The NoSleep Podcast - NoSleep Podcast - Waiting for 11

Episode Date: May 20, 2018

We're in-between Seasons 10 and 11 so to tide you over we have two stories while you wait. "The Eastwoods"‡ written by Henry Galley and performed by Jessica McEvoy & Erika Sanderson & Nikolle Doolin & Nichole Goodnight & Jeff Clement & Atticus Jackson & David Ault & Erika Sanderson & Mary Murphy. (Story starts around 00:02:00) "The Wormhole Past Jupiter"† written by Jesse Clark and performed by David Ault & Erin Lillis & Jesse Cornett & Matthew Bradford & Dan Zappulla & James Cleveland & Addison Peacock & Erika Sanderson. (Story starts around 00:33:00) Click here to learn more about the voice actors on The NoSleep Podcast   Click here for Season Pass 11   Click here to learn more about Henry Galley   Click here to learn more about Jesse Clark   Executive Producer & Host: David Cummings Musical score composed by: Brandon Boone Audio adaptations produced by: Phil Michalski† & Jeff Clement‡ "Waiting for 11" illustration courtesy of Krista Neubert Audio program ©2018 - 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

The following audio horror presentation is intended to frighten and disturb. Join us on this dark and unsettling journey at your own list. Because behind these doors, there will be no sleep. Brace yourself for the No Sleep Podcast. It's the No Sleep Podcast. I'm David Cummings. Thanks for joining us. We're currently in between seasons 10 and 11. working hard on our season 11 premiere on June 3rd.

But we want to ensure you have some sleepless nights before the start of season 11, so we have two stories for you this week, which originally appeared on Season Pass episodes from Season 10. Speaking of Season Passes, our new Season Pass 11 is now available for pre-order. Head over to the no-sleeppodcast.com and click the Season Pass link. And next week, May 27th, we'll be presenting our Escape the Black Farm live show from Chicago. So make sure you brace yourself for that and get ready to experience the pig. So while we're waiting for 11, let's wait no longer.

Both stories are ready, so let's start the journey. In our first tale, we meet a family of six sisters and their mother. You might expect a lot of infighting and sibling rivalry. right? Well, as author Henry Galley explains, those things don't matter when the family is united in one cause, holding back a rising terror. Performing this tale are Jessica McAvoy, Erica Sanderson, Nicole Dooland, Nicole Goodnight, Jeff Clement, Atticus Jackson, David Alt,

Erica Sanderson, and Mary Murphy. So be thankful they're out there doing what they do, the family known as the Eastwoods. We Eastwoods have always lived next to the forest. That's what my mama taught me when I was young, and I never had any reason to disbelieve her. She told us all, quite rightly, that our family was special, always has been,

not because of who we are, but what we do and what we've been doing for as long as people have settled around here. We, which is to say myself, My mother and my five sisters have spent our entire lives in our isolated little house on the edge of the forest, living off the water we gather, the food we farm, and the meat we hunt. This place has never had a formal name. It's always just been the forest with big, important, capital letters.

Its name doesn't matter. Its real name hasn't been spoken in a human tongue for damn near. 200 years. I don't see any reason to break that trend. Mama told us this once, back in the day. The only names around here are ours. Mine is Abigail. My mamas is Mary. My oldest sister, Anne, is 25. That's seven years older than me. And the youngest, Lydia, is only 11. Eve, Hannah, and Joanna are somewhere in between. Yes, sir. Sir, the Eastwood clan is strong and plentiful. We grew up together, taught one another, helped each other survive.

Our names are important to us. It's what we still have once everything else is gone. And a person without a name can all too easily go missing from memory. It can be hard not to forget sometimes. You see a lot of Eastwoods vanish in the forest. It comes with the territory. The internet, Mama always told me, was a godsend. It's the closest thing to a formal education most of us ever got,

seeing as we've never really attended school. It's been a good distraction from all the boredom at times. And trust me, there can be plenty of it. Historically, we've been able to go through whole generations without anything major happening. While the rest are skeptical, I'm hoping that at least here I can tell our story. The story of the Eastwood family.

A story that's worth remembering, no matter the ending. It's a memoir, maybe an epitaph, and most definitely a warning for everyone. It began about a week back. I was reading by lamplight at the time, while Mama sat on an armchair across from me, darning a quilt with crooked old needles. Anne was cooking dinner.

Lydia and Hannah were on the night's lookout, while Eve and Joanna got some sleep. They were up all night on lookout the day before. They deserved some rest. Joseph, who had been our last surviving brother, had been missing for months, presumed dead. We knew it'd mean that eventually, I or one of my sisters,

would have to wander outside the fold and get ourselves knocked up if we were to continue the family line. Life here is less about romance and more about duty. The only love we could afford to have is familial, and even then, you had to be ready to sever ties quickly. I think you'd go mad from grief otherwise. The Eastwoods lived next to the forest to hold back the hunger. Mama told me this once, too.

