The NoSleep Podcast - S17 Ep22: NoSleep Podcast S17E22

Episode Date: May 1, 2022

It's Episode 22 of Season 17. Our spells bend our perception of reality.“The Drive-In Movie” written by Michael S. Walker (Story starts around 00:07:15)Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Narrator – Jesse Cornett, Charlie – Jeff Clement, Sally – Nichole Goodnight, Mother – Tanja Milojevic, Father – Mike DelGaudio, Don Knotts – Graham Rowat, Little Girl – Mary Murphy“If You Go” written by Wylie (Story starts around 00:20:00)Produced by: David CummingsCast: Narrator – David Cummings, Holly – Jessica McEvoy“Thunder in Old Kilpatrick” written by Gustavo Bondoni (Story starts around 00:39:15)TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Jesse CornettCast: Narrator – David Ault, Richard – James Cleveland, Old Tom – Guy Woodward, Hannah – Erika Sanderson, Maid #1 – Ilana Charnelle, Maid #2 – Penny Scott-Andrews, Wight – Andy Cresswell“Goat Valley Campgrounds – Chapter 9” written by Bonnie Quinn (Story starts around 01:13:55)Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Kate – Linsay Rousseau, Bryan – Kyle Akers, Woman – Mary Murphy, Officer – T.J. Lea, Camper – Jon Grilz, Harvester – Sarah Thomas“Dark Candle and a Full Confession” written by Ville Nummenpää (Story starts around 01:08:15)Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Narrator – Nikolle Doolin, Lucy – Jessica McEvoy, Old Man – Jesse Cornett, Old Woman – Erin Lillis, Vicar – Peter Lewis, Child – Danielle McRae, Ghost #1 – Mary Murphy, Ghost #2 – Elie Hirschman, Ghost #3 – Atticus Jackson, Thomas – Kyle Akers“Letters from a Pit Stop” written by CT Marie (Story starts around 01:21:25)TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Jeff ClementCast: Jane Flowers – Sarah Ruth Thomas, May – Wafiyyah White, Salvatore Zambrano – Atticus Jackson, Bartender – Dan Zappulla, Elderly Man – Peter Lewis, Stranger #1 – Danielle McRae, Stranger #2 – Elie Hirschman, Stranger #3 – Ilana Charnelle, Stranger #4 – Matthew Bradford, Stranger #5 – Penny Scott-Andrews, Boy – Kyle Akers, Girl – Nichole Goodnight, Radio DJ – Mike DelGaudio“A Listener Wakes” written by Derek Nason (Story starts around 01:41:00)TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Narrator – Kristen DiMercurio, Posy – Erin Lillis, Tom – Graham Rowat, Sean – Jeff Clement, Reg – James Cleveland, Hal – Matthew BradfordThis episode is sponsored by:ZocDoc – Zocdoc is a free app that shows you doctors who are patient-reviewed, take your insurance, and are available when you need them. Go to Zocdoc.com/nosleep and download the Zocdoc app for free. Then start your search for a top-rated doctor today.ShipStation – ShipStation makes it super easy to manage and ship all your online orders faster, cheaper and more efficiently. You’ll spend a lot less time on shipping and a lot more time growing your business. Go to shipstation.com and click the microphone icon at the top of the page. Enter code NOSLEEP to get a 60-day free trial.Click here to learn more about The NoSleep Podcast teamClick here to learn more about WylieClick here to learn more about Gustavo BondoniClick here to learn more about CT MarieClick here to learn more about Derek NasonExecutive Producer & Host: David CummingsMusical score composed by: Brandon Boone“Thunder in Old Kilpatrick” illustration courtesy of MiggeaAudio program ©2022 – 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 No Sleep Podcast has assembled the stories and performers to bring horror to life. Silence, Igor. My creation is almost ready. Creation? Who are you, and what are you doing in our studio? I am Dr. Alt, and this is my laboratory. I am the verge of making medical science history. Dr. Alt, eh?

Well, I'm not Igor, and this is not the time or place to... Wait, are you really a doctor? Because my elbows have been aching lately, and I think... Silence! I'm not here to treat your silly maladies. I'm here to bring the dead back to life. How typical. You can never find a good doctor when you need one. You probably don't even take my insurance.

Oh, stop your rambling, Igor. I'm sure glad there's Zoc Doc to help me. Finding and booking a doctor who's right for you doesn't need to be a horrifying experience. Will they take your insurance, understand your needs, or be available when you can see them. With ZockDoc, the answer can be a refreshingly pain-free, yes. Now to inject 42 Cs of neurotranspell dice, right?

Oh, whatever, Doc. Listen, ZocDoc is a free app that shows you doctors who are patient reviewed, take your insurance, and are available when you need them. And I'm pretty sure none of them are trying to raise the dead. Now to charge the transducers. Read up on local doctors. Get verified patient reviews.

and see what other real humans had to say about their visit. So when you walk into that doctor's office, you're set up to see someone in your network who gets you. Go to Zocdoc.com. Choose a time slot and whether you want to see the doctor in person or do a video visit. And just like that, you're booked. I think it's working.

He's starting to move. Find the doctor that's right for you and book an appointment that works for your schedule. Every month, millions of people use ZocDoc. Make it your go-to whenever you need to find and book a doctor. He's alive. He's alive. In the chaotic world of health care, let Zok-Doc be your trusted guide to find a quality doctor in a way that is surprisingly pain-free.

With Zock-Doc, you can get your docs in a row. Hey, Doc, you get that joke? This is no joke. I've done it. I'm a medical god. Yeah, sure, Doc. So, just go to ZocDococ.com. and download the ZocDoc app for free.

Then start your search for a top-rated dock today. Many are available within 24 hours. That's Z-O-C-D-C dot com slash no sleep. ZockDoc dot com slash no sleep. Now I must begin work on making his bride. You do that, Frankie. I mean, David. We'll begin our experiment with horror.

It's long gone. in days of yore there are legends and tales of dark folklore round candlelight and fireside the tales are shared enchanting dark secrets in hushed toads declared

and from those days both present and past We beseech you now to brace yourself for the No Sleep Podcast. The sleepless tales commence, fellow travelers. I'm your guide, David Cummings. You know, I've been fascinated by the art of documenting things lately. There are so many ways to record information. Oral histories, written histories, visual histories,

or spreadsheets, numbers, graphs, Statistics. You've got long-hand, shorthand, pictures worth a thousand words or words that describe a thousand pictures. Things are recorded in analog or digital. Records can be made to demonstrate sight, sound, touch, taste, and smell. Some forms of documenting focus on a single approach, and others offer multisensory experiences. Now, you may think that this is going somewhere that relates to my former storage unit and all the documentation contained within. However, I'll have to be honest with you, this preamble is all just some fancy justification for saying, I've been indulging in a bunch of documentaries lately. I don't know why, but you can present me with a well-directed,

well-written documentary about nearly any subject, and I'll be engrossed in minutes. Let's take a look at some of the things I've learned about in April, shall we? I've learned about the fires of St. Anthony, St. Elmo, neither of which are actually fires. I've learned about the beans of St. Ignatius, which aren't actually beans. A tunnel where people pay to inhale radioactive gas. Allegations of sinister misconduct in the field of cozy, wholesome indie games. I've learned about cursed films, then more cursed films. I've learned about various CIA human experimentation programs. And for reasons I cannot explain, I've learned more about the British rave scene in the 90s than I ever thought possible. Look, the point is, documentaries can be powerful things. They're more than just recounting a

true story, more than reading a Wikipedia page. They're a hugely important part of our cultural landscape. And with more and more content filling up streaming services and more and more YouTubers growing large enough to have the required budget to make truly engrossing investigative works, the art of documentary is only going to improve. Someone should make a documentary about that. Yes, I realize that all of this sounds like I'm leading somewhere, that I'm about to announce that our new sponsor is a production company known for this kind of content. But no, I just wanted to indulge in discussing something I love.

There's no ulterior motive, no foreshadowing. I've never even heard of five years later pictures. So let's just get on with our fictional podcast, shall we? In our first tale, we join Charlie, a man who's enjoying a nice night out with his family. What could be better, spending time with your loved ones, tucked up safe, but still watching a series of thrilling events play out on the screen. But in this tale, shared with us by author Michael S. Walker, The theater in Charlie's mind seems to be experiencing some technical difficulties.

