and got out of the car. The lights were bright in the Manor Park corridors, but the rooms were dark. I kept my sunglasses on in the halls, wishing they could also dim the sounds of moaning and crying that permeated and echoed through the building, much like the omnipresent stench of human waste that accompany them. The smell you grow accustomed to, articulate hopelessness of the old, however,

There's no getting used to that. I found my father in much the same state as ever, lying down flat in the middle of the day, staring at the ceiling, unwashed and unshaven, smelling of his own filth. The Manor Point staff preferred visitors to announce themselves ahead of time so that they could hide how they neglected their charges.

They'd claim short staffing, say they were just about to get to them, repeat any number of excuses, lies I'd already heard a thousand times before. I'd record everything in the visitor log, write another letter to the ombudsman, reported to the police again. I changed him before talking to him, first things first. People will thank me a bad son, letting him live in a place like this, but Manor Point was his fifth stop on the Northern Virginia nursing home tour, and they were all essentially the same. And the money was gone, near memory of distinctions.

in childhood. I washed my hands, made sure all the stuff on his inventory was still there. I counted shaving razors, diapers, pairs of sweatpants, undershirts. It didn't do to forget things like that. Places like these were swarming with thieves. Hi, Dad. I took him under the shoulders and helped him to a sitting position. It's Thursday the 29th. How you feeling today, boss? He didn't answer me. I swung his legs over the side of the bed. He was able to sit up on his own, even though by now he couldn't have been much more than a hundred pounds. He made eye contact with me. He watched me. Big game this weekend. It's win or go home for our Redskins. Want me to come by on Sunday? It'll be New Year's. He was 67 years old, young by the standards of his nursing home peers. He'd had his first stroke

in the same year I'd begun teaching, and he'd made nearly a full recovery from it by the time. he had his second one ten years later. After that, his girlfriend, not to be confused with my mother, who divorced him when I was 15, she said she couldn't take it anymore. She could take his house. That she could take. Just not him. Had any visitors lately?

I filled a basin with warm water, smeared his face with shaving cream. I brought out the safety razor and got to work. You know, these one-sided conversations are kind of a lot of work. Feel free to chip in at any time. time. I miss you, Dad. Even when we're both right here. He's not your father, not your father, you stupid bastard. I drew the razor under his ear, then down his sunken cheekbone. Had a bit of a rough night yesterday. I pointed sheepishly to the bump on my head. Lost track of the old beer count in front of the computer. Made for it big time. Was that the hint of a

smile? Yeah, it was really weird. I actually started seeing things. Anything like that ever happened to you? I, uh, thought I saw myself. I mean, some other version of myself in the monitor screen shadow. Psycho, right? I sat back and waited, nonsensically hopeful. When nothing came, I got back to it. Other side of the face now, then the upper lip. Yeah, it was like my own ghost, you know? He was scolding me, swearing at me, criticizing me for being out of shape. My stomach clenched again. This time violently, almost causing me to slip with the razor. Just calling it as I see it, you fucking abortion. You fucking killer. Do it. Do it now. Kill him now. No one will give a shit. I stood up, doubled over, a razor dripping in my hand. Just water.

an old spice no blood thank god my father weased drawing in breath i straightened fearing my bowels would cut themselves loose that my guts would run down my pants until i blend to death but standing made it better if only for the moment the pain relented then vanished i shook my head stunned that he had spoken i dropped the razor I still held my stomach with one hand, waiting for the teeth of whatever this virus or flu was to sink into me again. It's here. Never left you. Should... Should...

Have done it? Dad? What are you talking about? Who's Lee? I live alone. Should have killed you. You along with it. I can hear it.

Inside you. I didn't stay. I didn't say goodbye. I haven't been back. And I don't know if I ever will go back. I'm afraid of what might happen if I do. But I should have asked him. Not about Lee.