I'd never seen the hunger in my lifetime, so some part of me was dubious as to whether it even existed. It seemed almost like a silly fairy tale people would tell their children at night to stop them from misbehaving, or going out in the dark. The hunger has existed since long before human beings walked this earth, Abigail. It's ancient and cruel, not to mention patient. It can go centuries without making a move. Then come in all guns blazing. It'll take you by surprise if you let your guard down. And we're the only ones who can stop it?

A crease of sympathy crept across her stern face. Not quite dear. There's no stop in the hunger, not really. It exists in some small quantity in all of us, like a disease in the blood. It can only really be held up bay, and even then only for a time. It can get concentrated in some places, ugly places. like the forest. We're one of the four families in charge of making sure it stays there. This was a lesson I'd had drilled into me throughout my childhood. The four families.

We were the eastwoods, the north woods, the west woods, and the south woods. We'd spend our lives maintaining the perimeter around the forest, making sure that nothing got in or out alive for the safety of everyone else. thousands of people have gone missing in the forest over the centuries maybe even tens of thousands the hunger had taken them anne said she'd seen it with her own eyes she told me that once before i was born she saw the hunger take dad that's one incident we were forbidden to talk about around mama she didn't like to think about what happened to dad a minute or something or something So later, Anne came into the living room, huffing and puffing.

Her hair tied up in a ponytail. I looked up from my copy of Treasure Island. How's the soup coming along, Anne? It's coming, all right. Just don't know when it'll be here. She sat down on the couch next to me. You think Hannah and Lydia are all right? They've done it before.

They know what they're doing. But Lydia... She's so young. I trained her myself, Abby. She may be young, but she's a crack shot. She's more of a natural with a rifle than anyone I've ever seen before. The wind was howling outside the windows, causing them to rattle in their frames. It always put me on edge.

It even made Anne look a little uncomfortable. But Mama just sat there, stoic as ever. Sometimes it's like she's made of stuble. own. Then, we heard the bell ring. Mama dropped her knitting and shot up from the chair, running up the stairs to the balcony without a moment's hesitation. If I wasn't necessarily scared before, I most definitely was then. Anne and I ran up after her, wanting to see what happened. The bell only ever rang when someone on the lookout pressed the button, and that meant that something was happening. Something big. And most of the bell.

likely something bad. What happened, Hannah? Her voice sounded frantic, for the first time ever. Hannah was 15. She was small and rail thin, but a real tough cookie. You wouldn't know it if you saw her in that moment.

She looked like a frightened puppy. There's lights, Mama. She passed over her binoculars. Lights in the tree line. Lots of them. When Mama held the binoculars up to her eyes and squinted until the image came into focus, her face immediately fell. I saw her bottom lip quivering as she forced down an uncomfortable gulp.

It took her a second to regain her composure, but finally she spoke. Anne, wake up Eve and Joanna. Abigail, get the guns. Which ones, Mama? All of them. As Anne roused my two sleeping sisters. I ran into the storage room and started loading my arms with every rifle, handgun, and ammo belt I could get my hands on. There may only have been seven of us, but we were armed like a small country. Get the Browning and cover the front door. We're going to need to keep them back when they swore.

I shoved a revolver into the holster on my hip and slung a semi-automatic rifle over my shoulder. My arms were full of rifles and shotguns as I ran back into the living room. Anne passed me on the way, going back to get more. Abigail, go up to the top balcony. I'll meet you there. I'll need you to follow my orders exactly if we're going to make it through this night. Mama grabbed a rifle, a handgun, and a sawed-off shotgun before running to one of the other lookout posts. They're about a mile off, Abby.

I give them ten minutes. Get into position. We'd rehearsed it a thousand times. When other little girls were playing house, I was training with a rifle from the sniper's roost. But this was the first time I'd ever needed to take that post with the knowledge that I may have to actually shoot something. Anne came back with another handful of guns

and started shoving them into the various slings and holsters she'd adorned herself with. She must have looked like a hero from a bad action movie before the end. Get into position, Abby. The hunger's going to be here soon. We can't let things slip. Not now. I nodded, jogged from my stupor, and climbed the living room ladder up to the sniper's roost I'd trained in.

The adrenaline coursing through me in that moment, almost entirely cancelled out the wave of terror that was crashing into my soul. The night air felt colder now, like an Arctic breeze. I couldn't tell if it was nerves or the temperature that was causing me to shiver when I took up my rifle. Either way, the effect was the same. It reduced my usefulness in combat. Just ahead, there was a moving, roiling constellation of light. I found myself wondering, was this the hunger? This huge amorphous blob of darkness and its smattering of glowing freckles?

The wonder was quickly disregarded when I looked at them through my telescopic scope. They were, they were people. They just looked like people. All were dirty and haggard. Some were clothed and others were simply naked. Some were dressed in more modern clothing. Hiking gear, tattered business suits, ripped t-shirts and shorts. Others looked like they were dressed in Civil War era garb or old puritanical gowns.

Some were even coated in various degrees of rotting human skin, such as one particularly tall and skinny creature that was wearing what I can only describe as a cloak made of sewn together human faces. Just the sight of it almost made me puke. I felt a presence behind me and turned to see Mama standing there with her sniper rifle. She had a thousand-yard stare as the Legion of the Hunger approached.

