The NoSleep Podcast - S18 Ep23: NoSleep Podcast S18E23

Episode Date: December 4, 2022

Tune in to Episode 23 of Season 18 for demented doctoring.“Newborn Screening” written by Lisel Jones (Story starts around 00:00:00)TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Doctor – Jake Benson, Mrs. Murray – Tanja Milojevic“Grasshopper” written by Ellen Denton (Story starts around 00:04:50)TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Narrator – Danielle McRae, Emily Linus – Kristen DiMercurio, Anna Linus – Mary Murphy“Hands On” written by Gabrielle E. Josefsson (Story starts around 00:38:15)Produced by: Phil MichalskiCast: Jason Woods – Dan Zappulla“Reunion” written by M.J. Pack (Story starts around 00:52:05)TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Jeff ClementCast: Molly – Erin Lillis, Mary – Sarah Ruth Thomas, Elaine – Nichole Goodnight, Old Woman – Mary Murphy, Molly’s Mom – Linsay Rousseau, Trevor – Atticus Jackson, Edward – Jesse Cornett“The Voice in the Compactor” written by Manen Lyset (Story starts around 01:08:15)Produced & scored by: David CummingsCast: Narrator – David Cummings, Janitor – Jeff Clement, Voice – Kelly Bair“Beauty Beat” written by Casey Banks (Story starts around 01:15:00)TRIGGER WARNING!Produced by: Jesse CornettCast: Narrator – Graham Rowat, Larry – Elie Hirschman, Harrison – Jesse Cornett, Hannah – Wafiyyah White, Victoria – Nikolle Doolin, Dr. Telles – Peter LewisClick here to learn more about The NoSleep Podcast teamClick here to learn more about Lisel JonesClick here to learn more about M.J. PackClick here to learn more about Manen LysetExecutive Producer & Host: David CummingsMusical score composed by: Brandon Boone“Reunion” illustration courtesy of Emily CannonAudio 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

So, Mrs. Murray, what we're doing today is giving young Joseph our routine newborn screening. Just a few standard tests and measurements that will give an indication of future healthcare needs, which will hopefully be few. I hope so too, doctor. I'll need to take him into the examination area with Nurse Stacy. Oh, I can't come with him? I'm afraid not. But you're welcome to observe through the window. Okay, I guess.

Don't worry. It'll be over quickly. Right. Let's get you on the scales 6 pounds to ounces nurse Heart rate next 116 bpm All perfectly normal Mrs. Murray Thank you doctor

Nurse pass me the reptoculum What the hell is that You're not putting that thing near my baby are you No need to panic Mrs. Murray The reptulums are latest biow robotic instrument A real breakthrough and deterministic cognitive forecasting and predictive senicence with 100% accuracy.

Despite its rather alarming appearance, I can assure you it's perfectly safe and certified by major insurers. Mrs. Murray, control yourself. The process is harmless. There we go. I'll upload the reading, then we're done. Please give me my baby back. The final reading is 2024. What's that? What does it mean? I'm very sorry, Mrs. Murray. It's his expiration date.

We cannot exist without fear. We long to be frightened. We desire a glimpse into the darkness. We conjure creatures and monsters, all the while knowing deep in our souls. The terror is out there. Brace yourself for the No Sleep podcast. Looking after a baby is even easier these days, thanks to medical science.

It can really help you schedule things effectively. That's what we learned from author Lacelle Jones, from the tale which was this episode's Cold Open, newborn screening, performed by Jake Benson and Tonya Milosovich. As I look out the window, I see the snow lightly falling on the ground. And a glance at the calendar tells me that we've already reach the month of December. How festive. And with season 18 ramping up to its gripping conclusion, here's what you can expect during the holly jolly holidays. The season 18 finale will be released

the weekend of December 18th. That means the following week, the weekend of Christmas. We'll see the release of our special Christmas episodes, a full-length Christmas episode for one and all coming out on December 25th. And for Season Pass 18 members, your stockings will be stuffed with a special season past bonus Christmas episode that day as well. Hours and hours of horror entertainment for you while unwrapping those gifts and smooching under the mistletoe. So plan to file those X-Miss episodes, X-Mus files, if you will. File them in your calendar and get ready for a month of sleepless gifts. And now our stories are starting.

you'd better not leave. Our tales are quite true if you want to believe. In our first tale, we meet a woman recalling a job she had in her younger days. She worked part-time cleaning the old house where one of her teachers lived. But in this tale, shared with us by author Ellen Denton, she soon learns that the household secrets from its past, one's best left undiscovered. Performing this tale, are Danielle McCray, Kristen DiMecurio, and Mary Murphy.

So be respectful for those you work for and for all living things, from people right down to the lowly grasshopper. When I was in my junior year of high school, the factory my father worked at burned to the ground, leaving its 400 employees scrambling to find work. Jobs in a small town are hard to come by. We all did our part. I learned from the school guidance counselor that one of the teachers,

and Miss Anna Linus, mentioned wanting to find someone to help part-time with household chores. She lived with her sister, Emily, in a large Victorian home, inherited from their parents. I went to Miss Linus' classroom to recommend myself with a job and assured her that, if hired, I would work diligently at whatever was needed. She was a rosy, retuned woman with an ear-to-ear smile and laughter in her eyes. She cheerfully hired me on the spot. I was to work for three hours each day after school, six hours on Saturdays, starting the next day.