Performing this tale are Jesse Cornett, Jeff Clement, Nicole Goodnight, Tanya Malosevic, Mike Delgado, Graham Rowett, and Mary Murphy. So grab your popcorn and enjoy the show. Until the credits roll on The Drive-In Movie. They started the feature, and as usual, it was still not dark enough to quite make the images on the massive drive-in screen. Charlie sat in the backseat of his family's Ford sedan with his sister, Sally, and stared past his father's head at the amorphous figures on the screen. From a silver speaker hooked precariously to the driver's side window, lines of dialogue from the

feature sputtered and crackled, sounding like they were coming from the bottom of a coffee can or something. Sally sat far, far away from him, not staring at the screen at all. She was fiddling with the arms of some plastic baby doll she had cradled in her own arms. The doll was wrapped up tied in a pink wool blanket. Sally was also singing along with their mother, who sat in the front seat. Her eyes ostensibly focused on the blurry feature. The song was an old, old favorite. Charlie had not heard that song since...

Wait a minute. What day is it? What year is it now? Charlie only knew that it was summer, and the whole family was at the drive-in movies once again, seeing a new double feature. The fact filled Charlie with warmth and something else. A feeling as amorphuses the moving blobs on the giant tiled screen.

Not a very good feeling, perhaps. His mother and sister sang together in identical, almost tuneless voices. I know an old lady that swallowed a fly. I don't know why she swallowed that fly. Perhaps she'll die. His father murmured, good-naturedly, from behind the wheel. He, paid to see a movie, not listen to a concert. Come on, stow it, please.

But they, as if to tease him, went on singing. I know an old lady who swallowed a spider that wriggled in a little. and jiggled and tickled inside her. Charlie stared at the back of his father's skull in growing fascination. Shouldn't there be something? A bald spot, perhaps? Like some pink pancake stretching down almost to the nape of his neck? Why was that singular image fixed in Charlie's mind?

But no, it wasn't so. His father's hair covered all of his head in massive, greasy curls. It was the hair of a young man in his 30s. Why was that? Strange. As Charlie struggled with this, lines of dialogue from the movie leached through to his ears. His mother and his sister gave up the old lady-ditty somewhere around, I know an old lady who swallowed a dog to concentrate on the feature as well. On the screen, a thin, nervous-looking man in a silver space suit. and helmet was talking into a long microphone attached to some elaborate control panel or computer. To the left of this ungainly figure, a small crowd of school-aged children looked on in rapt fascination.

The thin, skittish man in the suit chirped into the microphone. We are starting our retro rocket countdown. Five, four, three, two, one, firing retro rockets. He then pressed hard at a button on the bulky control panel. We will be touching down in 20 minutes. One of the children, a little girl with cute brown pigtails, now broke free from the group and sidled up to the man. I have to go to the bathroom.

We have just touched down. In the front seat, his parents laughed hard. His sister joined in a split second later as not to be left out. His father munched popcorn out of a greasy bag between his legs. Oh, that Don Nots. Don Nots. Wait a minute. What was this movie?

Hadn't Charlie just seen it a couple of months ago on TV, passing the time at the hospital? Why the hospital he couldn't remember? Again, it was part of that amorphous feeling that he still could not define. Mom? How old is this movie? Charlie was surprised, not surprised, at the sound of his own voice. It seemed a couple of octaves higher than expected. Curiouser and curiouser. His mother turned to stare at him from the front.

For a second, only the briefest of seconds, her face seemed. gray and maciated, like some antiquated death mask. And then that image dissipated. And there was his young mother, her hazel eyes twinkling in the growing darkness, smiling at him. What you mean, Charlie? You know this movie, the reluctant astronaut. You begged and begged me to take you to see it when it first came out. When it was at the Midland Theater a few months ago. The Midland Theater? The Midland Theater. Hadn't that old barn burnt down? Like in, again. Charlie could not remember, and it was maddening. His mother returned to enjoying the movie. She slid across the front seat, close to Charlie's father, and rested her small head cozily on his shoulder. His father, in turn,

pulled her in even closer with one strong hirsuit arm. That can't be, right? But still, it was nice, very nice to see that. Despite all these pieces in his head that did not fit together, despite all uncertainty, his inability to remember, nice to see his parents together again. Charlie looked out the windshield now, past his cuddled pair.

parents. It was growing darker and darker by the minute. The colossal characters on the drive-in screen stood out in sharp relief, as if they were now being projected in the dark of some regular theater, the Midland, perhaps. But the Midlands had burnt down in... Charlie thought it might come to him as it grew even darker. He now glanced out his side window at the vast gravel lot, house of the drive-in theater. There were other cars out there, of course, in this starless night, all pointed toward the screen wall, like chrome and metal worshippers in some kind of an outdoor church.

By the moving, flickering light issuing from the screen, Charlie could see these other vehicles fairly well, but there was something off about the cars out there, too. Something incongruous to his thinking. They all seemed too bulky to be real. Or tapered and flattened out like race cars. Some of them had tail fins. And then Charlie noticed an even stranger particular.

All of the cars that he noticed seemed to be sporting tiny little flags. Without exception, tiny purple flags hung from the hood antennas of every. every car he looked at, and all of the flags were emblazoned with white crosses. Something was coming to him now, becoming clearer in his mind, as the feature ran on and on in hilarity, and the darkness settled around them. As his parents spumed in the front seat, that amorphous something was. Charlie stared over at his sister. She apparently had lost interest in the movie.

and had gone back to attending to her baby doll. She was singing to it now, as she fussed and tightened the pink blanket around its small body. More of that old song. I know an old lady who swallowed a horse. She's dead, of course. Of course. Of course. How old was his sister?

Very young. Three. Four. He wasn't sure, and that doll. It seemed to stir up now unpleasant associations for Charlie. Pain out of nowhere, a black cloud of grief. A strange word now bubbled up in his mind. Preclymcia.

His sister, but there was his sister. Three or four, looking down on her child with untempered devotion and love. She caught Charlie looking at her. She leaned over and punched him hard in the arm. And that was all right. It was all part of that lovely warmth. Daddy, Charlie is staring at me. This time, his father turned around to look at him.

And for a second, just as it had been with his mother, there was some kind of ghostly image, some quick superimposition. It looked as he was as he was. if for a brief second, as if half of his father's face were gone. But there he was again, smiling, loving, only mock, scolding. Charlie, do I need to turn this car around now and drive us all home? Everyone laughed at the joke. Charlie included that warm feeling was there despite the darkness, despite the ghosts. The ghosts that were coming more and more. into focus as the reels of the reluctant astronaut played out on a vast screen.

A screen that Charlie knew should be full of gaps and holes now. A screen that should exist as a rusty artifact and a lot overcome by weeds. A screen where no double feature had played for years and years. If this was eternity, it would be all right. The dialogue of the movie now seemed to cut out as Charlie thought this one thought. And from the tiny sliver speaker on the driver's side window, a sound like machines. A mechanical hissing, breathing began. Over and over as his parents and sister laughed.

And then that sound stopped too. Undertaking dangerous feats can be daunting, but for some it's a way of life. Spelunking in a huge cave system, exploring a vast desert, or in this case, climbing a difficult mountain. But in this tale, shared with us by author Wiley, we're talking about a peak that almost none have managed to ascend and live to tell the tale. I perform this tale alongside Jessica McAvoy. So, I think we'll be able to make the journey, even if the path ahead is littered with bodies. Why? Well, you'll find out, if you go.