That was pure nonsense. The ramblings of early onset dementia or Alzheimer's. or something like that. No, as I struggled back into the cacophony of the Manor Point Residency Hall, pulling on my sunglasses, it was already occurring to me that I should ask him if he really was my dad. He was in the mood to talk, after all. But I didn't.

And the sound of my own laughter, which I wasn't even making, reverberated in the growing echo chamber of my brain. I listened to the phone. ring. I let it sink with the car radio in the hopes of overriding the hallucination that might choose to come at me through those channels at any second. He waited. I was patient. My mother was the very picture of health compared to my dad, but she was still pretty slow. It rang six times before she picked up. Austin? Yeah, Mom. My hand fluttered nervously over my midsection. Everything

was fine right now, but I didn't trust it to stay that way. I'm at manner point. Just saw dad. I have to ask you something. How are you? How's your father? Mom? Does the name Lee mean anything to you? Silence, but no hang up. The reason I'm asking is because dad talked today. He told you about me, about us, you infernal sucker of ass, you remedial misbe-revement. gotten twat. Mom, can you hear that? Hear what, Austin? Honey, you don't sound so good.

What did your father say? Then pain again, like meathawks. Drawing under my testicles and raking my intestines. I gritted my teeth, kept my voice straight, even as the voice my mother could not hear, kept ranting at me. Fucking whore. Just listening to her makes me sick. Hang up.

Introduce the old bitch to Captain Click, you worthless. It talked over him, ignoring him the best I could. He said there was a person named Lee inside of me. Did you ever know her this Lee he was talking about? Because at that time I imagined the name spelled L-E-I-G-H. I assumed Lee was a girl. I blinked stupidly. I saw an eyebrow arch in the rear-view mirror,

a hint of a grin on the face below. No bruises, no coffee table lump, and laughter cackling over my mother's voice through the car speakers. Yeah, I thought. You should have. But I didn't say anything. It hurt too much to talk. The phenomenon is sometimes called co-twin demise. In the first trimester of a multi-gestational pregnancy, if one twin dies, chances are that the surviving twin won't suffer any ill effects. The dead tissue resorbs, and the pregnancy continues as normal. By delivery, there won't be anything left to suggest the dead twin had ever existed. If the demise occurs late in the pregnancy, however, things can become dicey. Low blood pressure, anemia, and other factors add up to a 20% chance the second twin will die as well.

And if it doesn't, there's an increased chance of neurological complications. The causes are manifold, as are the names one confined in a Google search or on Wikipedia. Co-twin demise, also known as twin embolization or even vanishing twin syndrome, tends to happen when one of the twins has a genetic problem from the outset, or if the placenta isn't placed just so for both fetuses to share a hospitable gestational environment. In rare cases, the fetal resorption is... less than complete. Enter fetus paparassius,

which describes what's left of one twin when its sibling crushes it over time in the womb. The remains flatten as the healthy twin grows, a process that can be monitored via ultrasound throughout the pregnancy, producing a paper-thin layer of dead baby at the time of birth. I need it back to the parking lot of the urgent care. I even got the door open,

somehow. I don't remember anything immediately after that, except the pavement rushing up to meet me. The next thing I clearly recall is the ambulance. I think the siren woke me up. I was aware of the oxygen mask, which I tried unsuccessfully to take off as a paramedic held it firmly in place. I was also aware of my twin brothers' growing teeth gnawing at me from the inside. They were tiny, so damn tiny. He couldn't have been very big at all, but it was bigger than he was last night. He was growing. I was his mother.

He was my God. I prayed to him. Tell me what you want, I prayed. Just tell me, and I'll do it. They buried an empty casket. Fix them. I smiled under the oxygen mask. It was the first thing my brother had said to me.

that didn't involve him swearing at me. Were we getting along now? Okay, Lee. Okay, no problem. Got your back, bro. Ultrasound, CT scan, abdominal x-ray. I got them all after the brainwork was finished. My mother was with me, bedside, as Dr. Riddick explained what they had found.