The three-story Victorian was on the outskirts of town on two acres of well-maintained landscaped grounds. The house was quite imposing, looking from the outside, to the right of it, was a neat row of painted sheds, and the largest greenhouse I'd ever seen, and a fine-looking tack. And stablehouse made from Tumbled Stone was to the left, now devoid of horses. If the well-manicured grounds and stately structures

hadn't looked as regal as they did, I wouldn't have been so surprised when the front door was opened to my knock by the broomstick thin, sour-faced sister, Emily, and revealed what I can only describe as a vortex of filth and decay within. On that first day, when I walked into the wide entryway, there were black plastic bags filled with foul-smelling trash, piled up against the walls,

waiting for monthly transport to the town dump. When I timidly ventured to ask why they didn't place the garbage outdoors and then have the cans emptied weekly by the sanitation department, But as was the normal custom in town, Emily Linus looked at me with annoyance and pointed out as though it were obvious that the big metal trash cans would besmirch the appearance of the grounds. I was next shown into what appeared to be a formal drawing room that, under other circumstances, with its high ornamental ceilings and breathtaking stained glass windows, would have been magnificent. Now the corners of its floors, walls, and ceilings were festooned with cobwebs, thick as birds' nests. The threadbare carpet was stained everywhere. There was a large decorative wood table with a busted leg that lay on its side,

with stacks of old magazines and newspapers spilled from it onto the floor in a yellowed haphazard heap, which are later learned had been there like that for the last two. years. I could see, peeking, out from under a ruffle of floral upholstery, at the bottom of a chair, a mousetrap with a dead rat in it. Now, mostly gristle and bone. I was then given a tour by the expressionless Emily Linus through a few other rooms in the house that were on that first floor, and soon saw that most of the surfaces were coated with inches of accumulated dusts. Some of it dotted with dead flies. I had to restrain myself from gagging when I entered the kitchen

because of the smell from rotting food left in the stack of unwashed dishes piled up on every counter. There were dead cockroaches floating around in a cauldron of oily water sitting on the filthy stove. I almost slept at one point on a chunk of greasy meat on the kitchen floor. After seeing a few more spaces of similar, similar ilk, I reminded myself how badly my family needed the money, and how scarce jobs were. Forced an eager look onto my face, swallowed hard and turned to Miss Linus. What would you like me to do first? I was relieved when she told me to check the flower bed encircling the house for weeds,

adding the comment that you could never put too much time or work into keeping the outward appearance of a home looking lovely. She then explained that her sister, Anna, would be returning late from the school that day, and that she would be the one to assign me further tasks when she arrived. You could have practically gotten down on your hands and knees with a magnifying glass to find any weeds in the beautiful and well-tended beds, which I soon learned. Emily saw too personally, along with the lavish paintings in the same. the greenhouse. The rest of the grounds were cared for by a full-time gardener. Anna, Linus,

didn't show up that day while I was there, but she did on the day after that, which was a Saturday. That's when I got to see the second floor of the house and heard something alive moving around in the third. The second floor was every bit as horrible as the first, and in some cases, worse, with one exception. Emily Linus' bedroom was as fresh, sculpted, and beautiful as the ground surrounding the house. There was not a speck of dust anywhere. The four-postered bed, the slop-covered chairs, and the long, billowing curtains were cheerful-looking and spotless. A lovely cherry wood-writing desk sat in one corner, and hook rugs brightened the floor.

The entire room smelled like sprangful. which I soon saw was because of a large vase of lilacs on a bedside table and a bouquet of yellow roses atop a bureau. I was not actually shown this room by anyone, but took a peek inside when I knew the two sisters were occupied with something downstairs and would not catch me snooping. That day, I'd been brought to the second floor by Anna, who wanted me to remove all the boxes and trash in a library so that she could get at the books. There was a lot to do, and it would take me at least the entire six hours of that first Saturday. The work was extremely unpleasant because of the rodent droppings and cobwebs.

On top of that, the library smelled so terrible that I began habitually checking my watch to see how much longer I would need to be there before my six hours were. up and was finally relieved when I only had an hour left to go. I was walking down the hallway with one of the remaining boxes to place it at an unused bathtub when I heard a dull thump on a ceiling above me. I stopped and looked up for a few moments and then heard it again, except this time it was five thumps in rapid succession. And there was urgency to the sound like someone pounding on a door who desperately needs to get in or out right away. There was a pause of about three seconds.

Then three more bumps. This time, slow and elaborate. This was followed by a prolonged whale, muffled by the layers of floor and ceiling above me. This pained sound rose in pitch until it became an unearthly scream, also distant and muffled. but sharp enough to make the hairs in my arms stand up.

Sure, there was someone alive up there. I raced downstairs to the sisters who were sitting in the drawing room and asked them about it. They both stared at me in silence with identical, emotional, expressions, which is when I realized for the first time that the laughter normally visible in Anna's eyes

was actually the gleam of insanity. It was she who finally spoke. It's nothing, dear. Just rats or water in the pipes. This is an old house. Go back to work. Anna's usual merry smile, which had only faltered for a moment, returned to her face.

And Emily Linus now looked as stiff as a totem pole. I did as I was told, but there was something unsettling about what had just occurred. The more I thought about the sounds of the sounds of the same. and the sister's reactions when they knew I'd heard them. The more I felt, there was something wrong going on. More wrong than just two eccentric women living in a filthy, decaying house. I worked Monday through Friday of the following week on both the first and second floors, but never heard those sounds again.

I couldn't get them out of my mind, though. I never felt convinced by Anna's explanation of what it was. There was something too insistent, focused, and human about them. I decided that the next time I was working on the second floor and knew the sisters were busy elsewhere, I would sneak up to the third and look around quickly just to dispel my concerns. That day came on Saturday. There was a storage room at one end of the second floor that Anna wanted me to rearrange, which would take me several hours.