Mountains? The exquisite tension of navigating fickle terrain, the elation of absolute solitude at 28,000 feet. Never mind that Holly begged me not to go. Never mind the wineglass she flung at me as I left, my packs slung over one shoulder, as shards of crystal rain down. down on me. When I get back, we'll make up, as we always do. When I get back, but I'm here now. The ascent, the thin air, the retina-blusting glare of sunlight on virgin snow, the wind which cuts it exposed skin like a knife, commands my attention. In the distance, the serrated peaks of

neighboring mountains stab up from a mantle of clouds. By now, I'm well above base camp at an elevation of 25,000 feet, navigating an icefall pitted with crevasses, some of them spanned by little more than a rickety aluminum ladder lashed to poles with climbing rope. It's dangerous, soul-pulverizing work. I love every second of it. Just past the icefall at the base of a steep coulois, I pass a familiar, if morbid, landmark. Here lies my old friend Romeo, so named for his distinctive configuration in death, lips upturned in a beatific smile, arms outstretched in a permanent pantomime of a lover's embrace. His hand is bald in a fist that might have gripped a snapped rope or an ice axe that failed to arrest him mid-fall, just seconds before presumably

hurling down the 3,000-foot shoot to his death. Now blanketed in fresh snowfall, he serves as a grim reminder of the perils of the mountain and those foolhardy enough to climb it. There are other landmarks, deserted campsites, abandoned climbing gear, and of course the dozens of ill-fortune climbers permanently arrested in their bid for the summit. I recognize the snow queen nestled in her throne of ice, her torso fused to the sarac by years of accumulated ice and snow. She looks as fresh as the day she died. skin white as arctic moonlight, her lips fish belly gray. In the frozen wasteland above 20,000 feet, nothing rots.

She'll stay there until a loved one reclaims her, or the mountain does, whichever comes first. There's another climber here. She pulls out a camera and snaps a morbid memento mori on her own journey to the summit. A strange custom, collecting pictures of the dead, and one I've always found a little distasteful. I give the climber a stiff nod. I must have done a poor job of hiding my disapproval because she doesn't nod back.

As she fades into the spin drift behind me, she's still staring at the corpse, mouth half open, her camera hanging forgotten from her hand. I pass several more climbers on the way up the Kulwa. Men and women, distinguished only by the color of their gear. There are electric blue jackets and hot pink trekking poles neon bright, not out of ostentation, but to simplify the corpse hunt if things go sour.

We acknowledge each other with grim nods, or not at all. Some of them, I think, will make it. They are the ones possessed, who climb the mountain like the devil's on their tail. But more often, I pass by climbers struggling through the snow. I learned that one of them, a man in a distinctive camo-print Parca, has left his ailing partner at base camp to make a solo bid himself. I wish him luck, knowing he'll need it. When I reach Camp 3, just shy of 26,000 feet, I check my watch.

At this altitude, time starts to flex, expanding and contracting like the lungs of a giant. Time moves glacially, hours passing. in the space of a minute. You learn to measure time by counting your breaths, sometimes as many as 15 for every step in the oxygen-starved atmosphere. There are a few tents scattered across the broad, flat step that is Camp 3. Their occupants busy themselves prepping for the next leg of the ascent, their faces impenetrable behind wraparound shades and layers of insulating down. I wave, but they're too exhausted to wave back.

I bite back a grin. Most climbers stop to pitch a tent at Camp 3. If not out of sheer exhaustion, then to give their bodies time to recover from the effects of altitude sickness. But I feel strong, even without bottled oxygen. My legs piston up the slope, leaving the climbers in a plume of fresh powder.

The next part is the hardest. A 200-foot vertical Jumar. The sheer cliff pockmarked here and there with cams and ice screws. I rope in. Halfway up the route I find a new addition to the Legion of the Dead. A climber hangs upside down, his ankles tangled in his ropes, face coated in layers of delicate whore frost like some ghoulish, Turkish pastry.

He must have lost his grip and swung upside down. Then, too weak to lever himself upright, he must have hung there for hours, maybe days, until the elements finally did him in. He'd have cracked his head against the ice if he was lucky. But it's the familiar camo-print Parca that ices my blood. I have the nauseating sensation that I took a wrong turn somewhere. When had he passed me? How could he pass me, exhausted as he was?

Was he so deranged by hypoxia that he didn't think to ask for help? Maybe he'd taken an inadvisable shortcut along the steeper eastern cool ones. exhausting himself to the edge of death. I'm no closer to an explanation when I arrive at Camp 4, and here's another cause for concern, because there shouldn't be a Camp 4. The human body can't sustain life upwards of 26,000 feet. Only a handful of people have survived a Bivouac overnight.

There's a reason they call it the death zone. But there are tents here, A few of them so old they put me in mind of World War II military tents. Flaps of oil cloth snap in the wind. I've half convinced myself they're abandoned, relics of some previous doomed expedition, or maybe an improbable movie set. But then I see a face peer at me from between the folds of one of the tents. I call to them, but they ignore me.

Knowing every second I linger jeopardizes my own success, I press on. A shelf of cloud is gathering at the peak, but I'm confident I can summit and turn back in the time it takes for the storm to break. In the death zone, timing is crucial. Bodily functions one by one begin to fail. Mucous leaks into the lungs and brain.

The blood thickens to soup. The wind whips into a fever pitch and cold begins its final foray into your bones. The body enters a liminal state, balanced on the razor-thin barrier between life and death. It's fucking exhilarating. Hallucinations are not at all uncommon in this state of diminished functioning, so I wasn't surprised to see other climbers alongside me, dressed as if they came from different eras.

Indigenous guides in reindeer skins and yak-fur kins. millionaires in their latest REI tech, British generals in military garb shooting the breeze with the state-sponsored mountaineers from the Russian SFSR. Time converges, then scatters. Inhale, exhale. The peak is within reach now. The wind buffets me on all sides.

In my hypoxic fugue, it feels like I'm in the middle of a jostling crowd, elbows and knees jabbing into me, voices shrilly crying. Some voices rise to ascendancy over the others like a whale, indistinguishable from the scurling wind. I push it out of my mind in my madcap bid for the summit. Holly's parting words filter back to me as if from an unimaginable distance, close and far away, all at once. If you go, never come back. The clamorous wind abruptly stops, swaddling me in silence so profound it leaves me stunned. How had I forgotten that? Holly and I aren't together anymore.

haven't been together for months. Years? Let's say months. I recall with piercing clarity the envelope of divorce papers waiting for me in my motel. A chill saddles in my bones. Exhaustion tugs at my feet like lead weights. I realize with some annoyance that I made a mistake that newbies will often make in their fever to reach the top.

pushing myself hard and depleting my energy stores, leaving nothing behind for the descent. I consider turning back. No, I should turn back. But Holly isn't here to ground me. Not anymore. And the summit is so close. And then I'm at the top. A staggering sense of elation washes through me. It's a surrearing sense of elation washes through me. It's a surreal feeling Standing alone at the apex of the world For me the feeling has always resembled Something like claustrophobia

Absurd, yes, yes I know But nothing reveals the smallness of the world Like peering down upon it from 28,000 feet Compelved by a whim I search for a small flat stone And slip it into my palm Go Oh, I wish

Holly were here to share this with me, like back in the old days when we'd summit the mountain together. Before I felt myself torn between my love of climbing and my love of her. She never understood that vital calling, like a hook that's been caught between my breastbone, pulling me inexorably upwards. If you go. I pull a ratty pitcher from my pocket and hold it up to the sun. In it, Holly is a young woman with her. With strawberry blonde hair, her cheekbones dusted with freckles.

I squint at the photo, something in the trick of the light, distorting her smile into a scowl. When had her hair gone dull and brassy, shot through with skeins of gray? In the irradiated light of the summit, the photograph has a strange lenticular quality, gray, red, gray, red, like sunlight peekabooing through the clouds. Never come back. I slipped the photograph into my pocket, and the air in front of me resolves itself into a shape. Just the breath needed to speak her name sucks critical oxygen from my lungs. But it's worth it just to see the smile that ghosts over her lips.

Had she followed me up the mountain? I realize the implausibility of this scenario, except that my hypoxic brain is conjuring her phantom even as I take a shuddering step forward. I fall into her outstretched arms, burying my face in the crook of her shoulder. I inhale her scent, sweet cinnamon and birch, warm and comforting. I stay there a long time, relishing Holly's heartbeat. against my breastbone, basking in our shared warmth. I stay there a very long time. I don't know how long it takes me to get back to base camp. There's a new group of climbers here, prepping their equipment for the long ascent. I remove my crampons, stowing them with the rest of my gear.

Giddy with triumph, I wave to them. They squint into the snow, then turn to one another with a shrug, and head back inside their tent. Holly's warning echoes in my head. The tinkle of shattered crystal as the wine glass explodes above my head. A rain of crystal. Or was it ice? I'm beginning to feel disoriented, frightened. It's time to leave.