Don't fire yet, Abby. They may look like savages, but they're crafty. They'll send shock waves to test the waters. What do they want, Mama? To kill us, Abby. To kill us and take us. We're the only thing standing between them and the world right now. And even if we don't make it through this night,

we need to take as many of these bastards with us as we can. I nodded and gulped. Then Mama did the same. When I looked again, I realized that many of the hunger were armed. Some carried farming tools, like sharpened billhooks and sickles. Others were armed with homemade spears or bows and arrows, and some were even shouldering old-fashioned Civil War muskets. The myriad glowing lights were almost always either burning torches or oil lamps.

Mama was right. They were here to kill us. When they were uniformly no less than 100 feet away, the marching tide of the hunger just stopped and stared with a dead-eyed cruelty. They had a strange, flesh-pink glow to them. Girls, are you in position? Yes, Mama. I couldn't be...

I couldn't be more proud of you. Whatever happens, just... know that I love you, and none of these Solas bastards can change them. Ten figures broke rain from the hunger and began walking towards the house. They were laughing, scraping knives together, swinging chains, knocking arrows.

They looked like they'd crawled from the mouth of hell. Fire on my command. Take out the ones with long-range weapons first. Ready? Aim. Far! Bullets crashed into the hunger's first wave, eviscerating them.

The shot I fired pierced the chest of the one carrying a loaded crossbow, flinging it off its feet. A second shot, fired by Mama, left it with only half a head. The hunger wasn't discouraged. Even the ones we shot went down cackling, as the great mass behind them laughed uproaring. Now that I could get a better look, they were easily a few thousand strong. Part of me wondered why they even bothered playing games with us like this,

but they could see just easily if they decided to bum rush us all at once. What happens next? If it's anything like last time, they'll send forward an ambassador, one of the more talkative ones. They'll set the terms. Sure enough, Mama was proven to be right. The tide of the hunger split as a single figure walked forward, dressed in a mix of scraggly hunting gear and a human skin tanned into a sort of leather. There was something familiar about the way it walked, the shape of its head, its scraggly beard, the way it carried itself.

I think Mama realized it before I did. Dear God. It was Joseph. Eastwoods! We can make this all so much easier for you. We can show you mercy. You ain't got nothing for us. The hunger wearing Joseph grinned.

Is that any way to speak to your brother? You're not our brother. You're not anything. anymore. Don't be crabby, Abby. I may not be your brother, but I've been in his head. You want to know what he dreamed about doing to you, Abby? What naughty thoughts.

Good old Joe had about you. Mama leaned forward and whispered in my ear. Don't listen. It's trying to wrap you. battle you. It doesn't know anything. Abby. Climb down from up there. Now some quality time with you brother. I want to see if you're a better fuck than Lydia.

The shot went through hunger, Joseph's cheek. He, or I guess, it, fell to the ground like a lead weight. dead as a door nail. I turned around to Mama and couldn't place the expression on her face. I... I just didn't want to hear it talk in his voice anymore. Mama's face didn't change, but she nodded. She understood.

The hunger was less understanding. I don't think it appreciated me murdering its mouthpiece. and destroying the one piece of emotional leverage it had over us. Now they had nothing but violence, and they had it in unimaginable quantities. What must have been a few hundred split from the horde and started charging in an unorganized rabble. They were chanting and screaming and eululating like maniacs,

brandishing blades and clubs and firearms. Before, they were testing. the waters, just like Mama said. But now they meant business. They wanted us dead. Eve, Joanne, open the front door. Give them hell. The front door swung open the second the command was issued, followed by a satisfying click. The crowds, sensing a point of entry, began funneling themselves towards the open door. The machine guns started. It was impossibly loud, but in that moment it was the most beautiful sound on earth. Bullets ripped and rended, cutting down the hunger in hundreds. Rounds tore through them cleanly, decapitating and bisecting,

collapsing ribs and crushing skulls. Blood soaked into the summer grass as the damned legions fell dead in the face of the machine guns round. The rest of us began firing when the hunger had realized our trip. We lit up the sky, not wasting a single round as the army poured towards us. I didn't for one second believe that we could win. They outnumbered us perhaps a thousand to one. But we killed like ancient warriors, slaughtering the hunger with grace and fury. I wasn't doing it for myself.

Truth be told, I wasn't even doing it for humanity. My sisters, they were worth fighting to the death for. Holding knives and hatchets between their teeth, some of the hunger began scaling the walls of the house like spiders. I could see Anne and Hannah switching to shotguns and blowing them away as they climbed towards us. They had more men than we had bullies, I'm sure they'd. Below us, the machine gun rattled on, mowing down anything unfortunate enough to get in its line of fire.

Abby, look out. I turned to see the skinny one, robed in his collection of human faces, bearing down on me. Before I could turn the rifle in his direction, he grabbed it with both hands and forced me off my feet, his long, black tongue tasting the air. The rifle, now sideways. was the only thing between us, as he slid out a small knife he'd been hiding in the man-leather holster on his hip.