After working a while, I ascertained both sisters were still on the first floor by going downstairs and asking if it was okay to get a drink of water from the kitchen, which I did from my cup-tans as I was afraid the smudged, foggy-looking glasses might be deceased. They were both occupied. Emily worked from home as a bookkeeper and was in her office during just that. and Anna was in the drawing room polishing her toenails and humming to herself. When I got back up to the second floor, I made some noise by pushing around boxes in the storage rooms so that the sisters would assume I had gotten back to work. I pulled my shoes off and tiptoed back down the hallway to the curving marble stairway leading up to the third floor. I had midweek casually asked Emily what was up there, and she told me it was just some additional bedrooms devoid of any furniture and an office also now empty that her late father had used. I remember that conversation well because of the way she kept staring at me after she answered the question. I got to the top of the stairs and in under a minute had checked the doors on the third floor.

Unlike the ones in every room below, every door up here was locked. I was very disturbed by this. The situation reminded me of some B-grade horror movie in which a person is being held prisoner in the attic or basement of a house by some crazy person. I kept telling myself there was nothing like that going on here. And I was just letting my imagination run away with me. Then I would look at some revolted. corner of this crypt-like Victorian monstrosity, which seemed to get darker and dirtier every day.

Or look at Emily's lined stark face or Anna's strangely gleaming eyes, and I could again easily believe there was some terrible thing going on up on that third floor. I also, through seeing Anna on almost a daily basis, realized the bright smile she always wore was richly fixed onto her face, as though glued there. It was even present when I once ventured into a sitting room and found her napping in a chair, her teeth, so gleaming bright from overstretched lips. If I reported my suspicions, though, and it turned out that it was nothing but some rats in an empty room, it would cause needless embarrassment for the sisters and would surely cost me my job. needed to find a way to get into the locked upstairs room.

On Wednesday of the following week, Anna assigned me some tasks to do on the second floor and informed me that she had a headache, so she'd be lying down in her bedroom for a while. And that if I needed something, Emily would be working in her office on the first floor. It was now or never. Again removing my shoes, I patted up to the third floor and went to the room. I thought the sounds came from. When I first heard them above me the previous week, I pressed my ear up against the door,

and then knocked gently. No sound came from the room. I decided I was being ridiculous and started to turn away when I heard a scraping inside. And then, a feral snarl that crescendoed into an unmistakable scream of a human voice. I once used my lamented. library card to spring the lock on our basement door when I couldn't find the key, and that's

what I was going to attempt with this one. I wedged it into the space by the doorknob, and it worked back and forth and up and down, turning the knob this way and that until I heard a click. I grabbed the door knob and then almost jumped a foot into the air when I heard Emily Linus yell from the other end of the hallway. I turned to see her hurrying toward me with a horrified expression on her face. When she reached the door, she shoved me away so hard that I tripped and fell. She then pulled a key ring from her pocket and relocked the door with shaking hands. When she turned to me again, she looked devastated. I'm so sorry, I didn't mean for you to fall like that, but you have no idea what... She turned to look at the door and then back at me again.

Her almost impossibly white face was a mask of desperation and anguish. By now, I'd gotten over my initial shock and stood back up. There's someone in there. I know for sure there is now. I heard them. You're keeping someone imprisoned in there. No, I swear to you, it's not what you think. There's nobody in there right now.

Then why is it locked? Open the door and let me see. She looked, resigned. and as though every last bit of energy suddenly drained out of her. She bowed her head and slid down to a sitting position against the wall to the side of the door. The only thing I'm afraid of is what will happen to you if you do go in there. I told you my father had an office up here, but that wasn't true. It was a laboratory and it took up much of this floor, but I wasn't lying when I said it's empty.

Right now, at this very moment, I swear to you that there is absolutely nothing in there. When there is, you can hear it, just like you did a little while ago. We sat at a table in the breakfast room, which, like the rest of the house, was festooned with spider webs and wet, wilting boxes of junk. And slime-encrusted pieces of this and that. There were ruffled floral curtains on the window. that I could visualize having once been bright and cheerful, but which were now so encrusted with dirt, I had to avert my eyes from them to not feel ill.

Emily Linus poured us both a cup of tea a few minutes before. I'd watch her use a piece of steel wool to vigorously scrub the insides of the cups, but that still didn't eradicate the black stained in dirt around the rims. When she placed the tea in front of me on the table, I put my hands around the cup and a show of polite gratefulness, but couldn't bring myself to put my mouth on it. Emily saw that and smiled sadly. Would you believe just five short years ago this entire house was as pure and beautiful as the ground surrounding it? Like your bedroom?

The question slipped out before my mind can get a hold of my tongue. She looked at me sharply, then nodded with the same. The same forlorn smile. Do owe you an explanation about. She looked around and made a sweeping gesture with her arm. All of this, I never meant for anyone to come here. Hiring someone was Anna's idea. She stared down at the table quietly for a while.

Then, with a resigned sigh, looked up at me. My father was a scientist and a brilliant man. Quite visionary, actually. He had some theories, though, about things considered. So far-fetched, things like the existence of other dimensions and parallel worlds that he soon became an object of ridicule and scorn in the scientific community. He became so rabidly unrelenting and fanatical in his demands that time and money be invested into researching these areas by the government facility he worked for that he eventually lost his job. whispers that he was a madman got around and doors everywhere slammed in his face when applying for further work. He had a sum of money stashed away and used it to turn most of the third floor into a private lab where he could pursue his research.

He became a recluse once he did. He was an unparalleled genius. During the ensuing years, he created things never before seen in heaven or on earth. He came running out of his lab one day, holding an object that looked like, like nothing more than an ordinary fountain pen. He called Anna and me into the parlor to watch as he clicked this pen-like object while aiming it at a vase.

The vase levitated three feet into the air. Within a week, he was able to make this table we're sitting at now and the four chairs surrounding it rise up to the ceiling and hover there for a full minute before slowly descending back to the floor. Another time he created this little box with wires and lights all over it, that would make things disappear when placed inside it. First, small, inanimate things like stones or coins.