I've accomplished what I set out to do. I'll go back to my motel room, sign the papers, say goodbye to ten years of marriage, scuttled at the base of this mountain. I turned my attention to the peak for one last goodbye, and all at once an incredible idea hits me. Maybe. Maybe Holly wouldn't mind waiting another few days. Just long enough for me to reach the peak.

Long enough for me to say hello to my old friend Romeo, his arms frozen in a pantomime of a loving embrace. It unsettles me to stare at him too long, though. I secure the crampons to my boots and begin my bid for the summit. God, I love the mountains. The exquisite tension of navigating fickle terrain, the elation of absolute solitude at 28,000 feet. Never mind that Holly begged me no to go.

Well, the air is getting a bit thin up here. Let's return to base camp for a break before scaling up the horror again. Cast darn it, there goes another bottle. What's going on, Atticus? I've started my own small business. I make what they call impossible bottles. Bottles with little model ships inside them. Those must be tough to make.

Selling many? A few. The only thing harder than keeping the bottle intact is the hassle of shipping the orders. Find it hard shipping the ships? Then your ships need to ship with ship station. Ship station can ship my little ships even though I'm just a little ship shop? Of course. Look, you run an e-commerce business,

so you probably feel like it's a business. About time, people stop treating e-commerce giants better just because they're bigger. And you're absolutely right. It sure would be nice for e-commerce sellers of all sizes to access the same deeply discounted rates usually reserved for Fortune 500 companies. That's precisely what Ship Station can give you. No wonder Ship Station is already trusted by over 100,000 sellers. And don't get me started on shipping my bottles overseas. Terrified of dealing with international shipping, don't be.

Ship Station makes it a breeze to ship anywhere around the world, so scale away. Ship Station can handle it. Think of all the money I could save. I could buy more bottles, add little sharks. The sky's the limit. Indeed it is. Ship Station works with over 45 carriers. Easily compare rates and delivery times to quickly find the best option every time.

And it works with over 300 platforms like Amazon, eBay, Etsy, and more to automate processes like fulfillment and tracking, so you can save time managing orders. In fact, 98% of companies that use ShipStation for a year keep using it for as long as they're in business. So how can little guys like me get my shipping ship shape? Don't let the big guys keep all the good discounts to themselves. Sign up using promo code No Sleep for a free 60-day trial today at shipstation.com and start saving with every shipment. Well, it's two months of discounted shipping absolutely free. Just go to shipstation.com. Click on the microphone at the top of the page and type in No Sleep.

Ship Station, make ship happen. Fantastic. Now, I've got to get back to my models and bottles. You do that, because our next story is so good, it's going to blow up. During World War II, young Richard is sent away from his home in London to the apparent safety of the Scottish countryside. But even away from the main action of the war, bombs still thought. thunder across the highlands. And in this tale, shared with us by author Gustavo Bondoni,

one of these explosions unearths something unexpected. Performing this tale are David Alt, James Cleveland, Guy Woodward, Erica Sanderson, Ilana Charnel, Penny Scott Andrews, and Andy Cresswell. So remember the usual advice of don't go out on the moors, but maybe sometimes it's worth digging deeper when there's thunder in Old Kilpatrick. The skies came alive with a drone like a disturbed beehive, and Richard glanced up at the heavens. But only for a moment. There were more pressing things occupying his attention on earth,

wonderful things that he'd never imagined possible back in boring old London. Fluttering on the ground in front of him was a bird, red-headed and angry, dragging a broken wing through the heather. Richard wondered what to do with it. There was no question of just letting it be, not after he'd spent all afternoon trying to bring one down, but he was torn between the sheer delight of tormenting it,

taking revenge on all of taunting, elusive bird kind, or of nursing it back to health and having it for a pet. These weighty meditations were the reason that old Tom managed to sneak up on him. I see you've got your first grouse, laddie. A grouse? He'd heard some of the men talking about grouses, and sometimes they even went out to hunt them. The guns they carried were so big

that Richard had always imagined that a grouse would be something huge, with hide, tusks, and a temper to match. The thing wriggling forlornly on the ground certainly didn't look the part. Old Tom nodded towards the bird. They're hard to bring down, especially wrestling. You've the makings of a hunter boy.

The groundskeeper's craggy face never showed any emotion, but his voice seemed to radiate approval. But stones won't save you if Hannah finds you here. The wireless says the sirens have gone over in Clyde Bank, and she's ordered everyone into the cellar. The sirens are going all the time. We're too far away for it to matter. Richard knew that old Tom wouldn't report his words,

but there was always the chance that Hannah would appear from out of the underbrush. The plump grandmotherly woman was lightning first with a switch. And I'll tell her, I ran all the way back, but I was too far away. The old man pursed his lips to speak, but suddenly stopped and looked into the air. Richard realized that the drone had grown louder. But he still didn't worry. It was probably just an RAF defender reaching the scene of the bombing too late to be of any use.

A rough, calloused hand pressed into Richard's shoulder. Get down what? Tom pushed him down into the heather, right beside the struggling bird, and lay on top of him. Or at least it felt that way to Richard. Then he was deafened by a sound of thunder and thrown some meters clear. He hit the ground hard.

One didn't hear the second bomb. The pain in Richard's hand became more and more urgent, and he came back to his senses with a gasp. A voice shouting in a closed, unintelligible Scottish brogue sounded distantly through the ringing in his ears. He turned his head and saw old Tom brandishing a thick branch in one hand. The groundskeeper's other arm hung bloody and limp at his side. At first Richard wondered,

whether the blast that had thrown them across the moor had also finally driven the old man insane. The servants muttered about Tom's lonely life and bleak disposition all the time, not caring that the young master might hear. Now though the man seemed to be incoherent, bracing for an attempt. The doubts were short-lived. A lumbering form wearing rags and some rusted metallic fabric came into view. The strange figure uttered a little bit of the strange figure uttered, low moan, a sound that even through the buzzing in Richard's ears felt like the lament of a lost

soul. He paused in front of the groundskeeper and then lowered a shoulder and advanced. Tom made a valiant effort to stop him, advancing grimly and breaking the branch, a dry and firm weapon over the other man's head. The blow was completely ignored and the second man, moaning continuously, struck once with its hand and sent his hand head over heels to the ground. Then he waited as if to see what the groundskeeper would do next, until satisfied that his opponent was not going to move again. With slow, deliberate motions, the man turned to where Richard was lying. The boy felt the fear rushing into his gut and tried to stand, tried to run.

But it was impossible. His balance abandoned him And he stumbled onto the floor Able only to lie and watch As the figure of Tom's assailant advanced The other man bent and picked Richard up by the shirt The scent coming off of him was of earth and mould The man pulled him up to face him

And Richard nearly fainted when he saw the eyes They were white, milky The eyes of a blind man The man's skin was grey, almost white, and there was an open cut running across the length of his forehead, but the open flap of skin showed no blood, just more white-grey. Richard opened his mouth, but the screen came through his deaf and ears as a pitiful while. The man held his gaze for just another second, before dismissively tossing the boy to the ground. When Richard's head hit, the duck.

The darkness descended once again. The next time Richard opened his eyes, he found himself in bed. He was in a wood-panelled room with sunlight streaming through a window. A glass of water sat in a tray beside the bed. So it was all a dream? He decided to go out to see the delights the Moors held in store for him. He never managed it. As he attempted to sit up, a strange,

bundle around his chest impeded his progress and it was a good thing too. Payne shut up from his ribs and he fell back to the bed with a gasp. Richard, what do you think you're doing, young man? Hannah entered the room, her dark blue uniform immediately filling it, leaving little room for anything else. Hannah was supposedly head of the household staff, not quite a housekeeper, not quite a member of the family, but in reality she ran the house with an iron fist and anyone who wasn't an adult member of the gentry would do as she ordered or feel the sharp sting of her tongue.

Richard thought there must be a bit of bear in her makeup. Near broken in half by the bombs and trying to get out of bed without a bar you'll leave. I'll not have it. He nodded dumbly, as was his custom whenever she asked him a question, but the tactic, usually infallible, was wasted on her. Now, tell me how you're feeling. Those ribs are all right? Doctor said you'd be feeling the break for a few weeks.

No tree climbing for you, lad. Break? He was relieved to find that speech was possible and that the pain had subsided. Broke a rib, maybe two. I'm surprised it wasn't more fool, lad. Playing out on the moors in the middle of a German attack. How many times have I told you to get inside when the alarms sound?