His skin! I managed to free one of my hands and grabbed the revolver from my belt. Before he could start adding another face to his cloak, I'd forced the barrel of the revolver against his belly and fired four times. His pink eyes went glassy, and I kicked him from the roof.

It's my girl! Even as she yelled in triumph, Mama cracked the butt of her rifle against the face of another one climbing her side of the roof. Suddenly, there was a bang, and I felt one of my arms go numb. I looked down to see a grinning hunger creature holding a smoking flintlocked pistol, hanging by one arm just on the edge of the building. It cackled loudly when it saw blood dripping from the wound. I stomped on its fingers, and it fell to its death, laughing all the way. My left arm was useless now, and so the rifle was effectively useless, too. I tore a strip of cloth from my skirt using the skinny one's knife and tied it around the wound before reloading my revolver.

An arrow pierced the roof next to my face, creating an ugly thunk. I looked down to see a few hunger-maddened bowmen dressed in t-shirts, khakis, and fake Native American headdresses. Before they could knock their arrows a second time, I fired my revolver at them, killing a few and winging others. I realized that now, with a bum arm, there was a sitting duck while reloading. Oh, Abby, don't worry. Daddy's here. I looked up and saw a tall, bearded man that I scarcely recognized,

though he had a remarkable resemblance to Joseph. The revolver had only one shot loaded, but I raised it and fired from the crouching position. The beast dodged, the bullet just slamming into its shoulder rather than the intended target. A second later, I felt its boot connect with my face, slamming me off of the roof. I managed to grab the ledge with my working arm, but my unloaded revolver fell to oblivion.

My little Abbey. The beast, who I assume must have once been my father, cleared at me. The last time I saw you, you were just a baby. I saw you enter the world. Lydia and Hannah aren't mine. I'll have to ask your horror mother. about that. He took a rusted meat cleaver out of his belt and knelt down close.

The strength in my arm was failing me, and I was contemplating whether falling to my death would be worse than whatever daddy had planned. Seeing as I saw you enter, baby, I think it's only fitting I see you leave. He raised the cleaver. Go play with God now. I'll be sending the rest of your sisters to play with you shortly. I closed my eyes, waiting for the cleaver to sever my hand. But it never happened. He looked up and saw Mama with tears in her eyes,

standing behind Daddy and forcing the skinny man's knife into his neck. Mary, why are you doing this? I'm your husband. Mama bit her bottom lip to stop herself from sobbing. My husband's dead, you son of a bitch. And so are you. She dragged the knife in a smooth art across its throat. Black blood formed a sticky apron on its chest.

Mama put her boot on the creature's back and kicked it off the roof. Mama, help me. I was finding it harder and harder to cling onto the ledge. She grabbed my hand and pulled me back up. Don't look behind you, sweetie. Just help me pull you up. That laughter, it was hunger laughter, no doubt, but it was more familiar.

Don't look back, sweetie. Don't look back. Mama pulled me back up onto the roof, and we ran for the hatch that led me. back into the house. While she was unlocking the hatch, I did something stupid, something really, really stupid. I stole a single glance over my shoulder. I saw them and leave. They were clawing their way up the roof, cackling like demons. Their eyes now flush pink. They'd been taken by the hunger just like the rest. Now they were coming for us. Get in. They're gone, Abby. We can't save it.

Time to die, Mama, you stupid bitch. Lydia was running towards us with a buoy knife clenched in her little hand. Without a word, Mama lifted up her sawed off and fired both barrels into Lydia's head. There was nothing left of her from the neck up afterwards. Anne and Hannah just laughed. For God's sake, Abigail, get in! I practically jumped down the hatch, and Mama followed me, closing the hatch behind her and locking it with a heavy bolt. I could still hear fingernails scratching against the roof as we scaled the ladder back into our home.

When we found ourselves downstairs, shaken and still unable to come to terms with what had happened to Anne, Lydia, and Hannah, we found that Joanne and Eve had already bolted the front door. They'd depleted the machine gun's ammo. Our home may have been small, but it was well defended. The walls were thick and the doors were reinforced. He'd take some serious firepower to break in. Where are the other three? They didn't make it, Joanna. Oh, God, we're going to die. Mama sighed and sat on the sofa, picking her knitting back up. We've done all we can, girls. It's about an hour until morning.

We may as well get some sleep. What difference does that make? Mama looked up. They don't like the light, honey. They'll disperse and head back into the forest to gather up their strength for the next day. We may as well do the same. As much as we tried, there was no sleeping that night.

The hunger made sure of it. It barked and cackled and jeered through the walls, screaming and laughing with insanity. But Mama, as always, was right. Come the morning, the hunger was gone, and its last remnants had fled to the tree line, two of our three former sisters among them. It wasn't a victory.

It never was. The best we could ask for was survival, and I suppose we should be grateful for having that, in spite of the loved ones we'd lost to the hunger. This story isn't about success. It's not a victory chance. It's a warning. We killed many of them, but their armies are still great, and they're only getting greater.