Then living creatures he kept in his lab like mice and frogs. So, you see, he truly was quite gifted and brilliant, perhaps more so than anyone else in the world. But then he began working on something that he said would vindicate him in the scientific community. He never said what it was. but he became obsessed and often would not leave the lab for days even sleeping there. One day, there was a sound like the winds of hell, and every window, wall and floor of the house,

and every object contained within shook so hard I thought the end of the world was upon us. Things crashed to the floor, even the light bulbs burst in their sockets. This went on for three horrifying minutes. Both Anna and I feared there had been an explosion in the lab, so we ran up there and called out to my father and banged on the door. There was no response. We were never allowed to enter the lab without his permission, but of course in this case, I pulled out my keys and fearing the worst,

opened the door, and it was to a completely empty room. Every single thing, every object, every counter, stool and tool, every living creature from my father himself to the mice, rats, rabbits, and snakes he kept there for his experiments, every notebook and scrap of paper, it was all gone. Not so much as a curl of dust remained in that room. Emily now pushed back from the table and stood up. You don't believe me.

She was right. I already had my doubts when she started talking about her father's improbable inventions. But when she told me about the complete vanishment of the lab, I was sure she was making it all up in some desperate effort to keep me from telling anyone about the person imprisoned up there. She read these thoughts on my face. I guess I have no choice but to let you see for yourself. We need to hurry, though, before Anna wakes up from her nap.

The last thing I wanted to do was to go out to some makeshift prison with someone I was now convinced was completely insane and probably dangerous. I needed to think fast and looked at her apologetically. It's just that it's such a fantastical tale. Please, continue. I promise to listen with more of an open mind. You'll listen with an open mind when you see for yourself that there is no one in that room. She took me back up to the third floor, warning me that no matter what, I must not step foot into that room.

With one hand, she grabbed my arm with the force of a vice to prevent me from doing just that. while unlocking and opening the door with the other. She then, standing behind me and grasping me by the shoulders, positioned me so that I could clearly see that the room was completely empty. She then quickly closed and locked the door again. But the sounds I heard, there was a human voice. Emily Linus looked toward the stairs at the end of the hall, then spoke in a whisper.

Things disappear from that room. but sometimes they come back, just not in the same condition in which they left. What she told me next was so extraordinary that if she hadn't showed me one final thing as proof before I left that day, I would not have believed any of what she said. And it would have just assumed that the entire story was only the delusional rantings of an arranged mind. She led me back downstairs and out unto the beautiful grounds. and then over to the greenhouse. Before she began to speak again,

she placed her hand against the outside of it, as though the life and beauty of the flowers and plants would then breathed life into her through the glass. A week after the lab vanished, our pet dog, a regal-looking bloodhound, went into the room, and he too disappeared without a trace. I kept the door closed after that. until a week later

I heard his familiar bark coming from the room overjoyed at his return I ran up there and threw open the door it was him I knew that unquestionably because he wore the bejeweled collar I'd once gifted him with

but he had three heads now and the arms of a monkey sprouted from his back this mutated monstrosity bolted towards me so I slammed the door shut a moment's before it leapt out of the room.

For the next hour, as I sat outside the door weeping, I could hear all three dogheads, howling and whining like a chorus of the damned in hell. Then it stopped. And when I dared to crack the door again, the creature was gone. A month later, our father returned. Anna was closest when we heard his muffled voice

coming from behind the locked door, so she unlocked and ran into the room before I could stop her. I heard her scream. Just as I reached the door and saw an insectile, snake-tailed monstrosity speaking from my father's face and with his voice, while it writhed on the floor in reptilian slime, coiling around Anna's legs. Both of them then vanished into thin air. She returned days later, and through the door assured me that she was okay. And she was, at least, on the surface.

When I cracked the door, I could see her body. was not changed in any way, so I let her out of the room, only to discover that whoever it was that returned was not Anna. Some cursed creature, walking death or demon now crouched in the folds of Anna's flesh and proceeded to take over her life. I never opened that door again, no matter what I heard moving or speaking within. She concluded this bizarre tale by telling me about the house itself. bit by bit is home turned into what you see today. It began to slowly die day by day, room by room, becoming filled with the darkness, dirt and putridity that had taken over Anna.

She would touch something and it would darken or fade. Ever since her return, some force from that room seemed to flow through her hands and press down onto the house. For some reason, though, she had no power or control over the grounds or anything beyond them. her suffocating influence was confined to the house by whatever forces had her in their grasp. Outside of that, such as her teaching job, she carried on the charade of being a normal person. Over time I came to realize, for reasons I know not, that flowers and plants dulled the fires of her destruction.

At least outdoors and within my own room, which is the only place in the house I can counterbalance what she does. I grow them in the greenhouse to ensure I have flowers to place there year round. Come with me back to the house now. I'm going to pay you for the week you just worked. You shouldn't ever come back here. It's not safe. As we return to the Victorian, still stately and impressive looking from the outside, I realized the only thing I knew for sure was true,

because I did see it with my own eyes, was that no one was locked in the room on the third floor. Everything else she told me, though, It was too incredible to be believed. I felt sad for this woman, who I now assumed was harmless, but completely insane, until I remembered one thing she said that nagged at me with a hook of truth. It was about the inside of the house slowly dine. Even in the short time I'd worked there, it did appear to get darker and more hideous

every time I looked at something again. The once cheerful curtains in the breakfast room were filthy the first time I saw them. But when I looked at them again today, while in that room with Emily, I saw they become so weighted down with additional dirt and grease in the few short days since seeing them last, that the curtain rod sagged in the middle. Spiders webs that bastooned the corners of the bedroom on the first floor had, in less than a week, grown in spruce, read by many feet. Now, dangling like sheets of lace from the ceiling, far faster than any spiders could possibly have spun them. Once back in the house, Emily started counting out the money to give me from a pretty madress purse. She looked pale and sad. I thought of something that would tell me if there was at least some crumbs of truth to any of her story, or if she truly was along with the

Always strangely smiling Anna, insane. Miss Linus, why didn't you ever leave this place? Why don't you leave it now? She looked at me for a long time, and I could tell she was struggling with something within her own mind. And debating with herself whether or not to tell me, she then looked resolute and turned away. I can't leave. That's all.