It's a cyst. I've seen worse, believe me. 99% chance it's completely benign. We just need to rule out everything, be completely sure. You've developed a couple fairly large ulcers in the region as well, but I'm pretty confident you'll live. I wondered what she would do if she heard my sister talk, but I decided it was better not to ask.

We could probably solve the ulcer issue with the daily regimen of antibiotics, but you've got a little internal bleeding going on in there. Best for us to just go in and clean up, we're going to get it out tonight. Dr. Betham will take care of the room. removal, totally routine. I nodded. I want to see it.

Mother harumped as if to say, boys. Sure. Got it all on video for your viewing pleasure. Little entertainment while you wait on the release and consent paperwork? Something like that. She turned the monitor screen to face my bed, clicked around. The ultrasound came up. I tried not to react. I didn't want to freak out in front of the doctor.

worse yet I didn't want to lose it in front of my mother but the cyst as small as it was latched right onto the interior wall of my stomach looked just like an unborn child curled in the fetal position there was no pulse no heartbeat no kicking just the shape probably shorter than my pinky finger and there at the top where it clung to me from the inside the faintest suggestion of of an open mouth. I looked up to find Dr. Riddick had left. How hadn't she seen what I had seen? How hadn't my mother? I pointed at it as if to ask this very question. What all my mother said was, It happens, honey. They'll fix it. It'll be all right. I reached over and thumbed off the monitor. Why didn't you tell me about my brother? About Lee? She took my hand. Her eyes filled little gray pools of sadness, windows to memory. Some things are only worth forgetting, Austin. You were healthy.

You were normal. That's all that mattered. But you buried him, so he mattered too. How do you know that? Did your father tell you? I shrugged. Let her think that. It was convenient enough.

Of course I buried him. I carried him for seven months, Austin. Seven months. Do you understand me? We had the room set up for both of you. We bought two of everything, even though your father... But she stopped herself. She didn't have to finish.

Nor did I need Lee to fill in the blanks. He was being strangely quiet just now. And for that much, I was grateful. Was it really him, Mom? Lee, I mean, was there anything left of him? Was the casket empty? Her mouth hung open, stupefied, and shocked. Look, you've kept this secret long enough.

Now you talk to me. Tell me the fucking truth. I want to know. She stood, turned her back on me. But then, unexpectedly, she actually answered the question. You did neither of those things. We did neither of those things. We buried his feet.

That's all there was. You tore him apart with your own hands. She slung her purse. She didn't look back. You ate him. One piece at a time, day by day, until I gave birth to you eight weeks later. And that's why Dad wanted to kill me, I guess. It's hard to blame him.

I can't blame him for anything anymore. He's not in control of himself. He can't filter himself if he ever talks again. I don't believe what Lee says about him not being my father. I mean, I'd look just like him. Lee is angry, very angry. And he's a liar. Bitter, too, because my parents didn't rescue him from me.

I wonder now if that could have been done. If they could have gone in early and had us both out in that seventh month. Had the doctors advised my parents to just let nature take its course? The surgery went well. They kept the cyst for me, just as I'd asked, instead of cremating it under some kind of biohazard disposal torture or whatever the hell it is the medical community does with unwanted cysts.

That was weeks ago. I feel better. I feel strong. Now I think I can finally bury my brother, and I will. I do hope that's all of them in this jar. It would be a shame if it isn't. It could be just my mind playing tricks on me, but it's almost like I can still hear him.

Like the phantom pain amputees feel where their hands or feet used to be. He's crying out that they missed some of him. There are pieces still left. remnants of my brother that my stomach has been unable to digest for 40 years. And I'm not really convinced that he was all in that one piece, the one I have in the jar. Eight weeks, my mother had said, one piece at a time. There's no way I could have gotten him all down in just one bite. Or another world, if you would like to find out how you can hear the full-length versions of our audio program,

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