We don't know when they'll come back, but if they come back tomorrow, there's no way in hell we've got the firepower to take them on again. They'll chew through us, and then they'll come for everyone else. And if that's the case, I only have one sentiment to offer. Good luck. In our final tale, we join a crew of scientists aboard an exploratory mission into space. But as we learn from author Jesse Clark, the darkness of space is capable of holding things both wondrous and terrifying.

Performing this tale are David Alt, Aaron Lillis, Jesse Cornett, Matthew Bradford, Dan Zapula, James Cleveland, Addison Peacock, and Erica Sanderson. So let's join the mission as they speed towards the wormhole past Jupiter. Pacific Sun began to circle the gravitational anomaly, a titanic mass of shifting space and time that hung past Jupiter and around which starlight oozed and slipped and curved. And as it did, the vessel crew got a view of its front side that was breathtaking to an alien and otherworldly degree. It was a bizarre thing, a depression as described, and a growing one.

Francis, I addressed the third flight veteran specialist at my right. Drop a burst signal into that thing, and see what it finds. She dispatched a radio signal into the yawn, and while we waited, we ran over mountainous sets of data and traded ideas, and thought and wondered and pondered and mused. Rob, what's on the list? He looked at the screen and shrugged. Ah, 5C-770.1.

Redshift of 0.004. Present circumference, 172,209 miles at its widest point, and growing all the time. Nature? Undetermined. Origin, undetermined. Potential threats. Undetermined. Spin?

Yeah, we got it. Thanks. So we know nothing. Not a black hole. Not a neutron star. Obviously not. I don't know. Aliens.

What else is there? Well, we won't know until a wormhole. There was a pause. And we all looked at him. And he looked back at us. What? A wormhole. Seriously.

I didn't say I know. I just said, like, maybe it's a wormhole. Have we ruled it out? Where does it lead to? How in the hell am I supposed to know? All at once, the cabin was filled with a piercing, burning, brilliant, pulsing flash of blue light that had spilled from the anomaly and ended the conversation in an instant. The crew ducked out of its way. Holy God.

Shield your eyes, folks. What is that? I don't know. Was it something we did? I don't know, Matt. Nobody here knows anything you don't know. Sir? Maybe the radio burst pissed it off. Somehow.

Sir, we're about to... Pissed off Harrison's wormhole? We're calling it my wormhole now? Danny! I turned around and looked at Grassley, who like me was peeking through his fingers to protect his eyes. He was facing his scream. What?

We're moving. What do you mean we're moving? We're moving. I don't know, it's not me. Fuel's stable, we're not. I don't know. I'm not doing anything. I looked out the window.

Fortunately, the light had faded enough to permit this, and confirmed the insured. tuition. Pacific Sun was moving into what was indeed a wormhole, by what mechanism or phenomenon I couldn't possibly begin to guess. Grassley gunned the thrusters away from the direction of movement, but all it did was slow the descent. It didn't stop it. Enough. Cut them off, grass. Don't waste fuel. What, we're just going to go into that thing? I don't think we have much of a choice to you. And moments later, we entered the tunnel. And the Pacific Sun exited the solar system.

Neither space nor time held their meaning in that place. There was no where. There was no when. There was only the ship and her crew and a hull protected from the madness of the journey by a sphere of space-time that flew through the tunnel made of the same stuff, past a thousand galaxies and a million stars and a billion worlds. For a time it was beautiful to behold. But that time was fleeting and quick.

Before we exited this dimension, the pressure of movement overwhelmed the integrity of the ship. And I heard the hull groan and wine and then crack. And then there was a titanic crashing. The lights went out and all sound in the cabin of the ship ceased at once. Hello? But there was no answer. Grassley? Harrison?

Silence and darkness and cold. Such frigid cold. My skin grew numb from it. Francis, you there? Robert? Nothing. I undid the seat harness and... Fuck!

Another flash of blue. It was bright, so exceedingly bright, in fact, that I couldn't see a thing or think, and it filled up the whole of the cosmos from where I sat, and it lingered. On our side of the wormhole, the pulse had merely been that, a heartbeat, a flash of light, and not more than an instant of time had been taken up by it. But here it stayed active like a supernova. And then I could feel the heat of the light, and it washed over me in waves.

and then something else happened. I began to feel something in my head, something in the light, no doubt, that saw me and saw a usefulness for me. It was clawing its way through my mind, pulling up memories and dreams and thoughts and ideas and sifting through the lot of them, as if it was searching.

for something. Oh, and it hurt. God, it hurt in a lancing, sharp way. I grabbed my temples and squeezed my eyes shut, and I heard myself scream. But the harvesting continued, nonetheless, I saw images and memories and thoughts and dreams. A birthday party. A ringing hallway bell. Playing in the mud. A first kiss, a mountaintop snowfall, a sunset on the beach. What does this thing want? What do you want? There is a pause. For a fleeting moment, the pain stops, and so does the harvesting.