I walked over to her and gently placed a hand on her shoulder. Tell me, she turned back to me, starker and sadder than I've ever seen a human being luck. I told you that things disappear from that room, but sometimes come back, just not the way they left. I didn't know that at first, so I, too, once walked into that room. Some of the things my father kept in the lab before it vanished were tankfuls of bugs that he used for his experiments. He favored grasshoppers, green grasshoppers. Emily Linus always wore loose, long-sleeved, high-necked dresses that had come down below her knees. She stepped back to put some distance between us, and starting at the neck, began to unbutton the one she was wearing now until the entire front of her body was exposed.

As soon as I saw her unhinged green torso and six spindly legs folded tightly across it, I knew that every word she told me that day was true. Emily Linus closed the front door behind me that day. When I left that house for the last time, I knew then that I would never return there. I, in fact, avoided even passing by it for the remaining four years I lived in that town before I married and moved away. Today, I returned to visit old friends after being gone for almost ten years. The three-story Victorian was gone.

I heard it had one day simply collapsed like an imploding star. Rotted timbers and termites were the general consensus in town. No one knew what happened to the two sisters who had lived there. Their bodies were never found in the debris. The two acres of property and the structures that still remained standing fell to some distant cousin. When I went by there, whatever was left of the fallen house had already been carted away, and there was a for sale signer.

I walked across the grounds, which had been long untended, and were now in a state of wild, weedy dilapidation. The greenhouse was still there, and I could see the blackened, wilted remains of the plants and flowers that had once flourished within. There were cracks radiating. out across the glass on all sides of it, but outside on one wall. A scraggly, thorny vine scrambled up to its roof. It bore a single lovely yellow rose. A grasshopper clung to it as it waved a little in the breeze. It takes a lot of determination and dedication to become a medical doctor.

Years of education and training are required. And in this tale, shared with us by author Gabriel E. Yosefson, we meet a man about to enter medical school. He just needs to figure out what type of doctor he wants to be. Performing this tale is Dan Zapula. So study hard and do your lab work, especially the ones which are hands-on. Jason Woods, anesthesiologist. No, that doesn't sound right. Too boring, I think.

I stood in a too small bathtub filled with tepid water. I laid on my stomach with my feet crossed up over the faucet like a hung fish. My right arm was propped uncomfortably on the side of the tub, pressed against the sliding glass door. I rested my head on the other to keep it above the water, eyes closed and mind hazy. My whole body was coming down from an all-liding. over numbness. I barely had enough sensation to move. I was only keeping conscious by listening to the rhythmic tapping of my fingers on the side of the tub. My fingers fell in time with my heartbeat, all four together in a dull thump rather than a cascade of four notes. I frowned. The clotted movements

of my fingers weren't surprising given the circumstances, but it still frustrated me that they were falling short of standard. I cracked an eye open. The lights were off, but a handful of candles had been lit and placed around the room. Not sure when I'd managed that. Not sure how I'd managed to run a bath for myself either. The smell of the vanilla candles was so thick in the air, I felt like it coated the inside of my lungs with wax. I tried to focus on my fingers, and only my fingers. And only my channeling my returning mental clarity into holding them still in the air. I imagined the tendons in my arm tensing and tugging on the bases of my knuckles, like the articulations of a handmade doll.

I watched my fingers lift and extend, slightly sore but responding much better. I flexed them out as far as they would go, then clenched them into a fist. The pressure sent a bolt of stinging pain up to my shirt. shoulder and my whole hand went numb. I hissed. The anesthetics were wearing off. I wondered how I might describe this feeling to a patient someday. How I would help them move forward with their recovery in a similar situation.

Jason Woods? Physiotherapist? Absolutely not. That's a nurse's job. Besides, I'm not the bedside companion type. I willed my fingers to move again, this time just holding them up, stress testing them. The heel of my hand rested against the bathtub,

and my fingers floated in the air like the legs of a tarantula, slowly testing the ground and the air for the vibrations of prey. I smiled fondly. The first time I ever saw a tarantula in person was at a pet store when I was young. Its eight beady eyes staring at me through its glass tank, long hairy legs probing and pressing at the cold surface like it was reaching out for me. I was mesmerized by the glint of black fangs under its mandibles. I'd asked the employee why it was staring at me. The employee told me that it was because the tarantula was hungry.

I'd begged and begged my parents to buy me, for weeks, but they never relented. No way in hell that they'd let me keep a pet that required live food in the house. I'd never grown out of my fascination, though. It was my amazement with the Tarantula's ability to produce a neurotoxin in its own body that led me to pursue medicine. I wanted to discover if the human body was capable of producing substances that could be used to kill disease or alter its own chemistry. But, after pouring years of time and thousands of dollars into medical schooling, my area of interest shifted towards the more practical aspects.

I slowly clasped my hand into a fist and then extended my fingers. The pain was getting duller and duller with each repetition. Perfect. I started to tap my fingers on the side. of the tub. This time, they fell in perfect rhythm. Pinky, ring, middle, and index. Four drumbeats one right after the other in perfect time. Pride welled in my chest. I'd truly outdone myself. Hot pink acrylic nails accentuated the low thump of my finger pads with an electric clack as they collided with the side of the bathtub.