The cellar is the only place to be in a raid, but do you listen? No, no one ever listens to me. That was so ridiculously untrue that Richard nearly interrupted her but caught himself in time. Even so, it was unlikely that Hannah would have paid him the least attention. She had a full head of steam. And that old man is the worst of the lot. Just because the master is fond of grouse hunting and he's the only one who can keep his grouse moors clear,

he thinks he's above the law. Well, you see where it got him? She paused to give Richard a questioning glare to which the boy could only give a confused look in response. It nearly cost him an arm, and it did cost him his sanity. Not that there was much of that to begin with. Know what he's been saying.

This time she didn't stop to ask for Risholm. Richard's opinion, she just went on. He's been saying there's a white loose on the Moors. Oh, that's old Tom for you. He'd never be content to be bombed by the Germans. Oh, no, he has to go and bring ghosts and ghouls into the story as well. Hannah sighed in disgust and left, muttering something about getting the young fool something to eat

if the old fool had left anything at all. Richard ignored her completely. He was thinking about a white. The next few days were torture. Even though he hardly felt any pain, Richard was forced to stay in bed under strict guard and the threat of lost privileges, as life went on around him.

That in itself would have been enough to make him chafe. Who knew how long the war would last? How long the German bombs in London would allow him to remain out here in the Scottish countryside? his freedom from the grey limitations of life as the son of a wealthy city merchant might come to an end at any time. But this was not the main reason for Richard's restlessness. There was a darkness in the house that made the weeks before, when German air raids were a daily occurrence, seem like a light-hearted time of happiness. Maids, whispering as they approached, would immediately fall silent when they entered his room to clean or to leave his meal. on the bedside table.

Even Hannah, forbidding as she was, seemed to be showing chinks in her armour. Once during a particularly windy day, a sudden gust closed one of the room's shutters with a loud bang, causing Hannah to start and drop the tray complete with Richard's breakfast. The woman had tried to hide her fear

under a veneer of anger, but her face had remained white as a sheet for the rest of the day, and she'd ordered all the shutters on the ground floor to be closed as soon as dusk began to fall. Frustration mounted as the days went by and no one gave him any indication of what was going on. Day after day he suffered until, one afternoon, bored of the illustrated books that had kept insane to that point, Richard stole out of bed.

He reasoned that if discovered, he would simply say that he was on the way to the bathroom, his only permitted excursion, and hadn't told anyone in order to avoid being a nuisance. The door of his room was about halfway down the hall on the first floor of the house. Richard made his way silently down the corridor towards the two flights of stairs leading into the entrance hall. He stopped dead. Below him, two of the maids were in earnest conversation. They say the white's not been seen for two days. She was the scullery maid, married to a clerk in town, so she was the source of any and all information in the house.

hiding. No, they say whites don't know how to hide. They're just dead flesh, and they have to keep moving. They have unfinished business. That's why they can't really die. This one was from years and years ago. How come it's just come out now? Old Tom says that they must have buried it under tons of stone,

and that the bomb set it free. Sure. Old Tom ain't right in the head since he lost his arm, Anyhow, if the whites gone, the army probably got it. No, you can't kill a white with guns. It can't rest until it does what it has to do. That's what I told Emma when she said that it had probably thrown itself into the sea. I told her that whites have to do what they have to do.

It's silly to think they'd go throwing themselves into the sea. Why not? Must be an awful way to live. being a white? Richard knew these two would not give him any more useful information. They knew less about the monster than he did. Just from looking into its dead eyes for that single instant, he could have told them beyond any doubt that the white was still out there somewhere.

The mere suggestion of its throwing itself into the sea was ridiculous. He moved back to his room undiscovered. It took the full force of the doctor's command, and Richard managed to overhear the phrase, I don't care if the armies of hell itself are out on those moors, the boy needs to be allowed to recover in the fresh air, for Richard's personal Cerberus to allow him freedom. At first, the command was taken literally,

with supervised strolls along the terrace being deemed sufficient contact with the elements to be going on with. But even Hannah quickly realized that this was impracticable. people busy making certain he wasn't being attacked by ancient monsters were often needed in the kitchen or elsewhere and the fact that they avoided any mention of it was even worse they pretended to be concerned that he might fall or that he would move in the wrong direction and hurt himself

Richard fantasised about asking the scholarly maid that was with him that day what exactly she would do if the white attacked them He kept silent, and on the third day they simply left him to his own devices. Richard knew that there was a fine line between freedom and obedience that had to be observed. If he disappeared into the Moors for too long, Hannah would cause his freedom to end in a complete way, and besides, he still wasn't in any condition to be overly frolicsome. But there was one thing he had to do, despite the darkness of the day, and the fog that hadn't quite burned away,

even though it was nearly noon. The place where the German plane had dropped the bombs was about half a mile away, just beyond one of the small hills that dotted the estate. The white was sitting in the shadows of the crater. It looked up as he approached, and Richard was again surprised by the lack of life in its eyes. He knew what people were saying about it,

knew that it was supposed to be the walking dead, supposed to be able to tear strong men apart without even making much of an effort. But he felt no fear. He'd moved on and was no longer the shell-shocked bomb victim the White had encountered previously. Even injured, Richard knew he could run faster than it could stumble after him. They studied each other in silence for a moment. The White's dead eyes seemed to have grown glacier since they'd last met, but other than that, it didn't seem to be the worse for wear.

It was still wearing the rust-coloured shirt whose unused hood fell behind the creature's head. Now that Richard had time to observe more carefully, he saw that the shirt reached its knees and was held in place at the waist by a rotted belt which couldn't possibly hold out much longer. The cloth rags which it had been wearing over the shirt on their first encounter were gone.

Somehow this creature, this dead man, another age looked perfectly at home standing in a bomb crater in the gloom of the overcast moor it looked natural making richard feel like he was the otherworldly intruder without warning it emitted the moan again it wasn't a loud sound but it cut straight to the boy's soul passing through his physical body as if it were made of spider's silence richard nearly turned and ran but held his position until the wailing stopped and they stood face facing each other again, with Richard feeling just slightly wave-tossed. The white clearly didn't see him as a threat.

Whether something had changed since their last encounter, or whether it simply remembered the ease with which it had handled him, Richard had no way of knowing. But the creature simply turned, without so much as a shrug, and began methodically lifting stones that had found in the scarred earth where the German bombs had fallen. There seemed to be no point to what it was doing. Every rock it took into its arms was then dropped back into a seemingly random place as it picked up another.

It wasn't piling them up, nor was it organizing them in any way. It didn't even seem to know which ones it had already discarded. In the ten minutes that Richard watched at work, he saw the white pick up one particular stone no less than eight times before tossing it back to the ground. Richard took two steps forward, trying to get a closer look at what was happening, but suddenly he heard a familiar drone high in the skies. He didn't stop to think that it might just be an RAF patrol. He didn't stop to hear if the sirens were going.

He just ran as quickly as his battered body could take him for the imaginary safety. Richard only turned back once when the wailing of the white hit him from behind. He turned to see it waving at arms frantically at some unseen enemy, from above, as if it were being attacked by bees. Then he turned back to the house and ran from the sound of the airways. The raids continued day and night for two days. This time it was no incidental thing, bombers dropping a load or two on their way back to Germany. This time the target was Clydebank, and Richard could hear the distant rumbling whenever he left the bunker.

They were tense times, but all of them knew, at least deep within themselves, but the shelter would protect them. It might have been a false belief or even completely mistaken, but it kept them from going mad. And the thunder from the bombs never came too close again. On the third day, the bombing stopped, and thunder of a different kind,

full of blowing gales and rattling windows, took over the land. Richard was confined to the house for yet another spell. By the time the storm blew over, he was nearly completely recovered and fit to burst from the combined effects of cabin fever and the secret he'd managed to keep to himself in the shelter. As soon as it dawned sunny, he was off into the moors. The white hadn't gone far.