But only for that moment, and when it is over, the process begins again, and the memories it finds begin to focus, and my eyes roll back. A memory of a conversation is summed. It is about nothing. An old friend and co-worker discussing expense reports with me. The light loses interest in swift order, and then it moves on. An earlier memory now. Another conversation, I'm speaking with my mother.

I'm looking up at her in the kitchen with oven mitts on, and she's telling me to wash up for supper. She speaks slowly and simply. I must be what, ten? Younger? The light lingers a bit here and then moves on. Elementary school or earlier, maybe kindergarten. We're learning penmanship today.

I look down at my paper and see the alphabet scribbled there in loops and scratches. The light lingers here too for a while and then the memory fades. What do you want? Another pause. And then another memory comes up. High school now. My buddy, later co-worker, his name is Greg Ricky, I remember. now. He runs up to me after a football game and says one word. Food. And then there is nothing.

Perhaps the light is waiting for a response? Food? Melissa looks down at the note I'd passed her three days before prom and says, Yes. Good. Okay, what kind of food? There is another pause before... Just an image. this time. A bolt of electricity in a thunderstorm seen from my dorm window. 2001 or two? Lightning? You eat lightning? How... My mother, after watching the dog piss on the floor, shouts... No!

Okay, okay, you don't heat lightning then, so... A bouncing dodgeball in the high school gym. Another image of lightning and one of rippling air on pavement in the midst of a midsummer heat wave. A ball. A ball, okay, and lightning and heat like a combination of those things, is that it? Melissa again. Okay, give me a second. A hot ball of energy.

Like a... Wait, like a star. The image of the sun that popped up in my own head as I uttered the word gave the light some pause. Then I felt a force of power. It stung. A star for food. Okay, how... An image of an armadillo from a nature documentary.

It curls tightly into a ball and the memory fades. I don't follow. The image repeats itself and drags a bit on both ends. I see the creature walking for a moment. It's weight shifting left to right and then. Then it stops, and then it curls up into that ball while its little armor plates shielded. An armadillo? You eat like an armadillo? No.

Now it's an image of a cat and a ball of yarn. It curls around the thing. Then there's another visual of a hand wrapping itself around a baseball. It throws it home. Something about curling into a ball. or onto one. Yes. Okay, okay, so you're hungry for food and you eat stars by what curling onto them?

What is this? A new image. I see the gates of a concentration camp and a pile of corpses and an inmate there gripping the bars of the fence. She's emaciated and desperate but too sick even to cry for help. Her clothes hang off her limbs in excess.

Tis the saddest image I've ever seen. What the hell was that? The famous photo of African child with a vulture behind him. His stomach is protruding, and even so I can see each one of his ribs through the skin, he has days to live in such a state, maybe ours. An image now from a newsreel, a crowd. of desperate refugees clamoring onto a truck with the capital letters U and N painted upon its side in white letters. The man standing atop the bed of it is handing small amounts of food from a container to the crowd.

He doesn't have nearly enough. The crowd presses in and the truck is buried in their number unable to move. What is this? I don't... Every time the image is switched, I saw a new scene as horrible as the last. Okay, okay. You're starving. Is that right? Yes.

I'm sorry. I don't know how to help you. There was an explosion of pain behind my left eye. Then I felt nothing but chaos and discord and anger. I sense that very, very clearly. Burning, twisting, desperate anger. And then... An image.

A man screams for mercy. I doubt he received any. Armed men throw another man down a hillside and then fire automatic weapons into his heart. Images rotate in and back out again and each consecutive one depicts a scene of violence and terror and misery and suffering at last. There is an image of a burning world. I was the earth scorched and ruined. Wait, it's not Earth.

It's somewhere different, another planet. This already happened, didn't it? Yes! I was afraid to ask the next inevitable question, but too curious not to. What are you? A new image entered my mind. This time, like the last, from the light

and not from myself. I saw a memory of a dream playing out before me. A fleet of starships, a radar, a concave formation for battle, firing lancing spears of energy into a whirlpool.

Then the blue light spilled on through it, followed in turn by a mass of alien metal. The ships ramped up the rate of fire and the intensity of it, but they couldn't harm the thing coming through, or so much as slow it down. Slowly, and one by one, as it became clear the advance of the machine could not be stopped,

the ships broke formation and began to flee. But they weren't fast enough. The machine, after a time, gained the hot side of the gate and poured on through. With pulsing blasts of light, entire ships disintegrated to ash and nothing more. A capital ship in the formation's middlemost section unleashed a round of some new form of fire, and the machine took the hit with a wound, but... Not even that did appreciably more than scratch an arm of the thing. That ship met a swift fate like the others.

A scene from the planet from which those ships had hailed. There are dead things. Alien corpses, cities aflame, the end of the world. The mighty shadow of an eclipse falls across the scene, and then there is darkness. From space now I see the thing in all the magnitude of its vastness. It is terrible and awesome in equal measure this machine. And having done away with resistance,

it has cast out great arms of metal from a central apparatus that spills forth the light and wrap them around the mass of the star, though. Then, as I watch, a funnel of the star's plasma is sucked up by gravity into the machine. And it begins to feed. The star is dwindling. The star is no more. All that now remains in the grasp of the machine is a sphere of hot space. The machine spills its blue light to the depths of the abyss in search of other things to devour.