They were just as striking in person as they had been online, contrasting beautifully with the chocolatey dark skin of the hand they adorned. For the life of me, I couldn't remember what the name on the profile had been. It didn't matter now. I'd gotten what I'd needed from her. Jason Woods. Surgeon. Now that had a nice ring to it.

It takes years of experience for a doctor to be able to reattach a severed limb. The intricacies of grafting nerves and reconnecting veins are difficult for even the most experienced surgeons to grasp. A successful transplantation takes a village, yet I'd managed to perform one by myself. By God, I must be the greatest surgeon to have ever held a scalpel. I fantasized about flaunting my achievement to my peers and professors. To doctors three times my age and experience who couldn't even come close to my inborn talents. My dedication to the craft! I hadn't even started my residency yet.

I rolled to my back and raised my new arm in front of me. I had severed it about two inches from the elbow so I wouldn't lose any mobility. There was an angry red ring where my pale skin met the dark of my new arm. I felt an icy ache deep in my bones as the pins I'd inserted strained at the shifting gravity. Droplets of blood from in between the sutures glinted like tiny black eyes in the candlelight. I decided that it was probably best to bandage it for now. It would be a damned shame if I ended up with an infection that would require another. amputation. I unplugged the drain and tried to push myself up onto my feet. But the second I put

pressure on my right arm, it roared with pain. I collapsed back into the tub with a shriek, clutching my new arm close to my chest and scrunching up into a fetal position. I cradled my arm until it no longer felt like it had just been basted with its own boiling fat. Pain killers, I said, my tongue pulling the thought directly from my brain. I swallowed hard and very carefully stood and stepped out of the tub, making sure to lean all my weight on my left arm this time. Thin streaks of blood were trailing down my right and dripping onto the floor. I grabbed the towel off the hanging rack next to the tub and didn't bother drying off.

I just haphazardly wrapped it around the bleeding sutures and walked out of the back. bathroom. I had a first aid kit under the kitchen sink. I could worry about cleanup after I got my arm properly dressed. I shuffled through the dark hallway into the living room. The only light that was left on was a table lamp next to a verdant terrarium. A fat Mexican red knee tarantula sat proudly on the centerpiece branch of its tank. Its muscular legs propped up on a round object coated in silver webbing. I smiled warmly and approached the tank. Velvet was clearly engrossed in her meal, but I couldn't quite make out what exactly she was eating. Her fangs worked eagerly into the web-covered object that almost looked like a ping-pong ball. As velvet's fangs squeezed, a cloudy slime

oozed from the ball as it deflated. I caught a glimpse of a lifeless brown iris through the silk. Iris. That was her name. Dating app Iris. Drinks in a private booth, Iris. Oh, negative Iris. Perfectly manicured Iris, whose arms sorely needed tending to. I gauzed and bandaged Iris's arm at the kitchen table, securing the dressings with tensor bandage clips, taking extra care in disinfecting where her skin was sewn to my own. I'd need to be on light duty for a while, even though my hand mobility was much better than expected. Before that, though, there was one last matter to tend to. There was still the matter of Iris.

What was left of her anyway? I suppose light duty would have to wait. As I am now, I know I won't be able to practice in the light of day, despite my evident talent. The bandages concealed my work of genius for now, but I know my pride won't allow me to hide it forever. I have no doubts that my research will go to good use eventually, likely after I'm dead and gone. William Beaumont comes to mind. On the bright side, I still had one last career option to explore before making my final decision. One last consideration to be etched onto the annals of medical history forever.

Jason Woods Mortician. You really have to hand it to people who want to help others. Where would we be if people didn't assist us with our medical needs? And speaking of being assisted by handy people, let's learn about how helpful ship station can be. If you're running your own online business, you know that the busy holiday shopping season, is upon us. The most wonderful time of the year is also the most hectic time of the year.

Everyone puts off shopping until the last minute. And if you have an online store, you know the feeling of getting hit with a ton of orders at once. When you're buried in orders and emails from stressed customers, you'll wish you had Ship Station. Ship Station turns holiday shipstorms into smooth sailing, so you can keep your customers happy and still find time to enjoy some egg dog. Shipstation works with all your favorite places to sell online, including Amazon, Etsy, eBay, Shopify, and more. Manage every order from one simple dashboard, automate routine shipping tasks, print shipping labels, and easily compare rates and delivery times to optimize every shipment. You'll save time, money, and stress during the holiday rush.

And when you sign up using my promo code, you'll even get two months to try it free. Over 130,000 companies have grown their e-commerce businesses with ShipStation, and 98% of companies that stick with ShipStation for a year become customers for life. Companies like Sock Club and Wolfgang Puck Home use ShipStation. Why not you? So listen, ship more and grow more with ShipStation. Go to Shipstation.com today and sign up with promo code No Sleep for a free 60-day trial. Start today and get set up before the biggest shipping season of the year. That's two months free.

Visit shipstation.com, click on the microphone at the top of the page and type in code No Sleep. And now that ShipStation has helped you with your virtual storefront, let's learn how to virtually get back to reality. I'll bet you've heard a lot about VR lately. Virtual reality is rather, let's say, meta, the reality. these days, don your headsets and step into a 3D world of fun, right? But in this tale, shared with us by author M.J. Pack, we meet a woman who worked for a company specializing in Bleeding Edge VR tech. If only they knew what kind of virtual world they were conjuring. Performing this tale are Aaron Lillis, Sarah Thomas, Nicole Goodnight, Mary Murphy,

Lindsay Russo, Atticus Jackson, and Jesse Cornett. So reach out. You can almost touch them, can't you? And if you do, it will be quite the reunion. I can't tell you the name of the company where I work, or where we're located, or even my official title. All I can tell you is that we made one of the worst mistakes a group of people possibly could.