It was standing nearly in the same place as he had left it, almost as though it hadn't moved. But it was clear that it must have. The place where the bombs had fallen had been churned into a muddy mass of deep footprints, and the white itself had half-dried clods sticking to it as high as its knees. And it had found a sword. Well, perhaps the word sword is a bit generous for the rusted piece of metal it held in one hand and whose edge lay on one shoulder, but it was clear from looking at the white that the

undead creature at least felt the sword was no less than excalibur. It seemed to stand taller, prouder, and a sense of calm that hadn't been. been present in their earlier encounters filled the more. It watched Richard approach but made no move towards him. When it was clear that the boy would come no closer, the creature simply turned away, sending its gaze back up into the heavens. It seemed to be waiting for something, and its posture made it extremely clear that it was prepared to wait as long as necessary. What exactly it was waiting for was more of a mystery. Richard wondered whether it believed that the noisy, dangerous metal beasts that ringed the sky were dragons, or whether they were angels sent to take him to his promised land.

One thing seemed certain. A dead creature from the deep past, armed with a rusted sword, was unlikely to understand the Luftwaffe. The boy took another step towards the white, and then another, a third. At the fourth, the white turned its attention back to the ground and gave him a little. look that froze Richard in his tracks. It raised its sword not at the boy, but at the sky, and grunted. Then it pointed at the countryside, indicating everything around them, the moors, the overcast sky, and a distant copse of trees, and tried to speak. The sound that came out was completely impossible to understand, but the message was clear. What was out there

belonged to the white, and all challenges would be met by the sword, rusty or not. Richard did not sleep well that night. When old Tom finally became ambulatory once again, Richard was certain the white, still standing where he left it, would be discovered. But the groundskeeper seemed to have little inclination to leave the house and spent his time drinking broth in the kitchen, and telling the maids wilder and wilder tales of undead creatures that made Hitler's armies seem like a thing to be laughed off. Though the old man stayed away from the moors, Richard still kept him in his sights. He didn't want to find that, in a careless moment, the groundskeeper would sneak up on him

like he had that very first day. That would be a true catastrophe. But Richard's presence seemed to be discomforting to everyone in the servants' hall. Eyes shifted, and people found other things to do when he walked in. The palls seemed to grow and grow until late one day, old Tom, well into his drink, finally spluttered. Don't you follow me around all day, lad? It's no more father's German skills her parents in the last attack. But Richard heard no more. Now he understood the freedom he was given, understood why Hannah hadn't even chided him when he'd returned

late for dinner the night before. It was no comfort to him that he now owned the house and the surrounding countryside for miles around. Blinded by tears, the boy ran off into the moor, and whether by design or by accident, he soon found himself face to face with the white, just as night was falling. Overcome by tears, he had ignored both the sound of distant sirens and the commotion caused by old Tom's sudden outburst. It was only under the supremely, sobering effect of that undead gaze that he realized what was going on around him. The air raid siren, a new one that had been installed following the bombing incident, could be clearly heard, its wail only slightly distorted by the distance.

And in sharp barks and cries, the shouts of the household calling his name. He debated whether to return to the open arms of his own people or to stay there alone on the moor surrounded by nothing that was alive. The memory of his servant's betrayal, of their refusal to do what was right, made the decision for him. As night fell, he stood next to the White on its seemingly eternal vigil. He wondered what it was thinking about. He himself was wondering how long they'd known without telling him. The darkness was soon complete.

If he hadn't known what the thing standing beside him actually was, he could have easily pretended that it was just a silent man. The shouts got nearer and then farther away as the household staff crisscrossed the moors in search of a wayward boy who was now their master. Richard wondered if he would have to wait to grow up before he could sack them all. He went back to gazing at the sky. But suddenly, the sky was torn apart by a shrieking roar. Something enormous flew low at almost unimaginable speed and plowed into the moor in front of them, near enough to deafen Richard with its sound,

and near enough that he could feel the wind from its passage. It screeched and thumped its way along before stopping about 200 yards away from where Richard and the White were standing. It was impossible to see what it was until it caught on fire. A small blaze showed the monster that had seemed so enormous while in the air was actually the remains of a small fighter plane. One wing was gone and the other was a blaze, but the plane was upright at the end of the thorough it had carved into the air.

more. Incredibly, Richard could see movement in the cock. He followed the white as it walked towards the wreck. When they had gone about halfway, the figure of a man dropped to the ground and crawled away from the burning fighter. Moments later, the pilot stumbled to his feet. The fire had grown large enough that the pilot could clearly see them, but it also allowed Richard to see the markings on the aeroplane's tail. A black cross within a white cross with a thinner black border. It was a marking that every schoolboy in Britain had been taught to recognize and taught to hate. Luftwaffe! The white turned to look at him, dead eyes glazed, showing no curiosity.

He's a German. Do something! The white didn't move. He's here to invade. This is our country, and it's my land. You can't let him do that. The pilot came closer, fumbling with a pocket. on a thick flight jacket. His face was covered by blood that oozed out of his leather helmet, but there was no mistaking the fear and desperation in the man's eyes. A black pistol emerged and was pointed at the white, and the man said something which seemed to consist entirely of

consonants and gutterals. The sound of the man's voice, or perhaps the language itself, seemed to move the ancient warrior. The white suddenly launched itself at the aviator, still 20 yards away in a stiff but effective run. It moaned and held the sword aloft. The pilot screamed and began to fire, emptying the magazine into a creature which had long since ceased to care about physical pain. The Germans' eyes went wide as he watched it approach,

and wider still when the white buried two feet of rusted iron into his belly. The German stayed upright, bleeding onto the moor for a long time. Then he crumpled. Richard joined the white beside him, and they looked on the enemy's face for a silent eternity. Shouting from behind caused Richard to turn. What looked like the entire household staff was standing on a small rise just behind them, with a large oil lamp of a kind strictly forbidden by the blackout rules governing Blitz era Britain. He could see horror in their expressions and fear.

Richard could almost read the treacherous thoughts behind those looks. The German might have been the enemy, but at least he'd been human. The white, the white, frightened them, because it was implacable and unholy. But to Richard, it seemed that the undead frightened them because it was loyal as well. Loyal to a parcel of ground or to some ancient ideal, perhaps, but unquestionably loyal. Not like them. Richard turned back to the white, who'd removed its sword from the fallen aviator and stood by his side.

He looked straight into the undead eyes. Kill them all. This time, the long-dead warrior moved to obey. Welcome to Goat Valley Campgrounds. Looking for a place to escape your busy life and reconnect with nature? Goat Valley Campgrounds. features 300 acres of quiet forest and peaceful scenery for you to enjoy. Come meet Kate.

She runs the place, like her parents before her. We know you'll enjoy your stay as long as you behave yourself and follow the rules. Your survival depends on it. The No Sleep Podcast presents Goat Valley Campgrounds by Bonnie Quinn. Chapter 9. My family says that we're cursed. It takes many forms. There's the obvious curse, the little girl and the beast.

Certainly, the beast won't hesitate to gobble up anyone that gets in its way, but its presence is tied solely to our house. The one passed down from campground manager to campground manager across the generations. These two entities are fixed on my family line, and it's they who hold the strongest claim to our blood. The little girl killed my mother. The beast killed my father. And someday, I fear, they will kill me as well.

This is the first form of the curse. The second form is more subtle. It's a deep, unrelenting love of the land. It ties our hearts to it and traps us in its beauty so that we can't abandon it. No matter the danger, no matter what it takes from us, we can't help but love it. I was ensnared at a young age.

My brother was spared this curse, perhaps because the land was so certain it would claim me. It wasn't wrong. I do love this campground and all the subtle beauty and joy it contains. Love obscures the danger and makes us willing to die for it. The third form is the happenstance form that we speak of facetiously. Mostly it's in regards to our campers and the locals. We're cursed when someone leaves a garbage bag on the side of the road

instead of tossing it in the dumpster, which is only four yards away. We're cursed to deal with drunken mishaps or one-star reviews over petty, stupid matters. And if that wasn't enough, we have the locals causing problems for us as well. Why us? Why do we have to deal with everyone's problems? We're cursed. That's why. Sometimes I wonder if this isn't just a way to complain about random misfortune.

Perhaps these inhuman things are out to make our lives more difficult, and the rest of the world conspires with them to help. There are patterns to the supernatural, and its ebb and flow intersects with our reality. When things are bad, the family curse finds a way to make it worse. My name is Kate, and this is Goat Valley Campgrounds. I was in my office working on quarterly performance reviews. I've taken to heart the trend of delivering feedback more often than once a year.