Another world. Above it, I can see the shadow of the machine's arms as it consumes the star. There is no life here to mourn its passing. Another world destroyed. There are starship splinted in orbit, lifeless and useless. useless, and parts of their hulls rammed into the planet's backside. Their attempt to stop the machine has ended in disaster. The machine gathers those parts and adds them to its mass. Over unspeakable units of time and countless such battles, it has grown large, too large, in fact, to sustain itself, ever it searches for more food.

The machine, having destroyed yet another system shuttered. and quakes, it is not enough. Parts of the machine's limbs have gone dark. There is not enough energy, enough food to feed the whole of its mats. It needs more. I can feel its hunger, and I can feel the growth of it. In desperation, and with the last of its energy, the machine warps space-time itself into points and rivers.

Doorways are opened up. There is no rhyme, and there is no reason. and countless such portals have been ripped into the fabric of the universe, and through them the machine has poured its light, that blinding blue in search of sustenance. I see a new image from my mind again. It is from a science textbook, and it is of my own star, the sun. The light from the machine is digging again.

Through the dusty corners of my mind, it needs information, it needs it desperately, Here I am an endless treasure trove of the stuff more accessible to it than to myself. I can feel memories being ripped free and thrown. A sick day, a movie theatre, an astronaut speaking at my school, an Air Force recruitment centre, and a first flight and the majesty of speed. A rocket launch, knuckles white on the edge of a harness. A first look at Earth from above.

No, no, to hell with you. You can't have that. You can't take that. I live there. Stop. Inside my mind, I resist with effort. I pull up my own memories now to throw in its face, to slow it down. The co-worker, an old friend, approached me again.

Hey, Darren. Did you get my email? I need those expense reports by Thursday. Yeah, I got you, man. I'll get on that now. Okay. Oh, hey, you talked to Eric earlier. He zeroing digger.

I flinched. The hell? No. And the digging begins again. Data, mountains of it to be poured over. A look at the sun from a Pacific side beach. The machine tastes the warmth of it. It's hunger, roars, but I push back harder.

Everything I have. What else? What else do I have? My name, I have my name. Darren Gray. Darren Gray. Darren Gray, Darren Grah. No, damn it, Sydney, not in the house.

No. A new image. I see the sun now from the window of the Pacific Sun. And then my co-worker again, but as a child now, ran up to me on the playground during a game of hide-and-seek. Dude, where's Eric? Where? Another image of the sun white and alone. Where?

Where? Gray, Danny Gray, Danny. That's not my name. Danny? Something with a D, I think. Right? The sun again. Where?

I can't. I don't know. I don't. An image of galactic layout. Some Milky Way maps with a label for the sun flashed through my mind. It was getting closer. I could feel a thunderous surge of power. No.

Oh, stop! The pain increased tenfold. My vision swam, and it burned, and I thrashed and grabbed again at my temples and screamed. But the light of the machine doubled down again. Call signs, wedding days, hospital bedside, TV documentaries. Apollo, Voyager 1. Her radio presence, it was getting even closer. Danny Green,

Danny Green, Danny Green, Danny Green, Danny Green. My mother rummaged through the kitchen with the phone in one hand. She muted it with the other. Danny Green, Danny Green, Danny Green, Danny Green, Danny Green, Danny Green, Danny Green. Sir! Never mind, I found it.

I felt a monstrous, electrifying surge of power, and instantly the light began to fade, and the pain, with it and the sensation of mental invasion. Not from a dream. I stumbled back. I felt that much.

I stumbled and something caught me. Captain! I opened my eyes. It was Francis. And she'd been crying. What? Sir, I've been calling you. I said to stay out of the light.

What? I don't... I looked around the cabin. The power was on. the crew was here. All of them were getting up off the floor, and all of them stared up at me with concern. What happened?

We sent that signal into that wormhole thing, and then this weird blue light poured out of it, and then we all hit the deck, but you didn't, and we just had this look on your face like you were in this trance, and then, I don't know, I thought you were dead. She started to cry a bit. I looked over at the others. Nobody else saw that?

Saw what, sir? Anything. There was something in the light. I saw this machine in there, and it... I stopped. I was losing them. Sir? You should sit down.

We don't know what just happened. And... No. We need to leave now. What? We just got here. I know that. Don't you fucking think I know that?

I began to stir away cargo and strap down things for a boost. Everyone's strap in. Grassley blotters a course out of here. Robert grabbed my arm. Sir, I mean it. You need to sit down. Okay? Gather your thoughts. Gather your composure. I don't know. Just take a minute. Man, can you get him some water or something? I don't need water. I shook him off and continued loading.

Grassley, on the seat. Now, let's go. Grassley looked at the others and they shook their heads. Harrison spoke up. Sir, we have come through hell and high water to get here. I will lock you in the fucking quarters until we get back at the end of the mission if I have to. You need to stand down. Shut the fuck up. Sir, don't do this, please.