We were put in a position of power, and we abused it so horribly that if there is an afterlife, which I truly doubt, none of us have even a sliver of hope to end up there. At least not the good one. The experiment, unfortunately, was my idea. With the growing advances in virtual reality,

I was given the opportunity to create a passion project. VR was already used for games, physical therapy, connecting with others in the system. What else could I envision it being used for? I ended up combining all three functions after remembering an older woman who used to sit at the park when I was a kid. She'd camp out on the bench near the playground and watch us all play, occasionally feeding the squirrels or the birds without much enthusiasm. One day, when I was about nine years old, I ventured over to her to ask her why she was there if she didn't have any kids.

Obviously, that was a cruel thing to ask, but I was a brash young nine-year-old, and I had far more curiosity than tact. She smiled thinly at me, setting her brown paper bag of birdseed next to her on the bench. I do have a kid. He's just not here right now. Well, where is he? She sighed, staring off into the distance, tears swelling up in her eyes. And I knew I'd said something wrong. I don't really know. He's just not here right now.

I asked my mom about it after. Her face went sort of white, and I had the feeling if she'd been there to hear me ask the question, she would have smacked me in the mouth. She probably lost her son, honey. Like in a store? My mom pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger and sighed deeply. No, hon, not in a store.

Well, then how did she leave? For God's sake, Molly. Her son died. How can you be so dense? She slammed her hands on the kitchen table, pushed herself away from it, and left me there, stunned, speechless. I'd always been somewhat of a difficult child, but my mother never spoke to me this way. As an adult, I now realize why she reacted the way she did. It was a complicated question.

I was a dumb kid, and she probably could only think of the immeasurable pain I had caused this poor woman at the park, after the unthinkable suffering she'd already been through. And maybe, possibly, she was wondering what it would be like to lose me too, and end up on that park bench feeding the birds, watching all the other children play in ways that her own child never could again. That story stuck with me. I've been fortunate enough not to lose anyone in my life. Not yet, anyway.

By the grace of a God I don't believe in, my aunts and uncles are alive, my parents are alive, my grandparents are even still hanging on. In my 35 years, I have never even attended a single funeral. So the idea of death, losing someone forever,

it's always hung over me. Maybe it's because I wish I could go back to that park and tell that old woman I'm sorry. But after that day, I never saw her on the bench again. So I sat down with my team. We planned out an extensive virtual reality program with multiple environments,

a field of flowers, a day at the beach, and at my own insistence, a park with a playground. I was aiming for this project to focus exclusively on parents who had lost children, partly because of that old lady,

but also because adult interaction is far more complicated and I wasn't ready to take that on yet. Eventually, that was my goal to work towards widowed spouses or adult siblings, but first, children had to be the focus. We gathered our information from volunteer subjects. They were required to do something that I knew must be painful, but necessary, and gather photographs and videos of their deceased children,

anything that we could use to rebuild them in the system, to make them as realistic as possible. Between me and my assistants, Trevor and Edward, we must have accumulated over 200 hours of media of kids that no longer existed. It was hard to see. But to be truthful, I didn't actually watch most of it. I just fed it into the software, like numbers into a spreadsheet. Our first test subject was Mary, single mother, age 33. She had lost her daughter at age seven, not in a store, but to a car accident.

accident, and her marriage had dissolved in the wake of their grief. We had several other options for test subjects, but Mary felt right, because I thought this experiment would help her the most. When she arrived for her session, I could tell she was nervous. I did my best to assure her that, while this was only a trial version of the software, we had put our best efforts into it, and her experience would help us fine-tune the performance until we could get it just right. She would have an hour to experience this virtual reality session with her daughter. I remember holding her hands, looking into her sad brown eyes,

and telling her that if our calculations were as I thought they were, she would get to see her daughter again, however imperfectly. I regret that even more than what I asked the old lady in the park. After a brief questionnaire, Trevor led her into the VR chamber. It's a large white room with plenty of room to move around. No furniture, just wide-open space to allow the subjects to explore their environment. When they're about to reach the edge of the room, a slight vibration hits their helmet to let them know they're almost out of range. Did I not mention the helmet?

I'm sorry, it's still hard to think about. Trevor fit Mary with the helmet, a much larger, VR headset than most of you are familiar with. It's nearly the size of an astronaut's helmet, and it blocks out all light and sounds so that the program can be fully immersive. Again, my idea, my stupid, short-sighted idea. After making sure she was comfortable, Trevor left the chamber and joined Edward and me in the control room. In this room, we had a simple keyboard with a large number of monitors so we could see what the subject was seeing at every feasible angle. For safety, of course.

Once the program began, we didn't intend to control much, just any glitches that might occur or any restarts that may be needed. And of course, a kill switch in case things became too much. I also made sure to fit the helmet itself with a kill switch, a small button on the right temple that the subject could press if they were feeling overwhelmed or wanted out. Unfortunately, I'm getting ahead of myself. Trevor, Edward, and I sat at the control panel. Mary stood in the center of the white chamber, looking around expectantly,

her face hidden behind this huge helmet. She couldn't wait for the program to begin. Truth be told, I couldn't either. Before me, on the screen, was a blinking green button that read, start. My heart seemed to be in time with each person. blink. I took a deep breath. Here we go, boys. I clicked the mouse, hitting the start button. The screens suddenly switched on, displaying a huge field of beautiful pink tulips, something like you'd see in the Netherlands. The sky was an almost unnatural shade of blue, and I immediately made a

note on my notepad, writing that the saturation of colors needed to be toned down. The clouds were huge and white and puffy, and though those didn't look quite right either, I didn't note that. Clouds didn't always look totally normal and almost look better when they didn't. In the corner of the screen, a timer counted down from one hour. Mary's body looked around the chamber. Mary's avatar looked around the field of flowers. And then, out of the field, a little girl came running. I recognized her right away as Mary's daughter Elaine, a little girl of