Do you really want to wait a year to find out what you're doing well and what you could be doing better that might impact your ongoing employment? No, of course not. Also, it keeps the meeting shorter. Good job, no complaints. Your coworkers say you're an asset to have a round. Done in about 30 minutes. Of course, Brian's review always takes long because the dogs have to be praised individually and given treats. There was only one performance review left to right when there was a knock on the door.

I was in the campground office, which was accessible to campers. My personal office at the house was focused on the parts of campground management we don't want visible to the public eye. I absently called out that they could come in, probably another land dispute, I thought. We get a lot of those during the summer, especially when it comes to who can hook up to what water spickets. The heavy footsteps that entered told me it was a man, a big man. I didn't look over yet, focused on finishing up a note to myself so I wouldn't forget my current thought when I returned to the review after this was over. I finally glanced away from the screen just in time for the man to place a severed human head on my desk. It was fresh. The blood had mostly drained from the tattered remains of the neck, but what dribbled out onto the desk's surface was bright red and thin like water.

It had belonged to a young man. The glasses were still on his face, sitting crookedly across eyes wide with surprise. The flesh of the cheeks was loose, dangling over an offset jaw. I stared at it a moment in shock and then raised my glance to stare at the man in front of me. His eyes were fixed vacantly on the back wall of the office, a big man with broad shoulders and prominent biceps, roughly the same age as the head leaking onto my desk. Covertly, I reached under my desk and silently pulled out the drawer that held a loaded pistol. Can I help you? Just needed to drop this off. Is that all? It is. Have a good day. His tone was normal, which, given the circumstances, sent a chill down my spine.

There were goosebumps on the back of my neck. He didn't do anything else, though. Just turned and walked away. He didn't shut the door behind him, and I stared out through the open doorway as he walked about eight paces from the office. And he collapsed, fell to his knees in the gravel drive, and started screaming. He clutched at his head with his hands, digging the nails into his scalp. No. No!

Ryan was nearby. He had his dogs with him. Those dogs had a sense for when trouble was coming and usually managed to be close at hand for it. Brian cautiously approached the whaling camper and the dogs milled about sniffing at the ground. Hey, hey, it's going to be okay. We're here to help.

You can't help. I did with my own hands. He stumbled to his feet and whirled, making for the office entrance. His steps were faltering and his eyes were wide with desperation. Instantly, the dogs closed ranks in front of the office door. They didn't snarl or snap at him, merely blocked the entrance with their bodies. The man pried at one, grabbing it by the collar, but it was like he was trying to move stone.

The dogs regarded him with calm, compassionate eyes and refused to move. Brian carefully came up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder, gently pulling him away. You don't want to see it. Trust me. You don't want to see. Chris! That's my brother! I know, I know.

But seeing him like this will only make it worse. Come on. We'll take care of it from here. He turned the man around and walked him away from the office before ushering him into the waiting care of another one of my employees. A couple of the dogs followed the campers he was led away. Their heads were low and their tails drooped. They knew something terrible had happened.

I went out to talk to Brian, who was standing in the road, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. He killed his own brother. Damn. What the hell causes someone to do that? I'd put my money on this being the work of the man with no shadow. He doesn't kill people, though. He doesn't kill people often.

And he doesn't do it himself. This? Forcing someone else to murder their brother? Absolutely his sort of game. So what do we do about it? What can we do about it? Not like we can nicely ask the man with no shadow to stop being an asshole. I'll go through.

talk to the police. Make sure our grieving camper there is kept isolated from others so word doesn't get out around the campground. Okay. I'll keep a couple of the dogs with him, too. Maybe they'll help. He walked away, getting out the radio to inform the staff that we needed to find the rest of a body. I returned to my office. The man's severed head seemed to be staring at me as I sat down. I'm sorry. Your brother talked to the wrong person, and when that happens, they're There's nothing that can be done to save them. Hey, this is Kate. There's been a death on the campground.

Much to my relief, the police officer that responded was alone. Sheriff Sabota hadn't gotten word of this incident yet. Still, it was only a matter of time. My stomach twisted into knots just thinking about it, and there was a sour taste in the back of my throat. I could pass this off as a mere murder and thereby protect myself, but if the outside world got a whole thing, of the news that somebody had killed their brother on my campground? Well, it'd be bad publicity.

Wouldn't fit with the image we were trying to project to the outside world. I waited outside while the officer bagged the severed head. By then, the body had been found, and that was loaded up into an ambulance as well, for transport to the town morgue. We didn't have much around here, but we sure as hell had a morgue, though even that wasn't remarkable. Just a squat cement building, barely with an I shot at the funeral home. This looks pretty bad, Kate. I'm well aware. You're going to help us out?

I can't. Not this time. The sheriff is breathing down our necks about this. That's bullshit. Tell him to stop meddling with our affairs. It doesn't work like that. I have to let him know, and if he says we follow procedure,

the real procedure, not what we normally do, then that's what we'll do. It might not get out. The family may keep it quiet on their own. They might, or they might not. Guess we'll find out. I can't leave this to chance. The town's economy depends on this.

You know what the liquor store calls our big events? Second Christmas, I'm aware. I need more time. That's asking a lot from me. Think about it. Your sister-in-law runs the bakery, right? What happens to her business if the campground traffic dries up? She doesn't get that many campers dropping in.

Really? Ask how much she makes by selling fresh-baked goods in my camp store during the busy season. His scones got to come from somewhere. There was an uncomfortable silence. Sheriff says that we don't necessarily need to shut the campground down. Just needs to be sold and then it's not old land anymore. A new owner won't do any good if the sheriff ruins the campground's reputation in the process.

Well, I suppose that's true. Okay, here's what I'll do. I'll stall the investigation. I'll tell them we're still trying to determine if inhuman influence, was involved, or if this was just a run-of-the-mill murder. It won't buy you much time, though. Maybe a day at most. I hope you've got a plan.

Oh, believe me, I've got a plan. The officer didn't look reassured by me saying that. So about those rules, I don't believe anything should be an absolute, because intent is more important than the letter of the rule. A rule is meant to coerce a desired outcome, after all. And if there's a way to get that outcome that might not be exactly within the confines of the rules, Well, what's more important? Dogma? Or results? I did what I said you shouldn't do. Rule number three. The one I keep saying over and over,

because it's something that everyone should know, if not from folklore, then at least from watching Lord of the Rings. Don't follow the lights. I followed them. They tried to lead me into danger a handful of times before we reached the edge of my property. They took me to the mound where the thing in the darkness lies sleeping, but I won't. went around and waited into the lights began moving again, reluctantly, in another direction. They took me to the people with no faces, but as I've said before, they won't harm me. I felt them looking at the needle I wore stuck through the fabric of my shirt and the cup and candle I carried. To where are you going?

The vanishing house. Do you know the way? The lights are unreliable. We do not. Would you like us to make a sacrifice for you, however, in the hopes that some power would smile upon you? That's a very kind of an offer. I must refuse, though. I already have the blessing of a goddess. Yes, blessing, so we see. After that, the lights took me to where frost hung on the leaves and coated the ground.

But I wore the mantle and the cold could not touch me, and I passed by unscathed. They took me past the lady in chains, but I was unmoved by her cries and weeping, and her too, I passed by. Finally, they took me to the edge of the property. They stopped just shy of the border, marked only by my memory in a few scattered, no trespassing signs. Part of my land is fenced, but not here. Not on this edge of the campground, where the road is some distance away.

across neglected and empty land. I figure that few people are going to be willing to haul their gear this far in order to sneak into the campground, and those that are physically able to are likely backpackers who are respectful enough of the land to pay for its usage. Brian, found it. Northwest Corner. Right? I'm going inside.

Remember, if I'm not back by morning, torch it. Let's just say I had a backup plan that involved gasoline and matches. If I couldn't rescue the sheriff, I at least wanted to eliminate one of the dangers around here. The house sat before me on the other side of the road, a squat thing of wood and shingles with that front porch and the barely open door inviting me in. I won't lie. I was afraid. I didn't want to go inside. I'm not entirely sure how I forced myself to move. The needle was bright against my shirt, and that was some comfort. it and the light cast by the candle and the feel of the skull cup in my hand. Were the heroes frightened in the stories?