Shut up! None of you saw that thing. Grassley, what did I say? What thing? The machine? Grassley, get on the seat. Now! I felt a slamming weight in my side.

and down I went with Harrison on top of me. Sorry, sir. I can't risk you messing this up for the rest of us. Get the fuck off me! I thrashed and threw all my weight against his. He buckled slightly and then turned. Robert, a little hand here? Robert piled on then, and against their combined weight

I didn't stand a chance. They hold me to my feet and began dragging me off to the back of the ship. Guys! We stopped, and we looked at. up and she was pointing out the window, towards the anomaly. Look! We did. Instantly, I felt two pairs of hands loosen their grips.

I fell to the floor. What the hell is that? I wiped a trail of blood from my nose. It's here. And the deck of the Pacific Sun descended into madness. Robert, can we raise the station from here? I don't know. I can try, but...

I mean, what the fuck is that thing? Grassley, you getting us out of here? I'm trying, man, but it's not working. Everyone calm down and strap in. Now, Grassley, plot a course for home. Obedience this time was immediate. For a fleeting moment, I heard nothing but the buckle of harnesses and the shuffling of feet and the rumble of thrusters.

And then sun was off. But behind us came. the machine and it did so with utterly shocking speed. I watched it pour on through the widening wormhole and only then did I appreciate the magnitude of the thing. Sir! I see it. Grassley, how are we doing?

We're moving, sir. Fast as I can. The ship shook violently as a pulsing blast of blue light rocketed by overhead and nearly vaporized the hull. Holy God. What the hell was that? Is that thing shooting at us? Another blanced. The Pacific Sun felt its heat.

We gunned it. But the ship was too slow. I knew it. Grassley knew it. Robert and Francis and Harrison, they knew it too, and said not a word about it. I sat down and powered up a computer and began recording my account.

A record we won't be able to give in a hearing. Sir, we're slowing down fast. And Harrison, not me. responded. We know why it is. Shear gravity of that thing is pulling us in. The ship ain't fast enough, gentlemen. Sun nearly split at the rivets,

and for a split second, all we could see in the light was... Nothing at all. I shielded my eyes and kept up my writing. Order, sir? I stopped typing. And I stood, and the crew watched as the ship slipped in her run. Turn it around. What?

Turn the ship around, fly towards it. Sir, are you... Do it, Grassley. Robert spoke up. It's the right call. We ain't escaping. Might as well take it out with us. The crew took a moment,

their specific sun adjusted its heading, to understand the gravity of their assignment. I typed furiously, and the machine filled up the view of the deck display, and Harrison spoke again. You all ready to die today, ladies and gents? For king and country? Francis closed her eyes.

Grassley set his jaw. The gravity kicked up by the sheer mass of the machine took the sun on a wicked pull, and the gap closed quickly. I typed furiously. The machine's central apparatus opened its yawn to fire, and that old blue plasma pulled up in its center, and I pointed it out to Grassley.

I see it, sir. I but a hand to his shoulder. You did great, kid. And now we fly towards it. The machine gears up, its firing process. There's a piece of it in my head, I think, because I can feel this foreign panic. I believe it knows that when all the numbers are added,

there's nothing it can do to prevent the sun from flying into its firing mechanism at the moment of discharge. It is inevitable, and for that reason, I have accepted it. and Robert, too, and Harrison and Francis and Grassley, all my brothers and my sister, they have accepted it. They are praying and closing their eyes, and there is not a crew ever made that is finer to die with. To anyone at home, if you ever receive my transmission, know that we died well, and know too that although there are monstrous things out here in the deep, there are also wonders in it,

At 180922, Eastern Standard Time on Sunday, August 26th, 2018, a detonation event was picked up by the Hubble Space Telescope and an array of surface-based observatories and private telescopes. NASA claims the event was a large-scale asteroid impact. Other satellites have been purposed with examining the area of the incident. As of early October, they have spotted numerous pieces of floating metal, most of which will either join the asteroid belt or fall. into the surface of Jupiter, and an excessive amount of radiation, seemingly indicative of a collapsing gravitational event. Closer inspection has revealed that the anomaly which the ship Pacific Sun was initially dispatched in secret to inspect, has ceased to exist. Some private telescope owners, however, have spotted an unidentified blue light flashing impulses from exactly this region. NASA has made

no official comment as of this time. It's time to rest on our dark journey. We thank you for joining us. If you would like to find out how you can hear the full-length versions of our audio program, please visit the no-sleeppodcast.com to learn about our season past program. 25 episodes, each over two hours long, and three exclusive bonus episodes all for only 1999. On behalf of everyone at the No Sleep Podcast, we thank you for listening.

Join us again next week when the journey resumes its descent into the sleepless night. This audio production is copyright 2017-2018 by Creative Reason Media, Inc. All rights reserved. The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors. No duplication or reproduction of this audio program is permitted without the written consent of Creative Reason Media, Inc.