seven with short blondeish hair and big brown eyes. She was smiling so wide, and as soon as Mary saw her, she clapped both hands to her mouth. Hi, Mommy! Elaine's avatar threw her arms out for a hug. Mary stared at her. She crouched down, slowly, and put her arms out, too. The one part I had regretted in the moment was that we couldn't program in any sort of physical touch. but I had warned her about this

that any kind of physical interaction would have to be imagined. It didn't seem to matter. Mary mimed a hug and Elaine's avatar embraced hers warmly. Mary was shaking. You could see it in her arms, her legs. Tears stung my eyes,

but I blinked them away, hoping that my assistants couldn't see. Mary sank further down onto her knees. I'll admit, the VR was almost unnervingly real compared to the few videos and photos I'd seen of Elaine. There was no uncanny valley here. From what we could see on the screen, Mary may as well have been seeing her dead daughter for the first time in four years.

Elaine's avatar smiled and pulled back from the hug. There was the first disconnect I saw. She pulled back, but Mary was still embracing her because she couldn't feel the withdrawal. But it didn't last long as she did. She looked up at her daughter's avatar, still smiling, tears streaming down her neck, even with the helmet stopping most of them at her cheeks. I miss you. Trevor put a hand on my shoulder. I shushed him.

Mary tried to speak, sobbed again, then paused and composed herself. She tried to wipe her tears, only to be stopped by the helmet, which I found an unbearably sad thing to witness. But she didn't let it break her. I missed you too, Ellie. So, so much. You'll never know how much. Elaine's avatar spun around in a circle. Come play with me.

I don't want to share what happened in the next hour, because I don't feel that's my place. All I'll say is that Mary and Elaine's avatar made up for lost time. The vibration in the helmet did a fairly good job of stopping her before she reached the edge, though Mary did still bump into it a few times. It didn't take her long to recognize the space, though, and the session seemed to be going remarkably well. I made dutiful notes while Edward made minor adjustments to the system whenever we noticed a small flicker or glitch of unreality. As the hour came to a close, I did what I had been dreading most to tell Mary the program was almost over.

I hit a button to speak through the speaker in her helmet. Mary, your session is almost over. I'm sorry, but it's time to say goodbye. Mary, who had been sitting on the white floor, cradling a daughter who wasn't really there, looked up frantically. No, please, I need more time. Please, I need more time.

Before I could say anything else, Elaine's avatar suddenly stood up. You can't leave? Her brown eyes began to well up with virtual tears. If you leave, I'll die all over again. Mary let out a broken sob, and my breath caught in my throat. I released the microphone button. What the fuck? I looked to Edward and Trevor, slightly panicked.

She shouldn't be saying that. Why would she say that? Edward looked away from me. Trevor swallowed, then looked me straight in the eyes. I programmed it in. If this is something we can monitor, We need the parents to keep coming back. What the fuck do you mean monetize?

What do you mean keep coming back? I reach for the microphone button, but Trevor stopped me. The company wants to turn this into a business, Molly. If they get closure on the first session, they won't be repeat customers. We need them to want to come back. I never agree to this. Yeah. You weren't in those meetings.

In the chamber, Mary was hugging desperately at the air. No, baby, I won't leave. Don't worry. I won't leave. I don't want to die again, Mommy. Now they were both crying. Get her out of there! I reached for another button, and when Trevor tried to stop me again, I shoved him away with a surprising amount of strength.

I hit the kill switch. Nothing happened. What the fuck? Did you program this into? I hit the kill switch over and over again. The screens stayed on. In the chamber, Mary was hugging the air, but on the screens, she was hugging Elaine,

who looked like she'd never let go. No, no, the kill switch should still work. He got up from the floor and started hammering the same button I'd been hitting. I'll never leave. I won't leave. I'll never leave. Mary began sobbing, and suddenly all the screens went dark. It's been three days now. The doors of the chamber, for some reason, won't unlock. Mary won't take off the helmet.

In fact, she won't do anything. She hasn't asked for food or water or anything. She's been relieving herself anywhere she can in the room, and she's running out of spots. but without food or water, she won't necessarily need them anymore. She doesn't even seem to be interacting with the Avatar much either. Though if she were, we couldn't see it. We can't get the screens back on.

She just laughs weekly once in a while, removes her hands just a little bit. Sometimes she murmurs, but I can't make out what she's saying. We've called in higher-ups to look at the software, the power supply, but no one has been of any help. I've begged for them to call for someone to open the doors, but I think they're afraid of legal repercussion since apparently the releases Mary's sign didn't actually go anywhere or mean anything.

It was just something Trevor drew up on the fly to look official. I've been told to go home that there's nothing I can do, but I feel like I have to watch and hope that Elaine's avatar will let go of its hold on her. I've been running every script I can think of to undo what Trevor had done, but the program won't let itself be changed. Maybe that's the cost of playing God. And if that's the case, then I, just like God, have to watch what I have wrought on the innocent. At least, I suppose, she didn't choose the park.

For horrific tales are what we compile. They're all right here on the No Sleep Files. The No Sleep podcast is presented by Creative Reason Me, The musical score was composed by Brandon Boone. Our production team is Phil Michalski, Jeff Clement, and Jesse Cornett. Our creative content manager is Olivia White. Our editor-in-chief is Jessica McAvoy. If you would like to find out how you can hear the extended editions of our program,

please visit the no-sleeppodcast.com to learn more about our season-pass 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 joining us at The No Sleep Files. This audio program is Copyright 2022 by Creative Reason Media, Inc. All rights reserved. The copyrights for each story are held by the respective authors. No duplication or reprimaturated. Production of this audio program is permitted without the written consent of Creative Reason Media, Inc.