I think they were. Yeah, they were. Of course they were. But they had their protection, their three items, their rules, their helpers, or whatever it was that would see them the safety. They only had to trust and do as they were told. I didn't have any rules to follow. Not here on the threshold of the vanishing house.

All I had was my three items. items and my courage, which was sadly lacking. But I went inside. I stepped across the threshold. The door swung open at my touch. The world ended at the edge of the candlelight. Within the bubble of its glow, I could see weathered wooden floors, covered with a layer of dust and wooden walls devoid of ornamentation.

There were squares where the color of the wood was darker, untouched by the sun's light, where pictures had once hung. After that, nothing. Just a darkness so deep it was as if nothing existed at all, and I had reached the end of reality. I felt a tinge of panic merely looking at it, the instinctive terror you experience when you stand on a precipice. I tore my eyes away and focused instead on what was directly in front of me,

what was real and stable. The door swung shut behind me. Gently, I heard the latch catch. I'm here for the sheriff. Nothing. If the house had a master, it wasn't inclined to converse. I took a shallow breath and pressed forward. The house unfolded before me as the candlelight touched it.

I took the first doorway, resolving to follow the left-hand rule. I entered the living room. Two windows were against the front wall. The very same windows that the young man had stared out at me from all those years ago. There were dark rectangles on the floor, clear at dust, where furniture had once sat. Only a single sitting chair remained, shoved into a corner. A woman sat in it, naked and limp, her head lolling to the side so that her ear almost touched her elbow. Black blood coated her side and pooled on the floor, having poured out of her missing arm

and the gaping cavity that was once her lung. It long since dried into something resembling ink. Do you remember my name? She raised her head and it flopped over to the missing shoulder. Black bile dribbled out of the corner of her mouth and her nose, fell in viscous drops to the floor. I'm afraid not. I think I learned it, but I've since forgotten.

Sorry. It's okay. You've seen so many die, I imagine. What's one more name? I walked around the edge of the room to the windows on one wall, covered with heavy curtains of a pale brown loose knit. I looked outside and saw my aunt's car parked on the shoulder of the road, but there was a pall over the scene,

as if a black mist had settled over her vehicle. Are you dead? Quite. You feel guilty, don't you? I wish I could have saved you. You tried. You did more than most people would have. Her words sounded hollow.

the polite thing to say, but not something that either of us actually believed. Can you tell me where the sheriff is? I cannot. He was dragged away from me, cursing, fighting to get to me the entire time. The house took him, and I was left to die alone. I was so scared. I was choking on my own blood, and I just wanted someone to be there, to hold my head up so I didn't have to taste it.

in my mouth, to tell me it was all going to be okay. She paused for a moment, a thin stream of black liquid trickling down her chin through pale lips. I suppose it wouldn't have mattered. We all die alone and afraid, don't we? Someone being there is no comfort when you can feel your body failing all around you. I thought of my father, dragging the little girl by her hair out into the yard. I thought of my aunt, stabbing the faceless person with her own scalpel. We die alone and afraid. We're angry.

Angry was also an option. I walked past the young woman toward the next doorway. I couldn't help her. I had to keep moving. We had no idea how long the house would remain in one spot, and I didn't want to risk being trapped in here simply because I took too long. The next room was a kitchen. Covers and cabinets were along the far wall.

All their doors were removed and the shelves were barren. The stove was an empty spot of torn linoleum, stained with rust and grease. A table with no chairs was shoved against the other wall, and the young woman lay upon it. She was on her back with her remaining limbs slayed and dangling limply over the edge. Her head also dangled, her long hair almost touching the floor. I glanced back into the first room. She was still there, sprawled in the chair, and she was here. sprawled on the table.

Is this the house doing? Are you here to distract me, or are you the master of the house? She laughed in black liquid frothed at her lips until it filled her mouth and she began to choke. She stout a thick clump like a clot out onto the floor and regained her voice. I'm not the master. The master took the sheriff and left me to die alone. Yes, we covered that already. I edged past her.

I pressed my back against her. I pressed my back against the edge of the cabinets, not wanting to get any closer to the dead woman than I had to. Her eyes tracked my every movement. She spoke again when we were directly even with each other. I died. More black liquid dribbled down her chin, bubbling forth every time her lips moved. You killed me. I tried to save you.

A continued edging past her, my heart hammering. I watched her remaining arm. If it's so much as twitched, I was going to bolt. You could have done more. You've always been able to do more. Now, that just wasn't fair. First perched her and now this dead girl. Like what?

You could sell the campground. A giggle, punctuated by the rass of liquid obscuring her throat. Like hell I will. I continued down the left side of the kitchen wall, letting out a deep sigh of relief once I was out of reach. She stretched out her hands towards me as I reached the next doorway, rolling on the table so that she stared at me from her side, the swell of her broken ribcage, luminousant white in the light of my candle. I stared into the next room, a hallway with a staircase at the end.

Is it pride? I think it is. You're too proud to admit that you're killing all of us. I'd had enough. I whirled on her, stalked back through the kitchen to where she lay. and plunged the candle flame into her body. I'm not sure what I thought would happen. I was blinded by anger and acting on instinct. She caught like paper. Her skin curled and blackened and burned, and she screamed,

the remains of her body thrashing and that black liquid founted sluggishly out. It swallowed up the candlelight, and the flame both, and all light vanished, just as she finally fell silent. I realized what I'd done too late. Panic seized at my time.

chest and I strained to see anything. Then I felt the lap of cold liquid, like watery mud at my feet. I moved quickly. I put one hand out, the hand with the candle, and stretched out two fingers to feel for a wall. There were stairs. I remember seeing stairs. I had to find them. The liquid was at my ankle. It was so cold. I stumbled forwards. A wall. I had to find a wall. My hand. My hand, hands touched something fibrous, like the surface of a dry leaf. I desperately traced along it, running my hand up and down its height to see if it turned into a staircase at any point. It continued on, and then it turned sharply. I stretched out my other hand, trying to find the other wall to indicate a doorway. Nothing. At my knee, I was beginning to shiver and clenched my teeth together to keep them from

chattering. I followed the wall and it turned again and again. This succeeded the bounds of the house I realized. I'd been walking for too long. I'd made too many turns. Where the fuck was I? And then the water was at my waist, and I struggled to move, for its consistency was akin to mud, and it dragged at my body, pulling me back. All I could think was forwards, forwards, keep moving, keep feeling for a wall with trembling fingers. The water was at my chest. I began to panic. My lungs fluttered, and my breath came so fast I was dizzy, and I stumbled and staggered, consumed with the desperate thought that I just had to keep going because there was nothing else I could do. The water got to my chin, and that was when the floor vanished. I began to tread water, trying to keep my head above the

surface, but it began to rise so quickly and the consistency was thick, like it was pulling me down and I was dragged under. It felt like falling, like I was tumbling in a current that was taking me deeper into the morays, and I curled around the cup. I still had clutched in my hands. I clamped my fingers over the improvised cover for it, layers of plastic wrap and rubber bands, because that was all I could think to do in my panic. I couldn't spill the cup. He would be so angry. I couldn't let it spill. And I remember nothing else until I awoke in a strange place, wrapped in blankets and laying next to a fireplace. Goat Valley Campgrounds was written and adapted for audio by Bonnie Quinn.

Produced for the No Sleep Podcast by Phil Mikulski. Musical score composed by Brandon Boone. Starring Lindsay Russo as Kate. Kyle Akers as Brian. Mary Murphy as the woman. T.J. Lee as the officer. John Grills as the camper. and Sarah Thomas as the Harvester.

Join us next week for the final chapter of Goat Valley Campgrounds. As the fires wane and embers glow, our stories cease as shadows grow. The night is long and darkness deep. Remain with us. Embrace No Sleep. The No Sleep Podcast is presented by Creative Reason Media. The musical score was composed by Brandon Boone. Our production team is Phil Mikulski, Jeff Clement, and Jesse Cornett. Our creative content manager is Olivia White.

Our editor-in-chief is Jessica McAvoy. I'm your host and executive producer, David Cummings. If you would like to find out how you can hear the extended editions 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 $25. On behalf of everyone at the No Sleep Podcast, we thank you for listening and for being under our spell. This audio production is copyright 2021 and 2022 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.